Our Highly Subjective But Very Smart Guide to Traveling
When we go on vacation, we bring back more than souvenirs. We return with a bit of wisdom. We learn that there’s nothing wrong with planning a trip around croissants. Or that, as you’ll see here, some of our favorite sightseeing happens in the grocery store. What else has our staff learned through the years? Keep reading.
Photo by Alex Lau1/21Don’t Leave the Fridge Totally Bare Before You Take Off
Passport, check. 3.4-oz bottles, check. Hunk of Parm in the fridge—wait, what? While I’m packing for vacation, I’m already planning dinner for the night I get home. That way, even if everything in my fridge has wilted while I was away, even if I land after my take-out spots have closed, I can still make cacio e pepe. Leave a hunk of Parm and/or Pecorino, spaghetti, black pepper, and butter. Then have a great vacation, knowing you can eat cheesy pasta minutes after you get home. Beats Sbarro in Arrivals, no? —Tommy Werner, assistant video producer
Illustration by George Wylesol2/21When It Comes to Planning, Delegate!
If you’re traveling with a group, split up the work, and play to everyone’s strengths. Put your hyper- organized travel mate in charge of compiling flight info and Airbnb addresses. Ask your fashion friend to find the best local boutiques. If you’re food- obsessed, reservations are on you.
Photo Courtesy Everett Collection3/21Schedule Some Alone Time
As an introvert masquerading as an extrovert, I love to plan vacations with other people, then promptly find ways to escape. This doesn’t always go over well with my companions, but over the years I’ve learned how to do it gracefully and with intention.
Even if you claim to never tire of your best friend’s shopping habit or your boyfriend’s sloth-like pace, stealing time for yourself is the only way to sustain all the togetherness that travel entails. You’ll fight less and be more willing to compromise. You’ll be more patient with the picky eater and the friend who can’t navigate and the husband who insists on seeing every room on every floor of the very crowded museum.
You'll realize that not everyone needs to trek an hour with you to find the place the cabbie said has the best pizza in Rome.
How do you do it? I like to lie just a little. Say you have to find the perfect souvenir, or see the Flemish Masters exhibition, or check in with your very demanding job. Don’t apologize. Pick a time to meet back up and make yourself scarce.
What are you supposed to do by yourself? Literally anything. The wonderful thing about travel is that the stuff that would be boring if you did it at home— wandering aimlessly, eating lunch, sitting on a park bench and staring into space—becomes novel when you’re somewhere else. Break off from the pack or the partner for an hour and your experience will be richer, your encounters more unexpected, and your memories more vivid. And unless you spend your solo time at the Wi-Fi hot spot, you’ll feel more present when you see their faces again. —Amanda Shapiro, editor, Healthyish
Photo by Alex Lau4/21Rethink Your Souvenirs
My toothbrush infatuation started in college on a trip to Paris. I’d stopped at a pharmacy along Place Saint-Germain-des-Prés for Tylenol when I noticed a case of boldly colored Bioseptyl brushes worthy of a place in the Centre Pompidou. I bought three. In Finland, I found a taxicab-yellow Hay Tann brush that rests, unused, like a statue, in a cup in my bathroom. A simple wood-handled binchotan charcoal toothbrush from Japan still reminds me of a walk through a cedar- built Shinto shrine in Kyoto. For me, toothbrushes bristle with place and uniqueness and remind me more of past trips than a magnet ever could. —Andrew Knowlton, editor-at-large
Illustration by George Wylesol5/21Walk Between Destinations
You’re not going to stumble upon hidden gems if you’re always heading from one place to another in an Uber. Walking gives you a better sense of almost any city—and, just as important, helps you work up an appetite for the charming tapas bar you just found.
Photo courtesy of Ralph Crane/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images6/21It’s Okay to Do Nothing
It’s not possible to hit every place on your list. So don’t even try. That desire to visit 30 different spots is also what makes you end vacation more tired than when you began. Which is why I always carve out do-nothing time. Maybe that means sleeping late, having a leisurely breakfast, and actually reading the books I schlepped. Or I’ll have an early dinner at the one restaurant I really want to try, then head back to the hotel, rock the complimentary robe, and watch whatever awesomely bad movie happens to be on TV. Nothing says vacation like She’s All That. —Carey Polis, digital director
Illustration by George Wylesol7/21Travel Without Data
No amount of sunrise yoga or trips to the spa will give you the same sense of relaxation and mental quiet that disconnecting does. Commit to trying a couple days off the grid—or at least as long as it takes you to stop reflexively reaching for your phone.
Illustration by George Wylesol8/21Break a Sweat
Eat, drink, sleep, repeat. It’s fun, until it gets exhausting. Which is why we love a good travel workout.
