Hot 100 2017: travel trends

It’s a wild world

Old India hands who love Kerala are venturing into the northern part of the tranquil southern state. In December, the eco-hotel group CGH Earth opened a rainforest retreat called Wayanad Wild, near Lakkidi in the Western Ghats. Guest cottages are barely visible in the jungle, and guides arrange treks and rafting trips on the region’s wild rivers. Travellers combine a jungle stay with backwater cruising by rice barge, a high-end camp in Thattekad bird sanctuary, beach time on the remote coastline of Neeleshwar, and swing by the colonial-era jewel of Fort Cochin. experiencetravelgroup.com

Thoroughly modernist

Tucked in Northwest Tower, a converted Art Deco office building in Chicago’s Wicker Park district, The Robey has 69 industrial-chic rooms with skyline views. For Grupo Habita’s second property north of the border, the Mexican boutique hotel group chose a city known for jazz, Modernist cuisine, and vibrant Latino culture. Mid-Century chrome furniture from West Loop yard sales and antique markets punctuate the pared-down interiors, while a sprawling rooftop

terrace features a cocktail lounge with potent Mojitos and a pool that’s equally as cool. therobey.com

One-night stands

It’s the ultimate bivouac for those who’d rather follow their dreams than an Instagram feed. A new travel service called Blink promises to deliver “hyper-personalised experiences” almost anywhere on Earth. Choose your ideal destination, style of luxury digs (yurt, dome etc) and amenities – perhaps an Andean pisco bar in Chile’s Valley of the Moon? – and Blink makes it happen. Launched by leading British travel agent Black Tomato in December, the service promises totally customisable travel, right down to the brand of toiletries in bathrooms and the labels in your portable cellar. Its pop-up lodges have already colonised Oman’s Musandam Peninsula, the dunes of the Sahara and an unpronounceable glacier in Iceland. Then they

disappear without trace, the same experience never repeated. The cost of absolute freedom? Budget on at least $80,000 for a party of six for three days. Airfares extra. blacktomato.com/blink

Gorilla tactics

Rwanda is emerging as one of Africa’s most exciting wildlife destinations thanks to a couple of recent interesting projects. Wilderness Safaris will open a new eco-luxe camp, Bisate Lodge, this year near Volcanoes National Park – prime territory for viewing mountain gorillas. The camp will have just six forest villas in a 27-hectare amphitheatre of an eroded volcanic cone. (Abercrombie & Kent’s Gorillas of Rwanda private journey includes a stay at Bisate Lodge.)

Meanwhile, the staged reintroduction of threatened wildlife in Akagera National Park in Rwanda’s north-east has given the nation’s oldest park a new lease on life, starting with successfully re-establishing lions. The park’s Ruzizi Tented Lodge has recently added a family and a treetop tent. wilderness-safaris.com; akagerarwandanationalpark.com

Rutherglen revival

Siblings Eliza, Angela and Nicholas Brown are bringing refreshing energy and style to the Rutherglen region in north-east Victoria. The acclaimed Terrace Restaurant at All Saints Estate, a local produce-driven café at St Leonards Vineyard and the neighbourhood’s best bar, Thousand Pound in Rutherglen itself, are all theirs. Now they’ve acquired beautifully dilapidated Mount Ophir Estate, turning some of the property’s buildings (including an impressive tower) into the kind of luxury accommodation the area needs. allsaintswine.com.au; thousandpound.com.au; mountophirestate.com.au

Bedtime stories

Australia’s first “storytelling” hotel opens next month on Hobart’s riverfront and, on paper, it reads like a bestseller. Macq 01 is a modern replica of the Macquarie Wharf Shed 1 it replaced, with 114 rooms and suites that channel the stories of colourful characters who

have shaped the city. Conceived by the Federal Group (Wrest Point casino, Saffire Freycinet), Macq 01 will also feature two restaurants and a Story Bar paying tribute to Hobart’s legends and its best drops. macq01.com.au

