April Moodboard
This hotel in Hyères is on everyone’s go list in our office
After reading about the “overview effect” in the weekend NY Times, I thought maybe it was time to bring our globe out of storage. But then I rediscovered the globe bar cart (originally invented in the late ‘40s by Italo Zoffoli) and I think it’s the best of both worlds.
I watched my across-the-aisle neighbor’s two movies on the flight from Tokyo back to New York, and even without sound, I was totally sobbing. Tokyo Taxi and Mt Fuji and the Happiness Code are excellent, and it wasn’t just the altitude, I swear.
Always on the lookout for a great travel bag with a trolley strap, and this one looks sharp.
This post about five secret hotels in Japan.
These color blocked Parisian totes in PVC with a short and long strap handle are pretty perfect, even if they don’t have a trolley strap.
A Substack that’s only about hotels with great pools!
The most inspiring interiors book
These safari shorts I saw on Lucy Williams’ IG
Il Delfino in Yamba, outside of Byron Bay, the only hotel on the east coast of Australia with direct beach access (and its own resident pod of dolphins)
These red satin ballet flats that are on sale so i won’t mind that they’ll get beat up and just last one season
These sandals and these that I saw in the Kule catalog that I reverse Google imaged
Arrivals & Departures
If Florence is on your agenda anytime before late August, the Rothko exhibit at Palazzo Strozzi looks amazing.
Or maybe you’re headed to Rome? You should definitely see the Hokusai exhibit at Palazzo Bonaparte, which will have over 200 works from the Japanese artist that have never been shown before in Italy.
Le Sirenuse Mare is opening on April 23rd, and looks like the place to be this summer. From the Sersale family, who are behind Le Sirenuse in Positano, the beach club cascades down a series of terraces with a restaurant, three bars, Emporio Sirenuse store, gardens, and sunbeds towards a pebble beach with two jetties, dedicated for boat arrivals and swimming.
United just announced their new “Relax Row”, which looks almost exactly like getting a normal row in economy to yourself, except now you can guarantee that’s going to happen instead of praying for it, and you get a thin mattress to put over the seats.
If you need some new armchair travel material, our friend and contributor Jonathan Ducrest just self-published two beautiful books of photographs on Los Angeles and Switzerland.
Big news for New Yorkers: the bar on the Staten Island Ferry is back!
Also for New Yorkers: if you happen to be in the Hudson Valley on April 18th, a few antiques stores we love are hosting an antique crawl + brunch, and there are a limited number of spots left.
Nour El Nil is launching a new dhabiya boat this year called Dendera, and her 10 guest cabins will have the largest footprints in their entire fleet.
Royal Air Maroc announced the first nonstop flight between the West Coast of the US and Africa, connecting Los Angeles and Casablanca, starting June 7th. Just in time for the World Cup!
The Vienna Philharmonic’s open-air Sommernachtskonzert (perfect long German word for, you guessed it, summer night concert) will take place in the Baroque park at Schönbrunn Palace on June 19th.
Aviation reporter Zach Griff built a brilliant live TSA wait time tracker with real-time estimates for security lines at dozens of major U.S. airports.
The team behind La Mercerie in NYC is opening a new French restaurant in the Breuer building, aptly named Marcel, opening April 16th.
Final call! Michael McGregor, whose hotel stationery sketches you’ve definitely seen on instagram (or in the pages of WM Brown), has an exhibit at George Benias gallery in Athens through April 15th.
Our friend and Spain Navigator Jordan Romm, who’s spent years running immersive programs for students in Spain, has turned his expertise toward adults. His Sept 24-Oct 3 trip balances hiking, biking, farm and artisan visits in Aragon with a photography workshop, winery tour and other cultural visits in Barcelona. A few spots left: jordan@experiencelita.com
In other hotel news:
Clara was one of the first guests at the brand new Orient Express Venezia, which occupies an immaculately restored 15th-century palazzo in the heart of charming Cannareggio. Read her full Guest Book here.
Amangiri unveiled their first of 12 new private residences last month, a six bedroom villa with its own gym, spa, and 118-foot pool set on nine acres of Utah’s pristine desert landscape.