Aaptiv
I’m obsessed with the Aaptiv app—audio workouts with trainers and music. I use it at my local gym, but it’s my savior when I travel and don’t know what equipment, if any, I’ll have access to. My favorite workouts are spinning with Kelly (can be accomplished on stationary bikes from the ’80s in the hotel basement), but I’ve done yoga with Amanda on Swiffered Airbnb floors and a nine- minute ab burn with Sultan in my brother’s guest room too. —Alex Beggs, senior web editorGo for a Run
Running gets me outside, head on a swivel, taking in the architecture and energy of a place. I like to plan my runs in advance, but there’s only so much you can glean ahead of time, so I make a point to stop in a local run shop to get advice about recommended routes (as well as places to get a post-run coffee or snack). —Claire Saffitz, senior food editorThe Seven-Minute Workout
Hotel gyms are depressing AF. So I hide in my room with the Seven-Minute Workout, which targets all the major muscle groups using no more than a chair and a wall. There’s an app, but it’s blah, so instead I bookmarked the Scientific 7-Minute Workout video on YouTube, which has much cooler music and animation. —Christine Muhlke, editor-at-large
Photo by Peden + Munk9/21Make Yourself a Regular
It was the first on a pages-long list of recommendations we took with us to Oaxaca City: “three ladies underneath a canvas tarp at the corner of Jesús Carranza and Calle de Manuel García Vigil.” One woman took orders; another grabbed handfuls of freshly made masa dough, pressed them into thick disks, and slapped them onto the surface of a charcoal-heated clay comal; and the third tended to the tortillas as they got speckled with char, flipping and topping them with spoonfuls of lard, beans, fresh cheese, and toppings ranging from ruddy-colored chorizo crumbles to pork-stuffed poblano chiles, wild mushrooms to strips of fresh green cactus.
After our first bites—the blistered corn dough fresher and earthier and more complex than anything we had ever tasted back in the States—we looked at each other and immediately understood that there were a lot of places on that pages-long list that we weren’t going to get to.
We make such a big deal about breadth when traveling, the sheer number of restaurants we’re able to geotag from, that we sometimes forget about depth. But grabbing a different pastry from the same bakery every morning, or sipping espresso on a bench outside of one coffee shop every afternoon, or becoming a regular at a friendly local bar, even if it’s just for a week, can be more meaningful than—and just as satisfying as—hitting all the “must-trys” on so-and-so’s Best Of list.
We visited the Three Ladies every single day of that trip, very much at the expense of the countless other taquerias and mezcal bars and mole joints that were on our list. But the thing is, when I look back on that vacation, I never find myself waxing regretful about all the places that we could have tried. I just remember the smiles on our new friends’ faces when the Americans came back for a fifth time—and every perfect bite of all those tacos, memelas, and empanadas. —Amiel Stanek, editor, Basically
Photo by Alex Grossman10/21Skip What You Know and Drink Local
Sorry, Dorothy, but you’re not in your supermarket’s wine aisle anymore. You’re halfway around the world, and you didn’t travel this far to drink the same wines you keep in your fridge back home. Instead of flipping through the wine list for something familiar when traveling internationally, throw caution to the wind and ask for a local wine. This is easy when you’re in Burgundy and know your way around some Pinot, but you should also do it when it’s not easy, like when you’re in the Czech countryside and you don’t know any of the producers, you don’t know any of the grapes, and you definitely don’t know how to pronounce any of it.
These local wines are often small-production gems that people in the States haven’t even heard of (outside of the conversations you’re going to have about how you discovered the best wines of your life in some random village). And beyond exposing you to exciting unknown bottles, native wines also give you insight into the land, the culture, and the cuisine with every sip. “Terroir” may feel like an abstract thing from your couch, but it’s tangible when you can taste the landscape you drove through that day. And the golden pairing rule of “where it grows, it goes” is golden for a reason: The regional wines go with the regional food, and no matter what excuse you gave your partner for this vacation, we both know you’re there for the food. Be there for the wine too. Because there’s nothing better than exploring a place through taste. —Marissa Ross, contributing wine editor
Photo Courtesy Everett Collection11/21Not All Group Tours Are Lame
I used to think I was too good a traveler for tour groups. But after weaving around Hoi An, Vietnam, on Vespas with Vespa Adventures, I realized that people who do this for a living know better than I do and can offer access to places I would never stumble across on my own. Through its Countryside and Islands Explorers tour, I met local mat weavers, shipbuilders, and rice-cracker makers, then ate lunch at an unnamed beach restaurant that served sweet, briny clams with scallions and chiles. And because it was a small group tour—this is key! I like to keep it to fewer than eight—we didn’t cause a scene everywhere we went. And we definitely didn’t have to wear matching oversize T-shirts. —Carey Polis, digital director
Illustration by George Wylesol12/21Update Your Itinerary As You Go
As soon as you get home (or mid-vacation if you’re feeling really ambitious), write down all the highlights— restaurants, shops, hikes— that weren’t on your original itinerary. You can’t send your friends to the cool Korean bakery you discovered in Santa Fe if you forget about it.
