Luxury Travel Hacking

The stunning Joshua Tree National Park in southern California is one of the most impressive parts of the entire state. Dotted with the iconic Joshua trees that give the park its name, Joshua Tree is an interesting mix of the high Mojave Desert and the low Colorado Desert. With beautiful desert plains, mountains, art communes, and abandoned towns, Joshua Tree is a genuine highlight of southern California and this articles is specifically going to look at the BEST Joshua Tree Airbnbs. As you’d expect, Airbnbs in Joshua Tree are plentiful, with a huge range of options: luxury, eco-friendly, glamping, unique properties, and much more besides.

Los Amantes won two bronze awards in last year’s World Spirits contents, and they are popular in both Mexico and the U.S. Alipus is another recommendable brand found in the States and Mexico, made in Santiago de Matatlan by the Los Danzantes restaurant group, who own two great Oaxacan restaurants, one in Mexico City’s Coyoacan neighborhood, and another in Oaxaca City. If you are in Mexico City or Oaxaca City we recommend you stop by Mis Mezcales, a specialty mezcal shop whose owner is an endless source of information and whose shelves are stocked with small-batch, traditional producers that we guarantee are worth your time to try. If you’re in Mexico City, the birthplace of hip mezcal mixology, try the Limantour bar, which has won awards for its mezcal cocktails or Fifty Mils bar in the Mexico City Four Seasons, voted one of the world’s 50 best bars in 2018.

When figuring out where to stay in Oaxaca City, you need to decide what kind of hotel you want and where you really want to be. If you’re not in a car and want to be right in the action of the historic center, we’ve got two fresh reviews of luxury Oaxaca boutique hotels to consider. See our new review of Hotel Sin Nombre in the historic district of Oaxaca. See our detailed review and more photos of Casa Cid de Leon Boutique Hotel in Oaxaca, Mexico.

This rolling Bric’s Bellagio suitcase is a four-wheel spinner, gliding smoothly along carpet and hard floors with its Italian workmanship and Japanese wheels. If the Bellagio suitcase price is a bit out or reach, check out the similar Amalfi line, which comes in significantly lower when sales are going on. The most contemporary of all is at the lowest price point, the Ulisse B/Y Collection, which comes in six colors and looks like this: Bric’s also produces some options that are not hard clamshell designs if you like one large compartment, two wheels instead of four, or even no wheels at all for your overnight bag. No matter which Bric’s suitcase or collection you choose though, you get a limited 5-year warranty on wheeled luggage (a 2-year one for other bags) and good Italian design.

It differs from the agave plants used to make tequila and mezcal in the sense that there’s no actual fruit that’s harvested and roasted. A sotol desert spoon plant takes more than 15 years to mature, which is about a third longer than the already-long maturation for the agave plants used in tequila and mezcal. If you’re someone who likes to sip silver (blanco) tequila or unaged mezcal, you’ll probably warm right up to it, but if not, you may prefer to use it in cocktails instead. See more at the company website and look for this brand if you happen to be in Durango, San Diego, or where there’s a good selection of spirits beyond the norm from Mexico.

This has meant a rash of great rates for the future in many countries though, including the ones we cover, so this is the time to plan that Belize vacation for later in the year. Some intrepid travelers have taken advantage of this and enjoyed a Belize vacation with lots of staff attention, empty beaches, and easy distancing. As I type this, there are more people on their way there this week, taking advantage of the certified hotels’ great discount deals, even at the high-end resorts. According to Larry France at Chabil Mar Villas in Placencia, many savvy travelers know this and have been taking advantage of it.

The Maestro Tequila brand has a complicated back story and depending on which version you reach for, you get something traditional or something manipulated like Dobel Diamante. The world’s biggest producer of the spirit is known for its worst “Gold” brand, which you should avoid at all costs, but it also produces 1800, Centenario, Tradicional, Reserva de la Familia, and Maestro Tequilero. The original Maestro Dobel Diamante was an obscure side project at Cuervo from one of its master distillers, a lab-concocted aged tequila that still looked clear like a blanco. It’s not quite going to transport you and move you the way Reserva de la Familia does, but it also costs about half as much: positioned in price between 1800 (usually $35 to $45) and the $120 and up Familia.

These are sometimes called “Peruvian funnel cakes” since they’re basically deep-fried dough, but they’re usually made with a mix of sweet potatoes and pumpkin, so you can tel yourself they’re a tad healthier. See more details on SkyKitchen Peru’s market tour and three- or four-course Peruvian cooking class here, with prices. That full one is more than five hours, so if you can’t spare that much time, you can book the fruit tasting and cooking class by itself without the market tour. A few years back, one of our writers recently went on a culinary tour of Lima to eat his way around Peru’s capital city and get some lessons on the various aspects of the cuisine.

After a too-long drought of staying away from planes and airports, I boarded an Aeromexico business class flight this week, direct from Mexico City to Orlando. This airline gets a slight edge compared to most U.S. carriers in all sections of the plane, but I was quite happy with the business class experience on this flight in this time of heightened precautions. You actually get to check two bags per person if you want in business class, so this is a great option if you’re moving to Mexico or you’re bringing a whole season Your actual seat comfort on your own Aeromexico business class flight depends a lot on which plane you’re on, and with 11 different models in use, it’s hard to know what you’ll be on until you look it up.

If you’d like to daydream about mud baths and massages in the tropics, check out our updated luxury spa roundup: Eco-luxe Costa Rica Spas. The combined spa at Nayara Springs and neighboring property Nayara Hotel, Spa, and Gardens is a thing of beauty and the 14,000-square-foot spa at The Springs Resort is in addition to all the pools and hot tubs with a view of the conical mountain. You’ve got plenty of Costa Rica spa options in the Guanacaste region as well, but we focused on three: the long-running champ Four Seasons, Los Altos de Eros, and the impressive newer Away Spa at the W Costa Rica. There are plenty of other Costa Rica wellness retreats to explore if you want eco-friendly experiences with natural products in a setting close to nature, but you won’t go wrong at these highly acclaimed properties that our correspondents have experienced first-hand.