Marta de la Rica describes herself as “a New Yorker by birth, Spanish at heart, and Biarrot by adoption. The first two were given to me, the last one was chosen.” Known for crafting soulful, artful interiors filled with collected objects and playful details, the Madrid-based designer considers Biarritz—the Basque Coast town where she has spent summers since childhood—her most enduring source of inspiration. You can feel it juicing her latest project, a Cristine Bedfor hotel in Málaga, where striped beach-cabana fabrics and hand-painted tiles nod to coastal nostalgia, and vintage finds conjure the charm of her favorite brocantes.

Her new book, Biarritz: A Vocabulary of Colour, is a love letter to the city. Through photographs both atmospheric and intimate—wild horses grazing in the Pyrenees, sausages hanging in a shop, wetsuits drying in the sun—she captures the rhythms and rituals of daily life in this corner of the Basque Coast. We asked Marta to share her favorite spots, memories, and objects from her happy place.

When/why did you first start going to Biarritz? Has it changed at all in the years since?

I’ve been going to Biarritz basically all my life. I don’t think it has changed much—that’s part of its magic. Like everywhere in July and August it’s incredibly busy, probably more so than years ago, but that’s when you enjoy staying at home, spending time with family, and planning carefully when you go out. What has changed is the people around me—that’s life. I remember my childhood there with my grandparents, who are no longer with us, but now my parents are there as grandparents to my daughters, who didn’t exist back then… It’s the circle of life, and I feel so fortunate that this circle keeps turning in the same place.

How does the city uniquely blend Spanish and French cultures?

There’s a very French side to Biarritz, which feels quite different from Spain, but it’s true that the Basque heritage is shared with the Spanish Basque Country. There’s a strong local pride in belonging to this region. You can see the connection in many aspects: the architecture, the gastronomy, the local festivals (in Bayonne, for example, people dress just like in Pamplona during San Fermín), and in the love and respect for the sea and fishing… These are beautiful cultural ties that both sides of the border have in common.

Your book is called A Vocabulary of Colour. What are the colors of Biarritz—how would you describe the palette?

When I close my eyes and think of Biarritz in terms of color, the sea immediately comes tomind—especially the view from above La Côte des Basques. It’s an explosion of blues,greens, and greys that I’ve never seen anywhere else. At sunrise, it’s tinted with mauves and pinks, and at sunset, it turns incredible shades of orange.

You describe Biarritz as being “about pizzerias and wetsuits.” Can you elaborate on that vibe?

What makes Biarritz special is the mix of its architecture, which recalls the glamour ofanother era, with a very laid-back, relaxed vibe. It’s the kind of place where people go not tobe seen—because no one really cares about that. You can walk barefoot from the beach and stop for a crepe on your way home.

What foods are emblematic of Biarritz, and where are your favorite places to eat them?

In the city, I love Cheri Bibi, located in a very cozy neighborhood of small houses nestled side by side, called Bibi Beaurivage. They have a small menu with simple yet surprisingly flavorful dishes, and the atmosphere is incredibly relaxed.Also right in the city center, on Rue Gambetta (which is now pedestrian-only), I love Le Bistrot du Haou. It serves simple yet exquisite French food—perfect for a weekday meal. L’Auberge d’Achtal in Arcangues is a classic spot we’ve been going to all our lives—especially for summer dinners under the plane trees, while the kids run around the large fronton until the food arrives. The duck, the fries, and the mushroom omelettes are musts. I personally love the fine herb omelette (my family always teased me for being the boring one… but I’ve always loved it). Of course, Gaztelur, our family adventure that we opened ten years ago—a restaurant and antiques boutique in Arcangues—is also a must. The place is an experience in itself, nestled in Arcangues, surrounded by forest and facing a large meadow. David and Borja, who lead the kitchen, make the best grilled fish and the best rice dishes in the area, among many other things.

You mention browsing flea markets and antiques shops—given your profession, you must have an especially great list! Would you share a few?

Like true French locals, brocantes and vide-greniers are a regular part of life here. Every weekend, there’s one in a nearby village—Ahetze, Arcangues, Guéthary… Sometimes we venture a bit further, even as far as Bordeaux, where there are two great fairs each year, in autumn and spring, that are really worth visiting. Beyond the brocantes, many afternoons we walk from home to the village for our usual visit to our antique dealer friends Pierre Julien and Isabelle Marc to see what they’ve recently found. More often than not, we leave with something tucked under our arm—and always with a fascinating story about a piece of furniture or a special object.

Where do you recommend that friends stay? Are there a couple of hotels that best capture the spirit of the place?

I love having my friends stay at our house, but when I recommend hotels, I usually tell them to go to Hotel Silhouette—it’s right by the market, in the heart of Biarritz, and the area is lively all year round, both during the day and at night, with lots of locals. Hotel de la Plage is also nearby, right on the seafront. It has a super relaxed vibe and you can take a morning swim at La Petite Plage with hardly anyone around. You’ll only run into the “Ours Blancs,” a group of swimmers—some young, some not so young (the oldest are over 80!)—who swim there every day of the year. Thanks to them, if I’m in Biarritz on December 31, I always go for a swim!

You have lots of photographs of children—I assume they are yours? What are some favorite activities for kids?

Yes! They’re my daughters, but there are also a few nieces. What I love about Biarritz is how much time you spend together as a family. We play paddle ball on the beach, catch waves with bodyboards, and go crab fishing. There’s a plan we’ve done for generations when it rains (because you should know—it does rain sometimes!) which is to visit the Aquarium, or the Musée de la Mer as it’s called there. We’ve spent hours watching fish, jellyfish, and seals—I loved it as a child, and my daughters love it now. There’s also a zipline park in Chiberta, which is a big hit.

What beaches would you recommend for swimming vs. surfing, and is there a place you’d recommend at each—favorite restaurant, beach club, etc.?

Biarritz is actually where surfing first started in Europe, when the Americans came to film a movie and brought a surfboard with them. Since then, thousands of surfers have come here throughout the year. For surfing, it depends on your level. For advanced surfers, there’s a legendary spot in Guéthary called Parlementia. For beginners, Côte des Basques is perfect. For swimming, I recommend La Petite Plage, right in the center of Biarritz, past the Atalaya—it’s a little cove nestled between rocks that opens onto a very small beach where you can usually swim, as the sea tends to be much calmer there. I also love the endless beaches of Anglet—La Madrague, Les Corsaires, L’Océan… They’re just past the Biarritz lighthouse and are more like the long, wide beaches of Les Landes. They remind me of my childhood, because we used to meet my grandparents there every morning. Even though the lifeguards are really well-trained, you still need to respect the sea in Biarritz—it can surprise you if you’re not careful. There’s a beach bar I love on La Plage de l’Océan called Oceanoa—it’s the perfect spot to grab something to eat with your feet in the sand.

What is the origin of the wild horses you photographed in your book? Is there a place to see these?

The Potoks are a breed of small wild horses that date back to the Paleolithic era and can still be found grazing in the Pyrenees. There’s a very well-known and beautiful hike from Ascain to the peak of La Rhune. It’s about 10 km with an 800 m elevation gain, and you’re almost guaranteed to spot Potoks along the way.

What are some other sights that a visitor should be sure to see while here?

Beyond Biarritz, there are many nearby villages that are worth visiting. Heading toward Spain along the Corniche Road, you’ll find Bidart, Guéthary, and Saint-Jean-de-Luz. Inland, you shouldn’t miss Ahetze (I actually got married there), Arbonne, Arcangues, and a bit further, Sare. Espelette is another beautiful village, famous for the chili pepper that carries its name.

You photograph a number of objects in the book. What is the significance of these and how are they emblematic of the place you love?

I wanted to dedicate part of the book to objects themselves—that’s the idea behind the “Vocabulary of Objects” section in the middle. Objects are a fundamental part of my work. Beyond their intrinsic beauty, they tell stories and bring soul to interiors. The objects in the book are chosen for the emotion they evoke. I love them for their colors, shapes, or materials, but also for what they represent. For the story they carried before reaching me, and for the story they now have in my life. For example, the ceramic Stilton cheese cover that has always sat on our breakfast counter at home, or the large Baccarat perfume bottle on the cover, which I bought from an antiques dealer friend whom I greatly admire.

One theme you explore is “the beauty of small things.” Hot takes: what are some small things that stand out for you?

Yes, Biarritz has taught me to truly enjoy the small things:

• Going to the market and choosing the perfect cantaloupe for breakfast

• The feeling of putting on a sweater on a summer evening

• Setting a beautiful table

• Taking the time to enjoy breakfast

• Watching a cloudless sunset eating an ice cream from Monsieur Lopez

• Or witnessing an enormous thunderstorm that feels like the world is about to end

The post Biarritz Through a Design Lens appeared first on Yolo Journal.

Can you share a bit about how your background and upbringing shaped your interest in roses?

I grew up in South Vietnam, and flowers were just part of our daily landscape—the flame trees that bloomed at the end of the school year, the peach blossoms that marked the lunar new year. I always thought of life in terms of flowers. But roses were royalty—the rose of my childhood was prized far above our tropical flowers, but did not grow in our garden. It was a flower for special occasions, bought from the market by my mother (though there are native roses in North Vietnam, which is more temperate). When my father planted his first garden after moving to California in the late 1970s, he made a rose bed in a sunny corner, mostly modern hybrid teas and floribundas in a range of colors—every shade of pink, coral, yellow, and red. Meanwhile, I fell in love with the story of The Little Prince and his red rose, from Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s book.

Years later, in 2008, near the end of my dad’s life, my father spent his last days in a room with a view of another rose bed he had planted. Every day, I would go out and check the progress of the roses, wishing them to open. But he passed away before they bloomed. Roses became associated with that period for me, and the fact that my father did not get to see them bloom one last time was something unresolved. When I returned to New York, I was doing volunteer work at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden and discovered all of these beautiful rare specimens and learned about their horticultural history. I decided to start photographing them, and the rosarian would send me home with a bucket of roses each time. I would then spend the day photographing them and mentally having a conversation with my father. That led me to discover this whole world of roses that are special and full of stories. It was my experience of these roses and wanting to share them with my father that kept me going. My obsession with roses led to a desire to do a book about them. It took me over two years to photograph the 11 gardens that ended up in the book.

It is amazing how, as you write, that throughout history—“painters, poets, botanists, scholars, mystics, emperors, as well as humble gardeners from all corners of the world” have been captivated by the rose. Why do you think roses, of all flowers, attract so much mythmaking and ignite the imagination?

First, it is one of the oldest flowers in the garden. It’s been in cultivation, some would say, for 7,000 years. China was probably first to cultivate them, but you see roses in ancient Egypt, and the Romans were very extravagant with their roses. They used them for many different things—rose chaplets were worn to celebrate military triumph; a rose was placed on the forehead of the departed and on graves; the emperor Heliogabalus infamously smothered his banquet guests with a shower of rose petals. Roses were cultivated for medicinal purposes in the Middle Ages. So they’ve been part of human history for a long time. Then there’s the beauty of the rose. You could ask, why do we find it beautiful? But we just do.

So if they were cultivated and adapted across time and place, do the rose varieties wind up reflecting something specific about each culture?

The history of roses is the other thing that explains their popularity. Roses are endemic to the whole of the Northern Hemisphere, north of the Tropic of Cancer. There are native roses in America, native roses in Europe, and native roses in Asia. There were also roses that came from Persia—roses are a big part of Persian culture and important in Islamic gardens: think of the history of perfume and rosewater; it’s said that white roses grew from the beads of the Prophet Muhammad’s sweat; and there’s a whole tradition of literature having to do with the rose. Until the arrival of the Chinese rose, which blooms repeatedly throughout the season, the roses in Europe were once-blooming. In the late eighteenth century, they were hybridized with the Chinese roses, which created whole new classes of roses, resulting in most of the roses that we have today. So now people think of roses as sort of roughly three different groups, within which there are different classifications. There are the species roses, which are the simpler, five-petal ones, like those in Botticelli’s “Primavera.” And then there are the “old garden” roses—gallica, damask, bourbons—the classes of roses that existed before 1867, the year that a rose named ‘La France,’ arguably the first hybrid tea, was created. The third group of roses are modern roses, which includes all the new classes of roses created after 1867, such as the hybrid teas and floribundas, among others.

So going back to your question, the Chinese roses are notably repeat-blooming. There is also another class of Chinese roses called the tea roses, because when they were brought to Europe, people thought they smelled like tea. The old European roses have that old rose scent, like the damask rose they grow in Bulgaria to make rose perfume. Or, for example, the French have another rose called the apothecary rose (or provins rose), which is a gallica. There was a whole industry based around this one flower, which was used in medicine and made into jam and other confections.

The English are also known for their roses. The rose of Shakespeare is the sweetbriar or eglantine rose, known botanically as Rosa rubiginosa, a wild rose that smells like apple, especially after the rain. The rose breeder David Austin created a whole new class of roses known as English roses by combining qualities of the modern roses, like repeating-blooming, with the form and fragrance of old roses.

Since we’re a travel magazine, I’d love to ask you about the gardens you so beautifully photographed in your book. For the ones that are open to the public, would you share a bit about their origins and what’s unique about them/worth visiting?

Yes, a few of the gardens in the book are open to the public.

The Giardino di Ninfa, in Lazio, Italy

The Giardino di Ninfa, about 43 miles southeast of Rome, is mythical among garden lovers around the world. It sits on the ruins of a medieval town, which was abandoned in the 14th century due to conflict and malaria. The site was transformed into a romantic garden in the 20th century by the Caetani family. Drawing inspiration from English-style gardens, they planted a range of exotic and native plants among the crumbling ruins. The garden flourished under the care of Lelia Caetani, the last of the noble family, who helped ensure its preservation. If you love flowers and gardens and romance, I highly recommend it.

Rohuna, Morocco

Of all the gardens in the world, Rohuna is closest to my heart. It’s on the opposite end to Ninfa in a way, a much humbler garden with a wild beauty. I first set foot in this extraordinary place, in the countryside an hour outside of Tangier, in May 2015. My friend Deborah Needleman had introduced me to its owner, Umberto Pasti, when I was looking to document people with a passion for flowers. A plant lover with a collector’s mania, Umberto has filled his garden with plants from all corners of the world that can tolerate the raging heat here, as well as his beloved wildflowers of northern Morocco. It’s an incredible setting, overlooking the Atlantic Ocean. But it also has a very particular mission, created to preserve the wild flowering bulbs endemic to Northern Morocco, which were in danger of extinction. Many of the gardeners who now tend the garden are the sons and nephews of gardeners who built the garden thirty years ago. Generations of local children have played, learned, and grown up in the shelter of this oasis. By appointment: Mohammed Errami at mohamederrami22@gmail.com 

Hortus Conclusus, Alcúida, Mallorca, Spain

The Hortus Conclusus at Sa Bassa Blanca Museum is a contemporary interpretation of the traditional medieval enclosed garden, blending Moorish, Mediterranean and monastic influences. Created by artist Ben Jakober and collector Yannick Vu together with the Egyptian architect Hassan Fathy, the garden was designed as a serene, symbolic space, with more than a hundred varieties of ancient and modern roses. It’s always evolving, because of the changing climate. I spoke to them recently, and they’ve had to make changes as it’s gotten a lot drier in Mallorca, and roses need a lot of water. It’s part of the museum here, which is open to the public and contains an unusual collection of portraits of children from the 16^th-19th centuries, African masks and prehistoric fossils, and contemporary works by Louise Bourgeois, and James Turrell. 

Sakura Kusabue-no-oka, Japan

This garden in Sakura, just outside of Tokyo, is renowned for having many different gardens, one of which is dedicated to the history of the rose. Traditionally, roses don’t have a big presence in Japanese gardens. So that’s why this garden is special, because it wasn’t until the 19th century when Japanese traveled to Europe in larger numbers and brought back their appreciation of roses to Japan. In the 20th century, Dr. Seizo Suzuki fell in love with roses and decided to devote his life to the flower. This garden is his legacy. It gathers roses from different parts of the world—there are collections from a French garden, an Italian garden, roses that were bred in India. It celebrates the rose, but also the friendships that are made among people who are passionate about the flower in different places.

Where else can a rose-loving traveler seek out incredible specimens/rose gardens?

Any garden you go to in England, you will see beautiful roses. I was talking earlier about old roses, but when the new roses came, everyone went crazy for them, and they kind of neglected the old ones. But fashion comes and goes. So in the 1950s, Graham Stuart Thomas, who was a nursery man, and people like Vita Sackville-West, were passionate about roses and very keen to keep them alive. Vita Sackville West wrote extensively about old roses, and in her garden at Sissinghurst, in Kent, there are exquisite roses. If you go there in June, there’s a whole garden “room” devoted to them. And Graham Stuart Thomas had an incredible collection of roses, which he donated to the National Trust and are now at Mottisfont in Hampshire. So for rose lovers who want to get a quick education in roses, these are the two places that you can go to and see a huge variety of both old roses and species roses and some of the most beautiful roses, really.

