Sedona is celebrated for being a luxury haven in Arizona, satisfying the senses with elegant resorts, rejuvenating spas and superb restaurants that blend beautifully into the natural surroundings. Not everything worth seeking out is expensive, which can help you keep your budget in balance after indulging in awe-inspiring experiences like drifting over the desert in a hot-air balloon and bouncing through the backcountry on a Jeep tour. Regardless of the reason, here are 12 free things to do in Sedona.
Uncovering Mallorca's Unspoiled Coastlines, Storied Art Enclaves, and Many Eccentric Personalities
22.03.2024 - 19:29 / cntraveler.com / Art
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.
In the summer of 1950, this stretch of sand played an eccentric but pivotal role in the history of modern travel when it became the site of the world's first Club Med. The resort was run by a veteran of the French Resistance named Gérard Blitz, who said he'd come up with the idea while working in a postwar sanitarium for concentration camp survivors. In what sounds like the premise for a Wes Anderson movie, Blitz decided that the way to cure the ills of civilization that haunted postwar Europe was to take city dwellers into a pristine natural setting and remove the trappings of social status. The setup was endearingly basic: Guests wore only swimsuits and slept by the beach in US Army surplus canvas tents, sharing a single shower. All food and wine was included; any extras were paid for with beads.
The azure waters of Cala Formentor, with the Tramuntana mountains visible in the distance
Sardines, local white fish, and traditional pan payés for lunch
The modern world's first humble “all-inclusive resort” was an instant success, and Blitz's motto still resonates in travel today: “The goal of life is to be happy. The place to be happy is here. The time to be happy is now.” But while the first Club Med was an inspired idea, it has had a dubious legacy, particularly in Mallorca. With the arrival of the jet age in the 1960s, the island became a quagmire of sun-and-sand mass tourism, with chunks of its coast quickly barnacled with cheap all-inclusive refuges catering to hard-drinking Brits and Germans. Of late, some of the resorts favored by guiri (Spanish for “uncouth foreign visitors”) have become so debauched that the local Mallorcan government banned happy hours and the unsavory tourist practice of “balconing”—jumping from high hotel balconies into swimming pools, with predictably disastrous results.
But this was only half the Mallorcan story, I knew. Even as Blitz and his French sun worshippers frolicked at Alcúdia, the island was earning a reputation as a bohemian artists escape, luring a steady stream
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