TRAVEL CATALOG | SEPTEMBER 2019 2020 Planner VACATION IDEAS TO KICK OFF THE NEXT DECADE Architect Antoni Gaudí’s Casa Batlló in Barcelona. Drinks with a view on board Uniworld’s Maria Theresa. Happiness Starts Here Science has now shown what seasoned travelers have always known: Part of a vacation is the anticipation, and deciding where to go can be just as pleasurable as the journey itself. Your next steps: Turn the page for instant inspiration from our curated catalog of 2020’s most tantalizing travel, plus our five favorite neighborhoods to visit in the new year. Contact your Virtuoso advisor, who can cue you to the coolest, not-yet- Instagrammed destinations, as well as the best way to experience those classic places you’ve been itching to explore. Finally, pick your Scandinavian sailing, South African safari, Andean adventure, or Fiji bungalow, and savor the excitement as you look forward to exiting the everyday. The world’s finest travel agencies and advisors are Virtuoso®. (COVER) NIKADA/GETTY IMAGES NIKADA/GETTY (COVER) FERRANTRAITE/GETTYIMAGES WHAT’S INSIDE: 2020 Planner Hawaiian delight in Maui. 2 8 18 32 44 Our Favorite CRUISES Goods to Go TOURS & HOTELS Postcard Neighborhoods Pick your itinerary Noteworthy Places to stay Feeling natural Where we want to and sail away. headphones, plus and things to do. in Montana. (COVER) NIKADA/GETTY IMAGES NIKADA/GETTY (COVER) FERRANTRAITE/GETTYIMAGES be in 2020. a modern hatbox. SEPTEMBER 2019 1 OUR FAVORITE NEIGHBORHOODS Where We Want To Be Five neighborhoods to visit in 2020. If it’s our first time in a new place, we want to know how locals spend Saturday mornings, where to find the best coffee, and which gorgeous townhouse-lined street is going to make us seriously con- sider packing up everything and moving there for good. In short, we fall in love with a city through its best neighborhoods. We asked Virtuoso Life writers who have lived and worked around the world to share their favorite ones for this story. Here are their odes to beloved locales, and our advice for how to discover each one on your own in the new year. TUMACLARA 2 2020 PLANNER Clockwise from top left: Grandpa, Bar Agrikultur, Stockholm city views, and a Södermalm snack break. Opposite: Café Pascal. Södermalm, Stockholm Stockholm is innately cool, and nowhere is the Swedish style quotient higher than in this southern island district. Everything here is buzzworthy, but what makes Södermalm timeless is its hidden gems, from the canalside boules pitch open only in summer to the tiny antiques shops with amazing vinyl selections hidden in their basements. Here, how to spend a day exploring the neighborhood like a local. 11 am: Start on the scenic northern waterfront at Fotografiska, a photography museum where contemporary exhibitions from the likes of Irving Penn and Charlotte Gyllenhammar are considered required cultural consumption among savvy Södermalmers. 1 pm: Grab lunch at Café Pascal – the only thing better than the creamy salmorejo (chilled tomato soup) and grilled Reuben sandwiches at this new neighborhood bakery is the people-watching from sunny sidewalk tables. 3 pm: This boutique-dense neighborhood is a shopper’s dream. Scoop up Scandinavian fashions at Grandpa, browse all-natural skincare products at L:a Bruket, admire coveted ceramics and glass- ware in the showroom of designer Carina Seth Andersson, and shop for Italian-made sandals and handbags at ATP Atelier. 6 pm: Finish the day with a gin and tonic at the intimate Bar Agrikultur. The bar’s gins come from a Södermalm distillery, and the inventive small plates – cured venison, pea sprouts with cod roe – mirror the Scandinavian seasons. CLARA TUMACLARA – Ingrid K. Williams SEPTEMBER 2019 3 GRÀCIA PRO TIPS Coffee order: Un tallat (an espresso “cut” with milk) at Café Salambó. Happy-hour haunts: Bobby Gin, Old Fashioned Gin Tonic & Cocktail Bar, and Elephanta for gintònics. Don’t miss: The Festa Major de Gràcia in August is one of Barcelona’s best street festivals. Instagram stop: The refurbished Casa Vicens, Gaudí’s first residential project. Plaça de la Vila de Gràcia and (left) Casa Vicens. Gràcia, Barcelona In some ways, Barcelona is selling everything from of feeling global and It’s home to Cines Verdi a collection of small towns dried beans to vintage decisively local is what and Verdi Park, the city’s netted together in the handbags. Mass tourism keeps me coming back best “original version” nineteenth century after has wrought substantial week after week. Shoppers cinemas; restaurants such the construction of the change on parts of Barce- stock their larders with as (my favorite) Somodó, Eixample, a mile-wide grid lona over the past decade, goods from the 131-year- which offers a Japanese of streets