JACK SMITH

When the fourth-annual Austrian Alpine Rally set off from the starting line in Vienna on the morning of June 22, 1913, more than a trophy was at stake for Claude Johnson, the managing director of Rolls-Royce Motorcars at the time. With a route that heaved and twisted some 1,800 miles into the Alps and through […]

The threat of conflict forever clouds Israel’s tourism industry, though you may never know it in the high tech–fueled coastal town of Herzliya.  In the spring of 2014, the relative calm before the storm in Israel, a yacht raced from the Herzliya marina and out into the open sea. The thicket of sailing masts in […]

The Peruvian Amazon proves the perfect setting for the Super Bowl of Birding. There was something surreal about the scene in the Peruvian rain forest, where a dozen men were peering intently into the darkness as if summoning the dawn. It would not be long before the group—laden with binoculars, scopes, cameras, and GPS and […]

Wind-whipped, the wave rises, heaves, and churns as it rushes toward the shore and spits out a man in a black neoprene wet suit. His arms and legs flail as he sputters for air and struggles to his feet. It is, says Azzedine, his instructor from the Explora surfing school in Essaouira, Morocco, an improvement. […]

When the fourth-annual Austrian Alpine Rally set off from the starting line in Vienna on the morning of June 22, 1913, more than a trophy was at stake for Claude Johnson, the managing director of Rolls-Royce Motorcars at the time. With a route that heaved and twisted some 1,800 miles into the Alps and through […]

It is axiomatic among some habitués of Chinese restaurants that the more cliché the ambience—the statuette of a pudgy Buddha, the bottles of plum wine on a shelf, the tattered New Year’s dragon hanging in the window—the more authentic the cuisine. Why this is, nobody really knows. Perhaps the seemingly haphazard decor is intended, like joss […]

The year was 1974, and a small party of safari goers led by the flamboyant Geoffrey Kent had just crossed the moonlit border from Kenya into what is now South Sudan. Kent was the chairman and CEO of Abercrombie & Kent, a young outfitter gaining renown for its luxury safaris. His client was a friend, […]

From casbahs to riads, the following four hotels serve as prime jumping-off points for authentic outdoor adventures in Morocco. Heure Bleue Palais, Essaouira L’heure bleue refers to that moment when the sky seems to take on a nostalgic glow. The moment is especially romantic at this boutique-style Relais & Châteaux hotel in Essaouira. A magnificently […]

In Beijing, the signs of a booming art scene are everywhere. In the 798 District, the erstwhile Soviet factory zone, a storefront gallery displays Sui Jianguo’s toy-like fiberglass dinosaurs and sells them for $6,360 each. Street artist Zhang Dali has tagged construction sites all over the city with the likeness of his own bald head […]

In the 1960s and ’70s, Mustique Island, a three-and-a-half-mile-long expanse of powdery beaches and cedar forests in the heart of the Grenadines archipelago, was a hotbed of scandal. British royalty and their friends flocked to the Caribbean island to swill Champagne and frolic nude on the beach during the day and party in palatial villas […]