Shanghai surprise

The Chinese concept yang yun translates as “nourishing cloud”, a philosophical appreciation of the natural world and its rhythms. It’s also the inspiration behind the fourth Aman resort in China, opening later this year. Amanyangyun is a conservation passion project that took a decade to complete, and involved the relocation of a camphor wood forest, as well as Ming and Qing dynasty-era structures, brick by brick, from Jiangxi Province to a suburb of Shanghai. In a garden that now shelters these fragrant venerable trees, 26 reassembled villas and 24 contemporary suites are fitted with fireplaces and inner courtyards. At the central Nan Shufang pavilion, guests can experience a tea ceremony or take calligraphy lessons. aman.com

Sri Lanka sizzles

The Sri Lankan capital, Colombo, is bursting with new-build hotels – Shangri-La, Sheraton, ITC and Hyatt among them – but small and stylish lodgings continue to be Sri Lanka’s strong suit.

New to the island is the 30-villa Water Garden Sigiriya, designed by Bawa protégé Channa Baswatte near the ancient Sigiriya rock fortress (watergardensigiriya.com). Just south of Galle at Habaraduwa, the exclusive KK Beach Resort has just six suites with sweeping Indian Ocean views (kkbeach.com). And in the high country, three converted tea planters’ bungalows will open later this year near Kandy, Ella and Nuwara Eliya (teardrop-hotels.com).

Long jump

Qantas’s new kangaroo route – direct 17-hour Dreamliner flights from Perth to London, launching in March next year – recalibrates the Australian long-haul experience, and looks

set to transform tourism in Western Australia. Local operators are salivating at the prospect of

planeloads of cashed-up Britons on their doorstep. Meanwhile, Qantas CEO Alan Joyce has hinted at the thrilling possibility of direct flights from Sydney to New York by 2022. qantas.com.au

Polar extremes

Luxury has reached Earth’s final frontier. After an opulent makeover to mark its 10th birthday, White Desert Camp – the only company in the world to fly into Antarctica by private jet – offers affluent adventurers fur-lined dining settings and Saarinen chairs at its stunning bivouac of six sleeping domes with ensuites on the White Continent. Guests strike out from the Antarctic camp to take overnight hikes to the South Pole. The camp is accessible only in November and December by private jet from Cape Town, on single-or eight-day itineraries. white-desert.com

Treasure islands

A little like the Maldives before tourism changed everything, the Andaman is a remote archipelago of more than 300 islands in the Indian Ocean, about 1,000 kilometres east of Kolkata, ringed by reefs and some of the world’s most exquisite beaches. They’re destined to top travel lists in the future, but for the moment gourmet travellers seeking upscale digs stay at Jalakara, a boho-chic seven-room retreat near Radhanagar beach on Havelock Island. There’s no WiFi or television but great food, a spa, film nights, yoga classes – and a giant hammock for lounging. Also on Havelock, Taj Hotels is due to open Taj Exotica Resort & Spa Andaman Islands later this year, with 75 timber villas with pitched roofs, inspired by the homes of the local Jarawa tribe. jalakara.info; tajhotels.com

Pictured: The view from Jalakara’s pool.

Yucatán, yes

After you’ve popped up at Noma’s seven-week residency and bunked down at the hip Papaya Playa Project in the laid-back beach town of Tulum, venture a few hours inland on the Yucatán Peninsula to the brilliant new Chablé Resort and Spa, a restored 19th-century hacienda close to the Spanish colonial city of Mérida. It has a restaurant from star Mexico City chef Jorge Vallejo, ultra-modern suites with private plunge pools set in the jungle, and an impressive spa overlooking a cenote, a natural freshwater limestone sinkhole, for full body-and-mind relaxation. chableresort.com; papayaplayaproject.com

Take it slow

Is The Slow a hotel with an attached art gallery or vice versa? However it’s described, this three-storey, 12-suite boutique hotel in Bali’s lush Canggu district is among the island’s hippest stays. Opened last December by Australian George Gorrow, the co-founder of clothing

labels Ksubi and Insight, and partner Cisco Tschurtschenthaler, The Slow is a study in contemporary cool and surf culture, with what it calls a “tropical brutalism” aesthetic. Artworks are from Gorrow’s personal collection, the sounds by Reverberation Radio, and bartender Maja Jaworska of London’s White Lyan consulted on the extensive drinks list. theslow.id

