Editor’s Letter: Travel Is Better When You Have a Guide

One of the privileges of my job has been discovering, on trips everywhere from Spain to Seoul, how a great guide can unlock a destination. A long-ago trip to Kenya was especially instructive: My guide showed me things few travelers get to see (the singing wells of the Samburu tribespeople of upper Kenya, for instance) while also giving me richer insight into famous places (the ever-popular Masai Mara) than I could have gleaned on my own. Along the way we became friends.

I hope you see Condé Nast Traveler as a kind of a guide too. Our goal is to take you deeper—with projects such as our recent digital package on the world’s quietest places (you can get a taste in Pico Iyer’s luminous essay here) and via YouTube programming that lets you in on local secrets, like where the world’s most interesting chefs eat when they’re not at work. And of course we want to guide you in our print issues, including this one, with stories—like Catherine Fairweather’s pine-scented trek along the hiking trails of Corsica and Gary Shteyngart’s restaurant romp through the Georgian capital of Tbilisi—that elucidate how history, culture, and regional identity can shape a journey.

Over the years, though, many readers have told me how much they wish they could actually go on these kinds of trips with us. So we’ve taken a step toward making that a reality by teaming up with the venerable travel company Abercrombie & Kent on a new program called Curated Escapes. The first two trips, to Japan and to California’s Sonoma County, mix unexpected takes on popular hits with under-the-radar experiences. Japan: A Cultural Journey, visits Tokyo, Kanazawa and other coastal enclaves, and Kyoto in a quest to showcase the country’s renowned collisions between the future and the past. Sonoma: A Culinary Adventure, pairs a behind-the-scenes look at the winery Passalacqua and an epic meal at the legendary SingleThread with immersion into some of the region’s wild natural places, like Armstrong Redwoods State Natural Reserve. We’re just getting started—look out for a new batch of Curated Escapes in the months ahead. We hope to travel with you soon.

This article appeared in the July/August 2025 issue of Condé Nast Traveler. Subscribe to the magazine here.