Travel + Leisure May 2022

ATHUL PRASAD COVER; IT LIST (P. 16) Prasad traveled from his home in Bangalore, India, to capture this month’s cover star: the new Six Senses Fort Barwara. “My time in Rajasthan coincided with Valentine’s Day,” he says. “I had to fight it out with many couples and their photographers, all angling to get the best views.” CHRISTOPHER CHURCHILL BOSTON PROPER “This was one of the first travel assignments I have ever had in my metaphorical backyard,” says the photographer, who lives in northeastern Massachusetts. “It reminded me that travel can also mean being close to home, if you’re willing to explore.” DEVORAH LEV-TOV DESERT OASIS (P. 46) The writer, who lives in Brooklyn, spent much-needed alone time with her sister at a new wellness resort in Israel’s Arava desert in August. “The ayurvedic sound bath was a true…

MY SON, BOBBY, NOW CALLS the Plaza in New York City “Kevin’s hotel,” thanks to a recent screening of Home Alone 2. Bored on our couch one Saturday, listening to rain pelt the windows, I remembered the sheer silly delight of that movie, and found it ready and waiting for us to stream. Truly, the film is the stuff of dreams, a fantasy in which a tween-age boy can use his father’s credit card to stay in a lavish suite, eat ice cream sundaes in bed, and lounge solo by the indoor pool. The adults have left the room—and that’s okay. The optimist in me says that 2022 will be a very good year for hotels, with the demand for leisure travel soaring above 2019 levels in some destinations. After two…

RAJASTHAN, INDIA SIX SENSES FORT BARWARA Visitors to this hotel will feel like they’ve stumbled out of a time machine: it occupies a restored 14th-century hilltop garrison that was once owned by a Rajasthani royal family. Within the 700-year-old walls are lush gardens filled with native plants and palm trees; two swimming pools; and 48 suites, all of which have views of either the starkly beautiful Rajasthani countryside or Barwara village, which lies a three-hour drive south of Jaipur. The Six Senses brand is known for its emphasis on wellness, so the spa gets the royal treatment, with 30,000 square feet for ayurvedic therapies, meditation, yoga, and more. And in the property’s three restaurants, the Cortile, Rani Bagh, and Roohani, you’ll find food that feeds the soul—ingredients for masala, paneer, and curries…

TRAVELERS’ TALES, FROM NEAR + FAR I’M NOT KNOWN for my hiking endurance, so trekking the southern face of Sedona’s Mescal Mountain was arguably an inopportune time to conduct an interview. My husband, Wyatt, and I had joined trail guide George Miraval at golden hour for the six-mile out-and-back hike, motivated by the promise of an eagle-eye view of the surrounding peaks. But as the trail rose steadily it became difficult for me to get any words out, let alone the stream of questions I had. Miraval recently helped open Trail House, the striking new outdoors center at Enchantment Resort (enchantmentresort.com; doubles from $825). Wyatt and I had driven in from Los Angeles for a long weekend, and I was curious to hear Miraval’s take on how Sedona—a once sleepy, sparsely populated…

AS A NEW YORKER, I don’t often see many stars in the night sky. But this past August, in the vastness of the Arava desert, which covers more than 900 square miles of southern Israel, I found myself staring up at a wide expanse of darkness marked by countless pinpricks of light. I was sitting beside my sister Adina, who lives in Israel. She had traveled with me to the desert to spend a week at the new Six Senses Shaharut. Given that we live on opposite sides of the world, and our reunion had been delayed for two years, the trip was a much-needed chance to bond. Lying in the hotel’s outdoor amphitheater, we listened as our guide, astronomer Eitan Schwartz, pointed out the constellations and two glowing giants, Jupiter…

INNOCENT SIMANGO and I had been walking for no more than an hour when he suddenly held up his hand. This meant I should stop. Immediately. The guide placed a finger to his mouth, then pointed to the dry riverbed ahead. Along the sandy bank, a half-dozen African wild dogs were hunting, their large, round ears alert. I held my breath and watched in awe until they vanished into the bush. “They’re always moving and hunting,” Simango whispered. “It’s much harder to get a sighting like this from a vehicle.” It was the first morning of my walking safari through Zambia’s South Luangwa National Park, and I couldn’t believe I had logged a rare encounter with my favorite animal (and an endangered species no less). Traveling on foot, I had expected…