Ultratravel - Luxury travel in 2011, our top tips
Winter 2010-2011
From a year of travelling, 10 writers distil the luxury experiences they consider most inspiring and worthwhile.
What makes one trip stand out above any other? Travel, we are not the first to discover, is all about personal taste. When 10 Ultratravel writers had to name their top experience of 2010, no two answers were even vaguely alike. One writer's year was made by flying into New York on BA's business-only service via Ireland; another loved a motorcycle ride around the Cape with Harley-Davidson fans; a third raved about an inventive meal cooked by an up-and-coming British chef.
What luxury travellers want these days, perhaps, is not just opulent suites, glamorous destinations and extravagant restaurants serving first-class food, but trips that make the heart leap. We want adventures that transport us to other worlds; activities that lift our spirits; interactions with local people that make us feel welcome. Hence the unexpected range of experiences listed here: basking in mud, cycling around exotic islands, admiring close-up the chiselled thighs of 2,000-year-old statues, and swimming across a shipping lane that normally heaves with tanker traffic. As one year draws to a close, they might serve as inspiration for the next.
From Asia to Europe – by front crawl
I did not draw the curtains when I went to bed; when I awoke, I wanted to see the view of the Bosphorus from the windows of the Sumahan, my favourite hotel in Istanbul. Three heavy tankers cruised past, forging south towards the Sea of Marmara. Next morning, I stood in the warm sunshine on the strait's eastern bank -- in a swimming costume. Every summer there is an annual swim across the Bosphorus, presenting the most alluring of challenges: to swim from Asia to Europe. The channel had been shut to all shipping traffic for the next few hours and it was a clear run to the finish line, four miles downstream. Embedded within a pack of 800 other swimmers, I dived into the water, following in the wake of adventurers and conquerors. For me it was the ultimate romantic gesture: coursing between continents, flanked by one of the world's most dynamic cities, where East and West churn together.
Michelle Jana Chan
Glamour in the east
More than 25 years ago, I visited two Hong Kong hotels that were then regarded as the best in the world.
A recent flying visit confirmed that they remain flagships of Far Eastern hospitality and class. The Peninsula and the Mandarin Oriental both represent luxury unconfined. They still operate Rolls-Royce limo services to and from the airport; their signature restaurants (Felix at The Peninsula and Man Wah at the Mandarin) are superb; the rooms are sumptuous and the service remains the best in the world. Afternoon tea at The Peninsula is still one of Hong Kong's enduring social institutions. There is also a reassuring continuity about both hotels. At the Mandarin, Giovanni Valenti (one of the world's most famous concierges) continues to dispense sage advice after 31 years; at The Peninsula, barman Chung Kam Hung (who is more widely known as Johnny, and who mixed cocktails for Clark Gable, Rex Harrison and William Holden) is still going strong after 49 years. Still the best in the world? Probably.
Graham Boynton
Cycling in the Maldives
Hallelujah! and all praise to St Boris, bicycles are at last being embraced around the world as an engaging way to explore a destination. This year at Shangri-La's new bike-friendly Villingili Resort in the south Maldives, cycling to breakfast along a crushed coral path striped with equatorial sunshine and the shadows of coconut trees was a delight. So was being able to explore the Addu Atoll beyond the confines of the resort. On my 22-mile trip through five small islands linked by causeways, I chatted with fishermen, ate curried tuna at an independent restaurant and, for the first time, used Maldivian currency. Chugging back to Villingili island by dhow, I found it satisfying to look at the land I had cycled, and refreshing to know that local culture and hotel comforts were no longer mutually exclusive in the Maldives.
Johnny Morris
London City to JFK
I love New York and am absolutely for the fingerprinting hypervigilance that prevails at JFK Immigration. Shuffling through the resulting hours-long queue is a grind, though. This autumn I experienced the way to avoid all that. I didn't dare believe that one could arrive at London City 30 minutes before departure – but it was true, and I still had 10 minutes to amass coffee, Vanity Fair and The Spectator before walking across the tarmac to the plane (so Imperial Airways circa 1935; lovely). On board I was greeted with gleaming white futuristic spaciousness, with just 32 seats on an A318 normally configured for 100. Soon after take-off we touched down to clear US Immigration in Ireland at an empty Shannon Airport. Six hours of flat-bed bliss followed. And 15 minutes after landing at JFK's domestic terminal I was in a taxi, grinning like a goat at a funfair even before that first exhilarating sight of Manhattan.
