Katarina Kroslakova. Photography by Pierre Toussaint. The adage of “not all who wander are lost” is especially true in this edition, our annual travel issue, which explores the many ways we move about the world for pleasure, and what we hope to find in ourselves as we do.
In our cover story, “All Rise” (page 54), the Australian model and actress Charlee Fraser says she had no choice but to “trust the universe” when the world of showbusiness beat a path to her door — rather than the other way around — and she was thrust into the high-profile role of Mary Jabassa in the highly anticipated prequel to 2015’s “Mad Max: Fury Road”. Fraser tells Victoria Pearson about her experience filming “Furiosa” alongside Hollywood heavyweights Chris Hemsworth (a fellow Australian) and Anya Taylor-Joy, and how travel informs her creative process.
Fraser isn’t the only Aussie spreading her wings in this issue. On page 66, we get to know Brisbane-born dancer and comedian Sarah McCreanor, aka Smac.McCreanor, who now lives in Los Angeles, has amassed millions of followers for her quirky dance videos, though she represents much more than the sum of her Instagram likes — her “Hydraulic press girl” series debuted at the National Gallery of Victoria’s recent Triennial exhibition, delighting thousands of kids and adults who emulated her moves.
In “Girt by Sea” (page 30), columnist Lance Richardson ponders the role of the beach in Australian culture and identity, inviting us to consider the ocean’s darker side, as well as its recurring role as a relaxing backdrop in our lives. Speaking of relaxing, Cecilia Morelli, the co-founder of luxury store Le Mill in Mumbai, shows us around her holiday home on the tranquil Sicilian island of Salina on page 36.
We visit the beach again in “Hear Them Roar” on page 76, though in a very different context. Where the world’s oldest desert meets the Atlantic, the writer and wildlife photographer Anthony Ham coins conversationists working to save Namibia’s last lions. “Aside from Ernest Hemingway, and, of course, the local people in northwestern Namibia, very few outsiders knew there were lions in this arid corner of Namibia,” he writes. “I can’t drive from my mind the image of a lion, golden in sunset light, stalking the sand dunes.”
Our intrepid travel writers also understood the assignment. In South Australia’s Adelaide Hills, Benjamen Judd spends an art-filled weekend at Bird in Hand winery, which has launched a new onsite stay (page 70); Andrea Black previews Silversea’s new Silver Nova fleet ahead of its maiden Australian voyage this month (page 84); and Ute Junker spends a week sailing through Greece on Seabourn’s Encore, a boutique ship for which she’d happily forgo her shore leave (page 42). “I never made it beyond the beach,” she writes.
And if you’re going to go, go in style — Kara Hurry meets two women on a mission to make it last, extolling vintage threads as an eco-friendly antidote to fast fashion on page 40, while Italian furniture house Cassina’s reinvention of Charlotte Perriand’s Indochine chaise lounge provides a designer perch from which to watch the world go by (page 32).
Peruse, enjoy and wonder where your own wanderlust might take you
Katarina Kroslakova — publisher, editor-in-chief
