Travel writer Sarah Pollok at Aït Benhaddou, Morocco. Photo / Supplied
Travel writer Sarah Pollok at Aït Benhaddou, Morocco. Photo / Supplied
2023 has delivered every travel highlight that we were told it would in 2020 - when Covid experts said things wouldn’t come right for at least three years. The world came to a standstill during the pandemic but in 2023, things felt normal again. We saw airports, booked airfares, visitedfar-flung family and by July, forgot all about vaccination requirements. It was joyous, it was a relief, and most of all, travel became exciting again. Here are some of our highlights and recommendations for 2024.
Of the places I visited around the world this year, the best was, without a doubt, Morocco. Starting in Marrakech, I spent seven days travelling in a loop around the remote villages of the High Atlas Mountains with Intrepid Travel. Morocco alone is an incredible destination (rich food, bold colours, and totally unfamiliar customs) but with Intrepid we were granted a level of intimacy foreigners rarely experience. We ate genuine Moroccan cuisine in people’s homes and watched a local female-only band perform as they would for a wedding or party. Although most Kiwis favour familiar, and nearby destinations like Fiji or Sydney, Morocco is a rich, fascinating place that will broaden your perspective and produce life-long memories, especially if explored with an all-knowing guide.
- Sarah Pollok
Morocco is an incredible destination, with rich food, bold colours, and unfamiliar customs. Photo / Sarah Pollok
If you’re visiting the US for the first time, Chicago is the big city to try first. It’s smaller, cleaner (and friendlier) than New York but bigger than Boston and San Francisco. It can be a gateway to the American northeast and a launching pad for everything the Great Lakes has to offer. The city itself is one you’ll quickly fall in love with. There’s beautiful architecture, Parisian-like parks, and tree-lined neighbourhoods. Famous the world over for its sports, thanks to Michael Jordan and the Bulls, Chicago also has an underrated arts and culture scene. Museums like the Monet-filled Art Institute of Chicago rival some of the best in the world. You’re also never short of great food to try - with many of the neighbourhoods boasting a distinct character or flavour.
Bright lights, a big city, mobsters, art, aliens and a haunted hotel all sound like the makings of a great adventure and that’s exactly what Nevada gave us. Road-tripping through the state was one of the coolest adventures of the year. Vegas is brash and bold, exactly what you would expect, and the sensory overload initially is quite something. However, some of the best Nevada experiences are outside the city. The ghost town of Rhyolite takes you back in time to the booming era of the early 20th-century gold rush and The Extraterrestrial Highway is a brilliant mix of fact and fiction (depending on what you believe) and a hub for everything alien.
The Heritage expedition leader promised “more sex and violence than a Tarantino movie”, but he wasn’t talking about the shipboard nightlife. We were at Enderby Island, where sea lions crowd the beach in a primal display of sexual competition and conquest. Enderby is one of the Auckland Islands, in the middle of the Southern Ocean, which is home to thousands of albatrosses, enormous creatures whose beauty in flight and up close on the windswept hillsides takes your breath away. Penguins are everywhere, too, diving around your Zodiac with delightful synchronicity. It’s a magical kingdom. You go for the majesty, thrill to the great rolling seas and become a convert to the cause, which is species survival.
- Simon Wilson
Life is always tougher for those at the end of the road. Anywhere on the way to somewhere else has an advantage but the effort required to reach a dead-end destination is often worthwhile. Mt Cook is one such spot, and end-of-the-road attractions in New Zealand literally do not get any bigger than our highest mountain. At 3724m (12,217 feet), Aoraki towers almost 3000m above Mt Cook Village. There surely cannot be a New Zealand hotel with more spectacular views than the famed Hermitage, which frames the mountain in its floor-to-ceiling restaurant windows. Tracks cater for all abilities, ranging from walks in and around the village taking 10 to 60 minutes to hikes taking all day. If it’s been a while since you were last there, 2024 could be the year to reacquaint yourself with the dead-end delights of Aoraki/Mt Cook.
