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6-8 days, Beach, Culture, Destinations, Diving, Europe, Experiences, Italy, Itineraries

Cruising through Puglia, Italy’s heel

March 25, 2023

I arrive in Bari, a busy modern port and the largest city in Puglia, tired. The many hours on the road navigating the 1,200 km between my home in South Germany and Italy’s heel seem endless. Though most of it is an interesting drive. Traversing the Alps and Northern Italy to land at the edge of Europe feels like moving through different worlds. As we drive south, the change in scenery is extreme. Puglia is like a different continent, a place apart. Caught between the Adriatic and the Ionian seas, it’s the end of something and the beginning of something else. 

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Brazil, South America, Uncategorized

Brazil’s treasured island

April 6, 2022

The last rays of sunshine lengthen over Conceição Beach as I swim just before dusk, birds flying over my head. The warm, constant flow of waves and white fluffy sand feel like velvet on the skin. Glorious “Morro do Pico”, in between surfers, rises above the shrubbery. I walk with bare feet through the long stretch of beach, to end up at Bar do Meio, where a small crowd gathers and dances at the sound of live music.

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10 days, Culture, Destinations, Europe, Experiences, Italy, Itineraries, On the road

Sicily from east to west

September 28, 2021

On a map, Sicily is right in the central Mediterranean Sea, south of the Italian Peninsula from which the narrow Strait of Messina separates it. Surrounded by three seas – Tyrrhenian, Mediterranean, and Ionian – it’s not too distant from mainland Italy, and its southernmost Island is astonishingly just a 113 km stretch from Tunisia. Laying between the civilizations of Africa and Europe, Sicily is a world apart. No wonder. A region separated from the rest of Italy not only by the sea but also by centuries of history and cultural experience. Yet, by traveling there, I discover, Sicily is also a vital part of the country.

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6-8 days, 7 days, Beach, Destinations, Europe, Experiences, Itineraries, Spain, Trekking

Ibiza beyond summer

August 24, 2021

It has been a long European winter—the coldest in a few years. Add to that the second wave of a pandemic and a strict lockdown insisting on taking away much of the season’s joy. Then, the so expected spring doesn’t show. It’s already early April, I’m in south Germany, and the cold doesn’t let up. I wish for a dreamscape, ideally by the sound of waves, under sublime sunshine.

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10 days, Africa, Culture, Destinations, Experiences, Itineraries, Morroco, On the road

In the Berber’s footsteps

April 13, 2021

On the edge of North Africa’s desert, I watch nomads shelter from the sun in a camel-hair tent. A man herds his camels with curved daggers hanging down his back, and a long colorful scarf wraps around his head and neck. Mules swing their heads and stare. In the distance, the great stone and snowy caps fold of the Atlas Mountains behind the man, the animals, the tent. 

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10 days, Culture, Destinations, Experiences, Iran, Itineraries, Middle East

Against the odds in Iran

November 6, 2020

It’s the end of March in southeast Iran, and I am setting up camp where the shifting sands of the Lut Desert, or Dasht-e Lut, forge a living work of art. Over sunset, my eyes get wider. Like in nowhere else, I’m entranced, the golden light unfolding the magnetism of a mystic wilderness. Max, my husband, and I assemble the tends under a gentle desert breeze. I look around and see nothing but infinity and silence in giant dunes framed by alien rock formations. “Lut is my favorite place in the world,” says Hooman, our Iranian fixer in the desert. “It’s the only place where I can have a glimpse of what freedom feels like.”

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3-5 days, Asia, Beach, Destinations, Diving, Experiences, Indonesia, Itineraries

Bawah Reserve, Indonesia’s finest private island

September 24, 2020

It’s late October when I am picked up at home in Singapore on an early Friday morning. Unlike most of my travels, this time, I’m loving the idea of a resort holding my hands from the moment I step out of my door until I reach its final destination. Yet I am quite intrigued by the place I’m headed. I can barely find it on a map. My husband points at the waters between peninsular Malaysia and Borneo on Google Maps. I have to zoom it in hard to realize those little dots are actual islands. 

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Nanda Haensel