John Oseid

As it approaches its 70th anniversary in 2024, the luxury hotel and restaurant association Relais & Châteaux has drawn up a blueprint of ambitious sustainable and social goals for its 580 members to meet.
As R&C looks to mobilize their members and suppliers more fully toward responsible purchasing, as well as affect guest behavior as we negotiate a (hopefully) post-Covid world, members convened last month at Venice’s historic La Fenice opera house for their annual congress. The first order of...

With its hundred windows facing San Marco Basin and Andrea Palladio’s glorious white marble church on San Giorgio Maggiore island, Venice’s sole Relais & Châteaux member property occupies one of the world’s most prime hotel locations. To go along with a slight name tweak, the Londra Palace Venezia has just pulled off the trick of maintaining the bones of its 1853 origins while reinventing itself with a contemporary look.
Your balcony looks over the King Victor Emmanuel II equestrian monument ...

These days, hotel guests have a chance to enjoy ever more fine art curated by specialists. Where the art once might have been limited to generic prints bought en masse and not meant to stand out, works today are often original commissions and hold pride of place. For some, it’s even a major branding effort now. But art doesn’t have to be splashy to get noticed.
The Thompson Washington D.C. in the capital’s repackaged Navy Yard district is home to such a subtle collection, and one whose works ...

Owner of the clifftop Château de la Treyne hotel in France’s Dordogne Valley, Philippe Gombert has guided Relais & Châteaux as president for nearly a decade and earned admiration and deep appreciation from owners and management of the non-profit organization’s 580 member hotels and restaurants. Newly elected to serve as president at R&C’s annual congress, Laurent Gardinier—who with his two brothers owns both the Domaine Les Crayères hotel in Reims, in the heart of Champagne region, and the re...

“Enjoy the vibe.” You aren’t the only one invited to live by the Thompson Washington, D.C. hotel’s motto. So too can your pooch. Not only is the property itself super pet friendly, it’s surrounded by plenty of open green spaces in the capital city’s revitalized Navy Yard that are just made for romping for the two (or more) of you.
After a brief opening before the pandemic shutdown, the Thompson D.C. has just reopened for real. It’s buzzing now and still has that new car smell. Your dog may no...

The historic Hotel Du Pont in downtown Wilmington, Delaware is humming these days with business and leisure guests, wedding parties, and fine dining habitués. And as reported in this last post, it’s also very pet-friendly. As is the entire city of Wilmington, from its walkable downtown just outside the hotel doors to its newish Riverwalk and vast green spaces at its edges.
To be sure, both the huge Brandywine and Rockford Parks are dog-friendly. But when it comes to Wilmington’s vast estates ...

Thankfully, America still has a lot of magnificent historic hotels to show off. Before you even book the iconic 1913 Renaissance Revival-style Hotel Du Pont, its name alone hints greatly at what grandeur to expect here in Wilmington, Delaware.
As soon as you enter this downtown treasure, it’s easy to imagine post-Gilded Age gentility and nouveau riche circulating here, especially as the Roaring Twenties produced vast riches before economic failure cut the party short. Countless movie stars, a...

A great thrill of any Arctic adventure is getting up close to western Greenland’s spectacular Ilulissat Icefjord and to cruise right in front of its endless icebergs that calve off of the Sermeq Kujalleq glacier, and which make it the world’s northernmost UNESCO World Heritage Site.
As part of the launch of some of its new voyages to polar regions, Silversea’s Silver Wind recently visited Ilulissat as the ship sailed up, down and across Baffin Bay and the Davis Strait that span Greenland and ...

Polar expeditions are a booming category these days in the cruise line industry. Having started with expeditions back in 2008, Silversea has made a huge commitment of late to new adventures to go along with its well-known luxury voyages.
Just having made its way through the Northwest Passage over the Northern Hemisphere summer, the Silver Wind is currently sailing Alaska and will continue down the Pacific coast to ultimately arrive in Antarctica for a series of voyages to start in March, 2023...

Just above the Arctic Circle at the head of a 120-mile-long fjord, Kangerlussuaq might look on the map like a town, but it’s not much more than an airport built by the American military in WWII. So isolated is it here on Greenland’s west coast that the first road to the next real town is only soon set to open.
As part of the expansion of its voyages to polar regions, the Silversea cruise line’s Silver Wind recently sailed up, down, and across Baffin Bay and the Davis Strait that span Greenlan...

You don’t hear much about the world’s fifth-largest island, certainly not travel news. But Canada’s Baffin Island, home to the country’s indigenous Inuit population in Nunavut territory, is quite welcoming over the mild summer months. And the best way to visit is by sea, such as with Silversea whose Silver Wind vessel just made its first voyage there before heading through the Northwest Passage.
You never quite know what will be waiting for you as you sail up Baffin Bay that connects the Arct...

There aren’t many twenty-eight-year-olds who have a whole museum dedicated to them. You’ll find one now in Stockholm. The same team that brought you the city's swell ABBA The Museum has curated the new Avicii Experience, a high-tech, interactive homage to the late Tim Bergling, who under his moniker Avicii was the premier EDM (electronic dance music) maestro of his age. The 3,800-square-foot museum was inaugurated in late winter by Sweden’s Prince Carl Philip and Princess Sofia.
Even if you’r...

Of late, many of the world’s finer resort hotels have ventured in their event scheduling into ever more formerly esoteric activities and sponsorships. At same time, surfing continues to boom worldwide, with lesser-known surf spots like the Maldives now on the map. Combine the two themes and you have the tenth anniversary of the Four Seasons Maldives Surfing Champions Trophy which took place all last week at the Four Seasons Resort Maldives at Kuda Huraa, just north of the atoll nation’s capit...

As you sail Spain’s Balearic Islands and enter one of the world’s biggest natural harbors, you might wonder how you had never even heard of Mahón. Calm and quiet, the capital of Menorca island was built up by the British in the 18th century and retains some quirky Anglo traits. It doesn’t take long to wander its compact and fine old town that sits high above its coveted harbor. And just minutes outside of city limits you’ll be exploring a rural realm of nature reserves that coexist with luxur...

There are great bar lounges. There are wicked natural caves. There are amazing sunsets. Put them all together and it’s a guarantee that the Cova d’en Xoroi bar on the southeast coast of Spain’s Menorca island is the craziest place you’ve ever had a sunset drink. After all, you’re tucked one hundred feet above the pounding waves on a deck plopped on a ledge in the limestone cliffs.
Far less commercially developed than its big cousin Mallorca just across a Balearic Sea strait in the Mediterrane...