Luxury Travel – Top destinations This Month.

• Fall foliage peaks in October in the eastern United States; a visit to New England would be a perfect getaway. We love the Berkshires, Vermont, and coastal Maine.
• Similarly, the Lake District in the UK, or western Ireland, are beautiful in autumn with trees ablaze of color; go and see Keats’ season of mists and mellow fruitfulness for yourself.
• It’s the ideal time to visit Santa Fe, when the temperatures are comfortable, and the chile harvest and festival seasons are both underway. Catch the Santa Fe Independent Film Festival, which highlights New Mexican and American films, and the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta—the largest of its kind.
• If spring is more your thing than fall, you’re in luck – its springtime in the Southern Hemisphere, and a wonderful time to visit New Zealand. In Queenstown, the flowers will already be in full bloom; you could have an active vacation full of bungee jumping, skydiving, canyon swinging, mountain biking, and paragliding. Or you could just chill and soak up the incredible scenery.
• Keep the summer feeling alive just a bit longer with a trip to the beach. The more southerly of the small Greek Islands – the Dodecanese and the Cyclades – are still hot and sunny well into October. Rhodes, Kastellorizo, and Milos should be on your list. And of course Santorini and Mykonos, which are wonderful and will be a lot less crowded this month.
• It’s springtime in Mauritius in October, as well; the weather is warming up, but it’s not yet humid or rainy.
• It’s the month of Halloween, and if you love the holiday as much as we do, why not hit the road and experience it abroad? You could go to Romania, birthplace of Count Dracula. Or soak up some culture and also some spooky fun in London – visit the Tower of London, make sure the ravens are still there, and then have Halloween Afternoon Tea at the Royal Lancaster hotel (available from October 17th-31^st). Everything on the menu will be black and white, and the theme is scary movies from the 1960s. So you can get your Bela Lugosi on!

Luxury Travel – Recent and Notable Openings.

