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The Travel Issue
January 2009
Via Flaminia
James Sturz
Surrounded by olive trees and grapevines at the open-air trattoria in Vetralla, 40 miles north of Rome, we had eaten Lallo Piergentili’s aged cheeses, cured meats, and pappardelle with wild boar. Now he walked with us from his restaurant to the...
Via Flaminia: Plotting Your Route and Picking Your Cars
James Sturz
Italy by vintage car’s seven-night Rome-Milan itinerary, which includes four days of driving, costs $14,550 per person, based on two people sharing a room and a car. The prices for all trips include accommodations, admissions to various venues, the...
The Perfect 10
Jennifer Hall
If you had 15 days to travel anywhere in the world, where would you go and what would you do? African-travel specialist Will Jones thinks you should spend the time in private game camps, exploring the cultures and wildlife of Botswana, Tanzania,...
The Perfect 10: The Cairo Connection
Jennifer Hall
What » A journey to Egypt’s highest pyramids, on its longest river, and inside its most private tombs.
Who » "I’m a frustrated Indiana Jones," says Destinations & Adventures International president James Berkeley. "I love temples, and I love...
The Perfect 10: Yen and Yang
Jennifer Hall
What » An exploration of contrasting cultures in Japan and southern China.
Who » Randy Lynch has traveled regularly to Asia since 1979, when he began working as a sales representative for Korean Air. In 2000 he founded Kipling & Clark, a...
The Perfect 10: Surf and Turf
Jennifer Hall
What » A two-part trip to see the best of Mexico’s coast and colonial core.
Who » Hoteliers Goffredo and Alix Marcaccini moved from Los Angeles to Mexico in 1992. "After the L.A. riots," says Goffredo, "we decided to stay here." The couple now...
The Perfect 10: Going with the Floe
Jennifer Hall
What » A private yacht charter through Alaska’s Inside Passage and along British Columbia’s coast.
Who » Michael Sawyer, the president of Infinity Yacht Charters, specializes in tracking down superyachts in the Pacific Northwest. "They’re not up...
The Perfect 10: Insider’s Italy
Jennifer Hall
What » The ultimate villa-rental experience in Tuscany.
Who » Claus and Jeanette Thottrup, the Danish owners of Borgo Santo Pietro in southwestern Tuscany, moved in 2001 from their adopted home in London to Italy. While living part-time in...
The Perfect 10: King of India
Jennifer Hall
What » A private-plane excursion through the subcontinent, with stops in New Delhi, Varanasi, Agra, Ajabgarh, Jaipur, Jodhpur, Udaipur, and Mumbai.
Who » The Chicago-based travel outfitter Greaves Tours has been taking clients to the Indian...
The Perfect 10: Chart Topper
Jennifer Hall
What » A yacht charter through the eastern Caribbean, with stops in Antigua, Barbuda, St. Barts, St. Martin, Anguilla, and the British Virgin Islands.
Who » The London-based yachting company Burgess manages a fleet of more than 60 charter vessels,...
The Perfect 10: Good Migrations
Jennifer Hall
What » A cultural and ecological journey through South Africa, Botswana, Tanzania, and Kenya.
Who » Will Jones moved to London after spending the first 25 years of his life in six African countries. In 1999 he founded Journeys by Design, a travel...
The Perfect 10: Flight Plans
Jennifer Hall
What » Outdoor adventure and cultural immersion on a helicopter trip through New Zealand.
Who » Jean-Michel Jefferson was an aviation strategist before he launched New Zealand–based Ahipara Luxury Travel seven years ago. Not surprisingly, he...
The Perfect 10: God Speed
Jennifer Hall
What » A pilgrimage by private jet to explore the origins of Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Sikhism.
Who » TCS Expeditions specializes in themed around-the-world trips by private jet. The Seattle-based company typically...
Bear Essentials
Jack Smith
It was 3 am in Moscow, and dawn was a lipstick streak across the horizon as our limo arrived at a drab, warehouselike structure in an outlying district of the city. A crowd had gathered on the sidewalk out front, and the face control, as the Russians...
Bear Essentials: Enter the Oligarchs
Jack Smith
One of the first oligarchs was Boris Berezovsky, who exploited his connections with then Prime Minister Boris Yeltsin to establish a company that sold cars directly from a state-owned factory. Later, Berezovsky took over Sibneft, Russia’s...