Today, the Europa-Rosarium in Sangerhausen, Germany, holds the title of the largest rose garden, with 8,300 cultivars and species, including nearly all existing varieties of certain classes—polyanthus, hybrid perpetual, Noisette hybrids, and ramblers. In Italy, the Fineschi Garden in Tuscany holds some seven thousand varieties, collected over a lifetime by the surgeon Gianfranco Fineschi.

June is the best time to see the roses in England, France, and Japan. For Morocco, it’s early May, and for Mallorca, it’s late May.

What is your favorite rose and why?

It’s hard to have just one favorite. One I do love, partly because it’s beautiful and it’s been painted by so many people, is a sport, or a mutation, of the apothecary rose. The apothecary rose is this deep pink, almost purplish magenta color, while the sport, called ‘Versicolor’, is white with red stripes. It’s a very striking rose that was painted by all the best botanical painters – Redouté,  Ehret, Mary Lawrance, and many others. But my favorite illustration of it is by Peter Withoos, a Dutch painter.

Then there’s the ‘Charles de Mills,’ which is another Gallica rose that is full of petals and a deep purple, magenta color and very fragrant.

And there’s a China rose I love that is also very consequential. In China, it’s called ‘Yue Yue Fen’ (meaning the monthly rose). This rose was brought to England and Europe, where it’s known as ‘Old Blush’ and was used in the breeding of all the modern repeat-blooming roses today. It’s so beautiful. It looks like the kind of rose that you see painted in Chinoiserie; it’s so iconic, and very delicate, with petals that are a dark pink on the outside and a lighter pink on the inside.

Do you ever press and/or dry roses on your travels? If so, can you share your technique?

I always try to, but I usually forget to bring my press. So I always end up putting flowers and leaves in books. I mean, it’s difficult to press flowers that are too thick, so I always tend to go with the single, five petal roses that are easier to press than the big ones. And then I’ll forget about them, and when I pick up a book and something falls out, it brings back memories. But there’s no trick really; just always have a book!

All these years later, what was your takeaway from the rose in St Exupéry’s Little Prince?

So in the book, the Little Prince has his rose, and it’s very high maintenance, as roses tend to be. He then travels to other places to learn about things and he ends up on Earth, where he develops his friendship with the pilot. While here, he comes upon this whole hedge of roses. He’d thought his rose was so unique, but then he finds it is identical to hundreds of roses. In the end, it is his love for his rose that makes it unique. He says something that has stayed with me all my life: “On ne voit bien qu’avec le coeur.” In other words, one can only see the important things with the heart. So when the Little Prince looks at the sky at night from earth, “all the stars are blossoming,” because the rose he loves lives on a star. And when the pilot looks at the night sky, since the Little Prince will be living and laughing on one of them, “it will be as if all the stars are laughing.” Put another way, we all see things differently because of the love and meaning that we invest in them.

Photos reprinted from © Roses in the Garden by Ngoc Minh Ngo, Rizzoli, New York, 2025

The post Chasing Roses appeared first on Yolo Journal.

New Orleans is a food city, but it’s also a city with its share of touristy food gimmickry if you don’t know where to look. Melissa Martin’s Mosquito Supper Club in the Garden District, which serves up food from her bayou upbringing, is very much the real deal. (Several of our New Orleans Black Book contributors rave about it here.) When, a couple of years ago, we excerpted a few paragraphs and recipes from Melissa’s first cookbook in WM Brown, I was hooked by the stories the James Beard winner conjured of her food roots:

The Cajun food I ate growing up wasn’t loud or flashy—no bam!—and it was not consumed with copious amounts of beer or alcohol. We ate simple, whole foods, and we ate with the seasons. We ate a cuisine rooted in the hard work of fishermen and the palates and grace of mothers and wives commanding their stoves. I opened Mosquito Supper Club restaurant in New Orleans because I wanted people to learn about the real Cajun food I grew up with—developed by descendants of French colonists who were exiled to Louisiana in the 18th century, but also influenced by Native American, African and Spanish cuisines and techniques. I wanted to cook with Louisiana seafood and local produce; I wanted to forage for blackberries when they were in season and process okra when it was abundant and serve them both in ways that feel familiar to me. I wanted to bring the best of the bayou to the table and shine a light on what was happening to the place where I grew up and the people who live there. 

So, when her second book—Bayou: Feasting Through the Seasons of a Cajun Life—came out late last year, I was so happy to discover that she leaned in even deeper to those roots, conjuring a sense of place and community and the rhythms of the fishing village in Terrebonne Parish where she was raised and her parents still live. And, of course, I wondered: how do you visit this region?! Recently I had the chance to chat with Melissa and ask where a traveler might find the honest cooking of her childhood, and how to make a long weekend of eating and exploring across the bayou. We also reprinted her recipe for a Crab Boil in case you want to bring a little bit of the Bayou home. 

You grew up in a bayou community on the South Louisiana Coast. Can you give us some idea of its character and how far back your family goes there?

Chauvin, the town where I grew up in Terrebonne Parish, was settled by fur trappers who came down to the bayou, either from Nova Scotia or directly from France. Chauvin, like New Orleans, is about 300 years old. Cajuns who lived in Acadia throughout the Canadian Eastern Seaboard were expelled by the British Crown, and were sent walking or put on boats and taken away. Some wound up in South Louisiana and began settling and encouraging other folks to join. (This is the story in Longfellow’s famous poem, “Evangeline.”) Meanwhile, other boats were coming directly from France to New Orleans, and those families were sent to live in the countryside. We can trace our roots back to Southwest France and Corsica. My extended family were in the seafood business and also trapped fur. My mom and dad have lived in the same house on the bayou where I grew up for 56 years.

Farther south at the end of the road is Cocodrie, which is still a working fishing village. I was just there last weekend doing a food event, and it remains an Eden of resources. I fall in love with Cocodrie over and over every time I go down the bayou—absolutely the most beautiful sunrises and sunsets I’ve seen in my life. Last weekend, I was sitting on the screen porch watching the sun come up, watching shrimp boats skimming on the bayou, watching people fish and the fish jump out the water, the pelicans and all these birds—it’s just absolutely gorgeous.

And how far is all this from New Orleans?

Leaving the city, you start traveling southwest for almost a full hour, parallel to the Gulf of Mexico, then when you get to Houma, Louisiana, you drop south. To get to Chauvin, you travel south another half hour, and if you keep going further you will be at the end of the road, Cocodrie, and the barrier waters of the Gulf of Mexico. Sometimes you get a little disoriented. You’re always near water, you just can’t see it sometimes because of the trees.

I’m from Bayou Petit Caillou, and there are all these fingers with little communities on each side of the bayou that make up Terrebonne Parish—Montegut, Chauvin, Dulac… it goes on. And then the same thing for Lafourche Parish, which is next to us. Chauvin is a town of about 1,000 people. There used to be more, but we’re losing people all the time, especially after they decommissioned all the public schools after Hurricane Ida. But it’s still a very tightly knit, sustainable fishing village.

Who were your food influences growing up and how have you built on them?

My mom, grandmother, and aunts. But I didn’t necessarily learn to cook from them. I just ate their food. My grandmother lived next door, and I had four aunts that lived next door to us, too. So I developed an appreciation for the flavors and what the building blocks were.

When I started learning how to cook it on my own, I cooked on the phone with everybody, and I knew how it needed to taste. And then I worked for some great chefs around the country, so I was able to hone my restaurant skills and know how to then take something and scale it for restaurant production. At home, everything was one-pot meals. The funny thing is, if you come into Mosquito Supper Club we give you so much food, whereas at home the meal would have been the soup, or the meal would have been the gumbo. On Sunday we’ll have gumbo, potato salad and rice, and that’s our meal. Whereas I give you a whole cornucopia of food on the table.

How would you define the food of The Bayou? What are some of the basic elements of Cajun cuisine that would be helpful for a traveler to understand?

All these small bayou towns are known for their incredible abundance of seafood, which is the basis of most of the food I serve at Mosquito and write about in my books. In my first book, I was very adamant to talk about the seafood that we use in the industry, what it means to be a fisherman, what it means when you don’t buy domestic seafood, what shrimpers get paid, the brass tacks of working in the fishing villages. And how we ate growing up, which was that you ate from the water, as my parents still do. My second book, Bayou, also has a lot of seafood recipes, but I also put in some other things we ate, like rabbits and ducks and chicken and salt pork and sausage. Not a lot of beef—Cajuns raise cattle, but they raise cows for milk, not to eat beef. If it’s shrimp season in the spring or fall, you’re eating a lot of shrimp and crab. When you get to crawfish season in spring, you’re eating a lot of crawfish. And then March is the best time to eat at my restaurant, because you can have fish, finfish, crawfish, crab, shrimp, oysters… the whole cornucopia. But, I mean, my parents have never purchased seafood. They only ever got it from the source, from my cousins, or they go and fish it themselves. But that’s what we still eat, the main ingredients that we cook from.

Who else (besides Mosquito Supper Club, of course!) would you say is doing great food reflective of the region? Where do you send your friends? 

It’s hard to get really good Cajun and Creole food, because the best is in people’s homes, you know? There are no restaurants in Chauvin. You can get a good gumbo from the Link restaurants, though—Herbsaint, Pêche or La Boulangerie. There’s a restaurant in Bayou Grand Caillou called Ceana’s, where you can get a good fried po’ boy.

In Western Louisiana, there are a ton of places for boiled crawfish during crawfish season, like Cajun Claws, Wilson’s and Hawks. If you just want to eat boiled seafood, there are places that are really good. But sometimes at places that have really delicious boiled seafood, if you order a crab cake, it’s not good at all, because they get their crab cakes from Cisco, you know? You really have to know what to order. [see Melissa’s recipe for a Crab Boil below!]

It’s just really hard to come by food that is connected to the culture, because it’s just in people’s houses. That’s why I started the restaurant, to try to take it out the house and bring it to the table and keep it the way we had it growing up. To make traditional Cajun food that is typically served behind doors in home kitchens. 

Can you recommend a couple of great long weekend trips in the Bayou region? Say, tack-on trips from New Orleans that would offer a great taste of local culture.

For an easy getaway from New Orleans, you could drive down to Chauvin and see the sculpture garden and the bayou, stop at Marty J’s for a shrimp po’ boy, have a coffee at Cecile’s in Cocodrie, hire a charter fisherman to take you on a bayou tour—you really have to get out on the water to experience it; they say the bayou is one of the longest main streets in the world—and then rent a camp for a peaceful weekend of watching the sun rise and set. (You can find camps on VRBO or Airbnb.)

In Lafitte, which is around 45 minutes from New Orleans, you can get some boiled seafood at Higgins, where I get my crab, and go on a swamp walk—there’s a heron rookery there and it’s really beautiful. So that’s a good way to see another fishing village, but also get some food directly from people you know. There are other fun things there, like a Cajun Museum and a Jean Lafitte puppet show with all these animatronics puppets—it’s pretty funny.

If you’re up for going a little bit further, In Lafayette you could stay at Maison Madeline and go on a swamp paddle in Lake Martin. It’s peaceful and dreamy. Stop at Wild Child Wines for a great snack homemade bread, cheese, charcuterie and sandwiches, sometimes pizza too, and wander through this part of Western Louisiana. Visit Nancy at the Kitchen Shop, get a fried crawfish po’boy at Bon Creole in New Iberia, stay at Moon Over Bayou Cottage in Franklin. You could also go to Avery Island and take the Tabasco tour. I don’t even use Tabasco, but it’s still fun to go over there, and everything’s so close to each other. There’s lots of good music, good dancing, and good food around there. You really could make a weekend in Lafayette, especially if it’s one of the festivals they have there, like the Black Pot Festival or Festivals Acadians.

Speaking of festivals, in your book, you define the regional food not through seasons but through events/celebrations. What are a few signature events that are fun for visitors to try and catch? 

Yes, in the new book I wanted readers to feel the mood of each season, since it is informed by the food that is available or not available at that time. It seems like there are multiple festivals and events every weekend. You can follow Louisiana Tourism and pick your favorite, whether it’s a boucherie by Las Pache, or a beignet festival in New Orleans. Let your palate be your guide. We have the Rougarou Festival in Terrebonne Parish, in October, which is super fun, and you can try a whole bunch of local foods. My good friend growing up, Jonathan Foret, puts it on, and he’s adamant about the food and the ingredients being correct. They peel their own shrimp, they pick their own crabs, they forage their own blackberries for the festival. It’s kind of modeled after this festival we had growing up called Lagniappe on the Bayou, which doesn’t exist anymore. And if you’re in Houma, which is the town near Chauvin, we have a dance hall where they play Cajun music, and they will have a big pot of jambalaya—you go get yourself a bowl and pay five bucks or whatever. So there are still remnants of how things were.

You Louisianans are all so celebratory!

We are! But I mean, I run a restaurant, so I feel like I throw a party every day.

What are some great food gifts/bring backs from Southern Louisiana?

I always say to bring back filé. It’s sassafras leaves that have been pounded and used to make filé gumbo. At the restaurant, we make filé ice cream—it reminds me of a matcha, with a minty, herbaceous smell. Filé was indigenous, the way American Indians would thicken soups and way before okra or roux. You get roux from your mother sauce in France, you get okra from Africa, and you get filé from the native country. You can get it at Clements In Chauvin; it’s made by an indigenous woman who makes it the old way, and she sells it there.

And then people are always asking for Cajun seasoning, but we make fun of Cajun seasoning, like, what is it? My mom’s food wasn’t spicy. It’s basically salt, black pepper and cayenne, and after that it could include bay leaves, thyme, dehydrated garlic, onions, bell pepper or celery. There’s always Louisiana hot sauce, but you can get that anywhere now.

RECIPE: Crab Boil with Potatoes and Corn

SERVES 8

Boiled crabs create a slow eating experience where the food demands work; no one can fly through the peeling of crabs, which requires patience but is well worth the effort. You’ll want to round out the meal with potatoes, corn, lemon aioli, and bay-scented drawn butter.

10 pounds (4.5 kg) yellow onions, peeled and halved
3 bunches celery (about24 stalks), cut into 4-inch (10 cm) pieces
24 lemons (about 6 pounds/2.7 kg), cut in half
24 bay leaves
½ cup (45 g) cayenne pepper
½ cup (70 g) whole black peppercorns
½ cup (55 g) mustard seeds
½ cup (43 g) coriander seeds
48 live medium-to-large blue crabs
2 cups (280 g) kosher salt, plus more as needed
24 red potatoes
8 to 12 ears corn, shucked and broken in half

(Lemon Aioli and Drawn Butter with Lemon and Bay for serving)

Place a strainer insert in a 10-gallon (38 L) stockpot and fill halfway with water. Add the onions, celery, lemons, bay leaves, cayenne, peppercorns, mustard seeds, and coriander seeds. Bring the water toa boil over high heat, then reduce the heat to low and simmer until the vegetables are soft and the stock has developed a delicious vegetal, lemon-scented, spicy aroma, about 1½ hours.

Raise the heat to medium-high and return the stock to a rolling boil. While it’s heating, rinse off the crabs with cold water from a hose. You can do this in a large strainer; we use what’s called a bushel, which holds a lot of crabs or shrimp at one time.

Add the crabs to the stock and use tongs to immediately press all the crabs under the liquid. Cover the pot and let the stock come back to a rolling boil. Once it does, cook the crabs for 15 minutes.

Turn off the heat, add the salt to the pot, and let the crabs soak for 15to 30 minutes. Taste a crab by peeling one and trying the meat; if you think it needs more seasoning, add more salt and spices. Remove the strainer insert and let the crabs drain, then place them on trays for eating or on a table covered with newspaper.

Replace the strainer in the pot and bring the stock back to a boil. Add the potatoes and boil until they can be pierced with a fork, about10 minutes, then strain and place them on the table. Replace the strainer once again and boil the corn for 5 minutes. Strain and set on the table alongside the crabs. Serve with the aioli, drawn butter, and crackers.

Excerpted from Bayou by Melissa M. Martin (Artisan Books). Copyright © 2024. Photographs by Denny Culbert.

The post The Flavors of the Bayou appeared first on Yolo Journal.

I credit books with seeding my own wanderlust (that, and loving my globe, which in childhood I would spin, close my eyes, and halt with my finger, then look up Zanzibar or the Aleutian Islands in Collier’s Encyclopedia). Madeline made me long for the structured order of Paris, while the Tintin series stoked a craving for fantastical adventures in Tibet or Peru. At 19, after reading The Snow Leopard, I timidly approached Peter Matthiessen at a book signing to ask him a no-doubt pretentious question about Buddhism. But that book inspired me to spend six months of my junior year of college in a monastery in Bodh Gaya, India, then travel by overnight train through Kashmir to bum around Dharamsala and its wildly colorful, butter-lamp scented temples. Reading Midnight’s Children and Freedom at Midnight gave me deeper insight into the setting of my desultory journey—it’s always more thrilling to read books set in the place where you happen to be—but I also plowed through Anna Karenina on a 52-hour train ride from New Delhi to Kerala. That was a whole other intellectual journey: reading a book that is incongruous to the place, yet somehow fits—the staggeringly grand scope of the volume matching the epic length and arduousness of the rail saga.

