Innholdsfortegnelse for July/August 2017 i AFAR

The right hotel can turn a humdrum trip into an exceptional experience. Finding a great place to stay that matches your travel needs and style, though, can take work. We’re here to help. On July 17, our new hotel channel debuts on afar.com, and you can find editors’ picks for hotels in more than a hundred destinations around the world. Read on for a sampling, then check out afar.com/hotels and start planning your next trip. AFAR RECOMMENDED Look for the AFAR Recommended badge on our site to know which hotels made the cut. Browse through lists of our favorite hotels divvied up by city, country, region, and style. A SELECTION OF PROPERTIES ON OUR LIST ROMANTIC RETREATS Ashford Castle Ireland Halekulani Honolulu Las Ventanas Los Cabos, Mexico THE GREAT OUTDOORS…

MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY ART This fall, Toronto’s MOCA moves to the Tower Automotive Building, a 1919 industrial facility with a dramatic 16-foot ceiling supported by massive columns. museumofcontemporaryart.ca REMAI MODERN The world’s foremost collection of linocuts by Pablo Picasso anchors this new museum in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, opening this year in a striking prairie-modern-style building. remaimodern.org ROYAL ALBERTA MUSEUM By early 2018, a new 419,000-square-foot space (pictured below) in downtown Edmonton will house the museum’s live invertebrates, woolly mammoth skeletons, and a 4.5 billion-year-old meteorite. royalalbertamuseum.ca BEAVERBROOK ART GALLERY Salvador Dalí’s Santiago El Grande gets its own room in the Beaverbrook’s three-story addition, opening in Fredericton, New Brunswick, this fall. beaverbrookartgallery.org…

AFAR TRAVEL ADVISORY COUNCIL Ready to leave ordinary behind? It’s easy to make the most out of your travels when you enlist AFAR’s team of advisors, selected for their passion, insight, and deep industry knowledge. They help AFAR with recommendations, and they can design a whole trip for you. Book with an AFAR expert and get an itinerary customized for your interests, needs, and budgetÑand full of life-changing experiences. Meet your personal AFAR travel expert now: afar.com/tac…

Located three hours south of Washington, D.C., the lower reaches of Virginia’s Tidewater region are ripe for a food-focused road trip. Eat your weight in crabs, punkedup scallops, lumpia, and egg foo yong sandwiches as you wind through these four Chesapeake Bay cities. 1 Norfolk LEGRAND KITCHEN In his bunker restaurant (named for LeGrand Records, the Norfolk label that launched Gary U.S. Bonds), Stephen Marsh cooks food with a rock-and-roll edge: scallops with smoked peanuts, and flounder with buttermilkthickened rice grits. 4515 Colley Ave. legrandkitchen.com T&T SEAFOOD MARKET You can’t visit the Tidewater and skip crab. Go for crab lumpia and the fried garlic crabs at this working-class establishment. 4106 Colley Ave. (757) 489-7874 2 Virginia Beach LAGUNA BAKERY & FILIPINO FOOD Therese Lee makes the classics she grew up with in…

Fifteen ideas to EXPLORERS WANTED 1 COMB THE OCEAN FLOOR IN A PRIVATE SUBMARINE Captain Karl Stanley takes two passengers at a time out on his yellow-submarine tour of Honduras’s Cayman Trench. In deep waters, travelers have the chance to spot a chimaera, or “ghost shark.” From $500. stanleysubmarines.com 2 FIND A FLOWER NO ONE ELSE HAS SEEN On International Nature & Culture Adventure’s eight-day Wild Orchids of Machu Picchu botanical tour, search for rare blooms in the Urubamba and Ollantaytambo canyons and the jungle near Machu Picchu. From $4,395. inca1.com 3 FOLLOW IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF MARCO POLO Wild Frontiers’ 47-day Great Silk Road Adventure traverses six countries and 7,456 miles between Beijing and Istanbul, stopping at 15 UNESCO World Heritage sites en route. From $12,736. wildfrontierstravel.com BEDS WITH…

1. LAST AUGUST, I FOUND MYSELF wrung out and miserable over the state of the United States—the vitriol of the presidential election, the deep chasms of reality where we all seemed to find ourselves. I wanted to get the hell away, but not just away. I wanted out. I wanted nothing that resembled where I was coming from. I wanted everything new. I chose Iceland, which was in the last few minutes of its tourist season, when the roads were about to become impassable. I packed my bags and decided I needed to get there not just before the roads went bad, but before the puffins migrated. Puffins! What could be more new to me than puffins? My weary eyes needed to see things they weren’t accustomed to, and the…

