Conde Nast Traveler Volume III, 2018

Paul Brady Traveler’s Articles Editor dug deep to find the world’s most intrepid travel specialists, p. 60. What’s different about this year’s list? We focused on those trailblazing travel experts who can create the kinds of trips that push the boundaries of what you think is possible. What trends have you noticed? People want to see nature that feels raw and untouched; they also aren’t afraid of going to countries like Iran or Myanmar that are portrayed in the news as “risky.” Derek Henderson The New Zealand–based photographer captured Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula and Kuril Islands, p. 92. What was your first impression of Kamchatka? We arrived by helicopter, and the landscape was expansive beyond belief—no roads, houses, or any sign of human intervention. What’s your favorite souvenir of all time? A wooden Kenyan mask I bought in Mombasa in 1989 on…

Every summer, my husband and I pile our three kids into a minivan for an all-American two-week road trip. Last year, we drove more than a thousand miles from Sawtooth National Forest in Idaho, through Oregon, down to Bolinas, California. We try not to overplan. Part of the fun is finding gems in the unlikeliest of places (like the best banh mi ever at Double Dragon in Portland) or spontaneously kitesurfing on Hood River. We did, however, make sure to book two nights at the Suttle Lodge (above), near Sisters, Oregon, where we slept in a tiny log cabin and spent our days swimming in the lake and evenings playing cards under the stars. Our epic family adventure ended with a beach barbecue in Bolinas. The kids gobbled s’mores, and…

When I was a sophomore at U.C. Berkeley, in the ’90s, my roommate Chris convinced me to take up rock climbing. We went bouldering between classes and on weekends, gearing up for a big trip to Yosemite, where we would test our skills under the tutelage of a lovely boy with rangy limbs and shoulder-length blond hair who was crazy enough about Chris that he was willing to teach both of us. Chris was the same friend who convinced me one rainy afternoon to drive to Mount Tam in Marin County so we could hike up to the highest peak and then swim in the freezing gray ocean at Stinson Beach. Her openness and wanderlust were, in part, a defense against her WASP-y upbringing—the kind of bloodline, she often joked,…

Winter hit the East Coast hard this year, and we fought it by taking our annual January trip to the Caribbean in December, then going again in February. Baha Mar, the three-resort complex in Nassau, the Bahamas, which opened last April, makes repeat beach weekends actually easy to pull off. And not just because all that separates New Yorkers from its two-mile-long coast are a few episodes of Real Housewives in-flight on JetBlue (direct flights go from 12 other U.S. cities too). The property has an Art Deco–style Grand Hyatt with connecting rooms for families and a four-month-old SLS whose adults-only pool serves rosé and avocado fries (every bit as good as they sound). And for all its trappings of a huge resort—12 dress-for-dinner restaurants, a 100,000-square-foot casino—Baha Mar feels…

Into Oregon’s Eastern Wilderness In the age of hyperconnectivity, Minam River Lodge—reached by horseback, private plane, or a vigorous 8.5-mile hike—in eastern Oregon’s remote Eagle Cap Wilderness is refreshingly Wi-Fi-, celltower-, and TV-free. Entertainment comes from its nearly 400,000 acres of pine forest, where you’ll hunt elk, fish for trout, and hike in ear-tingling silence. Plus there’s always a roaring fire and books to read back on property. But this isn’t some kind of solo expedition. At the main lodge, which houses four cozy guest rooms, you might chat with the Seattle architects who hiked in the previous day over a dinner of epic grass-fed rib eye and justforaged chanterelles. If you do want more privacy, stay in one of the nine pine-log cabins. Each has a woodstove, queen-size beds piled…

Twenty-five years ago, when I first visited Rajasthan, Jaipur’s gem store cases were filled with rubies brocaded in dust. In Udaipur’s back streets, miniature Mughal paintings could be bought with a fistful of grubby rupee notes, and at Jodhpur’s monumental Umaid Bhawan Palace, already partially converted into today’s gleaming hotel, I sat on a terrace with the Maharaja himself overlooking his lawn and desert-parched roses. These days, of course, this iconic circuit has been smoothed by the footsteps of so many Louboutin sandals, and sleeping in a palace for $100 a night has become as fantastical as the possibility of seeing a tiger. Craving a throwback India, I recently discovered an alternative route, lured by a new hotel in the dustiest of desert towns, Bikaner. This former stop on the…