Travel

“Wow.” My younger brother stopped still on the runway as we disembarked our plane at Innsbruck. In every direction, snow-capped mountains shot up to the sky. I found myself rubbing my eyes like a cartoon character, while he picked his jaw up off the floor. Delivering us across the border to Brunico, our cab driver felt moved to score the scene. “All this untz, untz, untz music, I can’t do! Phil Collins OK?” The Alps looming majestically on both sides of the road, “In The Air Tonight” blasting comically loud, the journey fast became a core family memory. It felt stupendous, exciting; like your first time seeing Manhattan sparkle in the distance from JFK. “This is the Brenner Pass... and now, Italy. Welcome in Italy!

Asked how best to get to know new cultures, travel luminary Anthony Bourdain once said: “Drink heavily with locals whenever possible.” This series is about getting pickled with people far cooler than I am, wherever I’ve washed up. Fast-paced, cacophonous, always surprising; if Mumbai is the hub of India’s creative scene, Soho House Mumbai is the home of its creative set. The eleven-story townhouse stands out in studiously hip Juhu, flanked by contemporary galleries, boutiques, fine-dining spots and a stretch of beach (though the water’s not for swimming).  Inside I was fascinated by 200 pieces of art, 85 percent of which is by artists based in India, or of Indian descent.

In the seminal Casablanca, there is a classic moment when the Humphrey Bogart character is asked how he ended up there. Bogie, doing laconic and world-weary as only he could, replies, “My health. I came to Casablanca for the waters.” When Claude Rains’s iconic Captain Renault purrs, “Waters? What waters? We’re in the desert!” Bogart’s response is simple. “I was misinformed.” This exchange occurred to me when I recently visited Bordeaux, a city with awe-inspiringly beautiful architecture, some of France’s most stylish places to shop and eat, situated teasingly close to the beaches of the Atlantic coast. Yet if you attempted to tell anyone that you’d come to Bordeaux for history, couture or coastline, you’d get the Bordeaux version of “What waters?

Sitting in a gigantic marquee on the green edge of Munich, surrounded by thousands of boozy Germans singing along to a Bavarian oompah band, I wonder how I got talked into coming to another Oktoberfest. Last time I came, ten years ago, I hated it and swore I’d never come again, but this time feels different. Maybe it’s the beer talking, but this year the atmosphere seems less manic, more relaxed. There are lots of couples, old and young, and hardly any stag parties. Amid the endless rows of trestle tables I see numerous families in traditional Bavarian dress (the women so alluring in their dirndls, the men faintly ridiculous in their lederhosen), tucking into huge hearty platters of carnivorous Bavarian grub.

Nozawa Onsen and Hakuba, my favorite ski resorts near Tokyo, are booking up fast. A trip to Japan guarantees novelty, not least if you book a ski trip. Underpinned by excellent food, surreal views, reliable snow cover, fantastically cheap prices and delightful onsen culture, it’s no wonder the country is increasingly popular with gaijin (non-Japanese). Australian, American and European powder hounds now fill the towns every year, but there are endless authentic experiences waiting in each charmingly idiosyncratic resort. A quick Google betrays that my favorites are already filling up for winter ’24/25. So here’s a run-down of what to expect, and where I’d recommend you book, subayaku.

There’s more to Morjim than offshore gambling and trance parties “North Goa or South Goa?” Ahead of a last-minute January trip, I found myself pestering every friend and acquaintance I could recall having traveled near or by West India, in between consulting YouTube, Instagram, articles and forums.  Advice was echoed across the board. “Head south to relax, and north if you want to go home miserable, with impaired hearing.”  As much as trance music is distinctly Not My Thing, I still wanted to see its birthplace. North Goa is one of those storied, almost ethereal places intrinsically linked to a time before traveling was inextricable from viral Instagram videos and well-worn guidebook recommendations.

With my Customs Declaration Form in hand and Japanese customs handbook in my pocket, I touched down in Tokyo for the first time, from Mumbai. I was wearing flip flops in February, but feeling as ready as I ever would. “Don’t point your chopsticks.” “Never raise your voice.” “No talking on public transport.” “Try to arrive early.” “Take your garbage home with you.” “Meetings should not be canceled.” “Make sure you slurp your noodles.” “Jaywalking is punishable with up to three months in prison.” There was a lot to remember. I was determined not to follow the trodden path, to find spots nobody else had. Then I got off the train in central Tokyo.

When I visited New York for the first time in a decade recently, one of its most famous living writers, Paul Auster, died on the day I arrived. This was not, I hope, anything to do with my presence in the city he spent decades memorializing; he had been suffering from terminal cancer for a considerable time. Yet as I sat at my desk at the first hotel I was visiting, the Frederick in Tribeca — a comfortable and well-located spot, let down slightly by its surly and unhelpful staff, but redeemed by stylish touches like a tiled map of nineteenth-century Manhattan built into the well-appointed shower — and started to write a tribute to Auster for our website, it made me wonder what, exactly, I was trying to find out about literary New York. Was I exploring its distinguished past?