World's Best Places to Visit

We’re all in the thick of social distancing right now, staying home is how we join the global fight against coronavirus. (Have you run out of good TV shows to watch yet?) There’s something about not knowing when we’ll travel next that has us thinking about past journeys. We’ll be out there again soon, but until then, revisiting these moments reminds us of the big and small ways travel stays with us. “I often think of Fiji: The first glimpse of the colors in the water, and the feeling of being so far away from home – but in the best possible way. More than anything, I think of the Fijian people. They are the most loving and kind humans I’ve ever met. The physical beauty of Fiji is everything you think it would be, but the people make it so much more.” – Korena Bolding Sinnett, art director “Day two on the Zambezi River’s Mana Pools canoe trail with my dad (bow, second canoe from left) in 2008. The long-planned safari fell on the heels of disputed elections amid one of Mugabe’s viole...

BY DAVID HOCHMAN The first time I ever went to Palm Springs, the  woman I was dating drove us there from Los Angeles late one moonless Friday in her red Miata.  Even with the convertible top down, when we pulled into town we couldn’t discern much in the darkness beyond a few tall cacti and some floodlit palms. The thrill hit us the next morning. How had we not noticed the 10,000-foot snowcapped peak towering above our hotel, or the perfect patchwork of pools and fairways stretching to the opposite horizon? The rising sun turned the mountains lavender and gold. I’d never seen skies so blue. Arriving somewhere new at night can trip you up like that: On a taxi ride into Manhattan from the airport at 9 or 10 pm, you miss the traffic and emerge from tunnel or bridge to find the city in hair-down mode – Wall Street types are out walking their poodles; you might even win a smile from a cop. Getting in late is a kind of beckoning. You’re there, but not yet fully aware of the tr...