Whenever I prepare for a big trip, I read something contextual: Patrick Leigh Fermor’s Mani laid the ground for my drive around the southern Peloponnese, while Bruce Chatwin’s In Patagonia was essential background for a rugged journey to the desolate southern end of the country (where I swear I encountered the progeny of some of the rough gauchos and Welsh shepherds that populate his book). Great travel writing colors in landscape, character and chronology so you can slip mindfully into a place rather than blunder into it. It shows you how to roll with uncertainty and embrace serendipity; teaches you how to observe closely and find beauty unexpectedly; reveals truths about history, culture, colonial legacies and political upheavals at an empathetic human scale; pulls the scales off your eyes; and of course hooks you with relatable inner journeys that mirror the extraordinary outer one. We devour tales about places and cultures beyond ours—fiction and nonfiction—to better understand what connects us. “The best travel literature,” author Stanley Stewart writes below, “deals with the universal.”

With that night in Puglia still gnawing at me, I reached out to some of my dinner companions, as well as a few other exceptionally well-traveled, well-read friends, to bring you this list of travel writing that has stuck with them. It’s far from a complete library, of course! We plan to add to it over time with other recommendations, so check back when you’re brewing your next trip. Please add your own suggestions in the comments! And now, over to our readers and raconteurs. —Alex Postman

OUR CONTRIBUTORS

Aatish Taseer is the author of several works of fiction and nonfiction. His collected travel essays, A Return to Self: Excursions in Exile, will be published on July 15, 2025 by Catapult.

Antonio Sersale is the co-owner and general manager of Le Sirenuse, the iconic Amalfi Coast hotel, which his family has owned since 1951. Raised in rural Mexico before moving to Italy at age 12, he is an explorer at heart, traveling recently by icebreaker to the Arctic Circle and trekking through Bhutan. 

Catherine Fairweather launched her career translating papal edicts from Italian into English for Vatican Radio; after working as travel editor at Harper’s Bazaar and Porter, she now writes for The Guardian, FT’s “HTSI,” Airmail and Condé Nast Traveler. She’s the author of La Dolce Vita: Living in Italy and hosts the podcast, “The Third Act: Sparkling Conversations, Vintage Minds.” 

Chris Wallace is a writer and photographer whose biography of the late photographer and conservationist Peter Beard, Twentieth-Century Man, was published last year by Ecco Press.

Christopher Wilmot-Sitwell is the co-owner and director of cazenove+loyd, a luxury travel company specializing in bespoke experiences across Africa, Asia, Latin America, and Australasia. 

David Coggins is the author of The Believer: A Year in the Fly-Fishing Life, as well as The Optimist and Men and Manners, and writes often about travel and style on his popular Substack, The Contender. 

Jamshyd Sethna is an Indian entrepreneur and the founder of Shakti Himalaya, a luxury travel company specializing in immersive experiences in the Indian Himalayas, as well as Banyan Tours, focusing on bespoke journeys across the Indian subcontinent. 

Josh Hickey is an American writer and literary curator who lives between Paris and Hydra, Greece, where he has founded a site-specific literary project, the Hydra Book Club, now entering its fifth year. He also publishes an annual journal of new writing, The Journal of the Hydra Book Club. 

Kaitlin Phillips is a NYC-based publicist who writes the Substack Gift Guide “for people who read books.” 

Lisa Lindblad has been traveling since early childhood, and at 20 journeyed overland from London to Nairobi—the first of countless adventures. She is the founder of NYC-based Lisa Lindblad Travel Design, where it is a practice to share reading lists with clients; her colleagues Barrie Kerper and Hannah Sari also contributed to LLTD’s list. 

Lisa Borgnes Giramonte is an artist and interior designer who travels to uncover the historical past and is always planning her next adventure; her botanical watercolors are available exclusively at Nickey Kehoe. She is also a co-founder of one of our favorite travel Substacks, In Hand.

Maggie Shipstead is the New York Times-bestselling author of three novels and a short story collection. Her novel Great Circle, about a pioneering female aviator and a contemporary actress who portrays her, was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and Women’s Prize. She lives in L.A.

Meghan McEwen is a former magazine editor and also the co-founder of the excellent travel Substack In Hand, which explores the intersecting worlds of design, craft and travel—a celebration of people, places and objects.

Sophy Roberts is a British journalist and author with a passion for uncovering untold stories in overlooked places. Her first book, The Lost Pianos of Siberia, received critical acclaim for its unique blend of travel narrative and historical exploration. Her second, A Training School for Elephants, publishes next month, and retraces a long-forgotten expedition through Africa while delving into the complexities of colonial history and its enduring impacts.

Stanley Stewart is the author of three acclaimed travel books and several hundred articles based on journeys across five continents. His latest, In the Empire of Genghis Khan, about a 1,000-mile horse ride across Mongolia, has been translated into 10 languages.

Tyler Dillon is a travel planner with Trufflepig. Raised in Georgia, Tyler started traveling in high school and immersed himself in various roles across China, Mongolia, Myanmar, Bhutan, Peru and Ireland including guiding, writing, and trip planning. His excellent Substack, The Timbuktu Review, is a trove of meditations on travel, memory, the written word and the human condition. (ICYMI, we interviewed Tyler for our first Substack podcast here!)

Will Bolsover is the founder and CEO of Natural World Safaris, which he established in 2005 to combine his guiding experience and passion for wildlife conservation. Spanning diverse ecosystems, from the savannas of Africa to the icy realms of the Arctic, and his pioneering fieldwork has led him to craft unique experiences, such as Gabon’s first gorilla trekking safaris.

William Gilchrist is a stylist and creative director living between the Lover, Naples, and the Mother, London. Currently researching maritime sourced manufacturing, always researching the joys of life.

What travel book (non-fiction narrative or fiction) has had the greatest impact on you personally, and why?

“As a child, I loved any story where the children flew out of a window, lived in a hotel, solved mysteries with their friends, or travelled to supernatural realms. The Narnia series by C.S. Lewis was nothing less than an obsession. I read and reread each of the 7 books countless times. Like many children, I longed to find my own portal to a parallel world, and I was excited as much by the adventure as by the terrifying danger. It was, however, James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl that began to excite my imagination in a more grown-up way. The brutality of the story, James’ loneliness, and the bonds of friendship strengthened by the very uncertain travel situation inside of a giant peach left me changed. Of course James and his friends land in Central Park, what a relief! I re-read this book well into adulthood. Later, as a student, I read Walt Whitman. The poem, “Song of the Open Road” in Leaves of Grass, remains a personal poetic travel (and life) manifesto. It is a supreme call to leave, to go outside, to adventure, to self realization, to authenticity. Allons! Whoever you are, come travel with me!” —Josh Hickey

“I had been planning a long solo hike in the Swedish Arctic before my mom died in the summer of 2022, and I think without Wild by Cheryl Strayed I would have cancelled it. Instead, I took strength from Cheryl’s example and went and backpacked more than 200 miles by myself, which ended up being a difficult and powerful experience that taught me a lot about what it means to just keep going.” —Maggie Shipstead

“I remember reading V.S. Naipaul’s India: A Wounded Civilization (1976) – the second book from his India trilogy – in the arches of my boarding school library in South India and coming across a scene that remade my idea of what travel writing could be. Naipaul is at a party in Delhi and a woman, who he describes as married to a foreign academic, “swinging from vine to greasy vine in the grove of academe,” starts telling him how the poor of India are beautiful. “They’re more beautiful than anyone in this room,” she says. A pause ensues, then, with an electrifying growl, Naipaul stops her short, “But now she was beginning to lie.” He then proceeds to take the lie apart limb from limb. The poor are not beautiful. They are a race apart from the well-to-do, a dwarf race, stunted and misshapen by generations of malnourishment. Their bright picturesque costumes cannot save them. Naipaul then turns his anger on the woman herself, and the privilege and safety that allows her to speak so superciliously about the grinding horror of Indian poverty. The glorification of poverty was something Mahatma Gandhi himself had instilled in us, and I was deeply shocked to read this demolition of one of our founding fictions. But I fell in love with Naipaul that day, empowered by the brutal clarity of his vision. I thought this is what good writers do—they set you free of lies.” —Aatish Taseer

“The first travel book that I adored, and awoke me to the potential of the genre, was Peter Levi’s The Light Garden of the Angel King, a chronicle of a journey he made in Afghanistan. Levi travelled in the 1970s, a distant time before Afghanistan suffered the invasions both of Islamist fanatics and foreign armies. His travel companion was the then-unknown Bruce Chatwin. Oxford Don, Jesuit priest, poet, eccentric, Levi understood the boundlessness of travel literature. He understood how commodious is the genre. It can range from natural history to art history, from personal memoir to spirit of place, while touching scores of bases in between. I loved the beauty of Levi’s prose, and the lightness of his touch. The book was never just about Afghanistan; it resonated in the way that all good literature does. I have not reread The Light Garden for some time – it made such an impact that perhaps I worry it might need to be revalued, like first love, as the naïve enthusiasm of youth. But I remember it fondly for bringing poetry to the art of writing about place. ❥ My other travel literature passions are catholic. Graham Greene’s Journey Without Maps is one of the great travel books of the 20^th century. A 350 mile journey on foot through Liberia in the 1930’s inevitably becomes a young man’s journey of self-discovery as resonant as any Greene novel. ❥ Norman Lewis’ books are a masterclass in travel literature – unfussy focused prose, always thoughtful and revealing. I wouldn’t have been without A Dragon Apparent when travelling through Myanmar. ❥ VS Naipul’s A Bend in the River, though a novel, can be embraced as a kind of travel literature – the journey into the interior, the sense of dislocation and impending doom I felt myself travelling up the Nile into war-torn Uganda in the 1980s. ❥ It would be wrong not to mention Patrick Leigh Fermor’s wonderful books, and the seriousness of Colin Thubron’s books about Russia and China, in an age when so much travel writing can be a look-at-me exercise.” —Stanley Stewart

“I fell in love with Naipaul that day, empowered by the brutal clarity of his vision. I thought this is what good writers do—they set you free of lies.” —Aatish Taseer

“I met the journalist and author Tiziano Terzani when I was 11 and living in Laos—he wrote a book about his travels around SE Asia (avoiding all air travel), called A Fortune Teller Told Me, that not only brought to life this part of the world in the grip of unshackling itself from the decades of colonialism and conflict; it also determined a personal commitment to a life of travel and writing. Not only did Terzani make a huge impression in his flowing white robes, long hair and bare feet, but he wrote in a way that interwove myth and memoir, fairy tale and fact, which was captivating to an 11 year old. Travel memoirs have remained a favorite genre since.” —Catherine Fairweather

“The Oxford or Times Atlas. From when I was a child, I have been travelling and living ‘abroad’. I have always lost myself in a fine atlas. From randomly opening it to seeking out new places, the Atlas (Oxford or Times editions were my favourites) has been a gateway that offers limitless possibilities and surprises and feeds the imagination. ❥ A Sea Vagabond’s World by Bernard Moitessier. Part technical manual, part diary, Moitessier is a fine example that paradise can only exist sharing a bed with hell; it’s inevitable, so best be prepared and he helps us. My love of sail and the seas began as a child in Mauritius, and he remains a hero to many—the man whose unassailable lead in the first-ever single-handed, nonstop around-the-world race concluded that he’d rather alter course and head to Tahiti. Unlike his journey, this is a book where you can head to a port and drop anchor, then push off again as you prefer. ❥ Arabian Sands by Wilfred Thesiger. Having lived in Oman and the UAE, the desert and desert cultures were a strong presence, and being a visitor was also clear. We are all travellers to amazing places and guests of amazing cultures. Thesiger is a great example of this—we can all learn from where we find/take ourselves and enjoy. ❥ Ring of Fire by Lawrence Blair and Lorne Blair. I had the good fortune to meet Lawrence when I lived in Bali for a stint. This is from the time when travel and adventure were truly a magical mystery tour. A bridge spanning old-school adventure and wonder with the advent of international tourism, these two brothers witnessed cultures and climes that were disappearing. Their enthusiasm, naive approach and sense of wonder are contagious and heartwarming.” —William Gilchrist

“I have travelled in India more than to any other country and love it. My first trip there was in the early 1990s, to Kerala, and I fell in love with it. A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth had just been published in a three-volume edition, which I travelled with and discarded as I went along. That book and A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry, also published in the 1990s, are my two favourite fiction books about India and live with me whenever I visit.” —Christopher Wilmot-Sitwell

“A good travel book, at least to me, is transporting. The author has to capture what makes that place singular and special. Blood Knots by Luke Jennings brings readers to the English countryside. It’s evocative and just romantic enough (but not too romantic). There’s a lot of fishing for the anglers among us, but this book is about so much more than that. History, war, friendship. It’s profound but never heavy. A book I recommend in the strongest possible terms. I’ll buy it from you if you don’t like it.” —David Coggins 

“Power of One or Tandia by Bryce Courtenay – I read them when I was probably 10-12 years old, and the story of a young boy making his way in Africa really sparked my imagination. I could literally smell it and see it all; I found it magical. ❥ Brazzaville Beach or An Ice Cream War by William Boyd – love the humour and wacky ‘catastrophic’ colonial era and what it represented with the changing of the times. And some of it is just very funny! ❥ Mimi and Toutou Go Forth, by Giles Foden—amazing story of how these steamships were transported from South Africa up across the continent into Central Africa and onto the Lake.” —Will Bolsover

“In the 1970s, writer Edward Packard started putting together stories inspired by bedtime tales he was telling his children, but he wanted a sense of agency in the weave, so he had moments in the book where you could make a decision as a reader, you could choose what the story was going to do. This was done by giving the reader a choice of flipping to the next page, or to some other page in the book, thus making each read of the book a different story with a different outcome. They were called “Choose your own Adventure” books and they left a mark deep and wide on me. The first one I picked up was Choose Your Own Adventure: The Secret Treasure of Tibet, and that, too, sent fractures down deep into my psyche that created a need and want to go to the Himalayas, to see and feel them as an adult. The impact upon me was a sense of agency, the idea of choice, freedom to decide, and that is what I have held all these years later, that I can become inspired by place and one day, stand up and start walking towards that place to see it myself. That I can choose my own adventure in this life as well; it was a powerful analogy for my 8-year-old brain that changed the way I think and live.” —Tyler Dillon  

“In my impressionable teens, I devoured Lesley Blanche’s The Wilder Shores of Love (not known for its prose), with its stories of four Victorian women who left Europe for lives of adventure in the Middle East. Another of her books, Journey Into the Mind’s Eye, also captivated me because of a visitor to the child’s bedside, a mysterious gentleman they call The Traveler, who spins tales of faraway places and brings with him exotic gifts. Later on in the book the child, now a grown woman, travels by train through the birch-forested Siberian steppe in search of him, or memories? Mesmerizing. Finally, Tristes Tropiques by Claude Levi Strauss reconciled my twin passions for travel and the ‘other’ through his ruminations on the need to leave home, on religions and civilizations, on nakedness and beauty.” —Lisa Lindblad

“A little-known, partly autobiographical novel by James Michener, The Fires of Spring. A character, Daniel, says to a young boy, “Reading and travel are the two best things besides people. Travel is best, but some books are very great. You should read all the books you can get before you’re twenty. If you don’t need glasses by the time you’re thirty, you can consider your life wasted. Maybe books are best, because you don’t have to have money to read. And there’s this difference, too: A man can travel all over the world and come back the same kind of fool he was when he started. You can’t do that with books.” —Barrie Kerper   

Sven Lindqvist, Exterminate all the Brutes. ❥ Samantha Harvey, Orbital. ❥ W G Sebald, Rings of Saturn. —Sophy Roberts

“I’m in Oman at the moment expressly because of Wilfred Thesiger’s Arabian Sands — a book that has been a huge influence on my life and work. In fact, it is probably fair to say that Thesiger’s book, about his travels in the Empty Quarter from 1945-1950, along with the pictures he took there at the time, are what made me want to do whatever it is I do now. Granted, parts of the book and the language he used have aged a bit, but it is still just incredible.” —Chris Wallace

“The Alexandria Quartet by Lawrence Durrell, set in the second largest city in Egypt, was the first writing to draw me to Egypt (unless you count 12-year-old Cleopatra’s fake diary for children). Any traveler interested in that area should start with Justine, a love triangle that is mostly about three people in love with one place. I was in Cyprus last weekend, as well as the occupied zone to the North, a place Durrell frequented. He wrote a book, Bitter Lemons of Cyprus, about his time there, though I haven’t read it myself. People find his prose purple, but I love him.” —Kaitlin Phillips

Book that sparked a trip to a certain place?

