10 top-class experiences everyone should experience in North America. Photo / Aman Resorts
It's a big ol' place North America, and it's enough to jam-pack your bucket list from now until forever. Rather than overwhelm your 2022 travel agenda, we've compiled 10 top-class experiences.
Think Miami is all high-rise beach pads and string bikinis? Well, it is, but it's also a hub of surprising art experiences. The Art Basel fair rolls into town every December, showering the city with art shows, events, and because this is Miami, parties for days.
Mixing modern art with beachside cabanas, Faena Hotel Miami Beach is a big hit with luxury-lovers and also serves as a venue for the festival. Alternatively, if you have US$2700 in your back pocket, an overnight stay at the W South Beach features 21 Warhols in the lobby. The Wynwood Arts District is Miami's arty heart, home to wall upon wall of eclectic murals and the world's first Museum of Graffiti.
Don't skip town without heading to the Caribbean Marketplace in Little Haiti for authentic arts and crafts or, for something obscenely OTT, Dior Cafe in the Design District is sprinkled with life-size animal sculptures donning Toile de Jouy print.
First things first, you can't do Tinseltown without a car. This is a city that the word sprawling was coined for. But don't reach for the Prius keys just yet, everything from convertible rentals to celeb-style SUVs is de rigueur here.
With wheels to your name (which you should now change to a showbiz one), Venice Beach is calling. Just minutes from the sand is Abbot Kinney Boulevard, a mile-long strip of shops, restaurants and art galleries, including Salt & Straw where the icecream flavours are as wacky as caramelised turkey and cranberry sauce. Also on Kinney, plenty of places to live the clean, green LA lifestyle: brunch at The Butcher's Daughter for an entire sub-menu dedicated to avocados.
For retail relief, Melrose Avenue destroys bank accounts and is also home to the rooftop bar and celebrity hangout Catch. Nearby is Craig's, a SoCal institution and your go-to for American comfort food, it's also a Kardashian hotspot.
In September 2021, the Hawaii Tourism Authority announced it would be resuming the Community Enrichment Programme, an incentive to encourage tourists to visit the real Hawaii that Hawaiians love. A wealth of conscientious new activities blossomed.
Take a farm tour through Kauai's kalo (taro) fields, run by six generations of the Haraguchi-Nakayama family. You'll also get the opportunity to eat a traditional Hawaiian lunch. Explore one of the world's most fragile ecosystems on the 240ha Kanepuu Preserve on Lanai. Home to endemic Hawaiian plants found nowhere else on earth, tours are self-led and the terrain is what Hawaiian dreams are made of.
Over in Oahu on Kualoa Ranch, try your hand at thatching a traditional Hawaiian hale (grass hut) or make it to Molokai for Purdy's Natural Macadamia Nut Farm. A five-acre Hawaiian homestead and macadamia nut farm, visitors are taught how to "crack a mac" and devour its delicious insides.
You know an area of significance needs state park status when visitors are accidentally making fire pits out of 100-million-year-old dinosaur bones. To be fair, in the soon-to-be Utahraptor State Park they're almost as common as firewood. The area has more than 5000 bones from more than 10 dinosaur species, including the Utahraptor, hence the park's name. A palaeontologist's dream, it's due to open in 2022 once trails, campsites and day-use facilities are completed.
Nudging Arches National Park and Canyonlands National Park, if your big US trip doesn't quite align with Utahraptor's grand unveiling, there are plenty more places to discover, not forgetting Utah's Mighty Five national parks.
And if all that rock puts you in the mood for a hot stone massage, Amangiri, part of the Aman resort collection, cuts deep into Utah's desert, 480km away in Canyon Point. Worth the journey for its slick concrete rooms, spa and a pool dwarfed by towering mesas, it's like the hidden lair of a James Bond villain. Because the baddies always have the most badass abodes.
There's something so glorious about global travel, it makes even the most humdrum things fascinating. Exclaiming at how different the road signs look "over here" or marvelling at the aesthetics of front doors and shopfronts is all part of the experience – and not one you'll gain from an aeroplane. You will, however, from a train.
Amtrak is the US' national rail service, connecting almost every inch of the country. If you've ever wanted to witness America's astonishing diversity, you can do so from huge picture windows. For visitors, Amtrak's USA Rail Pass is the ultimate hop-on, hop-off ticket, accessing 500 destinations, to pick and choose across 10 journeys and 30 days. It's easily the most carefree way to jump from national parks to big cities to the coast, with stations conveniently dropping you off in the centre of it all. At US$499pp ($714), you get a lot of bang for your buck.
If you're after a little opulence, there's ample aboard Amtrak. Passengers can request private bedrooms for one to two people, family rooms (two adults and two children between 2 and 12 years of age) and bedroom suites. Guests are treated to bathrooms with showers, turndown service, a sleeping car attendant, luxury lounge access at all major stations and full meal service, including three-course dinners.
