Conde Nast Traveler September/October 2022

IN ITS INAUGURAL ISSUE, 35 YEARS AGO THIS MONTH, what was then known as Condé Nast’s Traveler published Christopher Buckley’s breezy account of drifting down the Amazon in a luxury yacht with various billionaires and royals, accompanied by the irreverent essayist-humorist’s own photos (including the cover). The issue also contained such relics as a guide to hemlines in eight cities and a deeply reported analysis of business-class meal offerings on a dozen international flights. Consider for a moment what’s changed since then, besides nearly everything about Traveler: In 1987, there was no TSA, no shoe removal, no liquid bans. Nonfliers could accompany passengers to their gates. You could smoke on planes, copiously, but there was no seatback entertainment. There was also no online booking or e-ticketing. There was no Uber or…

What does it look like? This collaborative issue between global editions, a celebration of Condé Nast Traveler’s 35th anniversary, is an attempt to answer this age-old question. The following pages contain 53 ways we think travel will be different, which range from ambitious undertakings out of science fiction—spaceships, floating cities—to people-centered innovations, like citizen science initiatives and new inclusivity measures. The future of travel might be big and bold, but we hope it will also be human-size: sensitive, empathetic, celebrating diversity and community. Whatever is next, we wish you many happy travels. Visit our new Future of Travel hub, where you’ll find all the projects, companies, people, and ideas moving travel forward: cntraveler.com/future-of-travel…

01 ECO PIONEER When it opens in 2024 on Norway’s Helgeland coastline, Six Senses Svart will become the world’s first energy-positive hotel. The 94-room property will harvest more solar energy than it needs to operate, making it entirely off-grid and self-sustaining, with its own waste and water management, recycling, and renewable infrastructure. 02 PARADIGM SHIFTER In the Hudson Valley, Moliving is stripping hotels down to a single room, one that is high-function and minimal-impact. The brainchild of a team with backgrounds in luxury brands, Moliving cabins have a central operation system, are totally off the grid, and let travelers get the most valued commodity—privacy. 03 COMMUNITY CHAMPION Since 2009, when Lisa Harper opened Rancho Pescadero, development in Todos Santos, Mexico, has exploded. To support hotel staff and the full-time community, the high-design resort has invested…

AT THE MANDARIN ORIENTAL, BOSTON, a robot does it all. The hotel’s resident automaton, MOBI, greets guests, escorts them to their rooms, and even delivers small amenities from a stowage compartment in its belly, providing service with a (digital) smile. During the pandemic, hotels everywhere made technological leaps to adapt to the times, and now things like contactless check-in and QR-code room-service menus are givens. But what about what’s next? As the past two and a half years have shown, the ways we live and travel can change rapidly, which is why hotels are hard at work designing the guest experience of the future. This fall, at its Bethesda, Maryland, headquarters, Marriott will open its state-of-the-art Design Lab, 10,000 square feet of research space that will be used as an R&D…

Astronauts have dubbed it the “overview effect”—the transcendent moment when the curve of the Earth comes into view from space, this fragile ball of life hanging in the inky void. I am watching this very thing, and during a solar eclipse, as the sun slowly disappears behind the planet, leaving an ephemeral scimitar of light. I realize that I can reach out—godlike—and spin the entire planet with my right hand. This should be a profound moment of shifting perceptions, but what I actually feel is sweaty, nauseous, and strangely hollow. I’m at Otherworld, a virtual-reality experience in an archway near London’s Victoria Station. Ten minutes earlier, an earnest young man wearing eyeliner, dressed in a white robe as if for a bout of futuristic judo, had briefed me on how to…

SINGAPORE, with nearly half of its land allocated to parks and gardens, is often touted as one of the greenest cities in the world. From a distance, the wild vertical gardens climbing up buildings and the miles of leafy corridors connecting major parks look effortless, like nature has been allowed to just do its thing. But as any Singaporean will tell you, nothing on this small, densely populated island can be attributed to chance. Indeed, Lee Kuan Yew, the first prime minister, launched the idea of Singapore as a garden city back in 1967. The initiative started as a tree-planting drive, but by 1992 it had taken the form of a sustainability blueprint called the Singapore Green Plan (SGP), which last year was updated as SGP 2030. Organized around five…