Located in the heart of the Aegean Sea, the picturesque island of Paros has recently captured the hearts of travellers worldwide, thanks to its starring role in the smash hit Netflix drama One Day.
12.02.2024 - 12:07 / theguardian.com
It is November and I am on a train, halfway through my journey towards Danny Shmulevitch’s Walking Your Promise retreat in Gloucester, when I realise that I am having a panic attack.
I had booked the retreat a few months earlier when I was struggling to recover from Covid, crawling through my days in a fog of anxiety and exhaustion, then spending my nights in the claws of insomnia.
I was physically battered, yet it was more than that. I felt soul-sick and lost. More than a decade of exposure to darkness and trauma in my working life as a human rights journalist, and the relentless momentum of my domestic life, had broken something deep inside me. I felt as if I’d been living life like a high-speed freight train that had suddenly hit a wall, and now the carriages were crashing in behind me.
I had to get away to heal, but I didn’t know how. Then, one night when I was online scrolling through yoga weeks and spa hotels, I found the Walking Your Promise retreat, which immerses participants in the solitude of ancient woodland in Gloucestershire for three days. You sleep under the stars, fast for 24 hours and “tune into the rhythms of the natural surroundings to reconnect with your body and find a deeper way of feeling”.
I signed up immediately. Yet now, as the train nears Gloucester station, my heart is clattering and my hands are slippery with sweat. It suddenly seems ludicrous that I have paid quite a lot of money to be cold and hungry. More worrying is how terrifying the prospect of sitting around in trees on my own for days with nothing to do has become. There will be no yoga, no cooking classes, no craft project. I will have to leave my phone behind and I wasn’t allowed to bring a book. As I’ve never done it, I have no idea what will happen when I just stop, and I suddenly don’t want to find out.
Still, the prospect of pulling out seems too humiliating, so on I go, sweating and panicking all the way to Danny’s house. When the taxi pulls up, he comes out to meet me, a compact figure in dyed wool with a silvery topknot, and he is so calm, so kind and confident that this is the place I should be, that I feel my mind unwind.
An hour later, after lunch and reading some calming poetry, it’s time to head into the woods, so I relinquish my phone and follow Danny’s torchlight down a country lane into the darkness. We walk silently through the gloom, weaving between the dark shapes of trees, owls hooting overhead, until I see a flickering of light through the shadows and we come into sight of the campsite, my woodland home for the next three days.
If Danny ever wants to get out of the nature retreat business he could definitely land a gig as an outdoor hygge stylist because it’s all breathtakingly beautiful. The
Located in the heart of the Aegean Sea, the picturesque island of Paros has recently captured the hearts of travellers worldwide, thanks to its starring role in the smash hit Netflix drama One Day.
Dartmouth often gets overlooked for its bigger, shinier contemporary across the harbour. But the city—and especially the downtown core—is coming into its own with enough award-winning restaurants and bars to rival Halifax. As you plan your next trip to Nova Scotia, be sure to pencil in a few days to explore what Dartmouth has to offer. Here are some of the best addresses for making the most of a few days in the city come springtime:
Exploring the wonderful natural beauty of Iceland doesn't have to mean emptying your wallet. Despite its reputation for being on the pricier side, Iceland offers a treasure trove of experiences that don't cost a dime.
The Hawaii-born artist Toshiko Takaezu was known for her ceramic works that redefined the genre with their “closed forms,” as she called them — sealed vessels whose hidden interior spaces were meant to activate the imagination. Next month, Takaezu’s life and work will be the focus of a major retrospective at the Noguchi Museum in Long Island City, Queens. “Toshiko Takaezu: Worlds Within” will present over 150 pieces from private and public collections around the country, co-curated by the art historian Glenn Adamson, the museum curator Kate Wiener and the composer and sound artist Leilehua Lanzilotti. (A 368-page monograph, published in collaboration with Yale University Press, will accompany the exhibition.) Visitors will be able to see a collection that spans seven decades of Takaezu’s career, from her early student work in Hawaii in the 1940s to immersive, monumental ceramic forms she produced in the late 1990s to early 2000s. “Takaezu was also a weaver and painter, and often constructed multimedia installations where her ceramics, textiles and paintings operated together,” says Wiener. To play off this idea, the curators organized the show chronologically, incorporating each of these media into various sections, inspired by Takaezu’s own installations. Sound will also play a role. In her ceramic pieces, Takaezu would often place a dried fragment of clay within her closed form vessels, creating a musical rattle. For this exhibit, Lanzilotti (a finalist for the 2022 Pulitzer Prize in music) has developed a series of videos offering insight into the sonic elements of Takaezu’s work — and visitors can hear those rattles firsthand via an interactive display. .