Wild idea

Bill Bensley is heading off the grid. Later this year, the celebrated architect-designer of Asia’s most luxurious resorts will open a tented camp in the Cambodian jungle, about three hours’ drive southwest of Phnom Penh. Called Shinta Mani Wild, after the Shinta Mani boutique hotel designed by Bensley in Siem Reap, the camp will generate its own solar power and most of the food to support a wild elephant research station, a natural history museum, a community outreach centre, and guests in 15 huge stilted tents furnished with Khmer antiques. Guests can work alongside university graduates undertaking research, who in turn act as camp guides. Bensley also designed Rosewood Luang Prabang in Laos and Capella Ubud in Bali, both opening later this year. bensley.com

Small, perfectly formed

Sydney twin brothers Cam and Chris Grant founded Unyoked with small plans rather than big. Inspired by the tiny-house movement gathering pace in the US, their first project is a solar-powered, stylishly snug (read: tiny) cabin for holiday rental on an out-of-the-way property in the NSW Southern Highlands, with plans for more across the nation. “Unyoked is for those who are looking for that wilderness feeling, but don’t want to trek more than two hours from the city on a Friday night,” Cam says. There’s space in an Unyoked cabin for a queen bed and a king single, a gas-powered kitchen, hot shower (there’s a composting toilet outside) and a locally sourced minibar is in the works. Bring marshmallows for the firepit outside. unyoked.co

Gut feeling

The once fetishist practice of, ahem, improving one’s intestinal flora (strict diets, detox, prolonged chewing, colonic irrigation) has hit the mainstream with a trio of high-tech Austrian alpine clinics leading the way. Viva Mayr’s two medical spas in spectacular lakeside locations have taken the 1930s gut-focused doctrine of Dr FX Mayr and given it a 21st-century wellness spin. Also in Austria, the renovated and newly reopened Lanserhof Lans, near Innsbruck, is a minimalist hotel-spa with farm-to-table dining, views of the Tyrolean mountains and state-of-the-art health facilities including anti-inflammatory therapies in a minus 11-degree cryotherapy chamber. vivamayr.com; lanserhof.com

Pictured: Lanserhof Lans. Image by Mario Webhofer for the Lanserhof.

Taxis taking off

Flying taxis could be in the air by the end of the year, according to Airbus chief Tom Enders. The aircraft maker’s Urban Air Mobility unit hopes to start testing helicopter like taxis by late 2017, about three years sooner than ride-sharing app Uber expects to launch its own airborne cabs. Uber, which this year hired veteran NASA engineer Mark Moore as its “director of engineering for aviation”, hopes to get airborne by 2021.

Art of Africa

A contemporary art museum destined to rival the Tate Modern in London and MoMA in New York opens on Cape Town’s V&A waterfront in September. The ambitious Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa is the first of its kind dedicated to contemporary African art. A 1921 elevator tower and surrounding storage silos have been transformed during the three-year, 80-gallery project. And occupying the top six floors is a new hotel, The Silo, with 28 rooms, a spectacular rooftop and magnificent views of Table Mountain. theroyalportfolio.com; zeitzmocaa.museum

Fly, robot

Though it’s not quite HAL in 2001: A Space Odyssey, online behemoths such as Skyscanner and Expedia are deploying robots to interact with website users. Using online chat platforms, the “automated assistants” quiz users about their travel plans and then suggest booking options. It’s early days yet for the technology – the results from this “conversational search” differ little from what you’d find yourself with a few mouse clicks – but operators are upbeat because the bots ease pressure on their search functions.

Oh! Calcutta!

Once the British Raj’s seat of power, the city of Kolkata in West Bengal has long since lost its political and economic clout but it retains its chaotic charm and reputation as a cultural and literary powerhouse. With few upscale lodgings available, travellers can look forward to the opening late this year of the nine-room The Penthouse, near the Victoria Memorial. The Prakash family, owners of Glenburn Tea Estate in Darjeeling, are transforming the top two floors of a new glass office block into a highly personalised hotel with a spa, rooftop pool and eatery. Follow a stay here with a trip to Rajbari Bawali, a stunning 31-room boutique hotel opened last year in a former palace about 30 kilometres from Kolkata in West Bengal’s rural hinterland. thepenthousecalcutta.com; therajbari.com

Pictured: Rajbari Bawali.