“Down and Out in Paris and London by George Orwell created an overwhelming desire to be young, broke, and live a precarious life in Paris, which I did. ❥ Interzone by William Burroughs made me long to live in Tangier’s ‘International Zone’ of the 1950s, then a lawless zone of spies, money laundering, drugs and sex. I was born too late to take full advantage, but have been many times and remain enthralled by both the ghosts of the Interzone era and the contemporary Moroccan writers and artists living there today. ❥ Annapurna by Maurice Herzog is a classic mountaineering adventure story, which recounts the first team of climbers to summit a peak at over 8,000M altitude. The suspense, the waiting, the immensity of the mountains, the weather, the amputations, the broken bones, the bravery all make this an absolutely terrifying read. After reading it, I went on a Himalayan trek in Northern India, and while I did not summit an 8,000M peak, I did live in fear and oxygen deprivation and loved every second.” —Josh Hickey

“God’s Mountain by Erri de Lucca introduced me to a magical place filled with mystery and magic, Naples. ❥ The Lonely Planet Series – though out of favour, I think it would be remiss of me not to mention the huge impact these books of had on us and the help they gave us to understanding what a wonderful world we live in. —William Gilchrist  

“When, as a twenty-five-year-old, I travelled from Venice to Lahore by land, via Turkey, Syria, Yemen and Iran, my desire to see the places in between India (where I had grown up) and London (where I lived) owed a great deal to Robert Byron’s Road to Oxiana. From later books of Byron’s – An Essay on India and his appraisal of Edwin Lutyens’ building of New Delhi – I came to understand how much buildings meant to him, but, at the time, I just wanted to fill in the gap between where I began, and where I decided to live, in the hope of reducing the absurdity of balancing different societies in my head.” —Aatish Taseer

“Nicholas and Alexandra, Robert K. Massie’s 1967 nonfiction book about the last Russian tsar and his family sparked a mini-obsession with Russian history when I was a teenager. When the bones of Nicholas II’s family were going to be interred in St. Petersburg after decades spent buried in the woods outside Yekaterinburg, I begged my mom to take me there. This was 1998; I was fifteen. The actual ceremony was underwhelming, but I’m really glad I saw Russia at that particular in-between historical moment.” —Maggie Shipstead

“The novels of Saul Bellow (New York and Chicago) and the amazing stories of John Cheever (New York), which prompted explorations of both these great cities in my late 20’s/early 30’s.” —Jamshyd Sethna

“The Missionaries by Norman Lewis sparked the first of a number of trips to the Brazilian Amazon and has made me very sensitive to the effects of change on indigenous people all over the world, but particularly in Brazil, and most recently during the Bolsonaro years when the destruction of the Amazon rainforest came starkly into focus again.” —Christopher Wilmot-Sitwell

Philip Marsden’s The Crossing Place to Armenia. ❥ The Snow Leopard by Peter Matthiessen  (Nepal). ❥ Caroline Eden’s Black Sea to Istanbul.  —Catherine Fairweather

“It’d be tough to overstate Agatha Christie’s lasting impact on the way we think about travel. Obviously, cruising up the Nile and riding on the Orient Express—two of the most coveted trips I can think of—owe a debt to her. But so too does at least part of my trip to Baghdad in 2023.” —Chris Wallace

“Mathias Enard, Compass. It won the Prix Goncourt. It is a book on orientalism and the fascination it has held in our collective imagination over the years. It is also a nostalgic look at the Middle East, as well as a very beautiful love story. I read it while travelling through the desert of Alula in Saudi Arabia.” —Antonio Sersale

Robert Byron, The Road to Oxiana – Central Asia. ❥ Bruce Chatwin, Songlines – Australia. —Sophy Roberts

“Recently I purchased a book online by Peter Matthiessen on the Kingdom of Mustang in Nepal, a book called East of Lo Monthang. (Mustang being the misunderstood English name for the region, a strange version of Monthang, but the region is called the Kingdom of Lo). This part of the Himalayas was walled off by geography and politics until fairly recently. Matthiessen was one of those characters out there in the ether doing things, an always-conservationist. He and his friend George Plimpton started The Paris Review (while Peter was working for the CIA using the review as a cover, as the story goes). His big splash was a book called The Snow Leopard. I have been a fan for some time, as he wrote often about places I lived and worked. The book arrived in the mail as I was preparing dinner for my family, and I cut open the brown paper package to have a slip of paper fall out with the words: “From the library of American novelist, naturalist, wilderness writer, zen teacher and CIA officer Peter Matthiessen.” I then cracked open the spine of the book and on the first page was a sticker, an Ex Libris or bookplate that read, “from the library of Peter Matthiessen.” At first I thought it was a scam, so I took to the internet and the phone. I found an identical looking sticker on a website for a bookseller named Ken Lopez, somewhere in Massachusetts. There was a contact page with an email address and a phone number, so I emailed and then called. I felt like Dustin Hoffman or Robert Redford in All the President’s Men. “My name is Tyler Dillon, I have a strange question about Peter Matthiessen…..” I told him the story of the book and the sticker, and I asked Ken if he knew anything about this book and collection. It felt less like lightning and more like the flow of a large river in a slow section, the feeling of a large moving force with power gently guiding you along; on the path of wonder and awe. Ken began to tell me about how, when Peter passed away, he was in charge of his collection and library, about how there were hundreds of boxes full of books, how 65 boxes of those books were given away to donation programs, about how he knew Peter and worked with Peter on cataloging and selling his letters, working with donating Peter’s collection of Native American history to the Navajo community Library of New Mexico. And how Ken printed and designed a little sticker with red lines around the words to be used as the Ex Libris in the entire collection, to make note of it in case anyone out there was sparked by the same bolt, with the words, “from the Library of Peter Matthiessen” written on it in black print. I like to tell people I am not superstitious, but of course I am. Something like this, the serendipity of it all, chimed and I needed to go to the Kingdom of Mustang, I needed to go to Nepal. It wasn’t just the coincidence, the photos and the stories Peter has in the book, the descriptions of the villages and valleys and the people. At the same time a new hotel had been built in this region, one that was getting a lot of press and spurring others to want to travel there. Working in travel allows for the lightning to strike in moments like this, and within the year, was in Mustang, in the pages of that book.” —Tyler Dillon

“In Patagonia is, for me, the first modern travel book. It’s spare and beautiful and I think made many people want to go to Patagonia, including me. When you read it you want to go all the way down.” —David Coggins

“The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II, by Fernand Braudel.  In this singular book I was introduced to transhumance, the twice-yearly migration of shepherds and flocks from the highlands to the lowlands, one of the most distinctive characteristics of the Mediterranean world.”  —Barrie Kerper

Which book opened your eyes to see a place or culture in a completely new way?

“Ryszard Kapuściński’s very unique blend of journalistic and emotional writing surpasses reportage. He draws the reader so deeply into time and place, offering a perspective we would have perhaps never imagined of Poland in Nobody Leaves: Impressions of Poland, Iran in The Shah of Shahs, or Ethiopia in The Emperor. Segu by Maryse Condé is a glorious and tragic story of multiple generations of the Bambara royal family of Ségou in Mali. It is a stunning epic, which also gives insight into the society of Ségou as is succumbed to the waves of change including the trauma of the slave trade—all from an African perspective.” —Josh Hickey

“City of Djinns by William Dalrymple. I visited Delhi regularly during University and remained quite unimpressed till I read this book in the late ‘90s and Delhi was never again the same for me.” —Jamshyd Sethna

“I found Ramos Gavillan’s 16^th century account of how the figure of the Virgin Mary came to acquire an indigenous form at the hands of Francisco Tito Yupanqui a total revelation. Some of those Spanish chroniclers of the new world could be racists and bigots, but many, such as Bernabé Cobo, were serious travelers, full of the wonder of that encounter. Gavillan was serious, too, and wrote with great compassion the story of how Yupanqui, facing tremendous adversity from a Spanish clergy who instinctively felt that the Virgin ought to be a white European woman, overcame all odds, and enshrined his brown virgin at the Sanctuary of Copacabana in Bolivia. I love medieval travel writing generally. The Uzbek polymath Al-Beruni’s 11^th century account of India is one of the greatest travel books ever written. I also love all those friars, like William of Rubruck setting off in the 13^th century to the court of the Great Khan Möngke. But antiquity does not afford infallibility. Ibn Battuta, for instance, was a hustler and a fraud, and it shows several centuries later.” —Aatish Taseer

“Erica Allen-Kim wrote a book called Building Little Saigon about Vietnamese communities, architecture, and urban planning in North America. Diaspora, a word which is rooted in across and scattered, is something in the business of travel that I think is overlooked. This book shines a light on the theater of place mixed with the reality of place, that there is just as much Nepal in NYC as there is in the Solukhumbu valley, that you can eat ‘authentic’ Sicilian food in Toledo, or Northern Chinese cuisine in London, that there are pockets of the lived in places of our cities that can transport one to different worlds in an instant. Reading this book helped me realise I can go to Vietnam for the afternoon in Toronto and it is not bounded by borders or maps.” —Tyler Dillon 

“Wild by Jay Griffiths was an eye opener, especially regarding the continuing negative impact of missionaries on indigenous peoples and culture.” —Catherine Fairweather

“I was leading a trip to Myanmar in 2016 and read a review of a new book called Dadland by Keggie Carew. A very small part of it was her father’s wartime memories in Burma, but it turned out to be more about a parent-child relationship when the parent has dementia, which my father had at the time. It really resonated.” —Christopher Wilmot-Sitwell

“When I read In Praise of Shadows by Junchiro Tanizaki, I felt a familiarity with aspects of the Japanese culture that was completely surprising to me…as if it were a part of me and I of it. — Lisa Lindblad

“The ones that stick with me are the ones around the Rwanda genocide. This was such a horrific time in human history and a real ‘holding the mirror’ up moment that we failed to live up to. Multiple books based around this including: We Wish to Inform You that Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families by Philip Gourevitch, Shake Hands With the Devil by Romeo Dallaire,  A Sunday at the Pool in Kigali by Gil Courtemanche.” —Will Bolsover

Taran Khan, Shadow City —Sophy Roberts

“One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. I think fiction is as informative, if not more, to get a glimpse into a place or culture and this classic is one of my absolute favourites. Obviously not a specific place, but it opened me to Latin America and I have been seeking aspects of Macondo ever since (fortunately one that will always elude me). ❥ The Shadow of the Sun by Ryszard Kapuscinski – I was lucky enough to spend some of my formative years in Africa; being European, I think his passion and respect for Africa is the perfect introduction to the continent that gave, gives and is looted by so many. —William Gilchrist

What book(s) do you always recommend when someone is visiting X country/city/place?/What books best capture the essence of a place or time?  

**There are many books mentioned elsewhere in this list that could be included below—just search a country!

AFRICA

North Africa

“Amitav Ghosh’s In An Antique Land, a truly humane sojourn in Egypt, is a thrilling example of breaking the tyranny of the Western gaze.” —Aatish Taseer

“Lawrence Durrell’s Alexandria Quartet filled me with a longing for Egypt.” —Jamshyd Sethna

“I have recently been re-reading Lady Duff Gordon’s Letters from Egypt, which are a delight – lively, enthusiastic, chatty, with perceptive impressions of the Nile Valley in the mid-19^th century. They make a telling contrast to Flaubert’s letters, who travelled in the same period and whose letters are assembled in Flaubert in Egypt – less pompous colonial officials, more prostitutes with Flaubert. Always an exponent of economy in writing, his romantic but understated descriptions are wonderful – ‘the [Egyptian] sky full of bluish pigeon-breast tints.’” —Stanley Stewart 

“The richly textured Naguib Mafouz Cairo trilogy: Palace Walk, Palace of Desire, and Sugar Street, all of which are centered on the lives of a family between the two world wars. ❥  Out of Egypt: A Memoir by André Aciman (Alexandria). Aciman’s bittersweet story of growing up in Egypt and then having to leave it is very evocative of time and place. ❥ And The Alexandria Quartet by Lawrence Durrell . —LLTD

“Edith Wharton’s In Morocco is an unexpected jewel of a book.” —Aatish Taseer

“The Sheltering Sky and Collected Short Stories by Paul Bowles. I just had to visit Morocco after reading him.” —Jamshyd Sethna

“The Sheltering Sky perfectly captures the post WW2 sense of alienation and romance in a strange landscape, but I love Paul Bowles’ second novel, Let It Come Down, equally. Set among the “Tangerinas” (the glamorous Tangier elite), it’s Less Than Zero meets “Casablanca” —more parties, more decadence, and more corruption than The Sheltering Sky, and his spare stylized prose always packs a wallop.” —Lisa Borgnes Giramonte

“The Spider’s House by Paul Bowles (Fez). A powerful novel that conveys the essence of Morocco and Moroccans.”—LLTD

“Lords of the Atlas: The Rise and Fall of the House of Glaoua, 1893-1956, by Gavin Maxwell. An extraordinary story about the brothers Madani and T’hami El Glaoui, chiefs of an insignificant mountain tribe who deposed two Sultans, became the true rulers of Morocco, shook the whole French political structure, and with their downfall added an uncomfortable word to the French language: glaouise means, in French political jargon, “betrayed.” ❥ The Sheltering Sky by Paul Bowles. ❥ Spirits of Tangier by Tessa Codrington. A wonderful array of portraits of Tangier’s vast and varied cast of characters.” —LLTD

East Africa

“Our Turn to Eat, Michaela Wrong – Kenya.” —Catherine Fairweather

I Dreamed of Africa, Karen Blixen —Lisa Borgnes Giramonte

“Three books written about the British colonial period: Out of Africa by Isak Dinesen, The Flame Trees of Thika: Memories of an African Childhood by Elspeth Huxley, and West With the Night by Beryl Markham. Green Hills of Africa by Ernest Hemingway. One of Hemingway’s few non-fiction books, a reflective account about a hunting expedition in East Africa that he went on with his second wife, Pauline. The Tree Where Man Was Born by Peter Matthiessen.  An account of his journey through East Africa over the course of a number of years in the 1960s.” —LLTD

South Africa

“A wonderful and very hard look on South Africa can be had by J.M. Coetzee in Disgrace. A masterpiece that should be read by all.” —Antonio Sersale

West Africa

“Equator by Michael Sousa Tavares, a novel about the period of Portuguese and British colonialism in the tiny west African islands of São Tomé and Príncipe.” —Catherine Fairweather

“The Fearful Void, Geoffrey Moorhouse. Not a month goes by where this book doesn’t pop into my head. Moorhouse’s quest to be the first person to cross the African Sahara from west to east, by himself and by camel, is an unputdownable read. He was totally afraid to go, which is why he went: “He realized he had been a man who had lived with fear all of his life and he believed it was the most corrosive element attacking the goodness of the human spirit.” Moorhouse bares his soul to the reader, warts and all, and his countless mishaps and emotional struggles are what make his story so relatable and endearing, and why it was hailed an instant classic upon publication. If you’ve ever struggled with fear (up goes my hand), keep this book nearby for a shot of courage anytime you need it.” —Lisa Borgnes Giramonte

THE AMERICAS

North America

“Steinbeck’s Travels with Charley – the classic USA road trip in the early ‘60s.” –Catherine Fairweather

“I love Kaui Hart Hemming’s novel The Descendants both as a delightful piece of writing and also as a bridge between the fantasy and reality of life in modern Hawaii.” —Maggie Shipstead

“When I Was Puerto Rican by Esmeralda Santiago. An engaging, sad, occasionally humorous and finally uplifting memoir of growing up in both a rural area of the island and in San Juan (and eventually New York City).” —LLTD

“I love Rebecca West’s Survivors in Mexico, an unfinished book by a genius writer, with sentences such as, ‘Here these walls are painted colors that are special to Mexico, touching variants of periwinkle blue, a faded acid pink, the terra-cotta one has seen on Greek vases, a tear-stained elegiac green.’ While we’re on the subject, I should say I love Sybille Bedford’s A Visit to Don Otavio and Aldous Huxley’s Beyond the Mexique Bay. DH Lawrence’s essays on Mexico are terrific, too. Come to think of it, it’s a fantastic genre—the English on Mexico. Malcolm Lowry’s Under the Volcano, though a novel, is also a masterpiece in that line. Also Frances Calderon de la Barca’s delicious Life in Mexico. She was the Scottish-born wife of the first Spanish minister to Mexico in the nineteenth century.” —Aatish Taseer

“A Visit to Don Otavio by Sybille Bedford, for a thrilling journey across Mexico in the ‘60s. Think overflowing buses that get robbed by bandits and a remote hacienda at Lake Chapala.” —Meghan McEwan

“A Visit to Don Otavio, Sybille Bedford (Mexico) Dense and exotic, this eclectic travelogue of Sybille’s expedition to Mexico with her girlfriend Esther Murphy reads like a mashup of MFK Fisher meets Martha Gellhorn.”—Lisa Borgnes Giramonte

“Mexico: Places and Pleasures, by Kate Simon. A wise and excellent guide by an incomparable observer and writer. Great Masters of Mexican Folk Art: From the Collection of Fomento Cultural Banamex, by Fernandez de Calderon, Candida and Alberto Sarmiento.” —LLTD

South America

“In Patagonia by Bruce Chatwin – I’ve never been to Patagonia, but the characters Chatwin encounters on his travels there are so rich, vivid, personal and quirky it can only be accurate.” —Josh Hickey