Capella Kyoto opened in Miyagawa-cho, Kyoto’s historic geisha district, a serene 89-room property right near the Kenninji Temple and the Kamo River, right in time for the peak of sakura season!
The Cabanas in Lamu just went through a light refurb which saw the addition of a new pool and bar, where you can sip ice-cold Tuskers and watch dhows sail by.
You can now have a pilates reformer delivered to your suite at The Balmoral in Edinburgh, and either follow their self-guided programming or arrange for a private session with an instructor in partnership with fitness brand FÔLD.
Or if you need a full reset, The Rosewood Kona Village is hosting a retreat with cult-favorite Forma Pilates June 10th-14th, with daily mat classes and ample time to recover between them with mai tais by the beach or pool.
If cardio is more your vibe, The Ranch Malibu has upcoming guided hiking itineraries taking on the Backbone Trail, one of Southern California’s most iconic routes along the spine of the Santa Monica Mountains—if you can, time it to see their wildflower bloom now through May!
Sublime Sand opens May 1st in Comporta, set across 51 hectares of pine forest, dunes and rice fields, and just steps away from the original Sublime property.
In Palm Beach, the long awaited Vineta Hotel just opened, which is Oetker Collection’s first US property, and looks well worth the wait.
Minutes by boat to the Cote d’Azur, the 17-acre Zannier Île de Bendor, which has remade the Ricard family island-compound as a hotel, will welcome its first guests to its private shores in May, and will have one of the largest spas in the region.
Vestige Binidufà opens April 30th on Menorca’s quieter northern coast—part of a dual-property concept with Vestige Son Ermità, where the two estates share pools, restaurants, walking trails, and wild coves on their 800-hectare private estate.
The Zetter Bloomsbury opened last week in six interconnected Georgian townhouses directly opposite the British Museum, with a 1,000 sq meter landscaped garden that looks like a lovely place to have a pint on an unseasonably warm spring day.
And in Rome, the Corinthia opened its doors last month, which is the brand’s first hotel in Italy, halfway between the Pantheon and Spanish Steps.
ICYMI
If you’re looking for a spring getaway, we’ve been busy posting a bunch of new stories and guides that might get the wheels turning. Check out our Miami Hotels List, Punta de Mita and Sayulita List, Dispatch from Bermuda, Bahamas List, Negril List, Dispatch from Mazatlan, Marrakech Hotels List, and Merida List. We have lots of new UK Guest Books—from The Newt, Fowlescombe Farm, Glebe House, Portrush Adelphi, KABN—and stays from further afield: Coral Sands, a recently refreshed Harbour Island mainstay; Ett Hem, a singularly fantastic townhouse-turned-hotel in Stockholm; and Mauna Kea, a historic hotel on the Kona side of Hawaii’s Big Island.
Plus the fascinating Sudoku packing method we can’t wait to try out ourselves, summer skincare advice from the founder of our favorite sunscreen brand, and travel tips from frequent flyer Jules Perowne, who has the chicest travel uniform we’ve ever heard of.
Over on our ShopMy, Yolanda rounded up the Spring packing essentials she wore over and over on a two week trip to Hong Kong, Tokyo, and Niseko, where the climate varied from warm to snowy and freezing. And in case any of that has you in the mood to shop, we also have some discount codes that brands have shared with us that we wanted to pass along to you:
Allies of Skin: YOLO
Cadence: YOLO15
Camp Snap: YOLO7
Mary & Jane: YOLO20
Monica Vinader: YOLOJOURNALMV
Susanne Kaufmann: YOLO15
Suri: YOLO10
WelleCo: YOLOJULY10
With Nothing Underneath: YOLO10
Amazing list of recommendations as always, thank you - although it's quite a big claim to say that Australia's east coast (c 4000km and the best beaches in the world - you would love it!) has only one hotel with direct beach access?!
So much great stuff here! I feel like such a jerk saying this, but I have to anyway. While I love the sudoku capsule/packing method, and it's wonderful Natalie has revived it, she did not create it as stated in the article. It has been around for at least a decade, from back in the Polyvore days! I have spreadsheets from 2015 playing around with it, and I had Polyvore templates for it. I don't remember who came up with it, though!