Sustainable stays

Faced with a choice between two equally stunning hotels – same price and amenities, but only one supports community or environmental projects – which would you choose? Journalist Juliet Kinsman is banking on travellers making the moral choice with the launch of her website Bouteco, a showcase of hotels that marry style and sustainability. Featured properties include Bali’s handcrafted Katamama, Cambodia’s Song Saa Resort, and Canada’s Fogo Island Inn, a pioneering social enterprise that’s become a lifeline for its Newfoundland fishing community. Bouteco’s début is timely given it’s UNESCO’s International Year of Sustainable Tourism, but Kinsman, founding editor at Mr & Mrs Smith, insists she’s not simply tapping a trend. “I’m not doing this because smart tourism and intelligent luxury are fashionable,” she says, “but because it’s the future. Well, it needs to be – for the sake of the environment and future generations.” bouteco.co

Pictured: Katamama, Bali.

Flights of fancy

Think of it as Uber for the ruling classes. Billed as the world’s first real-time, private jet-booking platform, the Stratajet app helps the rich and restless find spare jets for flights in Europe, North America and parts of the Middle East. Rival Jetsmarter, meanwhile, offers the choice of shared charters, regular shuttle services and private hire. stratajet.com, jetsmarter.com

Remote stays

Among the out-of-the-way places we’re eyeing most carefully this year is Madagascar, land of lemurs, which has its first five-star lodge opening mid-year. Called Miavana, it’s on Nosy Ankao off the island’s north coast, and its 14 villas and wildlife sanctuary will be accessible only by chopper.

After a year-long renovation, the Tierra Chiloé Hotel & Spa off the coast of Chile reopens in July with doubled capacity to 24 rooms and the wonders of the remote Chiloé Archipelago on its doorstep.

And Ritz-Carlton scales new heights on the Tibetan Plateau with the opening later this year of its first all-villa resort near UNESCO-listed Jiuzhaigou, the Valley of the Nine Fortified Villages.

timeandtideafrica.com; tierrahotels.com; ritzcarlton.com

Pictured: Tierra Chiloé Hotel & Spa.

Highly tuned

There’s no water involved in a “sound bath”, and no tub in sight in the most intriguing spa session at sea. Guests aboard the new ultra-luxe Seabourn Encore can be lulled into a deeply meditative state by powerful sound-wave vibrations emitted from crystal bowls “played” by the spa’s “mindful living coach”, one of many surprises in the ship’s innovative spa and wellness program. seabourn.com

Cape crusade

Coming soon to Australia’s newest wilderness walk are Australia’s newest lodges. High-end hiking outfit Tasmanian Walking Company will open two shelters along the Three Capes Track when it launches its guided four-day, 46-kilometre walks late this year. The solar- and wind-powered lodges, at Surveyor’s Cove and Munro, will sleep 14 guests in seven rooms on high rotation – the company plans three departures a week in peak season. Founded by former airline chiefs Brett Godfrey and Geoff Dixon, Tasmanian Walking Company has the monopoly on Tasmania’s great walks; it also operates the Bay of Fires and Cradle Mountain Huts walks, as well as Victoria’s Twelve Apostles Lodge Walk. taswalkingco.com.au

Slumber party

For those who like their drinks strong and their nights long, the new B&B – bed and beverage – will suit perfectly. In 2015 the Experimental Cocktail Club delivered the idea with aplomb at The Grand Pigalle in Paris’s 9th, with check-in at the bar, in-room cocktails and Cognac-scented bath products. Similar principles apply at the group’s first UK B&B. Set to open in Covent Garden this month, Henrietta Hotel has 18 rooms above a cocktail bar and a restaurant run by chef Ollie Dabbous. henriettahotel.com

Signing in

Check-in at The Ultimo runs like this: hand over the date, time and place of your birth, along with your credit card. In your room you’ll find a moon calendar, personalised dining recommendations based on your sign and the offer of a reading by the Sydney hotel’s resident astrologer. Will we return? We’ll have to check our horoscope. theultimo.com.au