“WH Hudson’s Far Away and Long Ago is about Argentine estancia life in the 1800s, but is so gentle and slow in its child’s eye observations of nature.” —Christopher Wilmot-Sitwell

“Far Away and Long Ago by William Hudson about growing up in the Argentine Pampas at the end of the 19th century.” —Catherine Fairweather

“Dervla Murphy’s Eight Feet in the Andes, a wonderful account of travelling by mule through the altiplano [Peru] with her nine-year-old-daughter.” —Aatish Taseer

ANTARCTICA

“Sara Wheeler’s memoir Terra Incognita is a great read for anyone going to Antarctica.” —Maggie Shipstead

“The Worst Journey in the World, Cherry Apsley-Garrard (1922) – Apsley-Garrard was the youngest and one of the only surviving members of Scott’s doomed expedition to the South Pole and his memoir of their hardships in this frigid Antarctic hell makes for a gripping read. What elevates the book to a classic, however, is the record Garrard gives of his team’s spirit and grace in the face of heartbreaking odds. It’s a stirring testament to the tenacity, endurance and—yes—humor that lies at the core of the British character.” —Lisa Borgnes Giramonte

ASIA

South/Southeast Asia 

Afghanistan

A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush, Eric Newby (Afghanistan) Simultaneously gripping and laugh-out-loud funny, a London fashion buyer neads to Afghanistan with his friend to conquer the notoriously dangerous and unsummited peak of Mir Samir, and faces peril and unrelenting hardships on his journey.—Lisa Borgnes Giramonte

Bhutan

Read Borges in Bhutan, it just fits. —Tyler Dillon  

India

Midnight’s Children, Salman Rushdie. Nine Lives, William Dalrymple. India, A Million Mutinies Now, V.S. Naipaul. A Fine Balance, Rohinton Mistry. Amitav Ghosh’s The Shadow Lines. —Jamshyd Sethna

“Octavio Paz’s In Light of India is a small miracle of a book, a Mexican Nobel laureate, poet and diplomat, searching for the ‘inner controversy’ of a country not entirely dissimilar from his.” —Aatish Taseer

“William Dalrymple’s City of Djinns is a ‘must’ for any visitor to Delhi. I far prefer his early books to his big historic tomes.” —Christopher Wilmot-Sitwell

“I always love reading William Dalrymple while travelling through India, which he describes to perfection through a number of wonderful books such as White Mughal, The Last Mughal, City of Djinns. I would also suggest reading A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry.” —Antonio Sersale

“Patrick French’s Younghusband is a fabulous first book about the last great Imperial Adventurer.” —Christopher Wilmot-Sitwell

“A Princess Remembers by Devi Gayatri – Rajasthan, a world that passed away. ❥ The Raj Quartet by Paul Scott – The last years of the British Raj. ❥ Freedom at Midnight by Collins and Lapierre about Partition in India.” —LLTD

Indonesia

“Jon Swain’s The River of Time reads like a confessional of the author’s time here in Indochina in the tumultuous and bloody period of the mid ‘70s.” —Catherine Fairweather

“The Feather Thief by Kirk W Johnson – I read it while in Indonesia as it has its roots there, with Alfred Wallace and the Victorian obsession with exotic bird plumage, but it is really a 21^st Century crime novel.” —Christopher Wilmot-Sitwell

Laos

“Souvankham Thammavongsa’s book of poetry called Light and her book How to Pronounce Knife. She grew up in Toronto, but her family were Laos refugees. In reading her work, you can pick up things a history book on Laos forgets to mention.” —Tyler Dillon

Nepal/Himalayas

“Mustang Bhot in Fragments by Manjushree Thapa. I love this collection of essays from the early ‘90s.” —Tyler Dillon 

“Among Flowers: A Walk in the Himalayas, by Jamaica Kincaid. This book is a gem written by the wonderfully talented wordsmith, Jamaica Kincaid. The Himalayas fall prey to many of those books of privilege, some conquering of some mountain range, trials and tribulations, and while this book has trials and tribulations, they aren’t the usual sort we find in most travel literature about Nepal. This is through the lens of a reluctant hiker who really is just a gardener who desperately wants to add to her collection. A flower lover who is led to hike through the mountains not in search of her soul, or meaning, or spiritual lifting (she is neither eating, praying, nor loving), but instead so she can have a wonderful garden back home. I like how some obsessions lead us to certain places. It’s why I like surfing and biking, not because I am good at these activities (I am a horrible surfer), but because it provides an excuse for me to seek out places I never would have without this tool. Kincaid speaks to this, and it is magical.” —Tyler Dillon 

“The Snow Leopard by Peter Mathiessen. An account of his journey onto the Tibetan Plateau with George Schaller in search of the snow leopard but, as with all journeys, this is an internal one as well.” —LLTD

Sri Lanka 

Michael Ondaatje’s Running in the Family —Tyler Dillon

Vietnam

The Lover by Marguerite Duras – LLTD

East Asia

“A Fortune Teller Told Me: Earthbound Travels in the Far East, by Tiziano Terzani. Full of magic.” —LLTD

Japan

“If you travel to Japan, I would suggest reading Murakami’s Norwegian Wood, which gives you a fantastic insight into the youth and the terrible problems of isolation in their society.” —Antonio Sersale

“I was recently in Japan and have found a yet deeper appreciation for Donald Ritchie’s Inland Sea, as well as his smaller essays and tractates.” —Aatish Taseer 

“In Praise of Shadows by Junchiro Tanizaki. Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden.” —LLTD

Mongolia

“Jack Weatherford’s Genghis Khan and the Quest for God. Jack works on a theory I like, a theory that religious freedoms in North America were inspired by Mongolian histories. A fun read that gives a wonderful slice of history in a fun way.” —Tyler Dillon 

Central Asia 

“This is for anyone out there keen on modern or ancient Silk Road histories: Peter Hopkirk’s Foreign Devils on the Silk Road: The Search for the Lost Cities and Treasures of Central Asia.” —Tyler Dillon

Northern Asia

​​Siberia

Sylvain Tesson, Consolations of the Forest, Siberia —Sophy Roberts

Colin Thubron, In Siberia —Sophy Roberts

Western Asia

Turkey

“Strolling Through Istanbul by Hilary Sumner-Boyd and John Freely. A veritable bible of the city. Istanbul: An Inspired Companion Guide (in The Collected Traveler series) by Barrie Kerper.  Wonderful, in-depth articles about all aspects of Istanbul and Turkey paired with an A to Z Miscellany, poems, and interviews with noteworthy experts. Portrait of a Turkish Family by Irfan Orga. Memorable story that portrays daily life of regular Istanbul residents during the time Turkey became a republic. The Towers of Trebizond by Rose Macaulay. Witty and delightful novel with eccentric characters and a terrific opening line: “‘Take my camel, dear,’ said my aunt Dot, as she climbed down from this animal on her return from High Mass.” My Name is Red and Snow by Orhan Pamuk, both engrossing novels that also tackle serious questions of secularism and religious fanaticism. Turkish Delights by Philippa Scott. Small illustrated hardcover with informative and interesting text highlighting the most beautiful arts and traditions of Turkey.  Like Water on Stone by Dana Walrath. A fictional tale of the Armenian genocide beautifully and heartbreakingly told in verse.” —LLTD

EUROPE

Austria

“The Post Office Girl, Stefan Zweig. If you’re new to Stefan Zweig, this is a very good  place to start. The story of a penniless village girl who receives a Cinderella invitation from her aunt to stay at a luxury Alpine spa, it starts off stylishly and spirals disturbingly downward, a Zweig literary hallmark. But oh! the textiles! From fur-lined cloaks to embroidered bedspreads and felted alpenwear, you’ll completely forget that outside it’s 90 in the shade. Interesting tidbit: Wes Anderson based  The Grand Budapest  Hotel  partly on Zweig’s description of the hotel in The Post Office Girl.” —Lisa Borgnes Giramonte

France

“A Moveable Feast by Hemingway—the artistic, romantic spirit of Paris of the Lost Generation in the 20s.” —Catherine Fairweather

“Two Towns in Provence and As They Were by MFK Fisher, who writes as evocatively about place (Provence in the ‘70s) as she does about food.” —Meghan McEwan

“Seven Ages of Paris by Alistair Horne. A magnificent book (only the hardcover edition has inserts of photos and artwork). ❥ Paris by John Russell. A rare coffee table book with outstanding text (by a former art critic of The New York Times) and hundreds of splendid illustrations. ❥ Olympia: Paris in the Age of Manet by Otto Friedrich. Using Manet’s succès de scandale, ‘Olympia,’ as the centerpiece of the book, Friedrich puts Paris of the late 1800s in the spotlight. ❥ In the South of France by Don Krohn (Provence and Languedoc-Roussillon). Small hardcover with sensitive and informative text paired with color photos of uncommon images. ❥ Corsica: Portrait of a Granite Island by Dorothy Carrington. Definitive, exhaustively researched book on an island that still has an authentic insular culture.” —LLTD

“Keeping it in the family… my dad’s great book, Paris in Winter—a loving illustrated memoir of trips to the City of Light.” —David Coggins

A Compass Error and Jigsaw, both by Sybille Bedford (South of France) —Lisa Borgnes Giramonte

Greece

“The Greek Islands by Lawrence Durrell – One of the most majestic texts describing the Greek Islands. Mani and Roumeli by Patrick Leigh Fermor – The most majestic texts describing continental Greece. The Sleepwalker by Margarita Karapanou – No other writer has so accurately captured the dark beauty and tension of Hydra Island.” —Josh Hickey

“My Family and Other Animals – first in The Corfu Trilogy by Gerald Durrell.” —Catherine Fairweather

“Laurence Durrell’s Corfu Trilogy (especially My Family and Other Animals) about Corfu in the ‘30s, through the delightful prism of his eccentric family experience.” —Meghan McEwan

“Anyone heading to the South Peloponnese needs to read Patrick Leigh Fermor’s Mani, in which he traverses the harsh (then inhospitable) landscape of the Mani Peninsula by foot, offering an ethnographic (but still intimate) deep-dive into the culture and people along the way. His travels took place before the region opened up to tourism of any kind (sealed off by lack of infrastructure), but because the landscape looks just as rugged and natural today, it’s not a stretch to imagine his adventures unfolding in front of you in real-time.” —Meghan McEwan

“My Family and Other Animals by Gerald Durrell (Corfu). Charming memoir, ‘soaked in the sunshine of Corfu,’ of the Durrell family’s five-year sojourn on the island. ❥ Ill Met by Moonlight by W. Stanley Moss (Crete). Dramatic story of the kidnapping of Nazi General Karl Kreipe, by Moss and Patrick Leigh Fermor, in 1944. ❥ Bitter Lemons by Lawrence Durrell (Cyprus). The most balanced and must-read book on the partition of the island. ❥ Eleni: A Savage War, A Mother’s Love, and a Son’s Revenge by Nicholas Gage (northwestern Greece). Many visitors to Greece are unaware of the savage civil war that erupted in the country after World War II. This is the unforgettable, gut-wrenching story of that war in the far northern corner of Greece near the Albanian border and the arrest, torture, and execution of Gage’s mother. ❥ Corelli’s Mandolin by Louis de Bernières (Kefalonia). Lyrical and humorous novel that captures the island’s quirky inhabitants at an innocent time (1940) and how their lives were permanently altered afterwards. ❥ The Greek Islands by Lawrence Durrell (includes Aegean and Ionian islands). Indispensable for travel to any Greek island.” —LLTD

Italy

Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino (Venice). ❥ A Room with a View by E.M. Forster (Florence). ❥ In Sicily by Norman Lewis.” —Jamshyd Sethna

“Naples 44 by Norman Lewis.” —Catherine Fairweather

“Jan Morris’ Venice and Mary McCarthy’s Venice Observed are an incredible combination. But also how great is fiction for a sense of place? Half the joy of spy novels is imagining that we can travel with the same facility of their protagonists. I’ll chase down whatever detective novels are set where I am planning to travel, too. Because I think a big part of the fun of traveling is planning for it—outfitting and things. But also building the little narrative into which you wanna go, the mood, the tone.” —Chris Wallace

Jan Morris, Venice —Sophy Roberts

“Memoirs of Hadrian by Marguerite Yourcenar. Worth reading and rereading. ❥ Room With a View by E. M. Forster (Florence). Witty and wonderful novel with such great and memorable characters. ❥ The Stones of Florence by Mary McCarthy (Florence). Avoid the small paperback edition and track down the larger book with superb photos by Evelyn Hofer. ❥ The Tuscan Year: Life and Food in an Italian Valley by Elizabeth Romer. Before Under the Tuscan Sun, there was this beautifully written and more authentic memoir, with recipes. ❥ War in Val D’Orcia by Iris Origo (Tuscany). A moving memoir of life on the estate of La Foce (near Pienza) during World War II. ❥ Love and War in the Apennines by Eric Newby. A memoir highlighting the truly extraordinary generosity of the contadini who helped Newby (a World War II British POW) survive. ❥ The Italians: A Full-Length Portrait Featuring Their Manners and Morals by Luigi Barzini. Still the best overall book. ❥ Venice for Pleasure by J. G. Links. Hands down the best guidebook-that’s-not-a-guidebook, with five walking itineraries filled with the most fascinating details. ❥ Venice & the East by Deborah Howard. An immensely interesting and rewarding read on the effect of Islam on Venice, with loads of color and black-and-white photos and reproductions. ❥ Naples Declared: A Walk Around the Bay by Benjamin Taylor. A thoughtful excursion through a complex and contradictory city. ❥ In Sicily by Norman Lewis. A personal history of this island that Lewis was fascinated with for sixty years. ❥ On Persephone’s Island: A Sicilian Journal by Mary Taylor Simeti. A chronicle of a calendar year on the island, organized by season, that really speaks to spirit of place. ❥ The Leopard by Giuseppe di Lampedusa (Sicily). The essential read, though get the 2007 edition published on the occasion of the novel’s 50th anniversary. ❥ Greene on Capri by Shirley Hazzard. ❥ The Story of San Michele by Axel Munthe. And the house is still worth visiting.” —LLTD

Poland

“Warsaw Tales is a newly published collection of short stories by prominent Polish writers (including Nobel Laureate Olga Tokarczuk) from 1911 to the present, translated by Antionia Lloyd-Jones. The stories present a highly personal and emotional portrait of the complexly endearing city of Warsaw.” —Josh Hickey

Portugal

“The First Global Village: How Portugal Changed the World by Martin Page. Utterly fascinating and eye-opening look at how a nation about half the size of Florida has been so influential. ❥

“My Lisbon: A Cookbook From Portugal’s City of Light by Nuno Mendes. Yes, a cookbook by a Michelin-starred chef but with really substantive essays on cafe culture, tascas, beach life, etc. and lots of personal recommendations. ❥ The Last Old Place: A Search Through Portugal by Datus Proper. Beautifully written memoir/travelogue in which each chapter opens with a canto from The Lusiads by Luís Camões.” —LLTD

Romania

“William Blacker’s Along the Enchanted Way is a lovely and very personal view of Transylvania and the beginning of the end of a farming culture in Eastern Europe. Not a c+l destination, but a place that I visited during the wildflower season and one that I will go back to in a heartbeat.” —Christopher Wilmot-Sitwell

Spain

“As I Walked out One Midsummer Morning by Laurie Lee Spain – post Second World War.” —Catherine Fairweather

“Iberia: Spanish Travels and Reflections by James Michener. Though published almost 60 years ago, this is still the quintessential book on Spain. ❥ For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway (mountains outside of Madrid). Maybe Hemingway’s best novel, which takes place during the Spanish Civil War. ❥ Madrid for Pleasure: Seven Walks Through the City’s History and Andalucía, both by Michael Jacobs, both without peer. ❥ Barcelona by Robert Hughes. Brilliant and unmatched.” —LLTD

“The White Goddess, An Encounter, Simon Gough  .. Set in the artistic enclave of Deia, Mallorca, in the 1960s and written by Robert Graves’ very bohemian grand-nephew, it’s a ‘subjective’ memoir with a deeply intoxicating cast of characters.” —Lisa Borgnes Giramonte

Bosnia/Croatia/Herzegovina/Montenegro/Serbia (the former Yugoslavia)

Black Lamb and Grey Falcon by Rebecca West. —LLTD

UNITED KINGDOM

England

“The Anglo Files: A Field Guide to the British by Sarah Lyall. Entertaining yet serious memoir and travel advisory of sorts by an American (who married a British journalist), about all the differences between Brits and Americans. ❥ Brick Lane by Monica Ali. An appealing novel about a Bangladeshi woman who is in an arranged marriage with an older (somewhat dull) older man, moves to London. The book’s title is not random, as the major street in London’s East End is named Brick Lane, where there has been a large Bengali community. ❥ Spitalfields Life by The Gentle Author. A variety of stories about many of the real-life, fascinating people who live in London’s East End. Brilliant.” —LLTD

Roberts Macfarlane, The Old Ways, Dorset —Sophy Roberts

Scotland

“An important memoir about place (addiction and redemption through nature) set in the Orkneys by Amy Liptrot called The Outrun—just out also as a film, starring brilliant Saoirose Ronan… This is the book that makes me want to go to Orkney.” —Catherine Fairweather

Nan Shepherd’s classic, The Living Mountain. —Tyler Dillon

Ireland

“Seamus Heaney’s The Death of a Naturalist. A collection of poetry that is soaked in place.” —Tyler Dillon

MULTIPLE

“Full Tilt: Ireland to India with a Bicycle, Dervla Murphy (Eastern Europe to India) After the death of her home-bound mother whom she spent decades tirelessly caring for, 31 year-old Dervla hopped on a bicycle one wintry Irish afternoon in 1963 and kept going until she reached India six months later.” —Lisa Borgnes Giramonte

And I’d Do It Again, Aimee Crocker—Lisa Borgnes Giramonte

 Any lesser-known/obscure travel books you believe deserve more recognition?

