The Big Comeback
Welcome to our first issue of 2022! We’re all more than ready to kick off a new year of travel, especially as our great, big, wonderful world continues to reopen. It may be hard to imagine at this moment, with parts of the world in different stages of the omicron COVID-19 surge, but I truly believe travel will continue its boom this year. While I haven’t yet traveled internationally since the start of the pandemic, I plan to do so this year — as do so many of you. Becca Hensley dipped her toe back into the international pond in 2021 to report on the world’s return to international travel on page
38. The world is also preparing for the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing. While spectators are off-limits this year, we can still get into the Olympic spirit in former host destinations around the globe. Find out more on page 42.
We embraced a sense of normalcy as a team in December, returning to Beverly Hills for our 18th annual GT Tested Reader Survey awards. This year marked our 10th time hosting the event at The Peninsula Beverly Hills. My colleagues and I spent nine years taking a mid-december jaunt to the City of Angels before COVID-19 put a pause on the tradition in 2020. It felt so good to reunite, and some members of our editorial team did so over a delicious breakfast at Waldorf Astoria Beverly Hills. For more on my stay at the property, check out my review on page 20.
With a new year come new changes to our usual print lineup. On pages 76, 80 and 81, you’ll find new columns for 2022 and beyond: Diversity, Ecotourism and Sports, respectively. Our Diversity column kicks off highlighting Black History Month travel, with future columns examining autismfriendly travel, indigenous travel and traveling with disabilities. Sustainable travel is relevant every year, with travelers constantly striving to be more ecofriendly. This month’s first Ecotourism column looks at agritourism, while the rest of the year delves into offsetting carbon emissions, Iceland’s ecotourism and eco-lodges. We explore the universal language of sports in our Sports column, kicking off with a look at 2022 golf events. The rest of the lineup checks out baseball stadiums around the globe, sports-themed cruises and interesting sports festivals.
We kick off 2022 in Seoul, Nashville, Saudi Arabia, Santiago, New York’s Hudson Valley, Turks and Caicos, Barcelona, Hong Kong, Indianapolis and Porto. Join us next month for a look at influential women in travel history. Until then, bon voyage!
Kimberly Krol Inlander Editor in Chief