Note From The Editor

By now, readers should know that there is a particular kind of traveller this magazine is made for. Not the one scrolling past suggestions on their iPhone, but the one who leans in when a stranger offers to share what they know about a place.

 

That image, borrowed from Federico Nastasi’s piece on Mexico City, felt like the right place to begin this edition. Because every feature here is really about the same thing: what you find when you arrive somewhere outside the rush, with a little patience and an open mind.

 

A megalopolis where history piles so densely it can make your head spin. A subarctic archipelago where winter draws a warm, creative community together rather than pulling it apart. A pair of Scottish islands where a gin distiller, a brewer, and a clifftop pod owner all tell you the same thing, that low season is when real conversations happen. A city that exhales each October as its summer visitors disappear, and where the best foliage spots never make the travel guides. And then Patagonia, where Valentina Volpi’s reporting from the penguin colonies of Isla Magdalena and Isla Martillo reminds us that when you go matters as much as where – if not more. A quieter trail, a calmer colony, wildlife moving on its own terms rather than in continuous response to our presence.

 

Five destinations, one spirit. They reward the traveller willing to go when others do not, to sit with the weather, and to listen when someone smiles and offers a tip.

 

May feels like the right month to say that. Summer is coming. The cruise ships will soon be pulling in, the beaches will fill, the trails will crowd. But for now, there is still space. Go and find it.

 

Happy travels!

Chiara