“I feel there are certain more obscure books by famous travel writers that deserve more attention. I don’t love Bruce Chatwin’s In Patagonia or Songlines as much as I love his collected essays, What Am I Doing Here? I feel Huxley is a forgettable novelist, but an unforgettable traveler. Naipaul introduced me to his Jesting Pilate, a 1920s account of travelling in Asia, which has some of the most beautiful writing I have ever read. I love Jan Morris’ histories (such as Manhattan ’45 and the Pax Britannica trilogy), as well as the books on Venice and Trieste, but, as with Chatwin, the true dark horse is Destinations, a collection profiling cities that she did for Rolling Stone in the 1970s.” —Aatish Taseer

“It’s been a while since I read it, but the memoir Maiden Voyage by Tania Aebi really captivated me. Her father gave her the choice between going to college or sailing alone around the world, and she chose the boat. I was also pretty gobsmacked by the recently republished A Woman in the Polar Night by Christiane Ritter, an account of a year she spent in an isolated cabin in Svalbard with her husband and another hunter in the early 1930s. For having such a stark setting (honestly, it’s a miracle they even survive), the book is unexpectedly thrilling, as Christiane thrives under the harshest of circumstances.” —Maggie Shipstead

“An Ottoman Traveller: Selections from the Book of Travels of Evliyâ Çelebi, is the detailed chronicle of Evliyâ Çelebi’s 40-year odyssey through the Ottoman empire and beyond in the mid-late 1600s. Totally captivating, fascinating and at times superbly gory, it is a surprisingly fun read.” —Josh Hickey

Into the Heart of Borneo & In Trouble Again by Redmond O’Hanlon. —Jamshyd Sethna

“Very little known, though championed in its time by Edith Sitwell, EM Forster and Kenneth Clark, is Maiden Voyage by the writer and painter Denton Welch, about a return journey to China where he was born, published in the 1940s. Critic Robert Phillips believed it was a novel, writing of the way Welch selected and ordered details of his journey so that they “lose personal meaning and begin to become universal human materials, elements of works of art”. But Phillips was being pedantic. The best travel literature deals with the universal. That is the point. They are works of art too.” —Stanley Stewart

Anna Badkhan, Bright Unbearable Reality. ❥ Emmanuel Iduma, A Stranger’s Pose. ❥ Jeff Young, Wild Twin. ❥ Nona Fernandez, Voyager.  —Sophy Roberts

“Roger Deakin’s book Waterlog. This is a book inspired by John Cheever’s short story “The Swimmer,” a story about a man who swims home from a summer party through all the back garden pools in the neighborhood, one by one, sneaking through fences, submerging over and over until he reaches home. Deakin wanted to swim wild waterways in England, from one side to the other, and in doing so was discovering new things about both himself and his place. I feel like the same thing that drew Deakin to Cheever’s story, and the thing that drew me to Deakin, was the elemental essential quality of water and the wild, and a changing perspective of what Deakin calls a “frog’s-eye-view” of the world. Being submerged changes perspective, it changes the way animals react to you, and Deakin communicates this so very well it is electric.” —Tyler Dillon 

The Lost Pianos of Siberia by Sophy Roberts.  —Will Bolsover

“An Armenian Sketchbook by Vassily Grossman, of the much better known masterpiece Life & Fate—a charming amble through a strange ‘country’ made more poignant as it coincides with the author’s cancer and sense of  life contracting, and by the fact that his lifetime oeuvre has been rejected by the Soviet censors.” —Catherine Fairweather

“A Woman in the Polar Night by Christine Ritter is an exploration of solitude and freedom and how nature affects the human psyche, in this incredible memoir of a woman who lives off-grid for a year in a hut in the remote Arctic Circle in the ‘30s.”   —Catherine Fairweather

“Eland Books is the most brilliant independent publisher, so I would recommend many from its list of (mainly) dead authors. They publish the likes of Martha Gellhorn and Norman Lewis and Dervla Murphy, but also obscure titles such as Begums, Thugs and White Mughals by Fanny Parkes, which shows the colonial wife in a very colourful light.” —Christopher Wilmot-Sitwell

Vagabonding: An Uncommon Guide to the Art of Long-Term World Travel by Rolf Potts. . —LLTD

Which classic travel book remains relevant or essential today?

“Homer’s Odyssey is the ultimate and eternal travel book and Jack Kerouac’s On the Road is runner up.” —Josh Hickey

Ryzsard Kaupuckinski, Travels with Herodotus.—Sophy Roberts

The Road to Oxiana by Robert Byron —Jamshyd Sethna

“All of them, even the bad ones; they all mark some sort of point of view that is worth noting, either as examples of mistakes or hubris, even bad writing, or as the joy of humans wanting to share with others what they have seen and felt with all their foibles.” —Tyler Dillon 

“Arctic Dreams by Barry Lopez, written more than half a century ago, addresses the issues of climate change and the environment and our disappearing natural world and our place in it, issues that are even more relevant today.” —Catherine Fairweather

“Arctic Dreams by Barry Lopez is the most awe-inspiringly precise and beautiful work of nature writing.” —Maggie Shipstead

“Definitely Rebecca West’s Black Lamb and Grey Falcon. Many people hate that book (including Richard Holbrooke), because of the sympathy it extends to the Serbs, but this is the thing with travel writing: it can be true, without being right. So long as a writer is completely present and able to look at her own subjectivity, I don’t really care where she comes down. What I look for is the integrity of the artist, not the political scientist, and West has so much heart, such crazy ambition, that really I’m willing to go anywhere with her.” —Aatish Taseer

“A Fortune-Teller Told Me, by Tiziano Terzani – This is one book that extols the virtue of the journey—the destination is secondary, and how we travel these days, for very different reasons, needs to change. The journey, by land and sea, celebrates the journey, the geography, the culture, and its shape-shifting as the writer for a year on a fortune-teller’s advice takes air travel off the itinerary.” —William Gilchrist

“Full Tilt: Ireland to India with a Bicycle (1965), by Dervla Murphy, is probably the best in the ‘classic’ genre of travelogues. It was on the syllabus at my all-girls’ boarding school; what sticks in my mind is her travels through Afghanistan as a hardcore solo female traveler… A smart, even pointed, assignment.”  —Kaitlin Phillips

“Probably not a travel book, but the 1948 book, Cry, The Beloved Country was cruelly relevant almost 60 years later when David Rattray, the great historian and champion of the Zulu people, was tragically murdered in South Africa in 2007. Two murders decades apart—one fictional and one actual—where South Africa’s racial tragedy played out in the worst possible way.” —Christopher Wilmot-Sitwell

Long Walk to Freedom – Mandela —Will Bolsover

Two books: A Time of Gifts by Patrick Leigh Fermor and The Journey’s Echo by Freya Stark . —LLTD

Any books that feel very dated or un-PC that are still worth a read? 

“Where the Wild Things Are, by Maurice Sendak. As a child I can’t tell you the adventures I had thanks to this book.” —William Gilchrist

“Often the best exploration and adventure stories conceal a dark reality of exploitation and colonialism. The Journals of Lewis and Clark come to mind.” —Josh Hickey

Martha Gelhorn’s Travels with Myself and Another —Catherine Fairweather

Freya Stark —Sophy Roberts

“The Gentle Art of Tramping. I seem to buy this book over and over and hand it out (this and David Byrne’s How Music Works). It is dated, yes (published in 1926), but it is endlessly entertaining and erudite. The chapters are laid out as an instruction manual to learn how to take things slow, how to appreciate a good pair of walking boots, the art of idleness, why a notebook or scrapbook is a good thing in and of itself, and why the road to Khiva sometimes isn’t as good as the road outside your front door. Graham spent years traveling the world and came home to realize he had learned how to appreciate his own home through travel. It gives you wanderlust for your backyard, which I find compelling, when jumping on a plane might not always be the best option. All the skills a good traveller needs to hone in order to learn how to enjoy the space between.” —Tyler Dillon 

“Again, I feel only fraudulent books have age on them. Alberuni is great, Ibn Battuta bad. Mungo Park and John Speke are still riveting, but William Dalrymple, though far more recent, has aged terribly. Naipaul is about as “politically incorrect” as they come, but there is no age at all on the books. Prejudice is interesting so long as the writer is able to see around it. What we have most to fear is the glib, easy traveler who is so full of his own cultural centrality that the place and people he finds himself among are mere background. I recently re-read Steinbeck’s Travels with Charley, which I had read as a child, and was astonished at how well it holds up. I think Suzy Hansen’s book on Turkey says more about America than Turkey, but its integrity is unquestionable. What I look for are signs of discomfort. A serious traveler lives by his or her nerves. She stews over her material. If that tension of someone thinking hard about themselves, and the people they find themselves amongst, is not there, then I’m out.” —Aatish Taseer

“From Sea to Sea: Letters of Travel by Rudyard Kipling – A 22-year-old Kipling was young, snarky, coming to things from a privileged and colonialist point of view, no matter how much he worked against it, but still something in this collection of letters and essays shines through, humor I think, some sort of punk rock humor of travel. “Then came by the person that I most hate—a Globe-trotter. He, sitting in my chair, discussed India with the unbridled arrogance of five weeks on a Cook’s ticket. He was from England and had dropped his manners in the Suez Canal.”  The letters track Kipling’s slow journey home from India the long way around, via boat across the Pacific and train across the USA, then boat again to get to England. Along the way he meets Mark Twain, and hunts him down to chat. It is a treasure trove of observations and insight. This book is out of print, but you can print it on demand from a few sites, or dig up an old dog-eared copy used, it is well worth the find.” —Tyler Dillon 

“Staying On by Paul Scott is the most lovely sketch of a couple hanging on in India after the Empire was well and truly over. So, wonderfully dated. The 1980 film of the book starred Trevor Howard and Celia Johnson, who had been in ‘A Brief Encounter’ together in 1945.” —Christopher Wilmot-Sitwell

“I’m not sure about the terribly dated, though most obviously politically incorrect – but Far and Away: The Essential A. A. Gill qualifies as a great read. Another one is What Am I Doing Here, by Bruce Chatwin.” —Jamshyd Sethna

“When everyone persists in the same opinion, I turn away from it; the truth is surely elsewhere.” Leo the African by Amin Maalouf is the retelling of the travelogues of Hasan al-Wazzan. From Granada, witnessing regime change, rebellion, renaissance and passion, ending in Rome—an amazing journey witnessing Europe and Northern Africa in splendour and turmoil, truly a tome that tells us to live a little or a lot.” —William Gilchrist

“Something of Value by Robert Ruark (Kenya). This novel is mostly about the Mau Mau rebellion (1952-1960) and some of the dialogue may sound offensive; but Ruark, a journalist, accurately portrayed the times, and he opens the book with a proverb that perfectly illustrates his tale: “If a man does away with his traditional way of living and throws away his good customs, he had better first make certain that he has something of value to replace them.” —Barrie Kerper

“A Bend in the River by V.S. Naipaul, shortlisted for the Booker in 1979, has been criticized for his views on European colonialism in Africa.  To me, it evoked a sense of place that has haunted me since.” —Lisa Lindblad

Are there books not traditionally considered travel narratives that so completely capture a world, you would recommend them for armchair travel? 

“I often prefer literature/memoir over travel narrative, because it gets under my skin in a deeper, different kind of way—especially Italian writers. Beyond Elena Ferrante’s Neopolian novels (I mean, can you even go to Naples without reading My Brilliant Friend, named the best book of the CENTURY by The New York Times?), there are too many world-capturing, soul-expanding books to list. Here’s a start: The House on via Gemito by Domenico Starnone (also Naples); Arturo’s Island (Procida) and Lies and Sorcery (Sicily) by Elsa Morante; Christ Stopped at Eboli by Carlo Levi (Matera); The Eight Mountains by Paolo Cognetti (Milan, Aosta Valley); ANYTHING by Natalia Ginsburg, but her memoir Family Lexicon (Dolomites, Turin) is my favorite. The Penguin Book of Italian Short Stories, edited by Jhumpa Lahiri, sits on my bedside table, so a literary escape—even just a few pages at a time—is never farther than arm’s reach.” —Meghan McEwan

“The poetry of CP Cavafy, a Greek Alexandrine, has always seemed a kind of travel literature, wandering happily across both space and time. “Ithaca,” his most famous poem, is a traveller’s poem, reminding us not to focus too much on destinations. Ithaka gave you the marvelous journey/ Without her you wouldn’t have set out./ She has nothing left to give you now.” —Stanley Stewart

“Nina Simone’s Gum – In July of 1999, Warren Ellis and Nick Cave were working at the Meltdown Festival in London England, an annual event celebrating music and art. Dr. Nina Simone was to perform, and both Ellis and Cave were keen on the show. Ellis had played with Cave since 1993 as the band “The Bad Seeds,” and was also in the successful band “the Dirty Three.” They both watched as Dr Simone walked onto the stage, aggressive with fists tight, looked out to the audience wrapped in expectation, and thrust one hand and fist up into the air and sounded her yawp over the heads of the crowd. The way they describe the transition the room had that evening is like rapture, a transformation. Simone walked to the piano and took out her chewing gum, smashed it onto the side panel of the piano, and launched. And with her launched the crowd into a musical and religious ecstasy. Ellis, so taken with this experience, and a collector of mojo trinkets which I can relate to, knew he had to collect something from this room, some relic, so he crawled onto the stage after the show and stole the gum from the Piano. He stole it, and he cherished it, and held it in a sacred place for 20 years. It was a source of energy for him, he says, and it had some power he did not understand. There is a scene in the Nick Cave film, 20,000 Days on Earth, where Ellis and Cave are talking about this concert and Ellis admits to his friend that he kept Dr. Nina Simone’s gum. This scene spoke to so many, and he and Cave were asked about it so often, Faber and Faber, the publishing house, approached Ellis and asked him to write a book about it. This inspired a museum touring show of artifacts and relics collected by both Cave and Ellis, which included the actual gum under glass on a marble post. The Book, Nina Simone’s Gum, speaks of the same magic as the things I impulsively collect in my travels. It is related to travel, there is something in holding artifacts that is the same motion as collecting experiences when we travel, totems of things learned.” —Tyler Dillon 

“Real World Records – Music, like the sea, unites us all. For me Peter Gabriel’s record label was like an audio atlas to me, amazing journeys await, you just have to listen.” —William Gilchrist

“This is silly, but I always say—to anyone going somewhere to bake in the sun—to take Joan Didion’s A Book of Common Prayer. It’s set in a fictional part of Central America. Expatriates drinking themselves silly, missing the signals, staying when they should be leaving. (I always think of Didion when I think of Hawaii; she really loved the hotels there. So that’s something, I suppose.)”  —Kaitlin Phillips

“There is a technique in writing that can capture human emotions and sense of place far better than any other form, poetry. It has a reputation of being out of touch, or cheesy, or abstract, but I think it is misunderstood, and its power is miscalculated. A poem about a place can put you in that mental state of being, just like a choose your own adventure book can, but it is dealing with the emotive state of place rather than the physical. When I want to know how a place feels prior to going there, or if I want to draw on some deep memory of place, a poem can bring it back in sparks and wisps. Robert Frost can place me on a wintery path at night, Mary Oliver can deliver me to a wetland in spring, Jack Kerouac can instantly land me in a bar in San Fransisco in 1956.” —Tyler Dillon

Best audiobook or podcast you’ve listened to in the travel genre?