Though her work on Saturday Night Live keeps her tethered to New York City, comedian Chloe Fineman can most often be found criss-crossing the country to film in Los Angeles or back to the Bay Area, where she grew up. Recently, for her campaign with Nütrl Vodka Seltzer, she got to see a new place: Mexico City. “First of all, my brain still can’t understand how it’s a three-hour flight from LA [and five hours from New York], so I could meet all my friends in the middle,” she says. “And it was the most beautiful city. We saw luchadores wrestling, and the food was unbelievable. Some of the best meals in my life were in Mexico City!”
Altree Developments, a Toronto-based, multi-generational, full-service development company is set to redefine luxury living in St. Maarten and today announces they have launched sales at their newest development, Vie L’Ven (life to life), a luxury resort and residences with 280 units, that is slated for completion in 2028. “Vie L’Ven seamlessly coalesces the influences of both French and Dutch cultures which are truly represented in this incomparable development through exceptional living, dining and wellness experiences,” says Zev Mandelbaum, founder of Altree. “Serving as a love letter to St. Maarten, Vie L’Ven encourages homeowners and guests to embrace living life to the fullest, while soaking in the island’s natural beauty and tranquility, where European culture blends effortlessly with Caribbean aptitude.”
Mountain lovers can experience the new must-visit winter destination as COTTON CLUB ANDERMATT throws open its doors offering guests luxurious comfort, winter sun, and an immersive experience in the clear, bright, Alpine glow – Switzerland’s coolest new location. The brainchild of Norwegian entrepreneurs Christian and Merete Marstrander, COTTON CLUB ANDERMATT brings the COTTON LIFESTYLE to life. Known for their passion for both snow and sand, the Marstranders have created a forward-thinking vision of hospitality that has now arrived in Andermatt. With world-class service, meticulous attention to detail, and a dedication to ensuring each guest feels the special effect of the Cotton Club lifestyle, they have transformed Andermatt into a winter destination like no other.
Holland America Line is elevating its award-winning Alaska Cruisetours in time for the 2024 season with room upgrades at McKinley Chalet Resort and a new, included tour in Dawson City, Yukon. Alaska Cruisetours combine an Alaska cruise with an overland tour to Denali, and Holland America Line is the only cruise line that extends those tours into the Yukon. Balconies will be added to 28 river-view rooms at McKinley Chalet Resort — Holland America Line’s hotel property at Denali National Park — upgrading them to the Denali Suite category. In addition, a new Deluxe category of non-balcony rooms with suite amenities is being introduced. For the excursions, guests on select Denali and Yukon Cruisetours will have a new “Klondike Gold Tour” that expands on the region’s famed gold rush experience. The tour visits the original discovery claim site that launched the gold rush and Gold Dredge 4.
Passengers flying American Airlines will need to pack lighter or be ready to pay, the carrier announced Tuesday of its increased bag fees along with an array of other customer-facing changes.
The nail-biting action of True Detective: Night Country takes place in the fictional town of Ennis, Alaska—a.k.a., “The End of the World.” Although the filmmakers, led by creator and showrunner Issa López, did go on a research trip to Alaska, the HBO series really came to life in Iceland, where most of the episodes were shot on location, at night, in the dead of winter. It was a massive undertaking for series producer Mari-Jo Winkler and production designer Daniel Taylor, who spent 14 months in Iceland to prep and shoot.
When my husband and I started toying with the idea of taking my teenagers on a whale-watching expedition cruise, we had no idea what to expect. While we’d cruised on several major cruise lines in the past, hopping on a 100-passenger ship run by National Geographic and Lindblad Expeditions felt far different than anything we’d done before.
The State Department poured a bucket of cold water on spring break 2024 when it recently issued warnings for several popular spring destinations.