W E WAT C H S H A M A N P E R CY B R E W T H E M E D I C I N E . N O BODY SAYS “ D R U G ” O U T H E R E . “Medicine” is what they call it on the ayahuasca trail. What does the medicine cure? asks a bearded young traveler. Cancer, depression, black magic, says the shaman, turning a palm in a the-list-goes-on sort of way. As the believers have it, there is nothing this medicine can’t do. Overcome your diabetes, drug addiction, PTSD. Blow out the past lives that clutter the attic of your soul. Reveal the future. Facilitate communion with God, dead relatives, and elves. Disintegrate the bonds of…

1 MAUNA KEA BEACH HOTEL ISLAND OF HAWAII Beyond the white sand beaches, there are plenty of free daily activities, such as lei making and hula dancing. 2 CAVALLO POINT CALIFORNIA Families enjoy direct access to the Bay Area’s best to-dos, including 75,000 acres of hiking and biking in the Golden Gate National Recreation Area. 3 THE RANCH AT ROCK CREEK MONTANA A kids’ club frees adults to explore this working cattle ranch.…

I’M EXPECTING MY SECOND child, and as I write this I have reached the no-fly stage. For someone who loves to travel as much as I do, necessary grounding is a harsh reality. Yet my timing could not have been better, because this issue is devoted to exceptional travel experiences, the perfect theme for fantasizing about dream trips, even from my back patio at home. This year, led by executive editor Jeremy Saum and editor at large Ashlea Halpern, we’re taking you to destinations as diverse as Iceland (page 88), Zimbabwe (page 76), New Zealand (page 59), and Peru (page 102). Are you obsessed with spotting a rare black rhino in the wild? Turn to page 66. Prefer exquisite dining? Book a tour to every three-Michelinstar restaurant in the world (page…

A CLASSIC TOUR “For a very India experience, wander past the iconic Taj Mahal Palace hotel and around the Gateway of India monument, then take the 90-minute ferry ride to the Elephanta Caves, east of the city. You can shop for spices and bangles on the carts in Gharapuri [the village at the ferry port], then walk up the 200 or so steps to explore the caverns where Shiva and other Hindu gods and goddesses are carved into stone.” “The hand-embroidered saris and kurtas are incredible. I bought some for all my friends’ kids at Colaba Causeway.” LOCAL SPIRIT “The Dhobi Ghat (or ‘washing place’) is known as the laundromat for all of Mumbai. Clothes are hanging everywhere and people are working, but it’s a really welcoming place. Kids were…

LA GRANDE TOURNÉE (Weekends, through mid-September) The city’s 19 neighborhoods host consecutive block parties featuring performances, treasure hunts, and local cuisine. ÉLECTRO PARADE (September 2) Expect outrageous costumes and DJs spinning atop roving floats at this citywide electronic dance party. LA BALADE POUR LA PAIX (Through October 29) Celebrate Expo 67’s ideals of humanism and tolerance while perusing 67 works of art at this open-air exhibition. LEONARD COHEN: A CRACK IN EVERYTHING (November 9–April 1) Local and international artists pay homage to Montreal’s late, great songwriting son at the Musée d’Art Contemporain de Montréal. WHERE TO STAY Montreal’s newest hotels are contemporary and cool. The Hotel William Gray features a glass-encased living wall and a marble staircase. Hôtel Monville offers skyline vistas from its rooftop terrace. Or go nouveau bohemian…

A glass cutter at the Saint-Louis Cristallerie cuts a floral pattern into a footed Botticelli wineglass. T HE YEARS DROP AWAY as you arrive in Saint-Louis-lès-Bitche. Block out the pavement and the Peugeots and it could be 1621. Or 1857. Or 1932. Things don’t change much in this 600-person village in northeastern France, so close to the German border that ja is as common as oui. Your passage is marked by ancient row homes and, all around you, the forest that sustains the Saint-Louis Cristallerie, France’s original crystal workshop. “We are in the middle of nowhere, to be honest,” Jérôme de Lavergnolle, the company’s CEO, says. “Why are we here, in fact? This is the main question we get.” As in a fairy tale, the answer lies in the forest.…

1 HOTEL BROOKLYN BRIDGE Brooklyn, NY I WAS SWADDLED in my robe, swaying in my in-room hammock at the newly opened 1 Hotel Brooklyn Bridge, facing my unobstructed view of the Manhattan skyline, when it struck me: I had no idea what time it was. I was in the middle of New York City—the place I call home—but I felt worlds away. I had spent the afternoon reading fiction for the first time in months, eating a chocolate-chip cookie the size of my face in the café dowstairs, taking an obscenely long bath in my slateclad bathroom, and test-driving the custom-built furnishings (including the fabulous hammock) that I dreamed of having in my own home. When I was ready to go in search of city life, the DUMBO (Down Under…