“Clare Danes reads the recent, and acclaimed, translation of Homer’s Odyssey by Emily Wilson.” —Josh Hickey

“Volume 2 of Hunter S. Thompson’s letters are a wild and profane ride around America. The audiobook, read by the incomparable Malcolm Hilgarten, is one of the great listening experiences you can have. Just don’t get so caught up in the proceedings that you start having tequila before breakfast.” —David Coggins

“I love Jeremy Basetti’s “Travel Writing a World,” and Charlie Pignal’s wonderful podcast, which covers travel, but much else besides.” —Aatish Taseer

“‘Gone to Timbuktu’ with Sophy Roberts and ‘Passport to Everywhere’ with Melissa Biggs Bradley are two travel-related podcasts by savvy ladies who know what they’re talking about that I have listened to and highly recommend.” —Jamshyd Sethna

“Gone to Timbuktu, the short-lived podcast series by brilliant travel journalist Sophy Roberts. She may have moved on, but I haven’t. Occasionally, I’ll go back and pull one up for inspiration. She’s such a thoughtful, curious and insightful interviewer, and many of her guests are travel writers themselves (including Gail Simmons on the ancient pilgrimages/long-distance footpath from her book Between the Chalk and the Sea).” —Meghan McEwan

Rick Steves —Sophy Roberts

“I’m addicted to the following travel history podcasts: Fall of Civilizations, Gone to Timbuktu, The Historiansplaining. —Lisa Borgnes Giramonte

“I don’t listen to audiobooks and prefer to read hard copies, but the most interesting podcast for me is probably not necessarily a ‘travel podcast’ but more based around life and how to ‘hold oneself’ which is very relevant when travelling, so maybe the Rich Roll Podcast. Or maybe my own podcast, ‘The Naked Eye Studios’! ;)” —Will Bolsover

“To this day, the best travel documents, other than books, are all the TV episodes of Anthony Bourdain. To me, he is the quintessential traveler.” —Lisa Lindblad

EXTRA CREDIT!

I ran with this idea, a list of books to read based on the feel of the book or writer matched with the feel of a place. As opposed to the book lists of things written about a place: things to read based on matching poetry and prose with landscape and feel. —Tyler Dillon

Bhutan – John Mcphee Essays, Tabla Rasa: it moves and shifts with sharp turns in short distances much like the peaks and valleys.    
Mongolia – Faulkner, Go Down, Moses – it is how big sky country feels.   
Uzbekistan – Tennesse Williams Suddenly last summer. The hot madness of it all.
Vietnam – Tom Robbins and Anthony Bourdain.  
Scotland –  Agatha Christie. 
Peru – Rebecca Solnit Wanderlust.  A missive on walking…Peru is perfect for this. 
Berlin – The poetry of Eileen Miles. Punchy and punk rock like the city itself. 
Mexico City:  Slouching towards Bethlehem, by Joan Didion. I can’t put my finger on why but something about the way California is talked about in the 60’s is captured in Mexico City these days. Perhaps it is art and climate.  
Uruguay is for the landscapes of the poetry of Mary Oliver. 
France – All Creatures Great and Small by James Herriot. Rolling hills of Yorkshire match the feel of agrarian French countrysides, there is something connecting the two. 
Greece – Italo Calvino Invisible cities, islands of ideas of place bouncing around in a magically surreal dance.  

The post  Our Giant Travel Reading List appeared first on Yolo Journal.

More than just about any other place, Cortina d’Ampezzo has long embodied a kind of nostalgic European glamour. Think of Slim Aarons’ photographs from the ‘60s and ‘70s of the après ski crowd in chic winter woolens, relaxing in the sun against snowy mountain peaks. (And anyone who grew up on the Pink Panther movies can’t forget the sparkle of the Hotel Cristallo in the original 1963 movie.) How did it get that way and what is the special sauce of that cinematic blend of Tyrolean rusticity and Venetian elegance? Cultural writer Servane Giol’s The Queen of the Dolomites: Living in Cortina d’Ampezzo, answers this, in two chapters: winter and summer. She traces the birth of the Sci Club Cortina in 1903 and the aristocrats who popularized the sport (and the daring English climbers who inspired obsessives); the proliferation after the war of prestigious vacation homes centered around elaborate ceramic stoves; and how the 1956 Olympic Games (with the world’s first ski jump) turned Cortina into a tourist destination, attracting writers and royalty (both Hollywood and actual) drawn by its dolce vita vibes. It’s all told with a mix of beautiful interiors of private homes and huts, alongside vintage photographs and posters. Since Servane has been visiting Cortina for decades, we wanted to get her favorite addresses in the village that Hemingway called “the loveliest country I’ve ever known”—and which will once again be hosting the Winter Olympics, in 2026.    —A.P.

How did you come to know Cortina so well and what do you love most about it?

When I married my Venetian husband, I had no clue that actually just an hour and a half from the Venice airport stands the ski station of Cortina d’Ampezzo. This is where Venetians (and more generally Italians) spend all of their ski weekends and holidays in summer and winter. I fell immediately under the spell of the region’s incredible natural surroundings and elements. I think the Dolomite Mountains offer the most breathtaking views; some compare it to an oyster shell. As the pearl in its valley, the adorable village of Cortina mixes the best of both worlds: the Italian one, with great food and happiness/that dolce vita lifestyle, with a Tyrolean heritage, and the incredible craftsmanship developed during the 400 years when Cortina belonged to Austria.

How did it come to be known as such a glamorous destination?

I think the Olympic Games of 1956 put Cortina on the world map, but the glamour came through the royal families initially, then writers and later, actors. In the ‘20s, royals from Austria, Belgium, Russia and Italy often stayed in Cortina. Then writers, including Hemingway himself, came various times to Cortina, starting from the ‘30s, even writing a novel located in the village. Then came the movies such The Pink Panther, or in the ‘80s, James Bond. Actors fell in love with Cortina, and you could find Henry Fonda or Sharon Tate sipping an aperitivo at the Posta.

Your book focuses in large part on private homes, castles, mountain huts and hotels. Is there a particular Cortina style or aesthetic?

What really surprised me coming from the Swiss or the French Alps was the total lack of chalet style in Cortina. Here the casas are mainly done half in masonry and half in modern wood, giving the lodging a very ‘50s or ‘60s look. In fact, most of them were built right after the first Olympic Games and reflect that time. Other traditional fienili or baita were houses where both animals and people would live together in olden times, and the homes still show that particular construction: masonry in front for humans, wood in the back for animals or hay. Inside both the old and modern houses you’ll find the very characteristic stube [room] and stufe [ceramic heater], the heart of any house in Cortina. That room tends to be entirely paneled in wood and has a heated stufa to decorate and warm it up, which can be an incredible work of art in itself.

Are any of the houses/buildings in the book open to the public? If so, what would you urge us to see and what kind of interesting design elements should we look for inside?

Yes, the stube of the Hotel de la Poste is a bar/restaurant, where you can admire the wooden paneling of the stube and in the middle, the amazing traditional lamp called luster, made with animal horns. Another place opened to the public is the Castle of Valcastello in Dobbiaco, where you can stay. There, I would admire just everything from the architecture to the amazing silver and glassware.

What are your favorite places to stay in Cortina?

Keep an eye on the five-star Hotel Cristallo. It’s still under a multi-year restoration, but should open for the Olympics. It used to be the most beautiful hotel in Cortina, so I hope it will still be as fabulous as it was. I do also like the Rosa Petra Hotel, one of the few with a spa. For families, I would advise the family-run hotel Menardi. It has a very authentic atmosphere, and if you are lucky, you can meet the athletes from the Swiss women’s ski team, who stay here during the Mondiali Races. More modern and right in the center, the Hotel de Len is the newest in the village.

Any favorite discoveries in terms of favorite places to eat and drink?

A must is an aperitivo in the Bar del Posta, Hemingway’s favorite—try a Puccini cocktail. You can also stay for dinner and their signature soufflé.

A nice place for lunch on the terrace with a breathtaking view is the Jägerhaus in localita Cadin. Here the family of ski champion Kristian Ghedina offers very typical and local dishes. For dinner, I love the Lodge Alvera. A family restaurant that still does all the typical and local dishes, from the pasta casunziei (beetroot-stuffed ravioli in butter) or spaetzle, as well as local game meat.

How about your favorite après ski spots? 

Après ski is a concept that is just starting in Cortina. People would normally just go home, change, and go out again for aperitivo. This is changing, though, and on the slopes more and more rifugi are starting to do it, like the Rifugio Faloria on the mountain of the same name. Or the Col Drusciè on Tofana Mountain.

Any under-the-radar cultural spots that you feel capture the essence of Cortina?

I actually love the local pharmacies. They make their own creams with local plants, and the arnica cream is a total bestseller for any little bruise. Another must is the typical Tyrolean jackets for men and women—so chic and elegant on any occasion. You can find them at Franz Kraler on the main corso. Another spot not to miss is the Cooperativa. This is the department store of Cortina. It has just anything you can dream of, from food and spices to clothes and homewares like bed linens with little hearts, beeswax candles…all the best locally crafted items can be found here. A real experience!

What are some winter seasonal traditions that can still be observed in Cortina?

Cortina is a very religious village. You can see it from the number of little churches and processions (traditional costume parade) linked to the Catholic calendar, or the big bonfires on August 15 for Santa Maria. Right after Christmas on January 6 is the Festa della Befana, where a witch brings sweets to the good children. In February, they celebrate the Carnival, though a smaller version than the Venetian one. The traditions can also be found in food. The winter introduces certain cakes, such as strudel and krapfen, or frittelle for Carnival.

Can the town survive the Olympics without being forever changed?

I hope so! I think the impact of the 2026 games will be very different from the 1956 ones. There are more regulations on building new houses today. And the races will be held in many locations, not only in Cortina. What I really do hope that they change are the roads and the infrastructure of the parking lots, which can get very traffic-y on weekends. I do hope too that the Olympics will bring more international tourism to Cortina. Until now, it has remained a little Italian jewel, with mainly Italian crowds. Let’s hope it becomes a bit more international in the coming years. It deserves it!

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When Benoît Rauzy and Anthony Watson learned that the 18th-century hôtel particulier they were meticulously restoring, in the Provencal village of Vallabrègues, had once been home to a family of basket weavers, Atelier Vîme was born. The pair set out to revive the artisanal craft, which had all but disappeared from the region—replanting beds of willow reeds that once grew along the riverbanks, hiring local makers, and designing a collection of furniture and decorative objects with fashion-industry veteran Raphaëlle Hanley. After Karl Lagerfeld acquired one of their most emblematic pieces, the Medici column vase, Atelier Vîme became the go-to wicker house for countless designers, including Pierre Yovanovich, Kelly Wearstler and Beata Heuman. Three years ago they opened a shop, Maison Vîme, in a historic wicker-making building on the banks of the Rhône, where they sell their pieces alongside some of their collected French antiques, ceramics and other found treasures. In the meantime, the duo had begun restoring Benoît’s family home in Finistère, on the extreme western coast of Brittany, whose climate is more conducive to the cultivation of wicker reeds and where they now grow their main supply of osier willow. Most recently, they acquired a maison de campagne in the forest of Normandy, which they are busy restoring into a retreat whose purpose they are coy about (a hotel, we hope!).

Their new book, The World of Atelier Vîme, a Renaissance of Wicker and Style (Flammarion), reveals the partners’ signature style in their homes across France—whose interiors have been restored by local craftsmen using regional materials and techniques. These provide a romantically textured backdrop for their curvy rattan and soulful rope designs, not to mention their extensive collections of ceramics, classical and modern paintings, and vintage textiles. We spoke with Anthony and Benoît about how each region inspires their creativity, and some of their favorite addresses in each place.

First, as we are a travel magazine…I see you were recently in Greece! Can you tell us a bit about your trip and any interesting discoveries?

Anthony: We were in Monemvasia, on the Peloponnese. It’s an island, or really a rock connected by a little bridge. We were invited by a childhood friend of Benoît’s who has been going to Monemvasia for 30 years, and I was shocked. I imagine Greece with all its little white houses, but in fact the Peloponnese is just the opposite—it’s colder, in a way, a landscape of old stone houses, which was really beautiful. I loved it.

Benoît: We were mainly there for the rest and the sea. We had quite a tough and busy year, and left after we closed the shop in early September. We went first to Empúries, on the Costa Brava in Spain, a place with Roman and Greek ruins and a beautiful hotel on the beach that we’ve been going to for years. It’s a place I used to visit when I was a child, and back then we used to reach it by boat. It was just a restaurant at the time, and now there’s also a hotel, Hostal Empúries. The first house was built in the early 20^th century for the archeologist who was working on the site nearby. There’s a little pine forest, the archeological ruins, and the hotel on the beach. It’s a fantastic place and only two and a half hours by train from the south of France.

Anthony: It’s a beautiful old house on a beach, the decoration is very minimalist, and the people who go there… it’s not fashionable, but it’s great.

Just to finish on Monemvasia, you used to get there from Athens by boat, but there’s no boat now—you need to go by car, which is four hours, or roughly seven hours by bus. There are a few tourists, but it’s a very Greek destination. You have a few restaurants and not so many shops. A perfect day for us was waking up on the terrace facing the sea, then we would go down to the creek and after we’d finish our morning swim, there’d be a guy just two minutes away making fresh orange juice for two euros.

Sounds incredible—we love the Peloponnese. Turning to the book, let’s start with Provence, which you’re most closely associated with. Anthony, you spent some of your early years in the region.

Anthony: I’m Provençal on my mom’s side, though that side is really from Casablanca. Our family used to travel a lot, and I spent two years when I was young in France, then in Africa, then the UK, and eventually my parents bought a house in Provence, in the Gard region. Growing up, we were always renovating this house, a very old chateau on the top of a village near Uzès, so it’s in my blood.

Can you describe Vallebrègues and the setting for your home here, the Hôtel Drujon? How would you characterize this part of Provence?

Benoît: The first point that characterizes Vallabrègues is that it used to be an island on a river. It was not so easy to reach when it flooded, as it often did. So the people are used to living kind of closed off among themselves, and they have the reputation for not being very open to strangers. There are just a few families that are considered real Vallabreguin, and it’s not an open club. You have to have to have many generations of proven Vallabreguins to be considered one of them. I never tried to pretend, but it’s something that is quite special.

The second is that they are “free riders,” by which I mean they are used to living apart from the trends—economic trends, cultural trends, etc. It makes the village very special in a way. When we arrived 20 years ago, it was impossible not to feel it, because the village population was largely elderly people trying to show that their tradition was still alive, though it was obvious that it was not because they had only one basket maker still alive and still present in the village… So the atmosphere of the village is quite special, but it has changed a bit in the last few years. New shops are coming. A hotel just opened two years ago, in the biggest house in Vallabrègues.

It’s amazing that there is a part of this region of Provence that isn’t overrun by tourists.

Benoît: It’s quite a challenge not to be touristic in this part of France, because St Rémy de Provence is 10 minutes by car, the Alpilles are also 10 minutes by car, Arles is very close by and Avignon, too.

Anthony: But people don’t know our village because, in fact, it’s a bit isolated as it’s surrounded by orchards. You have to want to come to Vallabrègues—you won’t just pass through; it’s a dead end. Initially we bought the Hotel Drujon, the largest property among three houses with three courtyards in the middle—in the late ‘60s, the out-buildings had been sold to other families and the workshop closed in ‘72. We eventually managed to buy the two little houses and to bring back the three in one. So this was a big job. And three years ago, we opened Maison Vîme, our summer shop, June to September, though we are thinking about keeping it open a bit longer.

Where do you encourage people who want to come visit Maison Vîme to stay? What are a few of your favorite things to do in the area?

We recommend staying at Maison Salix, a lovely boutique hotel in Vallabrègues, hosted in a beautiful 18^th-century mansion.

The Bar du Cours, owned by Severine Audibert, is the real center of village life—brasserie food with a Provençal twist. Also Bien Bon in Saint-Rémy de Provence, a delicious restaurant on a narrow street; the chef changes every summer. We also like La Playa in Les Saintes Marie de la Mer, a beach restaurant offering fresh grilled fish and Camargue black rice.

Visit the Galerie Anne Clergue in Arles, an inspiring photo gallery. And the Atelier Textile Anciens in Tarascon and Bernard Durand in L’Isle-sur-la-Sorgue, both antique and curiosity shops. There’s also a wonderful brocante every Saturday morning in Villeneuve les Avignon.

In terms of other favorite villages, Anthony loves Aiguèze, as he grew up nearby. We usually go swimming in the Ardèche river just beneath the village before dinner. Boulbon is also beautiful, the next village after Vallabrègues. A 14^th-century Saint Christopher statue surprisingly stands on the facade of a house. You can take a lovely walk on the Montagnette, passing by the windmill overlooking the village, to the Abbey Saint Michel de Frigolet.

I want to ask you about Brittany, where you have a home and you’re now growing your reeds. What is about Brittany and this particular area of Audierne/Finistère that speaks to you, that you are trying to capture in your designs?

Anthony: Benoît will tell you more, because it’s his childhood home. But I will just say that when you think about Provence, you think about Cocteau and Picasso, places like Vallauris… it’s culturally very rich with a lot around you. Brittany is not the same thing. The creators and designers there are more confidential [from the the Ar Seiz Breur movement, an avant-garde collective that was active in Brittany in the 1920s and 1930s, to modern ceramics by Odetta, named after the Odet River, which flows through Quimper]—although the Breton painters [such as Henri Rivière, Max Jacob, and Louis Marie Désiré Lucas] were very famous. But when we decorated the farm, the idea was to keep the original atmosphere created by Benoît’s parents and the artists who were his parents’ friends who used to pass through and paint and create in the house over a couple of months. The job was completely different from in Provence.

