FROM THE EDITOR

As I write this letter, I’m happily imagining you poring over the pages of Qantas magazine on an actual plane.

After 19 months of home delivering the magazine, we’re so excited to be back in the skies and inspiring your travels once again. I wonder where you’re going. Sydney for business? Kangaroo Island for a holiday? Or even – magically – London...

I know one thing for sure.

We will never take travel for granted again.

In fact, I’m predicting that we’re about to enter a new golden age of travel. A time when we’ll revisit cherished locations of our past, make bucket-list destinations a reality and prioritise the opportunity simply to see something different.

I’m actively planning a return trip to Italy. I’m thinking about how I can finally get to Anarctica. And the jungles of Rwanda are calling me, daring me to realise a long-held dream of trekking to see the magnificent mountain gorillas. Why put it off any longer?

It doesn’t have to be all about international travel, of course. This moment in time has given us a fresh appreciation of Australia and the breadth of extraordinary experiences on offer here.

Last December, I moved to Hobart and I’ve spent much of this year discovering my new home state, from hiking in the belly of the great kunanyi (Mount Wellington) to clambering over the titian-hued rocks of Flinders Island (see page 72). I’m making it sound active but it’s the moments of stillness that have stayed with me. When I’ve stopped to truly breathe in the landscape and, in the process, discovered something about myself.

And isn’t that why we travel? The novelist Pico Iyer said it best, “We travel initially to lose ourselves and we travel next to find ourselves.”

So who will you be as the world opens up again?