In any given year, the exercise of assembling a definitive list of the best places to travel is both exciting and daunting. After all, we’re never short on inspiring places and experiences we hope to cross off. And so, every fall, when we convene to start the process of creating this list, we do so with great care, enlisting our extensively travelled network of writers from around the world – and for the first time this year, editors from other Condé Nast Traveller markets – to pitch, endorse, defend, and eventually align on the places we believe that you, as our readers, will most want to go over the next 12 months.
Our 23 best places to travel in 2023 is a mix of old favourites worth visiting anew, and lesser-trammelled, even once-forbidden, regions ready to welcome travellers – yet they are all unified by highly anticipated new offerings and evolutions. There’s something here for every kind of traveller, whether you seek extraordinary excursions through ancient rainforests, a blossoming terroir-driven culinary scene, or dazzling cultural calendars packed with world-class music and rare art exhibits. We also believe that there’s more that binds than separates these places: an opportunity for richer engagement with local communities, slower travel, and more meaningful – and joyful – human connection. What could better speak to what we hope for in the year ahead?
Auckland will be one of nine cities to host the FIFA Women’s World Cup in 2023.
For our friends across the pond, air connectivity with the US has never been stronger. The world’s fourth-longest leg, Air New Zealand’s nearly-17-hour flagship from New York City, debuted in September.
Meanwhile, Auckland’s jam-packed events calendar seems to be making up for lost time. After a three-year hiatus, the popular Lantern Festival will be held in February 2023 to celebrate Chinese New Year. Pasifika, the largest Pacific Island cultural festival in the world, is returning in March 2023 after a two-year pause. And, in July, the quadrennial FIFA Women’s World Cup 2023 will swing down under to nine host cities across New Zealand and Australia, with Auckland’s games held in Eden Park.
Aside from Auckland’s newest attractions that outsiders have yet to experience – like the $350M eco-sensitive Te Wānanga waterfront development on Quay Street – three years’ worth of flashy hotel openings also await. There’s the Park Hyatt, QT Auckland, the charming Hotel Fitzroy, and Hotel Britomart, New Zealand’s only 5-Green-Star certified hotel. Stays in the city pair perfectly with newcomers in Auckland’s rural periphery, like the Scandi-inspired Parohe Island Retreat and golf-centric Te Arai. Should you journey further into Aotearoa, new multi-day tours by luxury rail operator Great Journeys depart from Auckland Rail Station. From the looks of it, 2023 will – finally – give Auckland its time to shine. Paul Jebara
The newly opened Klahoose Wilderness Resort invites guests to learn about Klahoose First Nation Culture – and experience fantastic wildlife viewing – in British Columbia’s remote Desolation Sound.
Hotels aside, other 2022 openings like the Melides Pottery Museum, which celebrates Portugal’s rich ceramic history, and beach-front restaurants like À Toa on Praia de Melides, add to the excitement around this buzzy destination. Abigail Malbon
Go for: New public spaces, restaurants and hotels that highlight the city’s heritage
The Memphian Hotel is an eye-catching marker of the city’s hotel boom – it’s just one of eight new properties opened in 2022.
The Memphian Hotel shines a light on the city’s heritage through design and cuisine, much like the city’s coolest new restaurants.
Nashville claims a lot of national buzz, but the city of Memphis has been quietly reshaping itself to be the hottest destination in Tennessee. Over the past decade, its downtown has invested billions in revitalization projects – and now, visitors can begin reaping the benefits.
An upgraded Tom Lee Park will open downtown in 2023, and in time for Memphis in May, a month-long festival celebrating the city’s culture with the famed Beale Street Music Festival and the World Championship Barbecue Cooking Contest. The $60 million transformation will add new pavilions, meditative paths, riverfront seating, sound gardens, and the Canopy Walk connecting the park to downtown – all a fitting tribute to the park’s heroic namesake, a Black Memphian who, nearly a century ago, rescued passengers from a sinking steamboat on the Mississippi River. Next up: The Walk on Union, said to be the largest new mixed-use development in the Southeast, will play host to retail businesses, green spaces, and two new Hilton hotels as it opens in phases over the next few years.
