Alina Morand

Within an hour of Buena Vista’s main street, there are 15 fourteeners (mountain peaks with elevation over 14,000 feet). The Arkansas River runs a world-class whitewater park right through the center of town. The Chalk Cliffs of Mount Princeton rise above natural hot springs 20 minutes to the south. This is serious adventure country, and it has been for a long time. What changed is that someone opened the Surf Hotel, and suddenly BV had a place to stay that matched the landscape: beautiful, considered, a little unexpected. My husband and I spent a long weekend here hiking hard each morning, soaking at Mount Princeton in the afternoons, and spending our evenings at Wesley & Rose working through the cocktail menu by the river. The adventure town had earned its dinner. We left already planning the return trip.

We came to the Amalfi Coast for our mini-moon—a few stolen days between our October wedding and the rest of life returning to normal—and almost made the classic mistake of booking Positano. I’m glad we didn’t. We chose Praiano, the quiet village most people drive straight through between Positano and Amalfi, and it reframed everything I thought I knew about this coastline. We stayed at Casa Angelina and Grand Hotel Tritone, had meals that rivaled anything I’ve eaten in years, swam in the sea in early October with the cliffs entirely to ourselves, and came home feeling like we’d found the version of the Amalfi Coast that actually lives up to the mythology. It’s not a secret, but it rewards the people who choose it intentionally.

My husband grew up in Orange, the Roman city just 10 minutes up the road from Châteauneuf-du-Pape, which means this village isn’t a discovery for us—it’s family. We’ve wandered these medieval lanes, celebrated our wedding dinner above the Pope’s ruins, and spent countless meals working through the appellation one glass at a time. What keeps drawing me back, beyond the extraordinary wine, is how completely Châteauneuf resists becoming a tourist set piece. It remains a working wine village where the vignerons outnumber the visitors, the history is genuinely ancient, and the food takes the wine as seriously as the wine takes itself.

At 10,152 feet, Leadville isn't just Colorado's highest incorporated town; it's one of the last relatively untouched mountain communities in a state where resort development has transformed many once-authentic towns. This is a working town with real history, where locals still outnumber second-homeowners, and where you're more likely to find miners and ultra-runners than après-ski crowds. You won't find luxury resorts, but you will find exceptional experiences—thoughtful menus, historic hotels with real stories, and quality that doesn't need to announce itself. I've spent countless weekends at our mountain house here, and what keeps drawing me back is the gritty authenticity of a place that's remained true to itself.

My husband is from Provence, and his roots have given me a different kind of access to this region—one measured not in sights ticked off but in market mornings, long lunches that stretch into dusk, and the particular quality of light that turns limestone gold at six in the evening. I got married in Gordes, which means this corner of France holds something more than travel memories for me. What keeps drawing me back is that Provence rewards slowness in a way few places do: the villages are best understood on foot, the food is best eaten unhurried, and the landscape—lavender, olive groves, white rock—reveals itself gradually, village by village.

Sonoma wine country has an unfair advantage over Napa that nobody talks about enough: The towns actually feel like places where people live. Napa can feel like a stage set for wine tourism; Sonoma and Healdsburg feel like real communities that happen to sit in the middle of extraordinary wine country. I've done three types of trips here—a couple's weekend, a girls' trip to Sonoma, and a milestone birthday in Healdsburg—and what keeps bringing me back isn't just the wine. It's the feeling of landing somewhere that doesn't need to impress you, because the quality is already there in the glass, on the plate, and in the streets you're walking through.

Most family resorts announce themselves immediately—primary colors, themed everything, chaos as ambiance. Grand Velas Riviera Nayarit takes a different approach entirely. This is a sophisticated, elegant property that happens to excel at accommodating families, not a family resort trying to add luxury touches. The result? Fine dining that genuinely welcomes toddlers, thoughtful programming that creates real downtime for parents, and an atmosphere that never makes you feel like you’ve compromised on quality for the sake of convenience.