Clint Eastwood travel tips

An hour north of Cape Town, the Swartland, one of the largest wine-producing areas in the Western Cape, doesn’t receive nearly the same attention as its polished neighbors in the Cape Winelands; the clean-cut vineyards of Stellenbosch, Paarl, and Franschhoek, where a hop-on, hop-off wine tram runs through the valley. Instead, the Swartland is the opposite of a wine tourism hub, with dirt roads carving through golden wheat fields that form a pattern of stripes along the foothills of Paardeberg mountain. Along the highway, carefully stacked hay bales form a makeshift café—one of the sole roadside stops—and the only pop of color punctuating the blonde, desert-like expanse (which could double as a backdrop for a Clint Eastwood film) comes from the patchwork of old-bush vines and olive groves. After the winter rains, the native rhinoceros bush takes on an inky hue, which is how the Swartland (Afrikaans for “black land”) earned its name.

There’s this little yellow sun smiling throughout Sun Valley. It graces the doorknobs and room number plaques at the luxurious Sun Valley Lodge. It decorates the exterior of the free community shuttles toting eager skiers around the bases of Bald and Dollar Mountains and through the town of Ketchum. This smiling sun, with its dimpled cheeks and plump lips, is stamped on the back of the Sun Valley ski guides’ red Helly Hansen uniforms as they lead groups down runs like College or Arnold - the latter trail named for actor, politician and Sun Valley resident, Arnold Schwartzenegger.

Caffe Florian claims to be the oldest café in Italy, and the second-oldest in Europe. It's also the stuff of legend. The Venetian café was where some of history's most revered writers — including Goethe, Lord Byron, and Charles Dickens — hung out. And in more recent years, modern celebrities — from Elton John to Clint Eastwood — were spotted.

The 2024 sporting calendar is out. The opportunities for luxury tourism are literally everywhere, with different events waiting to whisk you around the world and back, leaving lifelong memories along the way. Some events—Wimbledon and Formula 1 come to mind—have a history of providing luxury hospitality year after year. Others might not have the same long history, but their novelty is too precious to pass up. Olympic breakdancing in Paris? Check. Major League Baseball games in Seoul? Yes, that too.

Sun Valley, Idaho is practically synonymous with skiing and winter snow sports—and for good reason. Interest in skiing surged in the decades after the first Winter Olympics in 1924. Sun Valley Resort opened in 1936 with the goal of becoming America’s premier ski resort—debuting the world’s first chairlift, adapted from a system used to haul bananas onto ships in Panama.