Havana makeover

All eyes are on Havana as a flotilla of cruise ships sails towards the Cuban capital and a wave of luxury hotel groups rush to restore heritage properties in the city. In Habana Vieja, the storied Hotel Inglaterra and Hotel Santa Isabel, both grande dame landmarks, are destined for the Starwood Luxury Collection, while Hotel Quinta Avenida Habana in the Miramar District is set to become a Four Points by Sheraton. The city’s most lavish restoration will be the 19th-century Manzana de Gómez building, reopening this northern spring as the sleek 246-room (and rather wordy) Gran Hotel Manzana Kempinski La Habana. A former European-style shopping arcade in the heart of the old city, the hotel will have a rooftop swimming pool and spa. starwoodhotels.com; kempinski.com

Pictured: Gran Hotel Manzana Kempinski La Habana

Breaking the ice

The coolest thing in cruising this year is an Antarctic voyage aboard Silversea’s rebuilt Silver Cloud. The former ocean-going ship is being ice-strengthened and decked out with a new observation lounge and expansive, redesigned suites for its maiden season as a luxury expedition ship in November. It will carry 200 passengers in polar regions (260 elsewhere) with 19 expedition experts leading excursions ashore in 18 new Zodiacs. Silver Cloud‘s 19-day Ushuaia round-trip itinerary, departing 21 December, visits the Falklands, South Georgia and the Antarctic Peninsula, and promises a sensational combination of cruising sophistication and remote, icebound adventure. silversea.com

West Banksy

“The hotel boasts floor-to-ceiling views of graffiti-strewn concrete from almost every room,” says its website. “And for the exhibitionists among you – many are within range of the army watchtower.” In Bethlehem, a few metres from the controversial wall separating Israeli and Palestinian territories, the elusive British artist Banksy has opened The Walled Off Hotel. It’s a gallery, museum and nine-room guesthouse filled with satirical artworks and wry kitsch. A shared room with bunk beds is kitted out with surplus gear from an Israeli army barracks; the “presidential suite” has a water feature made from a bullet-riddled tank. “The aim,” writes Banksy, “is to tell the story of the wall from every side.” banksy.co.uk

South of the tracks

South America’s first luxury sleeper train, the Belmond Andean Explorer, makes its début this month on 688 kilometres of track from Peru’s Cusco to Arequipa, with a stop at Puno station by Lake Titicaca. The 21st-century interiors are inspired by Peru’s hand-woven fabrics, in soft ivory alpaca tones and strong Andean dark greys. The train can accommodate up to 48 guests (options range from bunks to deluxe suites) sharing two dining cars, a lounge and an observation car with an open-air section. Belmond Hotel Monasterio in Cusco has created the modern Peruvian menu to accompany the adventure. belmond.com

Scandi chic in wood

Baltzar and Kristina Wachtmeister are the eighth generation of the Wachtmeister family to run Wanås Estate, an organic dairy farm and forestry estate in Skåne, in southern Sweden, with its own medieval castle and sculpture park in a beech forest. Kristina, an architect, has converted two 18th-century barns into a Scandi-luxe 11-room boutique hotel with floors made from oak milled on the estate and a restaurant serving food that’s mostly farmed or foraged on site. Hotel guests have free run of the sculpture park, which is so close to nature that cows graze around artist Maya Lin’s wondrous land art piece, Eleven Minute Line, in one of Wanås’s oldest paddocks. wanasrh.se

In bed with The Ned

London’s besuited Square Mile will never be the same now The Ned has moved in. After a £200 million heritage restoration by London’s Soho House and America’s Sydell Group, the disused Midland Bank opened last month as a sumptuous 252-room hotel, members’ club and restaurant hub, with a dramatic late-night bar called The Vault and a spectacular rooftop complex with views stretching from St Paul’s to the Gherkin. The opening of The Ned has set Soho House on a roll, with plans on track to open clubs in New York’s Dumbo neighbourhood later this year, and a downtown Los Angeles property next year. Founder Nick Jones will reopen his original club in Soho followed by another London club, White City House (in the converted BBC Television Centre), next year, and promises another “three or four a year” thereafter. sohohouse.com