Who said time travel wasn't possible? How to relive travel's more glamorous eras

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This was published 5 years ago

Who said time travel wasn't possible? How to relive travel's more glamorous eras

By Brian Johnston
Updated
The colonial Raffles Hotel in Singapore, immortalised by writer Somerset Maugham, is the quintessential nostalgia destination.

The colonial Raffles Hotel in Singapore, immortalised by writer Somerset Maugham, is the quintessential nostalgia destination.

Jacqueline Kennedy would no doubt love the new tented camp that has just opened in her beloved Cambodia. It sits amid rounded, rust-red boulders edging a river that tumbles through jungle-clad hillsides between national parks and boasts a spa pavilion, sophisticated dining and even an adventurous approach down a zip line into the bar for those who dare.

Shinta Mani Wild is the brainchild and latest project of legendary Bangkok-based American hotel architect and designer Bill Bensley, and takes a deliberate look to the past. The 15 tents feature hand-stitched travel trunks used as coffee tables, old-fashioned clocks and Khmer curios you imagine have been unpacked from an explorer's knapsack. The vintage telephones could have been purloined from Downton Abbey but Bensley's concept is influenced by a compatriot icon of style.

"What if Jackie Onassis had gone glamping in this wilderness with the King of Cambodia in the early '60s?" asked the whimsical Bensley, explaining the inspiration for the design of Shinta Mani Wild. The answer is that, apparently, she would have lounged in a claw-foot bath or planter's armchair and enjoyed a safari in a Land Rover that carries picnic baskets and cocktail shakers.

Jackie Onassis, as she would become known after her marriage to Greek shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis, did indeed visit Cambodia in immense and characteristic style in 1967, fulfilling a lifelong ambition to visit the ruins of Angkor.

But she never went glamping, as it's known in contemporary parlance. She stayed at the Independence Hotel in Sihanoukville and the Le Royal in Phnom Penh, both of which have suites named after the former American first lady. Le Royal, now a Raffles hotel, undergoes renovations this year, with promises that its character and heritage ambience will be preserved.

Its timeless Elephant Bar still serves the Femme Fatale cocktail, created in honour of Onassis' stay, and there's a special display where a glass smeared with her red lipstick from a toast at a state dinner has pride of a place among the memorabilia from her visit.

PAST PERFECT

The zeitgeist is changing in the world of travel, and Cambodia's newfound hotel nostalgia is just one of its manifestations. Throughout much of the 20th century, nostalgia was considered a malady in medical circles. It was a forward-looking time, after all. Writers, artists and revolutionaries strove to abandon norms. In travel, we journeyed to experience the new, and invented novel ways in which to do it such as cruising, road trips and backpacking.

Since the turn of the millennium, though, we've increasingly started looking to the past. Furniture has a 1960s look, vinyl and beards are making a comeback, ageing rock stars linger, fashions are increasingly influenced by a retro ethos. Travel is clearly becoming increasingly nostalgic as well. Big money is being invested in classic hotels, safari camps and trains, and even prestigious new builds such as Shinta Mani Wild set out to capture the romance of bygone ages.

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What is it that drives our ardour for the sentimental journey? It could be attributed to the world's large and growing population of middle-aged, middle-class travellers who like to recall supposedly simpler, more glamorous times when they were younger, more carefree, less responsible and unencumbered with children.

Few things encapsulate that more than the travels of their youth. Add to that an even older generation of Baby Boomers – the first generation to retire with that happy combination of money, leisure and a lifetime of accumulated travel memories – and it isn't hard to see why nostalgia has bubbled up as a hot travel trend.

Such nostalgic travel is, of course, partly about personal memories. Some of us may well recall the 1960s Camelot era said to have been defined by Jackie Onassis. Yet nostalgia extends to past periods we haven't actually experienced ourselves. Historical eras, researchers note, can trigger emotions similar to nostalgia, in which we yearn for a more exciting, simpler or somehow more authentic time.

Perhaps it was always thus. After all, grand tourists looked to ancient Greece and Rome for inspiration, Romantics lauded a bucolic pre-industrial world, and now we look to farm stays and spiritual retreats to solve our 21st-century angst.

ROOMS FOR REFLECTION

Raffles Le Royal in Phnom Penh dates to 1929, long before Onassis drank cocktails in its bar. It's just one of many historic hotels being revived or renovated, with the fashion for colonial-era charm making a comeback.