Benoît: One important distinction is that Provençal culture is arguably part of French culture. But this is not the case for the culture in Brittany. The French government tried to erase the culture there, and the government and the French Republic spent at least 30 years forbidding the young to speak the Breton language at school. If they tried to, they would hang clogs around their necks and things like that. In our part of Brittany, there’s a lot of local mythology: the legend of the Ville d’Ys, a city that was swallowed by the ocean; the legend of King Gradlon and his son, Nominoë [the 9^th-century duke who was known for asserting Brittany’s independence from France]. If you look at the motifs of the Ar Seiz Breur movement, which coincided with Art Deco, you will find a lot of Breton mythology—all these themes that were very present when I was a child, because they were part of the local imagination and mindset. It’s very specific to Brittany, but it’s really not part of French culture.

Anthony: When we started to renovate the house and to plant the wicker there, we envisioned a kind of “Vîme Atlantique” collection. For instance, the rope designs, which are inspired by boating and fishing. We have a Seiz Breur print by René Creston depicting Gradlon. The objects and designs that are present in the house in Brittany really fit, and it is completely different from the one in the south. We will continue to work in that direction in Normandy.

Audierne and Finistère are quite far west, a bit off of Brittany’s usual tourism trail. Can you recommend a few local favorites, a way of visiting the area, that retain this Breton flavor that Benoît was speaking about? And can one visit the wicker farm?

In Combrit, Les Trois Rochers is the place for dinner, for their incredible ravioles de langoustines. It’s located in the Art Déco Villa Tri Men facing the ocean, which also offers hotel facilities. The villa has a beautiful collection of Breton paintings from the 1920s. 

The Villa Ker Magdalen in Benodet, built in 1926 by Albert Laprade, is a must see. There’s La Pluie d’Été, a bookshop in Pont-Croix, which provides light lunches and salads. Monsieur Papier in Plogoff is a bookshop, bar and design studio facing the ocean. L’Epoke in Pont Croix is the best crêperie in the area. There’s a lovely food market every Saturday morning in Audierne.

On the north coast, the Keriolet windmill stands in the forest of the Pointe du Miller, one of the most beautiful sites in Brittany. Further to the north, Douarnenez has many beaches. Our favorite is the Plage des Dames, facing Tristan Island. Also in Douarnenez, Alain Le Berre at Plage du Ris is an antiques shop that specializes in folk art, Breton costumes, painting and fabrics. 

Unfortunately, the wicker farm is private and not open to the public.

What inspired your decision to acquire this latest property in Normandy, and how will that be different? Can you give us a preview of what you’re working on?

Anthony – We found it by pure chance. It was one of those things where the place chose us.

Benoît – As you know from the book, our brand is really connected with nature, and this house in Normandy is completely immersed, surrounded by nature. In Brittany, it’s connected to the sea, but here you have deer, birds, all the wildlife you could expect to see in completely natural surroundings.

Anthony – Actually, the house was built for this purpose in the mid-18th century. You had nobles and bourgeois living in the city, in Caen and Bayeux, who wanted to build these kinds of houses for weekends, for family and friends, to experience nature. It was called a “Maison de Champs,” house of the field, typical of this western area.

Benoît – It’s like a dream for Rousseau and Buffon [an 18^th-century French naturalist]. So that’s very important for us. And it’s also a place where we can create things that are suitable for the countryside—it’s not a country house in the sense that It’s not a rustic cottage. Some of the rooms could, in a way, be in Paris, but it’s a place where the main point is light and nature. There’s a lot of hiking, rock climbing. It’s really not showy.

What will you be doing there?

Benoît: We will continue to do wicker there, maybe not grow the wicker, although we do have water. But we are working on some other projects, not necessarily connected with wicker, but with lifestyles. We are interested in hiking and in this new population that is very connected with nature. And we noticed that there are not so many places that host them. We have a little house that used to be the garden house and the boulangerie, or bakery, of the of the chateau, and we will start to renovate it, because we will need a place to live during the bigger work. Maybe we could organize something for the hikers there, like a place to stay.

Now that you have these four places, how do you divide your time?

Anthony – Well, Paris is family; we have a pied a terre there, so that doesn’t need a lot of care, nor does Brittany. So we’re focused now on the south and on Normandy, with little pop ups in Brittany and in Paris.

Benoît – Normandy will be a long process. There’s a lot of things to be done. It will also depend on the season, because some of the work can be done only during winter or summer—even for gardening, we have to wait til the spring. And moreover, we cannot replace a fireplace until we’ve found the right one. We have a wooden floor to find, which isn’t easy. So we will go step by step, and whenever we will find it, we’ll find it. But actually, we just found a fireplace this weekend.

And home is where you put your hat.

Anthony – Voilà.

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When and what was your first impression of Mérida?

I admit my first visit to Yucatán was uneventful. I spent three short days in Mérida roaming the dusty streets of the centro histórico under a blistering sun, while I admired the severe façades of the colonial casonas that line the busy avenues. It was not until many years later that I decided it was time to properly uncover the secrets of Yucatán. That trip, in the fall of 2020, turned out to be a transformative experience that carried me far from my familiar urban life in Mexico City and introduced me to a world where ancient stories intertwined with the present. I became hopelessly enchanted with Yucatán’s faded glory and charm.

What makes the architecture in Mérida unique?

Founded in 1542 and established on the site of the ancient Maya city of T’hó, Mérida possesses a unique and unrivaled architectural heritage. At the turn of the 20th century, affluent hacienda owners, known as hacendados, constructed lavish homes for their families in the capital. Paseo de Montejo, the city’s main avenue, was built to emulate the Champs-Élysées in Paris. It boasts ornate mansions that stand as a testament to the incredible wealth amassed in Yucatán during this era thanks to the mass production of henequen, a fibrous agave plant native to Yucatán that was used to craft high-quality rope, twine and sacks to transport grain.

However, most homes in the centro histórico of Mérida predate these times—they were built during the viceregal period and are centuries old. Mérida’s true gems are concealed behind tall, austere façades. Many of these homes now belong to individuals in creative professions, and each one embodies a personal vision, eschewing trends and making them truly unforgettable.

Why do you think so many international artists, designers and creatives have moved to Mérida?

At the heart of its appeal is Yucatán’s old-world architecture. These historic structures serve as a canvas and inspiration for those with a creative bent, allowing them to immerse themselves in a space that is both ancient and ever-evolving. Then many expatriates speak of experiencing an immediate and profound connection to the region, describing it as a curious sense of homecoming. This feeling is often attributed to the warmth and welcoming nature of the Maya people, whose generosity and openness add a layer of comfort and belonging. Yucatán’s reputation as Mexico’s safest region adds to its allure.

When you go to Mérida, where do you like to stay?

When I travel to Mérida, I prefer to stay right in the heart of the city center. Over two decades ago, my American friend John Powell arrived in Mérida and started revitalizing the sleepy centro histórico by meticulously restoring dilapidated colonial-era homes, known locally as casonas. He co-founded Urbano Rentals, a holiday-rental agency that specializes in these beautifully revived properties, many of which are among Mérida’s most exquisite.

I also enjoy staying at Casa Lecanda, a charming boutique hotel situated along the fashionable Calle 47. This late 19th-century residence, transformed into a stylish hotel with just seven guest rooms, boasts a delightful patio and dipping pool—perfect for savoring evening drinks.

Another gem I highly recommend is L’Epicerie, part of the Coqui Coqui one-suite residences in Yucatán. Just steps away from Santa Lucía Park, its decadent belle époque architecture offers a serene retreat from Mérida’s lively streets. Inside, past the heavy, velvet drapes, guests are treated to a world of elegance: an ornate four-poster iron bed, chandeliers, intricately tiled floors, and distinctive features like standalone twin French bathtubs.

Any favorite restaurants, cultural sites or other show-off spots that you’d recommend as must-visits?

Mérida’s restaurant scene is thriving, featuring standout venues like Oliva Enoteca in the historic center, offering high-end Italian cuisine in a chic setting. Picheta, with its impressive rooftop views, serves Yucatán specialties in a historic plaza. Apoala in Santa Lucía Park showcases a passion for Mexican flavors, blending ingredients from Oaxaca and Yucatán. Huniik provides an intimate dining experience with contemporary Yucatecan dishes in an open kitchen designed by artist Jorge Pardo. I also suggest taking a stroll along the recently renovated Calle 47, which is lined with numerous charming restaurants.

Mérida’s cultural landscape is rich with history, from Casa Montejo, a 16th-century mansion showcasing art exhibitions, to the lavish mansions along Paseo de Montejo, remnants of the henequen boom. Palacio Cantón, a Beaux Arts mansion, houses a significant collection of Maya artifacts. The recently opened Montejo 495 offers a peek into the city’s affluent past. The General Cemetery is a fascinating visit and provides a unique insight into Mérida’s heritage.

The town of Mérida itself has been well-discovered by travelers, but are there lesser-known towns or areas nearby that are favorites of yours—and why? 

There is so much to see and do in Yucatán! I highly recommend exploring the colonial town of Izamal, known for its stunning yellow façades, and the timeless charm of Valladolid, which feels like stepping back into history. Additionally, the ornate seventeenth-century Ex Convent of Santo Domingo in Uayma is a must-visit. Of course, the Maya archaeological ruins across Yucatán, including Uxmal, Ek Balam, and Chichén Itzá, offer a fascinating glimpse into ancient Maya civilizations. A visit to Yucatán’s numerous cenotes, or natural sunken pools, is essential. I’d also recommend Celestún. Here, you can marvel at the pink flamingos in their natural habitat, a breathtaking spectacle that adds a unique wildlife experience to the exploration of the region. 

The shopping there must be fantastic. Any favorite places?

The concept shop Casa T’HÓ, one of Mérida’s chicest spots, is located in an early 19th-century mansion on Paseo de Montejo with a half-dozen shops featuring Mexican fashion, local textiles, guayaberas, fragrances, and more—there’s also a café/restaurant and a lovely courtyard dotted with towering palms. For those who love Mexican midcentury design and high-quality vintage furniture, Casa Mo Gallery is a perfect fit—inside, you’ll find Clara Porset chairs and Eugenio Escudero sideboards with a pair of Whippets strolling around. L’Epicerie is the Mérida boutique of fragrance empire Coqui Coqui, set within a 1903 townhouse that smells like a tropical forest or a well-maintained garden. Plaza Carmesí houses a design store with a modern take on Mexican craft culture: fringed hammocks, colorful leather totes, straw hats, and an array of minimalist stone ceramics. Built around an ancient tree, Taller Maya’s Mérida shop (there are others throughout Mexico) has an outdoor courtyard that offers a quiet space to take a break from the city bustle, and contemporary crafts sourced from 42 different artisan workshops throughout Yucatán, all of them indubitably chic. Finally, for an exceptional experience, I recommend exploring Lucas de Gálvez Market, situated in the heart of Mérida. Established in 1888, it carries historical and cultural significance for the city and stands as one of Mexico’s largest markets, featuring an impressive array of over 2000 stalls with an eclectic mix of goods, including delicious foods, unique crafts, and local textiles.

What is your favorite thing to bring back?

One of my favorite things to bring back from my travels is the jipijapa sombrero, or palm hat, meticulously crafted in the town of Becal, Campeche. Additionally, I am fond of the traditional huipiles, garments worn by Maya women. These are beautifully adorned with intricate cross-stitch embroidery, symbolizing a vibrant expression of Maya craftsmanship and cultural identity. —S.O.

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Patterns of Portugal: A Journey Through Colors, History, Tiles & Architecture, by Christine Chitnis

Christine’s first book, Patterns of India—exploring the exuberant palette and intricate embellishments of her husband’s home of Rajasthan—has been essential escapist reading for us since it was published early in the pandemic. So when we heard the author-photographer had a new book coming out, Patterns of Portugal, we asked her to write something for the Spring ‘24 issue of Yolo Journal. Which we’re reprinting here! Below is Christine’s account of her drive through the Alentejo chasing traditional artisans, bright tiles and bougainvillea set against whitewashed villages (and staying in a few fabulous hotels) while researching her book.

AN ALENTEJO ROAD TRIP

Sparkling with a golden light that dances off olive groves and gnarled, ancient cork trees, the sparsely populated Alentejo feels like a well-preserved secret. The landscape, though arid, is fertile, renowned for its wine, olive oil, cork, wheat and heritage livestock breeds. The rich red-clay soil is essential for crafting terra-cotta. Portugal’s well-maintained roads wind through lush green countryside, picturesque villages and coastlines, making traveling by car a breeze.

This is how I found myself on a solo, two-week trip through the Alentejo, which encompasses the land southeast of the Tagus River, bounded on the east by the Spanish border and on the southwest by the Atlantic Ocean. In Portuguese, its name means “beyond (além) the Tagus river (Tejo).” My purpose was to research my book, Patterns of Portugal, delving into how color and pattern intricately weave into the country’s culture, history, architecture, and traditions. Portugal’s compactness—roughly 350 miles long and 110 wide—lends itself to a spontaneous itinerary, yet belies its weighty historical significance as the seat of the first global empire, a history reflected through the use of surface design.

As a photographer, I was drawn to Portugal’s unique palette and rich use of pattern, and intrigued by how the same hues seem to echo throughout the country. The blue-and-white azulejos (tiles) are reflected in the sunbaked beaches and enchanting blue water of the Atlantic coast. The fuchsia and gold of bougainvillea in bloom are mirrored, though timeworn and softened, in the colorfully painted pastel facades of homes.

Beyond aesthetics, the warm reception from the people I met shaped my travels. I was plied with sparkling, incandescent wines; I feasted on fish pulled from the water before me and grilled over a beach fire; and I was guided through artists’ studios, working farms, homesteads and vineyards. Steering away from tourist traps, I found myself visiting tiny olarias (pottery studios), centuries-old textile mills, and villages and museums dedicated to telling the stories of traditional Portuguese craft. I stayed in intimate hotels that solidified the Portuguese talent for seamlessly merging historic preservation with architectural creativity. Two of my favorites were the first stops on my trip: Convento do Espinheiro and São Lourenço do Barrocal.

Convento do Espinheiro was once home to monks from the Order of Saint Jerome, and it stands as one of the earliest examples of Renaissance architecture in the UNESCO World Heritage city of Évora. Just over an hour from Lisbon, Évora is home to many historically significant sites: Chapel of the Bones, the Évora Cathedral, and ancient Roman and Moorish ruins. Nearby, the town of Arraiolos, centered around its centuries-old tradition of hand-embroidered rugs dating to the 16th century, offers open-door workshops lining the streets and the Arraiolos Tapestry Museum narrating the rich history.

A 45-minute drive from Évora brought me to São Lourenço do Barrocal, nestled among ancient cork trees and flourishing olive groves. Once a bustling 19th-century farming village, it remains a hub of agricultural production, including wine and olive oil. Old stone farm buildings have been transformed into charming rooms, cottages, a restaurant and a spa. Day trips to Monsaraz, a stunning medieval hilltop village, and Corval, the largest pottery community in Portugal, are easily accessible.

Instead of heading right back to Lisbon, I aimed south and spent time unwinding on the coast. The drive to Alentejo’s coastal region and the villages of Melides and Comporta is about two hours. There are stunning places to stay here—Vermelho, Christian Louboutin’s new hotel, and Sublime Comporta, a tranquil, 17-acre property—from which to explore the fashionable town of Comporta. Here, one can savor grilled squid, Ibérico pork, and cured sardine bites at Cavalariça and Almo café, or sunbathe on the stunning beaches—Praia da Comporta, Praia da Torre, Praia do Carvalhal, and Praia do Pego.

It’s on the coast that the magic of the Alentejo reveals itself—its ability to blend historical depth with contemporary flair, to interlace tradition with modernity. The golden light, the ancient cork trees, the vibrant azulejos, the sunbaked beaches, and the warm hospitality—all paint the Alentejo as a uniquely Portuguese destination where every color, every pattern, and every moment tells a story steeped in history.

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Italian Coastal: Recipes and Stories from Where the Land Meets the Sea, by Amber Guinness

An English cook and food writer living in Florence, our friend Amber Guinness started the Arniano Painting School a decade ago in a Tuscan farmhouse meticulously restored by her parents, and where she spent a good deal of her childhood. These painting retreats (upcoming dates are here!) feature Amber’s bright and fresh cooking, which inspired her first book, A House Party in Tuscany. Her newest, Italian Coastal, draws on the flavors of holidays spent by the Tuscan seaside and in the Tyrrhenian coastal towns of her youth.

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Il Dolce far Niente: The Italian Way of Summer, by Lucy Laucht

We’ve been fans of Lucy Laucht’s photography for years, and last summer we got to preview her photos of the Aeolian islands in our Mediterranean issue. Her first book, Il Dolce Far Niente, is a transporting, photographic ode to the magic of Italian summer. It’s full of those perfect scenes of southern coastal Italy: unselfconscious nonni bronzing on a craggy lido, kids plunging from rocks into impossibly blue Mediterranean water. But it also has Lucy’s inside scoop on seven of her favorite destinations in Italy, and leaves you with a new understanding of how to embrace the distinctly Italian art of sweet idleness, no matter where you are.

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