It’s the last few days of summer 2014; the autumnal equinox arrives on Tuesday in the northern hemisphere. While our readers seemed to love their high-season holidays from Long Island to the Congo, these were the complaints and experiences that grabbed our attention and provide insight on what to plan on and avoid for summer 2015.
“The people I avoid in New York were at breakfast and the beach club everyday of my trip.” Sadly, destinations like Capri and the Amalfi attract first-time travellers in July and especially August �" if you wanted privacy you should have tried the Aeolian Islands or Ischia that’s not bucket listed by the masses. “Why does Ibiza feel like Las Vegas now?” Ibiza is one of our all-time favorite summer destinations, but if you don’t venture outside of San Antonio or the port you’ll likely experience something altogether different in August. Better yet, opt for September travel for the famous closing parties that have the chicest crowds returning to Ibiza for one last fete. As for Saint-Tropez, if you can’t keep up with billionaires or TV stars than you’re best to go in shoulder season. And for those that saw their entire Facebook timeline in Mykonos this summer, there are about numerous other Cycladic islands like Kea and Antiparos that are far more exclusive than spending yet another summer at the Belvedere.
We were charmed by stories of the glamorous dinners in Kennebunkport, the beach weekends at SF’s Stinson Beach, destination parties in the Sahara and those wild weekends in Rimini. Adventure was also a prevailing theme; those renegades that didn’t fear travelling Uganda’s game parks by car, climbing Kilimanjaro on crutches or scouting out burgeoning beaches along the Chinese mainland. Readers loved June on the urban beaches of the eastern Mediterranean. They staked Leipzig as the new Berlin - Antwerp the micro-Paris, swam naked around Stockholm’s harbor and weren’t embarrassed to rent a raft in Hvar when they’re friends were on a yachts. And everyone seemed to find out that a chic getaway 60-minutes from home could be as chic and needed as one that’s half a world away.