One of the most famous, Raffles Singapore – which opened in 1887 and is a national monument – relaunches this year after an extensive overhaul. Galle Face Hotel in Sri Lanka has reopened its carefully restored north wing, and The Strand Hotel in Yangon (Rangoon) has joined the ranks of meticulously revived grand hotels.

Even new hotels pretend to be old, most notably the first of several projected Orient Express hotels, opening in Bangkok in a modern tower this September with art deco elegance and the luxuries of bygone times. The French conglomerate, Accor Hotels, has taken a brand with a stylish history and place in the popular travel imagination and reinvented it for the future, while still preserving its sense of tradition and old-style values.

"Orient Express redefined rail travel in the 1900s, introducing the first sleeper cars linking West to East and delivering unprecedented levels of comfort and dining," says Accor's Asia-Pacific chairman Michael Issenberg. "We look forward to bringing this same luxury and refinement to the new incarnation of Orient Express hotels.'

This taste for nostalgia isn't limited to big upmarket hotels, nor to the colonial era. The newly opened Felix Hotel at Sydney Airport references what it calls "the golden era of air travel" in decor choices inspired by the movie Catch Me If You Can. Halcyon House on the northern NSW coast reinvents the 1960s surf motel with chic Californian cool and vintage bicycles. And in Vancouver, The Burrard has taken the shell of a former motel and transformed it by referencing funky 1950s styles, from period furnishings and fairy-light-wrapped palm trees to retro furnishings.

Other cultures have seemingly caught the nostalgia bug too. The bluntly named Nostalgia Hotel Beijing features hand-painted murals depicting Chinese childhood scenes, and features retro details such as enamel cups and rotary telephones. One floor is devoted to romanticising the hutong (old courtyards) now mostly demolished for new developments.

CALL OF THE WILD

Like hotels, safari camps are setting out to capture the perceived romance of a past era. Many hover somewhere between the Victorian age and the heady days of Hemingway with their bespoke furniture, claw-foot baths, butler-served sundowners and Out of Africa ambience.

Many safari tours finish in Nairobi at Hemingways, a plantation-style hotel in the suburb of Karen, named for the author of Out of Africa and with views to the Ngong Hills where Karen Blixen once grew coffee. It's a segment of the travel market that continues to boom with safari operators, not just in Africa but in destinations such as India as well, investing millions in new and upgraded camps.

"I think this style of travel evokes the adventurer in us all," says Sujata Raman, regional managing director Asia-Pacific for Abercrombie & Kent. "There's a sense of reliving the days of the early explorers, when travel really was exploring the unknown. This is even more true of older-style, nostalgia-inducing camps like the mobile Sanctuary Kichakani Serengeti Camp and Sanctuary Ngorongoro Crater Camp."

Kichakani in Tanzania, launched a year ago, has 10 luxury tents that can be packed up and moved in a style that evokes 19th-century European pioneers. The tents come with portable cabinets, desks and easy chairs, and have bathrooms with bucket showers – though yoga mats are a twenty-first-century anachronism. The camp shifts to three locations across the Serengeti with the migration season for a front-row experience of the movement of a million-plus wildebeest and zebra.

The nostalgia element is strong in other safari camps and lodges too. Chief's Camp in Botswana's Okavango Delta has a suite inspired by Geoffrey Kent, founder of Abercrombie & Kent. Meanwhile, in South Africa, the new The Farmstead at Royal Malewane features tin roofs, wrought iron, wide verandas and floral textiles that its promotion says "echo a bygone era where time moved slowly".

A new appreciation for the environment and low-eco-impact travel is fuelling safari popularity, and many new lodges are contemporary in design. Still, safaris tick many nostalgia boxes. The sense of adventure is high, you return to nature and the tented lifestyle appears simple. Certainly, more and more upmarket guests have been demanding the rough-and-tumble of immersive experiences while on safari, with conservation-minded activities such as rhino notching or elephant collaring.

"Luxury tented camps have a sense of really being at one with nature, with the sounds and smells of the bush all around," says Raman. "Far from our childhood camping days, but perhaps something of that spirit – while still being able to enjoy a little luxury and delicious food and wine."

The style has started spreading across the continent and beyond. In 2017, Zaina Lodge in Ghana's Mole National Park became the first luxury lodge in West Africa. When Kuthengo Camp opened last year, it was a first for Malawi's Liwonde National Park. Some years ago, India caught the luxury safari bug too, and now companies such as &Beyond, which made its reputation in Africa, are eyeing up destinations such as Chile and Bhutan.