1 HIKE THE HIMALAYAS Nepal’s 1,050-mile Great Himalaya Trail traverses a sacred wilderness of alpine meadows and snow leopards. Take outfitter World Expeditions’ 152- day trek, or tackle sections such as the icy Makalu segment, with views of Mount Everest. $28,959; sections starting at $3,190. worldexpeditions.com 2 SKI IRAQI KURDISTAN Go off-piste in northern Iraq on a 10-day ski trip. Starting in historic Erbil, ply backcountry trails near Mount Halgurd, Iraq’s highest peak, then meet with a local Nordic club to explore Penjwen, on the Iranian border. The Kurds are famously warm, so don’t be surprised to find yourself sharing cake with Peshmerga soldiers. $2,450. anotherworld adventures.com 3 CROSS THE ANDES ON HORSEBACK Experience rugged gaucho culture on a 14-day Ride Andes horseback tour from Argentina to Chile. The 127-mile…

DIVE BETWEEN CONTINENTS Peer between two tectonic plates on Black Tomato’s weekend dive—or snorkel— tour of the Silfra Fissure, where the glacial water offers 250 feet of visibility. Four days, from $4,300. HIKE THE HIGHLANDS Trek Iceland’s 34-mile trip along the Laugavegur Trail crosses the glaciers, lava fields, and rainbow-graced mountains of the Landmannalaugar highlands and Thórsmörk Valley (June through mid-September). Six days, from $1,500. SEARCH FOR WHALES AND PUFFINS Enjoy hot chocolate and cinnamon buns aboard one of North Sailing’s eco-friendly Icelandic sailing sloops while marveling at humpback whales and the 200,000 puffins on Lundey Island (mid-April through August). From $112. TRAVERSE THE WESTFJORDS Explore Iceland’s remote reaches on Borea Adventure’s Hornstrandir glamping trip. Hike the razor-edged Hornbjarg cliffs and perhaps even glimpse an elusive arctic fox (June through…

In Norfolk, LeGrand Kitchen twists Southern classics. Case in point: Toasted brioche with house-made pimento cheese. AMERICA HAS FALLEN HARD for Southern food and drink. First it was New Orleans, then Charleston, now Nashville: Our national love affair with all things grits and greens shows no sign of stopping. In the rush to canonize the citadels of New Southern Cuisine, however, the country has ignored Virginia’s Tidewater, the constellation of sister cities—including Norfolk, Portsmouth, Suffolk, and Virginia Beach—that spirals out from the Chesapeake Bay. And from the waters of this region, where immigrant cuisines thrive and the measure of chefs’ mettle is their prowess with oysters and crab and rockfish and shad, the country’s next great food region is beginning to surface. I have known the Tidewater since boyhood. As…

1 TRACK BLACK RHINOS IN NAMIBIA Namibia’s Palmwag Concession is home to one of the largest populations of free-roaming black rhinos, plus zebras, lions, leopards, and cheetahs. Track the rhinos on foot on Adventure Life’s 15-day Namibia tour, which includes a two-night desert walk, a visit to a Himba village, sea kayaking with dolphins and seals, and a game drive in Etosha National Park. From $7,995. adventure-life.com/namibia 2 TRAIL A JAGUAR IN PANAMA Legends of the Wild’s 11- day research expedition has one mission: Catch an endangered jaguar deep in the jungles of the Darién Gap, fit it with a GPS collar, then release it back into the wild. Guests accompany naturalist Ricardo Moreno, traveling by foot, canoe, and helicopter to the rugged Cana Valley and Pirre Mountains. From $8,000…

1 FORAGE IN THE WILDS OF ALASKA Discover the rugged flavors of rural Alaska at Tutka Bay Lodge outside Homer. The resort’s four-day culinary retreat takes you to an oyster farm, into an old-growth spruce forest for foraging, and inside the Widgeon II, a 1940s crabbing boat, for lessons on filleting, deboning, and cooking regional seafood. From $2,185. withinthewild.com 2 EXPLORE THE ORIGIN OF CHINESE TEA Led by scholar Jeff Fuchs, who has spent the last decade researching traditional tea culture, the 10-day Ancient Tea & Horse Route experience with Whole Journeys takes you from Xishuangbanna, China—where tea originated— to the Tibetan lands that inspired the myth of Shangri-la. Along the way, you’ll learn about tea’s uses from the people who cultivate it. From $5,450. wholejourneys.com 3 GO ON A…