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From the editor
What is luxury? We all have our versions of the ultimate top-drawer experience, be it a chic African safari lodge in a wildly beautiful setting or a resort villa with its own plunge pool and bowing butler on call. For some of us it means the drama of a five-star room overlooking, say, the Eiffel Tower or the Taj Mahal; for others it could be as simple as a thatched, open-sided bure on a lonely Fijian beach. What is constant, though, is luxury means privacy, space and an accumulation of lovely, thoughtful details. Here's a wishlist to whet the appetite:
A house in Bali
WE are an immense disappointment to our butler, Lalu. We do not have enough laundry, too few touring plans, and a sorry lack of dinner reservations to be made. He looks at us mournfully as we swim up and down the garden pool, delighting as bright dragonflies dance in swirling cascades over our heads. There is a large lizard curled beside a frangipani tree and the bougainvillea is so vibrant it looks freshly daubed with high-gloss paint.
Safari luxe
HIPPO snort at dawn, lion roar at sunset, a chorus line of zebra daintily drinking at a waterhole: that's the South African bush. Mother Nature's decor responds with razor-backed mountains, corrugated canyons, surging rivers and a coast of glittering seas and surf-washed beaches.
There's a chair up there
Airlines are wooing business class passengers with bigger and better sleeper seats
Rooms at the top
ONE of my late husband's favourite stories was about a very rich businessman of his acquaintance whose idea of luxury was to send his family, along with their household staff, to the Hotel du Palais at Biarritz so he could stay home and live for a month in the maid's room.
Boston regal
THIS is a seriously comfortable hotel, I murmur to myself minutes after checking in. The luxurious, discreet room I have been assigned is so right that, after a couple of hours, I find myself moving the furniture around, believing it's going to become my permanent residence.
Would you like a boat with that?
AS a girl I was mad about the television series Adventures in Paradise in which dashing actor Gardner McKay played Captain Adam Troy. Aboard the sleek schooner Tiki, the tall and athletic Troy embarked on adventures around the Pacific, rarely ruffling his dark-brown hair or creasing his he-man khakis. Troy often took off his shirt and puffed up his muscles, which led to much swooning in front of our 1960s black-and-white TV set in its wood veneer shrine.
Midnight at the oasis
THERE is no patch of the globe more deserving of the adjective exotic and now Morocco has the boutique hotels to match. Many riads -- traditional Moroccan houses with an interior courtyard -- have become stylish hotels.
Tickets to ride
SLOW, sumptuous voyages seasoned with the spice of nostalgia are an especially heady mix. The stately trains that skirt coastlines and cross countries, gleaming darkly, inside and out, have a unique place in this romantic chapter of travel. Sleek capsules that slip smoothly through the nights and days encase glossy wood panelling, boudoir lighting and white-swathed beds, dining cars set with crystal and silver and draped curtains framing shaded table lamps in snug window settings; exotic whistle stops are a bonus.
Bling's the thing
THERE was a time, not long ago, when to eat in a hotel restaurant was akin to suffering a social death. Nobody, but nobody, would choose to dine in the boring dining room of some faded brand-name hotel. All the best eating places were in trendy hot spots away from the CBD locations of big hotels.
Four-poster fantasies
ONCE in danger of crumbling into peaty bogs, many of Ireland's historic castles and stately houses have been coolly refurbished as boutique hotels, some elegant and ritzy, others wonderfully eccentric. Northern Ireland, in particular, is these days exploding with colour, energy and folly.
Bula magic
FIJI has been slow to catch up with the worldwide spa boom and there are some who would claim that these beguiling islands deliver their own form of rejuvenation therapy -- and all for the cost of an airline ticket.