TRANSPORTS OF DELIGHT

Are we living in an imaginary past? Perhaps. Perhaps we're also renewing our interest in retro travel as a response to the growing impersonality and exhausting pace of our digital world. Digital detox getaways are ever more popular, and a return to nostalgia has even been noted amongst Millennials, who are starting to realise even they once inhabited a simpler, more intimate world of fewer screens and more personal interaction.

Certainly the road trip is back in fashion, hearkening back to an idealised 1950s and 1960s when mass car and motorcycle ownership allowed for new adventures that became associated with freedom, even rebelliousness. Many old art deco and 1950s diners and roadhouses on classic American driving routes are reopening, though often reimagined as hip hotels and microbreweries.

On the rails, the business of old-fashioned train travel is booming, with new and classic trains alike recreating the elegance and old-world charm of bygone days. In Austria, the Majestic Imperator uses carriages that imitate those once used by Emperor Franz Joseph. And in India, the iconic Palace on Wheels sets the example for the many regal trains that have now been pressed into service, from the Royal Rajasthan in the north to the Golden Chariot in the south.

Others such as the Eastern & Oriental Express between Singapore and Bangkok or Pride of Africa in southern Africa charge a king's ransom for carriages with private lounges, wood panelling and Victorian-style bathrooms.

One of the latest tours Ireland. The Grand Hibernean's decor references Georgian architecture and has retro silver and chrome fittings and a tartan-ed, country-house feel. The latter is owned by Belmond, also operators of the Venice-Simplon-Orient Express, which last year launched three new art deco suites in marble, onyx, granite and Italian glass.

It's happening on the high seas too. Cunard Line, founded in 1839 and with an illustrious history in the cruise business, prides itself on retaining a sense of tradition. Refurbishments of its ships have gone back to the art deco inspiration of earlier times, and its ships are scattered with Cunard memorabilia.

Life on board retains a flavour of the golden age of cruise-line travel. You can still play croquet, listen to string quartets and harpists, attend country house parties and kick back on the wooden sun loungers that line the promenade deck. You're expected to dress for dinner.

Meanwhile, Carnival Cruise Line has "Throwback Sea Days" on some cruises, which revive former cruise staples such as the captain's cocktail party, flamed baked Alaska paraded through the dining room, midnight buffets and 1980s parties in which ageing travellers who want to feel young again don velvet, velour and leg warmers to hit the dance floor.

Nothing wrong with that. Who doesn't want to be young again? We all want to create those days of early travel exuberance, before we became aware of time's tick-tock and the sorrows and duties of life.

When we first headed off towards distant horizons, we were just at the start of life's grand adventure, fresh-faced and fanciful. If we can recreate that spirit for just a while, surely that is an inspiring place to be.

WHERE TIME STANDS STILL

When it comes to hotels, few encapsulate the romance of a past era quite like Raffles Hotel in Singapore, which Somerset Maugham said "stands for all the fables of the exotic east" and which preserves its classic 1880s colonial design of tall french windows, verandas, leafy courtyards and polished wooden floors.

The necessities of contemporary life, however, required the closure and comprehensive overhaul of this grande dame of the hotel scene. It's due to reopen in mid-2019 with a posh spa, reimagined bars and new restaurants from Michelin-starred chefs Alain Ducasse and Anne-Sophie Pic.

But its custodians insist that the nostalgia quotient will remain from the moment you're greeted by its iconic doormen in uniforms by Gieves & Hawkes, the Savile Row tailors that once outfitted imperial explorers and army officers.

"Our careful and sensitive restoration was designed to ensure we retain everything that makes Raffles Singapore so special – the striking architecture, heritage and the graceful service of the hotel," says general manager Christian Westbeld.

A new "history gallery" will outline Raffles Hotel's illustrious past, with one enthralling tale relating how a tiger was shot in 1902 as it skulked beneath the billiard room. Prominent past visitors have included Rudyard Kipling, Charlie Chaplin and Noel Coward, whose tunes will continue to be tinkled on the hotel piano.

The hotel's signature dining experiences are also making a return, including northern Indian cuisine served in the Tiffin Room, and classic afternoon teas. The famous Long Bar has already reopened in its original location and continues to serve the Singapore slings invented there.

"The Long Bar's refreshed decor retains its inspiration from Malayan plantation life in the 1920s," says Westbeld. "In keeping with tradition, visitors can have peanuts direct from gunny sacks and throw the shells on the floor."

