Mountain tips

On a Monday morning in early March, Reed Hastings, the billionaire co-founder and former chief executive of Netflix, clicked into the bindings on his snowboard and started off down one of the slopes at Powder Mountain, a ski area in Utah’s northeast corner. He quickly veered off the groomed trail into some well-spaced trees, and as he made turns over bumpy snow, you could hear his edges scratch against patches of ice.

After set-jetting and gig-tripping, Beyoncé’s eighth studio album Cowboy Carter is now inspiring travel. If it has motivated you to get in the saddle, here are three European equestrian adventures to live out a horseriding fantasy this summer.

Spring break was approaching, and the plan was to head to Mumbai to see my husband’s family with our two daughters, Meenakshi, 16, and Amrita, 11. We hadn’t all visited together since before the pandemic and were long overdue to meet Mahir’s 86 year-old mother, who lived alone and was more like a mother to me than any “in-law,” and his recently widowed sister, along with her 16 year-old son.

Finishing my last (epic) run at Aspen’s Snowmass Resort, I headed back to base to shed my gear. Some might see “boot-up areas” as simply storage cubbies with room to unfasten shoe buckles and unclip helmets, but while observing those around me, I noticed something fabulous happening here: Despite the active day behind us, there was a newfound energy in the air. With the prompt, “Where to next?”, a flurry of discussion erupted.

Hotel Chalet Mirabell is one of those places that has you at hello. It’s a short drive up the hill from the Dolomite mountain town of Merano, but the sanctum of the lobby is a world of its own. And the view that greets you—dazzling.

The 2023 worldwide release of the movie Narvik on streaming service Netflix brought this small industrial city in Northern Norway to the world’s attention.

When Whistler entrepreneur Pepe Barajas first arrived in this Canadian mountain community in 2008, he hated it. Born and raised in Mexico City, Barajas found the area’s peaceful, relaxed pace to be frustratingly slow, a direct contrast to life in what he called Mexico’s “go, go, go” capital.

I was three weeks out from a 23-day travel itinerary with my toddler, Julian, when my dad died suddenly. The trip was something I had planned months earlier, determined to prove to all the face-palming naysayers (and myself) that you don’t have to give up traveling after having a baby; you just have to find new ways to move through the world. Due to grief, I considered canceling, but ultimately I decided against it. My father was a textbook agoraphobic who shut himself off from the world and at the end was leaving his house only once or twice a year. But travel was how I learned who I was and who I wanted to be. I’d been to more than 80 countries and spent four years traveling full-time with a 35-liter rucksack and a tiny hatchback. If I could bestow any qualities onto my child, I hoped they’d be my strongest ones: insatiable curiosity, relentless optimism, fiery resilience, and a willingness to bend to my environment rather than expecting my environment to bend to me.

Say goodbye to questionable lunch buffets and tiny, windowless cabins. On ultra-luxury cruises, travelers get mountains of caviar, roundtrip business-class flights, and floating Rolex stores.

Salt goes well with salt. Cured fish, briny vermouth, jamón, sweat, sea—they complement tears, feeding each other with a soft sting. This occurred to me, floating on my back, off a cove in Mallorca. Tears slid from my eyes as the sea washed across my lips. X perched up on the rocks. He never had the urge to immediately fling his body into saltwater like I did, nor stay splashing about until the sun went low. My memories recall always waving to him ashore, vision blurry with waves and sun, beaming so he might see my joy.

On our first morning in Atalbéitar, I walk into the kitchen to make coffee and wonder if I’m feeling the effects of the previous night’s festivities. Then I remember it’s not me; it’s the kitchen floor, which is on a gentle slope. I have to be careful carrying the coffee back to bed as the steps are at different heights, and the doorways are small enough to bump your head on. As I lie there, beneath a ceiling constructed of woven chestnut branches and stone slabs, I survey my surroundings, and come to the pleasing conclusion that there’s not a single right angle in sight.

After a mild yet miserable winter spent hiding indoors, many Europeans are craving some quality time in nature.

In a land of mind-boggling wilderness, rugged roadside pit stops and some of the world's most impressive big fauna, Alaska’s epic highways offer unlimited possibilities for adventurous drivers.

‘This whole project started as an experiment,” says Pawel Sidorski, who swapped his life in the European hotel industry to pursue his vision of sustainable luxury, opening Yurts in Cyprus, near Paphos in west Cyprus, in 2013. “I wanted to pioneer an off-grid lifestyle and create a place for people to connect with nature without sacrificing comfort,” he says.

It's been said that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but as someone who's visited all 50 states and nearly every US National Park, I'd argue that there are some places where beauty simply can't be denied.

Western Washington State boasts four incredible travel destinations — Seattle, the San Juan Islands, the Olympic Peninsula and Mount Rainier.

No historical plaque marks the spot known as Platja des Franceses, or Frenchman's Beach, on the Spanish island of Mallorca. In fact, as I turned off a back road in the warm haze of a late summer's afternoon, there was little to distinguish it from other parts of Alcúdia Bay, a roughly eight-and-a-half-mile-long arc of soft sand and gently lapping crystal-clear waters. Like most corners of the Mediterranean in July, it was a genial hubbub of families playing, lovers smooching, and sun worshippers lazing. But I recognized the location, framed by a shady grove of pine trees with a headland in the distance, from murky black-and-white holiday photographs and a flickering Super 8 movie I'd watched on YouTube.

Chef Norbert Niederkofler is perhaps the only chef in Italy who doesn’t cook with olive oil or lemon. His “local and seasonal” mindset goes far beyond the usual culinary mantra, and those staples don’t exist in his homeland. Northern and mountainous, Italy’s Dolomite mountains have more in common with Austria than Rome.

Ferries and resorts fill up during summer when crowds reach Sardinia to make the most of its dreamy coastline. But turquoise waters are just part of the allure. Ancient traditions blend with diverse landscapes on Italy’s second island, where stretches of fine sand and soaring cliffs surround a mountainous interior covered in Mediterranean scrub.

For generations, visitors to Maine have flocked east to the rocky coastline, with its lobster boats and crashing waves, or west to ski resorts, peaceful lakes and mountains. Few ever set foot in Aroostook County, a remote northern expanse where residents are prone to suspect — not without reason — that no one south of Bangor even knows that they exist.

If you're on the hunt for a quick escape to an iconic destination, consider booking a stay in Vail. This Colorado favorite attracts travelers throughout the year, but stopping by at the break of springtime is a perfect way to catch the last of the ski season and avoid holiday crowds. Vail's slopes are still in full swing in March and April, and there's plenty of shopping, strolling and gourmet dining to enjoy in town as well.