Memphis is experiencing a hotel boom, with eight new properties in 2022 and more on the way. Recently opened are the funky The Memphian and Hyatt’s first Caption concept, both of which shine a light on the city’s heritage through design and cuisine, much like the latest crop of Memphis restaurants. Barbecue still reigns, but the city’s trendiest spots are lightening things up: Raw Girls now has two brick-and-mortar smoothie and juice bars, Food Network star chef Tamra Patterson will open a new vegetarian spot in 2023, and craft cocktail bar Cameo, opened this year, serves up sophisticated mocktails. Kelsey Ogletree
Go for: Women-led food experiences, new lodges on iconic vineyards
At the foot of the majestic Andes, a crop of stylish new restaurants and hotels – many spearheaded by women – are giving travellers a new reason to raise a glass in Argentina’s wine capital.
Toasting with Malbec in front of the majestic Andes is how people celebrate in Mendoza, and a slew of stylish restaurant and hotel openings – many of which are spearheaded by women – provides ever more reason to raise a glass in Argentina’s Great Wine Capital (it is just 90 minutes by plane from Buenos Aires, after all).
Mendoza’s new bodega wining and dining experiences are many. There’s chef Patricia Courtois’s 5 Suelos at Durigutti Family Winemakers (opened April 2022), sommelier Camila Cerezo Pawlak’s Ruda restaurant in Tupungato Winelands (January 2022), and Catena Zapata’s opulent Angélica named for the family matriarch (November 2022).
Zonda at Bodega Lagarde – an organic, B-Corp certified winery that marks its 125th anniversary in 2023 – stands out, however, for showcasing the best of Mendoza, from fantastic vintages down to its hard-carved teaspoons. Owner Sofia Pescarmona shares her family’s terroir with guests, who gather herbs and veggies and get a little messy making empanadas during Zonda’s immersive garden-to-table experience. Efforts are rewarded with a nine-course regional tasting menu paired with Lagarde wines, including the refreshing Proyecto Hermanas White Blend that Sofia makes with sister Lucila.
Plus, the latest venture of Susana Balbo – Argentina’s trailblazing female oenologist who helms her namesake winery – saw her lovingly refurbish a mansion with daughter Ana Lovaglio, unveiling it as the seven-suite SB Winemaker’s Lodge & Spa in April 2022; chef Flavia Amad Di Leo runs both the bodega and the hotel’s restaurants. Invigorated by in-room massages and asado by the pool, adventurous guests can then hire the lodge’s VisionAir seaplane, Argentina’s only such aircraft, and explore hidden corners of the world’s eighth-largest country. Sorrel Moseley-Williams
Go for: Luxury mountain retreats, rare experiences in a remote destination
From design virtuoso Bill Bensley, the all-inclusive Shinta Mani Mustang is arguably Asia’s most anticipated hotel opening of 2023, set in the remote, once-forbidden region of Mustang.
For decades, Nepal has been the Himalayan destination of choice for backpackers and trekkers drawn to its deep-rooted spirituality, endless adventure offerings, and those sky-piercing peaks. This hasn’t been the case for many luxury-minded travellers, though, who often chose neighbouring Bhutan for its superior clutch of upscale mountain lodges. That will change in 2023 as Nepal unveils a wave of first-rate boutique accommodations and experiences.
Ollantaytambo is best known for its archaeological site, a hillside Incan fortress that draws travellers off the train to Machu Picchu. But of late, the village has also become a terroir-driven culinary epicentre in the Sacred Valley, with local entrepreneurs placing a new era of the Andean food and drink traditions on the world stage. Taste herbaceous high-elevation rums, or infuse your own, at Destilería Andina; sip Andean coffee, or roast souvenir beans, at Cafe Mayu; and sample craft beer flavoured with local fruit at Cerveceria del Valle Sagrado. Old and new continue to meet, through farm-to-table fare paired with creative cocktails at Chuncho; meanwhile, tradition takes precedence with ancestral earthen oven pachamanca cooking in El Albergue Ollantaytambo’s farm tour meals. And look for Destilería Andina’s new location with a full-service bar, opening in mid-2023, near Cerveceria del Valle Sagrado.
Queensland has returned thousands of acres to Indigenous groups over the last two years, a shift that has yielded special new experiences for travellers.
Further north, lands near the Torres Strait Islands – there are at least 274 in the strait between Australia and New Guinea – were returned to Torres Strait Islanders of Aboriginal, Melanesian, and Australian background last year. Now, local Indigenous entrepreneurs have launched companies like Strait Experience, which offers a first-of-its-kind day trip to the islands from Cairns, making the destination more accessible than ever.
This content was originally published here.
