Best Places You've Never Heard Of
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by
Nahal Ahmed
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1:40 AM
Five people lucky enough to travel for a living reveal their favorite recent discoveries—places they happened upon and still can't stop thinking about. Here are their stories.
Havelock, New Zealand
The traveler: Leon Logothetis, a London broker who jumped ship at the chance to work for the Discovery Channel show Destination Future. The experience inspired his own show, Amazing Adventures of a Nobody, which cataloged his super-frugal adventures.
The place: Havelock sits at the head of the wide, startlingly clear Pelorus Sound, and a boat or kayak boarded at the marina leads to winding waterways where dolphins jump from the water and dark-green mountains jut steeply into the air around every turn. Havelock's tiny downtown is chockablock with cute two-story colonial buildings that house galleries and restaurants. "Both the North and South Islands of New Zealand are filled with dreamlike scenery and picturesque little towns," says Logothetis. "But of all of them, Havelock is my favorite. It's just this little slice of heaven, with great food, super-friendly people, and an amazing setting."
Tremolat France
The tra
veler: Amie O'Shaughnessy, founder of ciaobambino.com, a website devoted to family-
friendly lodging. She travels at least twice a month to review family-friendly properties.
The place: Tremolat's fortresslike Romanesque church dates back to the 11th century, but the surrounding region boasts an even longer history. The valleys are dotted with prehistoric rock dwellings, Ston
ehenge-like megaliths, and caves painted with haunting images of bison, horses, and traced hum
an hands estimated to be an astounding 17,000 years old. O'Shaughnessy and her brood explored the area by bike, car, and on foot; their favorite experience was dining at Les Truffières, a working farm that serves the food it grows.
Lago Todos los Santos, ChileThe traveler: Rupert Barrington, who has spent 20 years traveling to far-flung places as a producer for BBC wildlife programs, including this spring's Life series.
The place: Lago Todos los Santos has steep wooded banks and, in the background, looming fantastically over the watery scene, a perfectly symmetrical, snowcapped, 8,730-foot volcano called Osorno that's drawn comparisons to Mount Fuji. Barrington's verdict on the landscape was nearly instantaneous: "I thought it was just the most beautiful place I'd ever been," he says. "I felt that I'd arrived at something quite special and wild."
Binn, SwitzerlandThe traveler: Greg Witt, operator of a hiking guide service, Alpenwild. He first tackled the Alps as an 18-year-old backpacker and continues to spend two months in Switzerland every summer.
The place: After decades of canvassing the Swiss countryside, Witt still gets excited about returning to Binn, in a small, secluded Alpine valley at the base of zigzagging peaks sporting countless shades of green. Local residents uphold a pact made more than 50 years ago to resist the kind of overdevelopment that's added posh ski resorts and multilane highways to much of southwestern Switzerland. "Even today, the 16th-century stone bridge leading into the village of Binn bears the load of goats and hikers, not cars and buses," says Witt.
Shangri-La, ChinaThe traveler: Christian Pucher, development director for Six Senses Resorts & Spas, a Bangkok–based hotelier known for its high-end eco-resorts in pristine locales.
The place: Few places evoke paradise like the mythical Shangri-La, the mountainous valley depicted in James Hilton's 1933 novel, Lost Horizon. And that's just what Pucher found when he encountered the northwestern area of China's Yunnan province, which borders Tibet and was renamed Shangri-La in 2001 for its natural beauty. The snowcapped peaks, Alpine lakes, and deep gorges of the Tibetan Plateau were unlike anything the Swiss native had imagined. "I was in absolute awe," Pucher says. "Mountains of up to 22,000 feet would rise and drop into valleys of 6,000 feet or more. The roads crossed some of the most beautiful landscapes I had ever seen."
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