Ahead of my family vacation to California, I dreamed of cruising down the Pacific Coast Highway. There was just one problem: My son suffered from terrible car sickness.
22.08.2024 - 22:11 / cntraveler.com
Would you take a free trip to Epstein island? It’s a question that Zoë Kravitz’s debut film asks and also answers: perhaps yes, if you need a vacation badly enough. But you’ll also sorely regret it. The film follows down-on-her-luck cater waiter Frida (Naomi Ackie) who, after using her credentials to sneak into the gala at which she’s meant to be pouring Champagne, meets-cute with tech billionaire Slater King (Channing Tatum, with a name more evocative of Elon Musk—consider him a conglomerate). King is re-assimilating to society following a narrowly-skirted cancellation for vaguely defined and sexually suspicious maybe-crimes. By the end of the night, she and her friend (always bring a buddy!) have been whisked aboard a private jet replete with halfway-handsome bachelors and a few other beautiful ladies, bound for King’s private island that, presumably, sits somewhere in the Caribbean.
Vacation mode is activated as Frida, Slater, and company post up in the island’s hacienda, eat a ton of food, drink and smoke even more, and while away day after day by the pool. What happens at night is a tad less clear to viewers and to Frida at first. Vacation mode steadily malfunctions. Paradise becomes a pit. Check-in was more than easy, but check-out might prove impossible.
Slater King’s island does not, perhaps thankfully, exist in real life. The film wasn’t made on an island at all, in fact, but deep in the jungles of Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula—you’ll notice no lounging is done on the beach. Mérida was production’s home base and Mexico City-based production designer Roberto Bonelli had visited the colonial city many times as a tourist, but this was his first time working there. Below, he lets us in on how the setting—namely, a bountiful boutique hotel scene and unique local flora—informed the filmmaking, as well as how he filled his few free hours.
Blink Twice, set on a private island, wasn’t made on an island at all, in fact, but deep in the jungles of Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula
Can you start by telling me where this island exists, in real life?
The island is a fictitious island, which comes from a need to make it exclusive as well as geographically weird and mysterious—nobody knows where it is, and it’s difficult to escape because you can’t just leave. There’s this comment: “There are no doctors on this island.” We needed to invent it, and we went for not an island at all. In a previous draft, there were more scenes on the beach, but we turned out not to need it. We went for an existing location, a hacienda in the jungle, and we changed it so that it would not be recognizable.
It was Zoë who first suggested it, when we were scouting all over and went to the Yucatán, that we go for a place with a bit more
Ahead of my family vacation to California, I dreamed of cruising down the Pacific Coast Highway. There was just one problem: My son suffered from terrible car sickness.
A few years ago, when flight prices were awfully expensive, I saw an Amtrak ticket from California to Washington, DC, for just $250 and snapped it up.
Once rather unknown to travelers, the Urla district in Turkey’s seaside Izmir province has recently been propelled into the limelight. That's thanks to a string of newly minted Michelin-starred restaurants (three with the famed stars, and three with sustainability recognition)—and trail of inventive and boutique wine producers called the Urla Wine Route. The area is a year-round reprieve that has managed to preserve and capitalize on its natural beauty; olive groves, fruit orchards, and vineyards here have become ground zero for the reinvention of modern Aegean cuisine and wine, inspired and sustained by the region’s fruitful lands. Today, Urla beckons with culinary delights, cultural treasures, and design-first hotels—here's how to experience the new nucleus of Turkey's fine-dining scene.
I'd never cruised before — but when 12 of my friends from high school hatched a plan to celebrate our 60th birthdays on a four-night Royal Caribbean cruise, I immediately said yes.
Someone once told me every life boils down to five major decisions —five moments when the direction we step dictates the path we'll travel until the next juncture. If it's true, I made one of those decisions in 2015 in the western reaches of Washington State. I was 33 years old and had just summitted Mount Rainier, the first glaciated peak I'd ever climbed and the most adventurous thing I'd ever done.
From deluxe tents to Pablo Escobar's former mansion, there is no shortage of unique hotels in Tulum, Mexico.
A cruise on the Mediterranean Sea aboard a superyacht was supposed to be a celebratory event for the British tech entrepreneur Mike Lynch, who was acquitted in June of fraud charges tied to the sale of his company, Autonomy, to the tech giant Hewlett-Packard.
Aug 20, 2024 • 0 min read
This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Kiran Ali , an American who relocated to Dubai with her family. She works as a director of partnerships in a Fintech company. The following has been edited for length and clarity.
Aug 20, 2024 • 7 min read
Hundreds of flights were disrupted on Saturday after a pair of scissors went missing at a Japanese airport, local media reported.
A Delta Air Lines passenger told ABC News that a man followed her family around the terminal before boarding the same flight as them without a ticket for it.