13/21Believe In Google Maps
It’s hard to remember the days when I traveled with a manila folder packed with printouts and a clumsily folded map. Now I use Google Maps to plot my daily itinerary for maximum efficiency. It helps me plan the best routes—I can see which places are near each other— and clicking on each pin provides opening hours and other key info. You can use different colors for each type of place (hotel, coffee, etc.) or create layers for each day. Most important, I save it offline so that I don’t have to use precious data roaming. And later, when friends ask me where to go for, say, pastries in Austin, I just send them a link. —Christine Muhlke, editor-at-large
Taos New Mexico @catsthatattack; Du Pain et des Idées, Paris @emilyeisen; Caló des Moro, Majorca, Spain @elle_jaime; Santa Teresa, Costa Rica @lallimusic; New Kowloon, Hong Kong @yungbludlau; Satan's Coffee Corner, Barcelona @nicole_franzen; Colima, Mexico @piariverola; Octopus drying in Oia, Greece @emmafishman; Antelope Canyon, Arizona @merylrothstein14/21Instagram Is the Ultimate Vacation Planner
The first thing I do after buying a plane ticket is hop on Instagram—not to fantasize but to find recommendations. I’m on the hunt for those ’grammers who post the kinds of photos that inspire spontaneous airfare purchases (people other than me might call them influencers). They may be compensated to publicly promote specific places, but I’ve found them to be surprisingly real behind the shield of direct message. (How to find them? Search the destination under Tags and scroll until you find something breathtaking.) I found out about the incredible Hörgshlíðarlaug hot springs in Iceland from @thenycelander, an NYC transplant in Reykjavik. I added kayaking in an Alaskan glacial lake to my bucket list thanks to photographer @alexstrohl. A DM on how much you like their work and how you’d love to hear about their favorite spots in (insert destination here) could lead to the highlight of your trip. —Erika Owen, associate director, audience development
Photo by Aubrie Pick15/21Build Your Trip Around Croissants
I went to San Francisco in 2013 with my then ten-year-old son Leo to eat, no qualms about it. I could no longer resist the constant stream of media fanfare about the “scene.” There were local culinary heroes (Danny Bowien; Stuart Brioza and Nicole Krasinski), destination-worthy neighborhood spots (Outerlands), third- wave coffee beaneries (Sightglass, Ritual), and the bakeries. So. Many. Bakeries. At the time, the city was even becoming famous for its toast. Toast!
Our first stop was the mecca of Tartine Bakery in the Mission, where jet lag got us there before a line had formed. We picked out the famous morning bun, a ham-and-cheese croissant (the pain au jambon), and a chocolate croissant. Also a quiche and some still-warm brioche bread pudding, because you just never know! The bun certainly lived up to the hype, but Leo deemed the pain au jambon the “winner,” and on the spot the two of us decided to compare it with every other ham-and-cheese croissant we encountered over the next five days.
Our mission gave our days structure, and we stuck to a steady food-culture-culture-food rhythm, heading out with intention and then converting our high-fat, high-carb diet into spontaneous detours. On the way to Craftsman and Wolves, where the ham-and-cheese was a solid B+, we wandered into a cool taxidermy and artifacts store. We followed B. Patisserie’s spectacular kouign-amann with a long walk to Golden Gate Park, descending from hot and sunny San Francisco spring weather to cold, wet, and windy San Francisco spring weather.
There were no pins on my Google map for the moments I remember most clearly: the night we stayed in and read graphic novels because we were too full for dinner; the albino alligator at the California Academy of Sciences; Leo jumping the dunes at Ocean Beach; chatting with strangers in line at Swan Oyster Depot; walking the hairpin turns on Lombard Street. We needed a point A and a point B—and the next croissant was as good a destination as any—but the trip ended up being about everything that happened in between. —Carla Lalli Music, food director
Photo by Pascal Grob16/21Plan an Unplanned Day
I’m not the same person on the last day of vacation as I was on the first. I know more—I’ve walked by cool- looking shops and bars, I’ve gotten locals’ tips on neighborhoods and restaurants worth checking out. So I always leave the final day of my trip open to explore the places I didn’t know about back when I was planning my itinerary.
