Conde Nast Traveler July/August 2022

I bet you all know the feeling of being in the midst of some ordinary activity when suddenly a long-forgotten memory pierces your consciousness, arriving with such urgency and clarity that it feels like it must be trying to tell you something. Several months into the pandemic, I started having this experience with recollections of food I’ve eaten around the world. On a long drive, all I could think about was fiery tacos in an open-air market in Mérida, Mexico. Cleaning the kitchen, I flashed to a hearty bowl of gukbap, a rice soup with pork bone, that I inhaled in a brightly lit alley in Busan, South Korea. In the park with the kids, I remembered the lángos—hubcap-size discs of fried bread topped with potatoes and cheese—that we ordered…

Raise a Fork With the town of Healdsburg leading the charge, the county is now one of America’s top foodie destinations Pretty little Healdsburg has long had great places to eat and more than its share to drink—two dozen tasting rooms line the main plaza alone. The farm-to-table road was first paved by restaurants like Barndiva, which finally got its Michelin star last year; in the last decade, newer ones, like the deservedly hyped SingleThread, whose menu changes with the region’s 72 micro seasons, took the movement to new heights. Now a clutch of just-opened spots is upping the ante. The Matheson, from Dustin Valette, sits on the square in the very building where the chef’s great-grandfather once had a bakery. It’s a beautiful space with a menu to match (try the…

No one can dispute Capri’s great charms: wildflower-carpeted cliffs that look out over secluded coves, swims in the pristine aquamarine sea, and evening strolls along cobblestoned streets and through small piazzas that remain unchanged since Jackie O took her daily passeggiata here. The downside: day-trippers from Naples and large cruise ships that can make the place feel like an Italian Disney World. The trick is to book a hotel where you can comfortably stay put only to emerge in the afternoon, when the crowds have thinned. Two new properties provide just that kind of refuge. This summer, the luxe 50-room Hotel La Palma opens in an early-19th-century building that’s been reimagined by Roman architect Francesco Delogu and designer Francis Sultana. It’s also the first Italian property from Oetker Collection (which owns…

Before the term slow travel started trending, Portugal’s Alentejo region, about 80 miles southeast of Lisbon, was already the unintentional poster child of the phenomenon. Historically, Portuguese vacationers have looked to the area’s rolling vineyards, cork farms, and seemingly endless coastline for low-key summer holidays. It was a place where time—and the locals, as the joke goes—moved slowly. But eventually, the rest of the world figured out that Alentejo’s charming hamlets and sparsely populated beaches made for understatedly fabulous getaways. First, there was the picturesque coastal town of Comporta, which global surf and sun seekers began descending upon a decade ago. Today, rolling rice fields and azure waters surround sleek hotels, modernist villas, and restaurants from big-name chefs, while the pilgrims have moved on to Melides, Comporta’s still-unassuming neighbor to…

For nearly three decades, an eight-foot-wide spotted yellow pumpkin by Yayoi Kusama sat at the end of a pier on the Japanese island of Naoshima, becoming a kind of shorthand for the many galleries, museums, and other visual wonders that sit surrounded by the shimmering blues of the Seto Inland Sea. Then, last summer, dramatic social-media footage captured it being swept away by a typhoon. But the sculpture’s disappearance hasn’t slowed things down on Naoshima. When I arrived last April, I heard Kusama’s latest work before I saw it: Standing in a leafy valley, amid the melodic trill of birdsong and the quiver of wind through the trees, I could make out an endless tap-tap-tap. The rhythmic clicking was courtesy of 1,700 mirrored balls, part of the nonagenarian artist’s newly…

Standing beneath a towering Douglas fir on the lakeside grounds of Quaaout Lodge & Spa, northeast of Vancouver, B.C., an Indigenous woman named Britt leads me through my first smudging ceremony, a ritual she calls “a bath for your spirit.” To create the cleansing smoke, Britt burns sage and evergreen needles in a pearlescent abalone shell. I close my eyes and inhale the woodsy scent. When it opened three decades ago, Quaaout, which is owned and operated by the Little Shuswap Lake Indian Band, part of the Secwépemc First Nation, was an Indigenous tourism pioneer in B.C.. Now interest in these kinds of experiences is booming as travelers seek out authentic, responsible ways to engage with the places they visit. This summer, three more First Nations communities have opened eco-resorts,…