Adriaane Pielou
A new Greek monument
I haven't been so excited by a building for ages. The concrete and glass structure of the new Acropolis Museum, designed by Swiss architect Bernard Tschumi, is so inventive and cleverly thought-through that even halls filled with nothing but statuary seem thrilling. Glass floors suddenly reveal the 2,000-year-old archaeological remains of an Athenian home. A wide marble staircase soars three floors to a single magnificent portico of a temple fronted by terrifying beasts. Cavernous halls are dotted with finely-hewn statues with which to get up-close and personal. Best of all? The top floor – a glass box with views of the sacred hill above – contains a full-size recreation of the Parthenon, using some original pieces, some that have been remodelled. As the museum's educational video points out, much of the Parthenon's most famous statuary is actually in the British Museum. But what remains is alone worth the trip to Athens.
Lisa Grainger
Britain's next top chef
Fresh back from reviewing Michelin-starred restaurants on the Riviera, I ate at The Marquis at Alkham, a converted pub with rooms near Dover, and found the cooking bore comparison with the best. Young chef Charlie Lakin is on fire with creative enthusiasm and a talent to watch in 2011. At 12, he was tending pigs back home in Yorkshire, which perhaps inspired his signature dish: a coin-thin disc of crisp pig's trotter with a fried quail's egg on top, served with cauliflower piccalilli. "It's bacon and eggs," he says, with a refreshing lack of pretension. His duo of Dexter beef (a nugget of fillet and a cube of meltingly slow-cooked "blade") has me drooling now, while his banana soufflé was presented with a doll's-house juglet of toffee sauce and an unforgettable vintage rum.
Andrew Purvis
Jordan's Hippo Hotel
Mud, glorious mud is the order of the day at the five-star Kempinski Hotel Ishtar in Jordan. Set beside the Dead Sea, this palatial, Babylon-inspired resort offers all guests a complimentary beachside caking in thick black mud scooped from its ancient shores. Not only is this a right laugh – and surprisingly figure-flattering – but it is also darn good for you. Your skin turns baby-soft, while the oxygen-rich air, mineral-packed seawater and down-to-zero landscape elevate the spirit. To complement all this, the Ishtar runs one of the largest and best-designed spas in the Middle East: a vast, adults-only sanctuary that includes a hydro pool, hammam and superb outdoor pools and treatments administered by the Thai spa experts Anantara. Try the body scrub with Dead Sea salts or a rejuvenating mud facial, then relax on a lounger as the sun sets over Jericho. In a region that reverberates with religious significance, this is a place simply to be a born-again human.
Nigel Tisdall
Easy riding in Africa
The road that snakes south out of Cape Town, hugs the Atlantic Coast, then winds around Table Mountain to the Cape of Good Hope is heaven-sent for bikers. On a whim and a prayer, I savoured its dramatic twists and turns from the back of a Harley- Davidson – a metallic blue Electra Glide Ultra Classic to be precise – driven by a member of the local Harley Owners' Group. The throaty growl of the machine, combined with blasts of Bruce Springsteen's Born in the USA from its sound system, propelled us into the fantasy world of Easy Rider on one of the world's great scenic drives. A highlight was Chapman's Peak Drive, a dizzying helter-skelter of a road blasted out of near vertical rock a thousand feet above the sea. Back in Cape Town, my Harley chauffeur summed up a day of wind-whipped exhilaration. "It's living the dream," he said.
Gavin Bell
Safari in Australia
Transplanting the luxury tented safari experience from the African bush is a risky business. That unique blend of barefoot chic, candle-lit dining and the unmistakable menace of a lion's basso-profundo snarl as you snuggle down between cotton sheets is hard to beat. But Sal Salis has managed to come close to recreating the experience in Western Australia. Nine wilderness tents are pitched between a turquoise sea with bone-white sand on one side, and the green, gold and ochre of the bush on the other. Instead of the Big Five, think whale sharks (the world's largest fish), migrating humpback whales, manta rays, emus and kangaroos. One day I kayaked out to a lagoon in the reef and swam with turtles and reef sharks. Later, I took a walk through nearby Mandu Mandu gorge, spotting rare black-footed rock wallabies, before ending the day at an aboriginal cave where the world's oldest necklace was recently discovered. Beat that, Africa!
Richard Madden
Cape of good hosts
There's no place like home. But sometimes you have to travel a long way to get there. I've discovered my home away from home: it is Le Quartier Français in the enchanting village of Franschhoek in the Cape Winelands, South Africa. Susan Huxter, who owns LQF with her mother and brother, is one of the world's best hoteliers simply because she makes the incredible lightness of being at home seem simple. LQF is pretty; boutique hotels often forget pretty in their rush to do designer-edgy. Chef Margot Janse wins zillions of awards, but she also serves comforting roast chicken. Then there is the adorable LQF cinema, with champagne and popcorn, a sensational shop, and Themba, a butler-nanny to cosset and iron one to bits. I want to be ill here, so I can stay longer, light the fire in my bedroom and drink Moreson wine from the family estate for medicinal purposes. Susan, can I come home ?
Victoria Mather