PUBLISHER’S NOTE

As much as I love a five-star stay in the Maldives—complete with butlers, chic overwater villas with glass inserts in the floor, indulgent spas, and infinity-edge pools— one of our broader goals here at DestinAsian is to let readers see even the most familiar places in a whole new light. So it’s heartening to read this issue’s cover story by husband-and-wife team Daniel Bosley and Aishath Naj, about their ongoing project to document the Maldives that few tourists know. Dreamy photos aside, it offers a real insiders’ perspective and shows us new possibilities for exploring this Indian Ocean paradise.

In a similar vein, Jonathan Hopfner reports on a trend in Seoul that has taken hold within the last decade or so: a renewed appreciation of traditional Korean houses known as hanok. He doesn’t just prowl the much-photographed streets of Bukchon Hanok Village where tourists prance around in full traditional costume, but speaks to designers and entrepreneurs who have adapted once-neglected architecture form to become boutique hotels and cafés and cultural spaces.

Closer to home, we venture to the northwestern Vietnamese hill town of

Sa Pa, where traveling filmmaker Johnny Langenheim and photographer James Carnegie get a Hmong cultural immersion on a day trek, and take stock of the latest developments (including a Bill Bensley–designed hotel) in the area. It throws the spotlight on questions about the nature of tourism in Southeast Asia’s emerging economies, and how local people should benefit from the industry.

Then we have an eye-opening story from New York–based photographer Matt Dutile, this time on his recent trip to Quito, the Ecuadorian capital. The promise of a vibrant, heritage-rich city with protected cloud forest on its doorstep would appeal to almost anyone with a taste for adventure. South America is a long way away from many of us, but with some advance planning and determination, perhaps a vacation in that part of the world isn’t such a distant dream after all.