Love wine and travel? Experience them both at one of these upscale wine resorts around the world: 1.K-Club, Ireland: It’s not all Guiness and mash in Ireland. The plush K-Club, located 30 minutes from Dublin, is a 69-bedroom hotel nestled among the rolling green hills. K Club’s wine cellar, originally built by Hugh Barton of [...]
Luxury Travel
Luxury Travel Destinations for 2012
With each year brings new ideas, plans and promises. Resolutions aside, travel is one of the best laid plans in the new year. The question is: will you actually plan that dream trip you’ve been talking about for the past year? As 2012 draws near, luxury travel network Virtuoso® asked its expert travel advisors to [...]
Asia Travel
Exclusive: Inside the Ritz-Carlton Hong Kong
When the Ritz-Carlton closed the doors to its original Hong Kong hotel in 2008, it wasn’t long before the hotel group would make one of its biggest announcements in hotel history: the next Ritz-Carlton Hong Kong would be open just three years later and would be the highest hotel in the world, surpassing the Armani Hotel at the Burj Khalifa, which opened in March 2010.
Asia Travel
Luxury Hotels Embrace 2011 With Social Media, Authentic Experiences
With one month into the new year, hotels have begun implementing their 2011 plans for growth and with good news: spending on luxury travel is on the rise, allowing luxury hotel groups to price out accordingly and recover from a few years of a less-than-ideal bottom lines. Today’s luxury traveler is back in the game, [...]
Lifestyle
Scent of a Woman: Perfume Making in L’anai
Christian Dior once said, “A woman’s perfume tells more about her than her handwriting.” Perhaps that’s why there’s various scents for women that are so intoxicating they forgive bad penmanship. Still, without understanding the science behind the fragrances that make up your favorite perfume, how do you really define the scent of a woman? That [...]
People & Culture
Closing out the Year at The Ritz-Carlton Kapalua
Before we entered the ancient burial ground on Kapaula, Clifford Naeole offered a chant introducing me to the 400-plus Hawaiian ancestors who lay 40 feet under in the lush gardens overlooking the Hawaiian islands. He touched my arm gently midway through the chant – a signal for me to make my introduction. “Melanie Nayer, from [...]
Food & Wine
An Evening at Blantyre with Beaux Frères Vineyard
There’s an old saying, “It’s beauty that captures your attention; personality which captures your heart.” When I first pulled into the horseshoe drive at Blantyre, I knew immediately there was something special about this Relais & Chateaux property. Not only was it beautiful, but the warmth and affection shown by the staff immediately captured my [...]
Luxury Travel
Exclusive Resorts New York: Park Avenue Style
Imagine the ultimate luxury experience in New York. You walk out the front door of your apartment and make an instant decision: turn left and you’re on Park Avenue; turn right and you’re on Madison Avenue. Only a few feet from Hermes, Chloe, Dior and Harry Winston, within an hour you can be styled and accessorized [...]
Lifestyle
Canyon Ranch, Miami: An Invitation to Relaxation
Before entering the treatment rooms at the spa at Canyon Ranch Miami Beach, all guests are asked to choose a crystal rock from a bowl. The crystal stays with you throughout your stay. Each time you enter the spa you choose another crystal; each crystal has a different meaning. I chose the Tiger Eye – [...]
Asia Travel
Sky-high Luxury: The Ritz-Carlton Shanghai, Pudong
The fog settled heavily on this particular night in Shanghai. I was told the view from the 58th floor of the Ritz-Carlton Shanghai, Pudong was of The Bund, but the dense fog provided a different view. I thought, this is what heaven must be like — surrounded by clouds, with just a saxophonist, a glass of red wine and a comfortable lounge chair.