radiating from but, remarkably, Gràcia old Llibertat food market, chef’s creative take on the medieval Old City. To has managed to retain its while families gather at Mediterranean cuisine; the north there’s La Vila distinct identity, strong the marble counters in and the gorgeous café de Gràcia (the village of Catalan pride, and small- the Quimet and Lo Pinyol SlowMov, one of the few Gràcia), with its narrow town atmosphere. bodegas for a pre-lunch places in Barcelona that streets, squares that I’ve lived in Barcelona vermouth on Saturdays. serves pour-over coffees double as playgrounds, for more than 20 years, For all its tradition, Gràcia (and roasts its own beans). and small specialty shops and Gràcia’s balance is a little new wave too: – Jeff Koehler SIVAN ASKAYO YADID LEVY 4 2020 PLANNER Palermo, Buenos Aires No evening out in Buenos 1 pm: For a true parrilla Aires is complete without (steak house) experience, a stop in Palermo. This head to Don Julio for nearly seven-square-mile fried empanadas and barrio knits together the juicy entraña (skirt steak), best of the city in various paired with a velvety micro-neighborhoods that Argentinian malbec brim with effortlessly fun from the restaurant’s locales and vibrant night- 14,000-bottle wine cellar. life. From day to night, here’s one way to get your 4 pm: Visit the Museo bearings in B.A.’s most de Arte Latinoameri- exciting district. cano de Buenos Aires (MALBA) to browse more 11 am: Your travel advisor than 200 artworks from can work with Mai1O, a icons including Frida Virtuoso on-site tour con- Kahlo, Diego Rivera, and nection in Argentina, to Antonio Berni. customize an array of chic Palermo pursuits. One 8 pm: After dinner at idea: Visit leafy Palermo Proper, housed in an un- Viejo with local aesthete marked former mechanic’s Catalina Sanchez Bar- garage, head to subter- renechea. She has insider ranean Uptown & the access to the studios of Bronx for a taste of the artist Leandro Erlich city’s speakeasy cocktail and jewelry maker Inés scene. Those in the mood Bonadeo, as well as to to tango can dance with artisan boutiques such locals at La Milonguita. as Arte Étnico Argen- – Nora Walsh tino and Casa Ayma, known for handmade textiles and crafts. TIP “Don’t miss the Mercado de Pulgas, a great place to find vintage furniture. Afterward, take a picture in front of the Frida Kahlo mural and wander through Palermo’s public parks.” – Sofia de Kemme- Clockwise from top: Arte Étnico Argentino, ter, Virtuoso travel advisor a Palermo spin, and SIVAN ASKAYO YADID LEVY the MALBA. SEPTEMBER 2019 5 West Village, New York City If I were directing my own movie, I’d set a romantic comedy in the West Village for its glossy optimism. The neighborhood’s tree- lined, cobblestoned streets recall a time when it felt like the center of global culture, from the jazz clubs of the 1920s to the bohemian artists who took a stand here in the 1960s. The West Village feels like a movie set (filming sites for Friends and Sex and the City still draw crowds), and it beckons visitors to take their time. And yes, those beautiful streets are a little haphazard, laid out before Manhattan’s struc- tured grid was established Three Lives & Company and in 1811, which is why (below) a West Village street made for strolling. ending up at the corner of West Fourth and West Tenth streets is possible. A few of my favorite West Village pastimes: wandering down shaded, brownstone-lined Perry, Charles, and West 11th WEST VILLAGE streets; thumbing through PRO TIPS books at Three Lives & Company; digging into Coffee order: A flat white a French breakfast at at the Australian-inspired Buvette; finding greet- Bluestone Lane. ing cards at Greenwich Letterpress; and picking Bring home: A small (or big) up sea-salt caramels at treasure from The Upper Varsano’s Chocolates. Rust antiques shop. Much is made by locals of the clash between It’s 8 pm; you should be: landlords and businesses, Waiting for your table at of a disappearing New Café Cluny. York City. While the West Village isn’t immune, its Only locals know: The best charm endures. nightly show in town is at MOHSIN TARA – Annie Fitzsimmons the Marie’s Crisis piano bar. (BOOKSTORE) BALL & ALBANESE, (STREET) SIVAN ASKAYO 6 2020 PLANNER Bandra West, Mumbai Most first-time visitors to Mumbai focus on the southern part of the city, where most of the monuments and grand boulevards are concen- trated. Fair enough. But make a little time for the northern coastal suburb of Bandra West, with its trendy restaurants, hyperlocal shopping, and a solid chance of rubbing shoulders with Bollywood royalty. Here’s an ideal one-day introduction: 11 am: The main draw at the Taj Mahal Tea House is the expansive tea list, but the food holds its own here too.