Singapore slings are a wince-inducing SGD37 ($38), but that doesn't deter the many visitors who prop up the bar under rattan ceiling fans for their moment of sentimentality. Nostalgia for bygone eras appears to be doing excellent business.

But, if you want to up the colonial charm and nostalgia levels, that's not all. Raffles is also offering special opening packages between August 1 and October 31, 2019, which include settling into a "personality suite", named after famous past guests such as James A. Mitchener, Ava Gardner and Elizabeth Taylor.

See rafflessingapore.com

FIVE CLASSIC NOSTALGIC HOTELS

MANDARIN ORIENTAL HYDE PARK, LONDON, ENGLAND

This London pile on Hyde Park opened as a gentlemen's club in 1889 and was transformed into a hotel in 1902. A recent overhaul preserves its red-brick façade, Edwardian lobby and historic charm while upping contemporary comfort. The nostalgia is postwar, when princesses Elizabeth and Margaret learned to dance in its ballroom. See mandarinoriental.com

UMAID BHAWAN, JODHPUR, INDIA

This famous palace-hotel in Jodhpur features a 32-metre-high central dome, marble staircases, art deco architecture and a cinema and 1940s indoor swimming pool. One wing is still occupied by a maharaja. Historical suites ooze artworks and period furniture, and sumptuous art deco bathrooms are a wonder to behold. See taj.tajhotels.com

CHATEAU DE LA TREYNE, AQUITAINE, FRANCE

Who doesn't hanker after a romanticised medieval period? Check yourself into this fairy-tale, 14th-century castle deep in the Dordogne countryside for an extravaganza of mullioned windows, fireplaces, carved wood and age-blackened furniture. The Louis XIII suite has a four-poster bed canopied in crimson. See relaischateaux.com/treyne

OLD CATARACT HOTEL, ASWAN, EGYPT

The original wing of this Byzantine-influenced hotel in Aswan was built for British Victorian travellers in Egypt; Howard Carter stayed after discovering Tutankhamun's tomb. High tea on the terrace before sunset is lovely, with scones and cucumber sandwiches accompanied by long views down the island-sprinkled Nile River. See sofitel.com

BEVERLY HILLS HOTEL, LOS ANGELES, US

Opened in 1912 and associated with Hollywood's Golden Age, this pink palace has hosted everyone from Humphrey Bogart to Elizabeth Taylor, who enjoyed six of her eight honeymoons here. Johnny Weissmuller was spotted poolside for his Tarzan role. Prop yourself in the Polo Lounge and dream of more glamorous times. See dorchestercollection.com

FIVE CLASSIC NOSTALGIC JOURNEYS

VENICE-SIMPLON-ORIENT EXPRESS, EUROPE

Launched in 1883 to link Paris and Venice, then later London and Istanbul, the Orient Express was the early-20th-century train of choice for royalty, diplomats and authors in search of a plot setting. Retro charm and Art Deco elegance are matched with impeccable service from liveried stewards. Passengers still don tuxedos for cocktails in the jazz bar. See belmond.com

ROUTE 66, UNITED STATES

This US federal highway runs in a diagonal slash from Santa Monica to Chicago across the American heartland. Though decommissioned, the 3940-kilometre road has seen a revival of interest among Baby Boomers who recall the days when America's interstates symbolised freedom. The route is littered with Americana, from milk bars to 1950s gas stations. See visittheusa.com.au

MAHARAJAS' EXPRESS, INDIA

This Indian train is a joint venture between India Railways and Cox & Kings, one of the world's oldest travel companies, founded during the British Raj. It travels on journeys to destinations such as Delhi, Agra and Rajasthan in a style reminiscent of 19th-century Indian royalty, but with 21st-century amenities such as flat-screen televisions and Wi-Fi. See the-maharajas.com

TRANSATLANTIC CROSSING BY CRUISE LINER

In the 19th century, the journey by ship between North America and Europe became a status symbol, and ocean liners vied to be the fastest and most luxurious. Cunard's elegant ships still ply the iconic route from Southampton to New York, offering captain's cocktails, ballroom dancing and afternoon teas just like the good old days. See cunard.com

A CRUISE ON THE RIVER NILE, EGYPT

If you want old-world glamour on a Nile River cruise (hopefully without ending up as an Agatha Christie murder victim), then hop aboard steamship Sudan, launched by Thomas Cook and chugging along since the early 20th century. Suites are named after notable bygone Nile travellers. Don't forget to pack your parasol and cheroots. See steam-ship-sudan.com

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