- Simon Kay
The alpine terrain around Mt Cook / Aoraki village provides easy day walks in the pīwauwau's back yard. Photo / Mountain Ash, Unsplash
Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory gives travellers a rare chance to dive into one of the oldest surviving cultures in the world. Every year, the small mining town of Gulkula hosts the Garma Festival, where First Nations People from around Australia showcase cultural traditions, values and pride. The festival celebrates indigenous excellence and the strides the community has made in the face of generations of political oppression. The festival gives Kiwis a chance to recognise the nuanced politics that encase our lives. Festival-goers also get a taste of First Nations visual art, textiles, music, film, traditional medicine, and history.
- Alka Prasad
As cliche as it sounds, walking through Gokayamain, Japan, is like being transported into a Studio Ghibli film. It’s home to two villages that which have been inscribed on the Unesco World Heritage List for their traditional gassho-style houses, but what makes it special is that people still live in these homes. Generations of families have grown up in these traditional cottages, many of which have survived for more than 300 years. Not only has the environment and the architecture persevered, but the traditional lifestyle and values have remained, despite the incredible modernisation of Japan. It’s a cultural time capsule for visitors, a stop that’s not only beautiful and educational but also inspiring.
If you’ve set your sights on adventure in 2024, Alaska should be top of your list - you’ll find nature on a grand scale. Visit in summer (mid-May to mid-September) for whale watching, bear spotting and the majestic spectacle of bald eagles free-wheeling in the sky. Even in high summer, the air is still alpine-crisp and snow dusts the mountain peaks. Glaciers are ice-blue and seals loll on floating icebergs in the fjords. Alaska has a storied history and wears its traditions proudly. It’s also home to some of the world’s best seafood, famed for salmon and crab. I’d recommend a visit to Tracy’s King Crab Shack in Juneau for a world-class meal.
- Jacqui-Loates Haver
Byzantium, Constantinople, Istanbul: Europe’s most populous city has gone by many names in the past, but today it’s the most vibrant, magical city that I visited all year. A whirlwind 24 hours as a stop on our Holland America Aegean Sunset cruise was gobbled up eating delicious food and drinking honey-sweetened tea; visiting the indescribably beautiful Blue Mosque and Hagia Sophia, both architectural marvels; browsing the many treasures housed in Topkapi Palace; haggling for bargains at the Spice Bazaar; dodging the hectic traffic and fussing over the many (and well-cared for) street cats. We found the mix of ancient history and modern marvels in Istanbul intoxicating: 24 hours was not nearly enough time in the city.
- Lorna Riley
Istanbul, one of the highlight ports of call on a Mediterranean cruise with Holland America. Photo / Getty Images
There are a lucky few for whom it is real life, but for the rest of us, Beverly Hills is an alien world. It’s so beautifully presented, scrubbed so clean of bad things and polished to such a high shine that it’s less like a city and more like a luxury item on sale at one of its own Rodeo Drive wealth-temples. I could not have felt more out of place, which is a feeling that’s at the heart of most great travel experiences. At Gucci, I was assigned a personal shopper who, even after I told her I had no money to spend, brought me a complimentary bottle of San Pellegrino on a silver platter. It was literally the only thing in the store I could afford.
- Greg Bruce
I was lucky to enjoy a two-week sliver of a 60-night Silversea grand Pacific voyage from Melbourne to Osaka this year. It’s a spectacular indulgence - cruising in luxury from one world city to the next: sailing in and out of Sydney Harbour is something every cruise fan should experience at least once. And who wouldn’t feel great excitement at the prospect of arriving in Singapore and Hong Kong? But for your next trip, save some of your love for the smaller ports of call. Choose a ship whose size allows it to visit interesting towns where you’ll experience another side of the romance of cruising.
- Neil Porten
When you get to a certain age you want to prove that the old body still has a bit of life left in it. The Timber Trail was that challenge for me. So, with much bravado, after many prayers and even more RPM sessions I saddled up, buckled on my helmet and set off on the second leg of the 80km cycle trail that starts on Mt Pureora and follows old logging tramlines through the Central Plateau bush to emerge near Taumarunui in the King Country. The trail is a blur of soaring swing bridges spanning canyons of tumbling boulders and magnificent trees that survived the logging. The rusting remains of the logging operations line the trail, as markers tick off the kilometres pedalled. And all too soon, it’s over.
- Helen van Berkel
To be continued. Stay tuned for the second part of Travel’s Top Trips of 2023.
