Best travel experiences of 2023: The Americas
Telluride, Colorado, US
Tuesday, January 24, 12pm
Lunch (and sunglasses) at Telluride’s Alpino Vino, Colorado.
I’ve got the best seat in the house. You can’t book a table at the highest elevation restaurant in North America, Alpino Vino. No, you have to time your ski runs to get here just as it opens at noon. And I have. I’m led to a table on the deck outside with Colorado’s near-5000-metre-high Wilson Ranges directly ahead of me. I order lobster ravioli flown from New England this morning, and a glass of Italian white wine (Alpino Vino has one of the widest selections of Italian wine anywhere in regional America). The glare is intense but every diner gets a free pair of sunglasses. The lobster might be fresh, and the service is immaculate, but I’m really here for the view. See tellurideskiresort.com
- Craig Tansley
Blachford Lake, Northwest Territories, Canada
Tuesday, February 7, 5.44pm
Remnant sunlight flickers like a borealis beyond the spruce trees as I thread along the shore of Blachford Lake towards a cabin teetering on the frozen water’s edge. I disrobe in the ante-room and enter the sauna. Ah, warmth – my shivering subsides, my cheeks flame as rosy as the log burning in the stove. Overheated now, I run outside, shake low-hanging spruce branches and await the shower of icicles on my back. Back into the sauna I go, the shock of cold replaced by warmth’s balm; broiling again, I head back outside, down wooden steps leading directly onto the lake. Don’t think about it, I tell myself; just plunge right in. I fall back into the powder and swing arms and legs to make a lavish snow fairy. See spectacularnwt.com
- Catherine Marshall
Salinas, California, US
Saturday, May 13, 2.30pm
A pilgrimage – John Steinbeck’s childhood home.Credit: iStock
High tea is in full swing when my sister and I arrive at the childhood home of Nobel laureate John Steinbeck. The tables are full, so we’re directed to the tiny front porch where the writer must surely have sat as a boy. A woman brings us a pot of tea and a plate of leftover eats; she refuses payment. This Canadian Tudor-style house is a historical beacon in Salinas, a city located inland from Monterey’s Cannery Row, of which Steinbeck famously wrote. But today we’re discussing his earlier novel, Tortilla Flats, which we’re concurrently reading; sipping tea from china cups, we conjure the book’s oddball characters – and the author’s ghost, in the very place that shaped him. See steinbeckhouse.com
- Catherine Marshall
Dallas, Texas, US
Saturday, May 27, 1.55pm
JR Ewing is standing behind the bar at Southfork Ranch. His head is crowned with a broad-brimmed Stetson, his wrist adorned with a flashy gold watch, his face wreathed in a duplicitous grin. “It’s a deal, JR,” I say, lifting a tumbler etched with the word “Dallas” and smiling into his deadpan eyes. This is not the real JR, of course. (Spoiler alert: his misdeeds, chronicled throughout the 1980s in the hit TV show, Dallas, finally caught up with him when he was shot dead – though, in true soap opera style, he was miraculously revived for a big screen reunion). Larry Hagman, the actor who famously played JR, died in 2012. But the life-size cutout is as imposing as the Texan oilman himself, filling the surprisingly diminutive film set with his charming, villainous presence. See southforkranch.com
- Catherine Marshall
Southern Costa Rica
Sunday, June 11, 6am
It’s daybreak. I’m woken by the thunder of rain on a tin roof followed by a crack of lightning, which illuminates my open-sided tree house and the jungle beyond. I slip out of bed to sit with my legs dangling over the timber deck. It was well after dark when I’d arrived at the village of the indigenous Broran people for a homestay experience. Now, as a soft dawn breaks, I can see that everything above me, below and all sides is upholstered in green velvet. What starts as a vibration breaks into an ear-splitting cacophony of buzzing, warbling, whistling and shrieking as the forest’s creatures come to life. Never has an alarm clock sounded so welcoming. See intrepidtravel.com
- Kerry van der Jagt
San Juan Island, Washington State, US
Friday, June 23, 10am
Orcas around the San Juan Islands.Credit: iStock