• Tucked inside West Jerusalem’s stylish German Colony neighborhood, the new 5-star Orient Jerusalem hotel is set to become a new hot spot; the property is the first opening in the capital city for Isrotel, one of Israel’s premier hotel brands. With 243 rooms and suites in two historic buildings, built by the German Templar Society in the late 19th century, and a sculptural glass tower, it’s sleek and stylish.
• Calala Island, a luxury 5-star resort on a private island off the Caribbean coast of Nicaragua, is now open. Aiming to provide “barefoot luxury,” it’s staffed with 25 “Calala-lalas” who will attend to a maximum of 10 guests at time.
• Belfast’s newest luxury hotel, Titanic Hotel Belfast, opened its doors to the public in mid-September; after almost two years of restoration, construction and preservation of the former Harland & Wolff Drawing Offices and Headquarters, the £28 million, 119-room hotel is receiving guests. The 166-seat dining room, The Wolff Grill, is helmed by Executive Chef Nigel Mannion.
• The MADE Hotel, at the corner of 29th and Broadway in New York City’s NoMad neighborhood opened early last month. The property is the inaugural hotel project of developer Sam Gelin; it rises 18 stories and has 108 guest rooms. Its restaurants include Paper, a communal coffee shop; Restaurant Ferris; and a lobby-level bar. The showplace, though, is Good Behavior, the rooftop bar space with panoramic views of New York City.
• Last month, the InterContinental Ljubljana in Slovenia’s capital opened its doors, making it easier to explore this emerging destination in Eastern Europe in luxury; located in a modern 20-floor building in the city center, the property is close to the Ljubljanica River, Park Tivoli and Ljubljana Castle. The hotel has 165 guest rooms including 15 suites, most with panoramic views.
• The Ritz-Carlton, together with the Manz family, has completed the renovation of The Ritz-Carlton Hotel de la Paix, Geneva; formerly known as Hotel de la Paix, Geneva, the 152-year-old hotel underwent a multi-million dollar renovation, extensive re-design and refurbishment. Its 74 guestrooms, including 14 suites, have been re-styled with a sleek and modern design.
• In Chicago’s Gold Coast neighborhood, the Viceroy Hotel Group has opened the 180-room Viceroy Chicago, a luxury property on the site of the former Cedar Hotel. The 18-story property has a rooftop pool and year-round rooftop lounge, and an adjacent restaurant called Somerset run by Chef Lee Wolen, a James Beard Award finalist. Guest rooms have floor-to-ceiling windows, and the hotel will offer guests weekly classes in meditation and yoga starting this month.
• The Jeremy West Hollywood is a newly opened 286-room (including 50 suites) pet-friendly property on the Sunset Strip in Los Angeles. The hotel’s all-day Etcho Café offers up “Cali-fresh cuisine” that is locally sourced and its JOAO Bar features “elements of old Hollywood.” A seven-story public art installation that lights up as the sun goes down connects the hotel’s two sky-high room towers, and the property offers stunning views day and night.
• Calabash Luxury Boutique Hotel has been invited to join the prestigious hotel group, Relais & Châteaux. The owners are due to complete an extensive upgrade project early this month, including the renovation of the reception, bar and spa areas.
• The largest hotel to open in Chicago so far this year is the brand-new Marriott Marquis, located next to (and connected to) the huge McCormick Place convention center. The 1,204-room, 40-story property is the city’s sixth-largest hotel; in addition to its modern glass-walled tower, the hotel also includes the historic red-brick American Book Company building next door.
• A few blocks south of the State Capitol, there are two new hotels in Austin, Texas that occupy the same structure and will share some common areas: the Aloft Austin Downtown and the Element Austin Downtown are both Starwood properties, and they share a fitness center, a business center, an on-site restaurant called Caroline’s, and an “urban background playground” and bar called Upstairs at Caroline’s with live music.
• Opening this month in the city’s former Royal Danish Conservatory of Music, the Nobis Hotel Copenhagen is a short stroll away from the Tivoli Gardens; with 77 guest rooms, each featuring high ceilings, modern Scandinavian furniture, and oversize Bardiglio marble bathrooms with large egg-shaped bathtubs, it’s a welcome addition to the city’s luxury hotel collection. The Niels restaurant will blend local New Nordic fare with classical French cuisine.
• The newly-opened Tulum Treehouse in Mexico features wraparound terraces, a 20-person rooftop dining table, locally sourced Tzalam wood details, Oaxacan rugs and ceramics, and upcycled wood from the region of Veracruz. Its five bedrooms feature bespoke furnishings, local antiques, and floor-to-ceiling glass windows. It relies completely on solar power, and guests have the option to rent three of the bedrooms, or the entire five-bedroom home.
• This month in Yala National Park, Sri Lanka, the hotel group Resplendent Ceylon opens the Wild Coast Tented Lodge, a luxury tented camp with 28 safari-style accommodations, many with private plunge pools. The Relais & Chateaux property features state-of-the art amenities including air-conditioning; the open-air bamboo-clad Ten Tuskers bar and Dining Pavilion – designed to mirror the boulders scattered across the golden beach beyond – wrap around the resort’s enormous free-form swimming pool.
• The Ritz-Carlton, Langkawi, has opened on the Malaysian island; set in a tranquil private bay, the resort is surrounded by an ancient jungle, with a beach on the Andaman Sea. It’s the country’s second Ritz, following the opening of the Ritz-Carlton, Kuala Lumpur.
• This fall, luxury brand Aman heads to Shanghai; its fourth destination in China, Amanyangyun, will open in the suburban Minhang District, where an ancient village and camphor forest from the southeast province of Jiangxi has been painstakingly re-created. Its name means “nourishing cloud,” and it will feature six dining venues, a spa, a garden, and 24 antique villas updated with private pools and contemporary interiors from the architect Kerry Hill.

See Other October 2017 Events:

– Food & Drink
– Planes, Yachts & Autos
– Sports & Fitness
– Fashion & Design
– Entertainment
– The Arts

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