Last summer, a friend who saw I was in Zurich gave me a heads-up about Coffee, the raddest, yes, coffee shop in town. And thanks to an Instagram message from a local writer, I walked through the city’s red-light district (with totally wholesome intentions). I sat at a wicker sidewalk two-top at Bar 63 for a pint of Brasserie des Franches-Montagnes saison. After noticing two chefs planning the night’s menu earlier in the day, I decided to end my night at Gamper Restaurant with bottles of Swiss natural wine, charcoal-grilled lamb, and (easily) the best meal of my trip. None of this was on my agenda, but that’s what you get when you don’t plan a thing. —Alex Delany, associate web editor
Photo by Alex Lau17/21Hit Up the Grocery Store
If you sent 20 members of the Bon Appétit staff to different destinations around the globe, it wouldn’t matter if one was in Tel Aviv, one in Montevideo, and another in Chengdu, we’d all end up at the same place: the supermarket. It’s our own brand of culinary anthropology. Want to really know what makes a country’s belly growl? Take a spin up and down the aisles and you’ll find out that Norway has a thing for brown cheese, Portugal will put any creature under the sea in a can, and in Thailand there seems to be a different style of fish sauce for every dish. Supermarkets offer a window into locals’ day- to-day lives—something even the best museums and monuments simply can’t. —Andrew Knowlton, editor-at-large
Photo by Alex Lau18/21Rethink the First-Aid Kit
Whether it’s a far-flung location or a destination closer to home, nothing has the ability to compromise a well-planned adventure like immune-system failure. I’m kind of a nut when it comes to supplements (my nickname is Healer Dealer!), so I always pack preemptive and reactive strategies to block travel stress and any other bad vibes.
Illustrations by George Wylesol19/21Be a Teetotaler (Just For a Little While)
Don’t drink alcohol on an overnight flight or on the first day of a trip that takes you across multiple time zones. Yes, it takes superhero powers to refrain from a Campari and soda on the afternoon of your arrival in Milan, but if you do, you’ll give your body the strength to fight jet lag on its own.
Photo Courtesy Everett Collection20/21Be a Nanny, See the World
All that matters in nannying is that you’re not wanted by the FBI and that the kid likes you. I couldn’t cook, speak French, or drive. But I could play Sorry! for hours, embellish bedtime stories, use a microwave, and create an imaginary drive-through McDonald’s in the bathtub. Which is how I became less Henry’s babysitter and more his well-paid, kind-of-weird big sister.
My parents had dropped me off at NYU with $100 on a debit card, wished me luck, and flew home to Houston. Through a rich friend of a rich friend, I got hooked up with the best babysitting gig in New York. Parents who were loving, funny, and generous, and a five-year-old boy with a passion for pizza and the AirTrain at JFK. Together we traveled the New York subway—and then the world.
Somehow they got invited by rich friends to join their vacations, and so I got invited to be the nanny who stayed on the yacht to swim in the pool with the kid instead of visiting boring museums. (Yes, the yacht had a pool. And a chef who made us sushi with rotisserie chicken in it.)
In Saint Petersburg, the Galápagos, Paris, and Delhi, Henry ate a bland variety of buttered pasta, scrambled eggs, rice, croissants, naan, and sometimes naan filled with rice. There was no way he’d budge to try a bite of my dal, which was the first time I’d ever had lentils to my knowledge. While Henry played with the automatic door of the bathroom in the Jules Verne (le sigh, the restaurant atop the Eiffel Tower), I ate a Michelin-starred meal in a T-shirt and jeans.
Wherever we traveled, I’d haul a snack bag filled with fruit leathers, Goldfish, peanut butter pretzels, and Luna bars that was as important as my passport. Henry’s world remained familiar and covered in cheese powder while mine opened up. With him by my side—except for that time I lost him in Guayaquil, Ecuador, for five minutes (we found him in a pirate-ship-themed bar)—I saw more of the world than I ever would have in my life before or after. I started to suspect his parents brought me along because they knew this too.
So what travel lesson can you glean from all this? It’s nice work if you can get it, roaming the world and getting paid to watch cartoons in hotel beds. But everybody grows up, and memories blur into one long bumpy descent onto the tarmac, so make sure to take a notebook. Oh, and that snack bag. —Alex Beggs, senior web editor
Photo by Alex Lau21/21Always Pack Some Incense
If you travel enough, three things will happen at some point: Your flight will be inexplicably, infuriatingly canceled; you will eat something at an airport you will never forgive yourself for; and you will stay in a hotel that, let’s just say, doesn’t vibe with your sense of smell. I can’t help you with the first two, but for the latter, there’s a reason that I always travel with incense. No, I’m not talking about the overly smoky, fake patchouli-scented sticks your college roommate burned during her Phish phase but rather the subtle, almost candle-like scent from smaller incense that I burn in my home after frying chicken or sautéing salmon. And if it can rid my apartment of that fishy smell, even the worst hotel room doesn’t stand a chance. — A . K .