We could never leave NYC off a bucket list but we'll sidestep the obvious must-dos in favour of new-for-2022 attractions. First off, Summit One Vanderbilt officially opened in October. An upgrade on your stock-standard observation deck, this inner-city thrill features a glass elevator that shuttles 365m up and down the outside of the building, and for the ultimate knee quaker, a suspended glass box. Step inside and attempt to hold on to your stomach.
The Blue Box Cafe reopens in 2022 at its flagship Tiffany & Co. store located at 727 Fifth Avenue, currently undergoing a total reinvention. Does that mean you can actually breakfast at Tiffany's? Yes, but not until autumn 2022 when Tiff unveils her makeover.
Micro hotels are also having a bit of a Big Apple moment. Small in size but with lower-than-average rates, look out for modern Arlo micro hotels (Midtown, SoHo and NoMad) for temptingly tiny stays smack bang in the middle of the action.
As a nation of keen trampers and a lengthy lockdown to boot, it's as if we've spent all our lives (and most definitely the latter half of 2021) training for the holy grail of hiking: the Trans Canada Trail. This mammoth network of paths is more than 27,000km long, connects well over 15,000 Canadian communities and covers every nook of the country. There's literally no escaping it and nor would you want to.
Tracks can be walked or cycled, parts can be ridden by horseback and others paddled by canoe or kayak. If you want to complete every inch of it, allow at least two years. You'd certainly see the majority of Canada, including its major cities. Tracks don't solely sew a route through the wop wops - the Waterfront Trail for example, traces the shores of Lake Ontario through Toronto. Another weaves its way to Niagara, putting you face to face with the falls.
Travel addicts across the world rave about Rocky Mountaineer's three Canada-based rail routes. Notably for the non-stop flawless vistas and old-world charm of train travel. Riding the rails is undisputedly one of the best ways to see Canada and now the good folk at Rocky Mountaineer have made tracks into the US too.
Chugging into America's Southwest earlier this year, the train's newest route, Rockies to the Red Rocks, snakes between Denver, Colorado and Moab in Utah (or vice versa) over two days; hoodoos and mile-high rock canyons slinking past the window with agreeable regularity. With an overnight stay in Colorado's Glenwood Springs, Rocky Mountaineer's regaled SilverLeaf service delivers every comfort you could wish for, while upgrading to SilverLeaf Plus permits exclusive access to the newly renovated lounge car. And cocktails, we might add.
Masters of an engaging story, whether they're telling it or singing it, the Deep South's heritage is always told creatively. Nashville is where the world's first National Museum of African American Music opened in January. Follow the evolution of every musical genre from gospel to blues, hip-hop, soul, jazz and more.
Then, of course, there's Dolly Parton. If you're a fan of the country crooner, don't miss White Limozeen, Nashville's new Dolly-inspired bar. It's pink, it's pretty and there's a rooftop area that's utterly, unapologetically (perfectly?) overdone.
For something a little rougher around the edges, Nashville's Lower Broadway is nicknamed Honky Tonk Highway and home to no-frills musical bars, where it's less about the aesthetics and more about the ambience. And talent. Oodles of it. Afterwards, make tracks to Prince's Hot Chicken diner. A 100-year-old institution, it's a story of infidelity, a scorned lover and a super spicy revenge meal that ended up tasting unexpectedly good...
We know New Zealand hosts its fair share of glacial wonders but to walk through an Alaskan ice cave is nothing shy of life-changing. Matanuska Glacier Cave, right outside of Anchorage, is the country's most accessible but being a little more intrepid rewards the bold.
In southeast Alaska near Juneau, a six-to-eight-hour hike over Mendenhall Glacier grants access to an absurdly beautiful ice kingdom, where the walls are the colour of a Tahitian lagoon and bright-blue ceilings mesmerise.
You could also venture to the ice caves at Spencer Glacier in Chugach National Forest by combining the Whistle Stop train with a short, easy hike. Walking and kayaking tours depart from the station and if you're after the ultimate adventure, Ascending Path offers overnight glacier camping.
5 must-take pics for The Gram
That Prada shop: Almost as famous as That Wanaka Tree, this spot is located on Route 66 in Valentine, Texas, just off US Highway 90. But don't bother saving up for a Prada bag, it's an art installation.
Chicago pizza pies: Proving if you want it enough, dreams can come true.
Seattle's Gum Wall: Located at Pike Place Market, it's exactly what it says it is. Strangely beautiful, take your Wrigley's and stick a piece.
Los Angeles' angel wings: Visit Downtown LA's Arts District for a photo before LA-based artist Colette Miller's angel wing murals.
Broken Shaker bar: It's the rooftop New York bar you didn't know you already knew. Photographed on the daily, its fairy lights, skyline views and plump furnishings feature everywhere.
When there's nothing as far as the eye can see, you may appreciate the company.