My kayak guide had warned: “I’ve had orca come up under me so close I could’ve spit down its blowhole.” On a sea kayaking expedition along San Juan Island’s western coastline, I’m in the best place to see orca anywhere on Earth. But I’ve been more focused on the fancy houses above me on the cliff. Then the beds of kelp I’m paddling through shake and shudder and there’s a metre-high fin sticking out of the water three metres or so to my starboard side. And then there’s a loud explosion as the creature from the deep sucks in a quick breath. It’s gone as fast as it came and if it wasn’t for my shaking hands and the memory of that fin embedded in my mind forever, I might have imagined it altogether. See crystalseas.com
- Craig Tansley
Zion National Park, Utah
Tuesday, June 27, 12 noon
Thrill-seekers and hard-core adventure types come to Zion National Park in Utah to tackle Angels Landing, for its steep drops, considered one of the most dangerous hikes in the world. For the rest of us, there’s the Riverside Walk to the Temple of Sinawava. The 1.6 kilometre-loop trail is easy enough for kids, the elderly and, well, me. I walk past lush waterfalls and delicate wildflowers, gazing up at skyscraper cliffs and down at cheeky squirrels. I pause for a few minutes at the red rock temple, remembering it was early Mormon settlers who chose to give this area the name Zion, an ancient Hebrew word that means sanctuary or refuge. See nps.gov
- Kristie Kellahan
New York City, US
Tuesday, July 18, 9pm
Is this the best view in the world from a loo? Quite possibly. I’m gazing out at the New York City downtown skyline through floor-to-ceiling restroom windows at The Top of the Standard bar in Meatpacking District. Inside, the glamorous bar is lit, as the kids say. Grammy Award-winning DJ Pee Wee is spinning old-school vinyl hits from Whitney Houston, Prince and Michael Jackson. The patrons are even more attractive than the bartenders (and that’s saying something). The mixology is on point. Outside, there’s a very long line of people waiting to get in. See standardhotels.com
- Kristie Kellahan
Eco-Park Kan-Tunchi, Mexico
Sunday, July 30, 9am
A cenote, or sinkhole on the Yucatan Peninsula.Credit: iStock
Glimpsed through the dozen different shades of green, the first shimmer of blue makes me quicken my pace. I’m walking through the jungle in Eco-Park Kantun Chi, home to no fewer than five cenotes. There are thousands of these water-filled sinkholes scattered across the Yucatan Peninsula, some underground and some open to the skies, and the largest of them make for glorious swim spots. The water, filtered through countless layers of limestone, is preternaturally clear; it’s no wonder that cenotes were often regarded as sacred by the Maya. See kantunchi.com
- Ute Junker
Sitka, Alaska, US
Friday, August 18, 1pm
I cheerfully decline the waiter’s suggestion that I buy a T-shirt declaring I got crabs for the first time in Alaska. It’s true, though. Always one to avoid cracking into whole crabs – so much work, so little reward, or so I thought – I’ve taken the plunge in Sitka, Alaska with a locally caught Dungeness crab. Juicy, tender chunks of meat come loose with little effort. I dip them lightly in warm butter. The freshness is incredible. Honestly, I don’t think seafood has ever tasted so good. See halibutpointcrab.com
- Kristie Kellahan
Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia, Canada
Friday, September 1, 7.30pm
It starts in my toes, moves to my hips and before I know it, my arms are swinging like an inflatable character and I’m dancing my first jig. Or maybe it’s a reel. I’ll never know, because having fun is more important than any dance style at this musical gathering known as a “kitchen party” or ceilidh (pronounced kay-lee). A hybrid of Irish and Scottish fiddle music with a touch of Acadian, ceilidh is a Nova Scotian tradition. A tip from my tour guide has led me to a party in a parish hall in the town of Baddeck, but ceilidhs can also be held in taverns, on bridges, fields or private homes. See atlantictours.com
- Kerry van der Jagt
Cusco, Peru
Tuesday, September 12, 1pm
Standing on the lip of the Incan ruins of Moray, a series of concentric, circular terraces cut deep into the Andean landscape, I realise immediately: this is going to be special. At my back is Mil, a restaurant run by legendary Peruvian chef Virgilio Martinez. Here, the food is creative and beautiful, made using entirely local, native ingredients, served in clay or wooden bowls on a table in front of a picture window framing a perfect slice of Andean alpine splendour. This is the stuff culinary dreams are made of, a work of conceptual brilliance executed with absolute dedication, in a location like no other, and it is one of the best meals of my life. See milcentro.pe
- Ben Groundwater
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