Robb Design Portfolio: Rise and Shine
Douglas McWhirter
1937 Spartan 7W Executive
In 1937, the Halliburton Oil Well Cementing Co. of Duncan, Okla., paid roughly $23,500 for a startlingly overpowered, polished-aluminum monoplane to ferry its top management in high style. This aircraft, a Spartan...
Robb Design Portfolio: Whale of a Tale
Erika Heet
A fragment of Darwin’s journey captured in scrimshaw.
In April 1834, more than two years into Charles Darwin’s trip around the world aboard HMS Beagle, the ship hit bottom while anchoring at the mouth of the Rio Santa Cruz in Argentina. Damage was...
Mediterranean Marvels
Kim Kavin
The gray days of winter offer charter-yacht customers ample motivation to plan summer holidays in the Mediterranean. With June fast approaching, these sun worshippers are calling harbormasters from Antibes to Portofino to reserve marina...
Flight Deck
Lee Rohde
Several years ago, the fractional aviation industry realized that it was grossly underutilizing a costly asset: its aircraft. At that time, fractional fleets flew only 25 to 30 percent of a given year and spent the rest of the time in hangars...
The Robb Reader: Geoffrey Kent
Jessica Taylor
Robbb Report spoke with Abercrombie & Kent founder Geoffrey Kent in Los Angeles during a recent promotional tour for the company’s new Abercrombie & Kent Residence Club, which launched this past fall. A tireless traveler 220 days out of the...
FrontRunners: Down Time
The Editors
The Mandarin Oriental Riviera Maya (www.mandarinoriental.com) will take you to new depths—maybe even to the underworld—with its new Submerged in Riviera Maya package. In addition to four nights’ accommodations at the resort—which opened in early 2008...
FrontRunners: In the Zones
The Editors
Vogard, a small-scale Swiss watch manufacturer, specializes in custom travel watches built for the demands of, say, Bostonians who recoil from dialing up a time-zone setting marked "New York." The $32,200 Vogard 18kt Gold Edition (www.vogard.com) can...
FrontRunners: Exhibitions of Speed
The Editors
In racing and in sales, German sports-car manufacturers are fierce competitors. So it is not surprising—after Mercedes-Benz opened a new museum in 2006 and BMW debuted one in 2008—that Porsche is opening a new Porsche Museum (www.porsche.com). The...
FrontRunners: A Fitting Addition
The Editors
The new IW Club (www.indianwellsgolfresort.com)—a $30 million, 53,000-square-foot, two-story clubhouse at the Indian Wells Golf Resort outside of Palm Springs, Calif.—features one of only nine Callaway Performance Centers in existence. In addition to...
FrontRunners: Into the Wilderness
The Editors
Owners of the 10 new Resort at Paws Up Wilderness Estates (www.pawsup.com) in Greenough, Mont., can navigate the 37,000-acre property without polluting the Big Sky. Each of the 3,248-square-foot timber vacation homes comes with a Miles Electric...
FrontRunners: Along for the Glide
The Editors
Anton Wilson, the engineer who founded the Bozeman, Mont., company that makes Anton Gliders skis, describes the Total Control Suspension system of the new Carbon Series Anton Gliders (www.antongliders.com) in automotive terms. "It’s like going from...
FrontRunners: Tumi's Townhouse
The Editors
David Chu believes that it is not just clothes that make the man, but also what you pack those clothes in. "How you travel is an extension of your personality," says Chu, the executive creative director for the luggage and accessories company Tumi,...
FrontRunners: Powder Prints
The Editors
The upcoming Christie’s Ski Sale (www.christies.com), to be held January 28 at the auction house’s South Kensington location in London, will include some 300 vintage promotional posters that span the first half of the 20th century. The posters depict...
FrontRunners: Talk to the Hand
The Editors
The new Swany G.Cell Bluetooth Glove (www.swanyamerica.com) may never be immortalized in a poster, but it could allow you to call in auction bids from the slopes—without exposing your fingers to the cold. Billed as the world’s first cellular ski...
Grand Openings: X Game
Scott Armstrong
In many African countries, Land Rovers filled with tourists are more common sights than lions and giraffes. But in Botswana, permits place strict limits on the number of visitors who are allowed in a concession at any given time. Xaranna and Xudum,...
