Welcome to Issue 16!

I’m writing this from an air-conditioned café in Manchester, a flat white sweating on the table beside me, while one of the hottest summers on record ravages Europe and much of the northern hemisphere. Outside the window the pavement shimmers, and somewhere south of here rivers are running thin and glaciers are slowly but surely giving up their ice, which is why I’m so acutely aware of the privilege of my cool corner seat, and why moments like these make me want to shout even louder about taking care of our world.

It feels fitting, then, that this issue is one of our most far-reaching yet, carrying us all the way  from the peaks of India to the immense Australia, from mountainous Peru to stormy Belize to wintry Turin, and finding nature waiting for us at every stop along the way.

Our writers take us behind the scenes as Turin exhales after a major sporting event, folding away its barriers and banners and settling back into its natural rhythm, then whisk us to Sydney to learn the local art of staying cool when the heat rolls in.Then, we make the case that winter, not summer, is the season to witness Ladakh at its most honest, when the mountains (and leopards!) stand stark and magnificent against the cold. The low season works its magic in the Caribbean too, where we wait out the rains on Caye Caulker and discover what a storm-soaked island reveals once the tourists pack up and go home: slower days and warmer welcomes, but quite possibly also the best shrimp curry in Belize. And that same spirit guides us to Huaraz in Peru, where the slower  months mean empty trails and the Cordillera Blanca rising white and immense above and around them.

What binds these stories together is nature itself, because Ladakh would not be Ladakh without its peaks, and Huaraz would be unrecognisable without the Cordillera, yet in the Alps we are watching mountains just like these crumble in real time as their permafrost melts and their faces collapse. 

The same is true of our cities, because from Australia to Italy, from Manchester and beyond, everyone deserves the right to stay cool in summer and warm in winter regardless of their postcode or their income. Comfort should not be a privilege, and neither should a liveable planet.

So read on, travel gently, and take care of the world that makes all of this possible.

Chiara