Canopy & Stars
This site is so much fun to browse. Talk about wanderlust. Alistair Sawday, author of the Special Places to Stay travel guides, has a new site called Canopy & Stars that features very off-the-beaten-path, notch-above-camping lodgings, including yurts, a houseboat, shepherd’s cottages, and old campers/RVs (like the red truck above) in incredible locations where you could never have an actual hotel (or you could, but then it wouldn’t be special).
(Did you notice I avoided the word ‘glamping?’ That is one of the worst recently invented words I’ve hear in a while. But it is sort of what this site specializes in, and they’ve gracefully embraced the word. I’m still working on it.)
A few of my favorites are in the gallery, but check out the site for more, as well as more info on each property and where it’s located. It will majorly give you the glamping travel bug.
Iceland
Wooo Iceland has really grabbed my imagination. It started with that mountain at left– Brennisteinsalda– a volcano that has been colored by sulphur (the name means sulphur wave). How amazing is that? (There are more pics in the gallery.)
After digging up lots of pictures of Brennisteinsalda to be sure that wasn’t photoshop trickery, that discovery lead to an exploration of more photos of Iceland, and I really don’t know how I hadn’t seen some of this stuff before.
And then those wild horses and “Icelandic sheep”!! (Don’t they sound more intriguing since they’re not just normal sheep, they’re Icelandic sheep? I think that’s the beginning of a very good marketing campaign for very expensive Icelandic wool sweaters…) This place looks amazing. And so wonderfully foreign…
Check out the gallery for lots more eye-opening pics!
Tasty Hotels
If you need to do some armchair traveling this weekend, I suggest you check out photographer Alex Profit’s site Tasty Hotels, a collection of beautiful hotels he has photographed.
Above (and below) is my favorite from the site, La Feline Blanche, which is at the base of Mont Blanc. Check out the gallery for more from this hotel and others from his site.
I also found the below video on Profit’s portfolio site– a video for Lancome’s Tresor campaign– and it’s a beautiful stop-motion compilation that takes you “around the world in 2000 photos.” Definite must if you have the armchair travel bug.
found via Emma’s Design Blogg
Serengeti Under Canvas
As if the dreaminess of a canvas safari tent weren’t enough reason on it’s own, Serengeti Under Canvas, a part of &Beyond Africa, explains an additional motivation for their mobile camps:
“Carefully planned to bring guests as close as possible to the magnificent natural spectacle of the Great Migration, the two Serengeti Under Canvas camps are situated at a variety of private campsites throughout the national park and move according to the path of the migratory herds. A comfortable drive brings guests into the midst of moving masses of wildebeest and zebra, ready to witness the natural drama as herds brave obstacles and predators to reach rich grasslands.”
Sign. Me. Up.
The City of Lights at Night
This video, by Luke Shepard, combines two of my favorite things: stop-motion animation and Paris. Composed from 2000 photos of Paris at night and set to a song by the XX (why is their music so sexy??), the video takes you on a mesmerizing journey around the city.
I also loved the answers (below) Shepard gave in this interview with one of National Geographic’s blogs– they gave the video an added endearing, personal quality, knowing that the video was inspired by his love of exploring the city at night. And it made me want to start going on long bike rides through San Francisco at night just to discover a new dimension to the city.
Spain’s Micro-Coasts
I love the look and idea of these “microcoasts” along the rocky Mediterranean shores of Vinaros, Spain. How fun if one day all of a sudden you were able to take advantage of a nearby beautiful natural asset that had hitherto been mostly unusable?
Apparently the microcoasts were an instant hit, as locals and weekenders headed to the “beach” for sunbathing and picnicking. I know I’d be there all the time if I’d always lived in a town with an amazing shoreline that had previously been too rocky to sit around and enjoy!
I also think it’s cool that these were funded by the Vinaros City Council. Perhaps not the most practical use of funds, but why not an occasional project purely meant for the enjoyment of a local asset? It doesn’t hurt that it’s incredibly well-designed and is also probably drawing tourist dollars as people come to check them out. Brilliant!
Designed by Guallart Architects.
The Rolling Hotel
I’m having a major Wes Anderson-meets-Motorcycle Diaries daydream right now due to discovering “Das Rollende Hotel”– “the rolling hotel” concept by Rotel.
Their converted buses have little sleeping cabins like trains, freeing you from having to stay within a day’s drive of a hotel while you travel and letting you traverse destinations all over the world way off the beaten path. Meals are eaten at local eateries or cooked bus-side after finding ingredients at the market.
This has officially been added to my list of trips I need to take at some point in life. The destinations they offer are amazing!
Golden Age
Loving this piece from the NYT Style Magazine on the former glory of the styles of the skies.
“We’re told that there was a magical time long ago when, whatever your seat assignment, flying was first-class. But when did it all end? Last week, Marie Force, the archivist at the Delta Heritage Museum in Atlanta, published an online gallery of photographs of Delta flight attendant uniforms from 1940 to the present. “Delta was one of the more conservative airlines,” Force says. “We didn’t have hot pants.” Still, for almost 40 straight years, the airline’s female flight attendants (something called “stewardesses”) turned heads.
In the 1940s, they did it with military-style overseas caps and spectator shoes; in the ’50s, with futurist insignias and stiletto pumps; and in the ’60s, with A-line topcoats, alligator-print boots, Chanel-inspired jackets with three-quarter-length sleeves and the “Delberet,” a pillbox hat designed for Delta by Mea Hanauer, a New York milliner. The ’70s were all about coo-coo colors, bell-bottom pants, Slavic tunics and, weirdly, a yellow raincoat. And then in the ’80s, Delta took a sartorial nosedive that it couldn’t recover from until 2001. Return your seat to its upright position, and take a look.”
My mom was actually just telling me today that the prettiest girl she knew as a teenage in Memphis went on to be a Pan-American stewardess and that it was the biggest deal because only the most beautiful girls were hired by Pan-American. Then, she was scouted by someone from Hollywood who was on one of her flights, and she ended up in the movie South Pacific. A “fairytale story,” as my mom put it. Those were different days indeed.
Article here.
via… someone who still flies in style… thanks!
Bon Voyage
Doesn’t this make traveling look stylish? Like it used to be? Back in those good old days I like to talk about that I didn’t live through?
So maybe she’s on a private plane and she had hair and makeup people because this is actually a photo shoot and not real life, but leave that out and she’s still heads above the rest because there’s not an Ugg or sweatpant (#petpeeve) in sight.
I’m not saying you have to look like this babe while traveling, but I don’t think it’s even passable to stoop to the ugliness of airports and airplanes and dress so dismally to fly. Let’s start a movement to resurrect the era when airtravel was posh.
Flavia de Oliveira shot by Fabio Bartelt – it was an editorial, so not all one designer, but I don’t even know what magazine it was for… sorry!
via Maison Chaplin