Grand Openings: Cultivated Quarters
Paul Meyers
Patrizio Cipollini, general manager of the new Four Seasons Hotel Firenze in Italy, has been hearing the same question since he first visited the property’s site in 2001. "People walked up to me every morning and asked, ‘Can I come in with you to see...
Grand Openings: Raising the Bars
Bruce Wallin
After opening in December 2007, the Coburg Bar at London’s Connaught hotel quickly became one of the most popular watering holes in Mayfair. Since September, however, the Coburg (shown) has faced fresh competition from a David Collins–designed...
Grand Openings: Maine Stay
Rochelle Lash
Prints and patterns of butterflies and dragonflies decorate the Periwinkle Cottage at Hidden Pond, a 60-acre nature resort that opened in July outside of Kennebunkport, Maine. A different New England designer created each of the property’s 14...
Grand Openings: Screen Gems
Margie Goldsmith
Intricately carved jali screens once lined the terraces of Mogul palaces, enabling India’s queens and princesses to observe life outside while preventing outsiders from looking in. The latticed stonework now affords privacy to guests in the Lodhi...
Grand Openings: Triumphant Trio
Shaun Tolson
Regent Hotels & Resorts plans to open a total of 10 new properties by 2011. If the new Regents in Florida, France, and the Maldives are any indication, travelers have much to look forward to from the brand.
The Regent Bal Harbour, which debuted...
Grand Openings: Class Act
Alexandra Foster
Robert de Niro oversaw nearly every detail of the new hotel he co-owns near the Hudson River in Manhattan, from the tiles (made by a single family in Tuscany) that line the front entrance, to the mirrors (silvered windows recovered from New York’s...
Grand Openings: Two for Six
Jennifer Hall
Visitors to the new Six Senses Hideaway Zighy Bay resort in Oman can arrive by boat or Land Rover—or paraglider. The beach retreat, which opened in April 2008 on a secluded inlet 75 miles northeast of downtown Dubai, employs professional paragliders...
Grand Openings: Surreal World
Bailey S. Barnard
Morgans Hotel Group’s Sunset Strip property just got stranger—and better. In September, the Mondrian Los Angeles in West Hollywood completed a one-year, $40 million renovation led by Manhattan-based designer Benjamin Noriega-Ortiz. The hotel, which...
Grand Openings: Rising Sun
Alison Stein Wellner
The Pamushana safari lodge in southeastern Zimbabwe has been one of Africa’s best lookouts for spotting big game since the camp opened in 1998. Now, Pamushana—which means "place of sunshine" in the local Shangaan language—shines from the inside as...
Grand Openings: Texas Three-Step
R.P. Washburne
A cantilevered, fluorescent-blue swimming pool juts from a rooftop deck at the Joule, a Starwood Luxury Collection hotel that opened in downtown Dallas in May. After spotting the pool from 10 stories below on Main Street—and encountering two...
Grand Openings: One for Galle
Jane Lasky
British colonists introduced the sport of cricket to Sri Lanka in the mid-1800s. Today, the best place to bat and bowl in this cricket-crazed former colony—located 19 miles off the southern coast of India—is the city of Galle, the home of the...
Grand Openings: Mod Couple
Gisela Williams
Well before the Four Seasons Hotel Istanbul at the Bosphorus opened, engaged socialites were vying to be the first couple to marry on the hotel’s waterside terrace. The inaugural ceremony, which took place two weeks after the property’s July 2008...
Grand Openings: Block Star
Charles Runnette
Allied bombing raids during World War II nearly destroyed the city of Dresden in eastern Germany, but the town’s center has been restored over the years and is now a UNESCO World Heritage site. Set near the über-Baroque Frauenkirche (Church of Our...
Contributors: On the Road Again
The Editors
Freelance journalist James Sturz has written for more than 60 magazines and newspapers, and he has authored a novel set in Italy. For his first contribution to Robb Report, he roamed the back roads between Rome and Bologna in three vintage Italian...
From the Editors: A Billionaire’s Folly
Brett Anderson
John Keats observed in men of high achievement an aptitude for "being in uncertainties, Mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason." This comfortable acceptance of contradictions, which Keats called negative capability,...