Letter From the Editor

REIMAGINE A BELOVED luxury lifestyle magazine in the middle of a global pandemic that had not only halted most travel but had shaken the entire world order? The opportunity sounded challenging, to be sure — and also thrilling. On a personal level, it allowed me to put to use so many aspects of my experience that it felt like an unexpected culmination I had been working toward for years. And having recently returned to New York following two years spent living in a small town in Mexico, it also gave me something to get excited about.

But aside from my own interest, it prompted broader questions. Two, in particular, kept percolating: What is luxury? And, Why do we travel?

We all have our ideas about what luxury is. My own began to form when I started my career in the fashion industry in Paris in the early 2000s. Prior to that, I hadn’t ever considered the concept of luxury. Raised by a hippie single mom, it wasn’t part of my experience or even on my radar. But during that first internship, I observed incredible attention being paid to the tiniest things. (How many ways can you knot a belt? Many more than I’d imagined, it turns out.) As a detail-oriented person, I found it fascinating and, ultimately, magnetic. In the years since, I’ve come to believe that luxury lives in those details.

Throughout my career, I’ve had the opportunity to see many things being made, from couture garments in France to some of the world’s fastest cars in Italy to textiles woven on backstrap looms in the remote mountains of Chiapas, Mexico. I have had the good fortune to work with brands, designers, and artists, and now, in this role, properties and restaurants too. What is shared among the best — what distinguishes the great from the merely very good — is the level of care. On a recent visit to a five-star hotel, I complimented the GM on the impeccable service his team provided. “Thank you,” he said. “But it can always be better.”

When you love what you do, good enough is not good enough. There is always something better to reach for. This is the spirit we bring to the reimagined Departures. We cast a wide net for contributors and stories to bring you to places you don’t yet know and introduce you to people you may not have heard of before. Even when covering well-trodden ground (Italy, anyone?), we’ve tried to find angles that will surprise you.

As for the question of why we travel, I can only answer for myself. From my earliest family road trips growing up — endless hours gazing out the window at I-95, well before the advent of iPhones — to taking pictures for work, knee-deep in the mangrove swamps of Zanzibar, I travel to learn. I travel to experience other ways of being, to see the enormous beauty and even the sadness of the world, and to be made rightsized as I am reminded of my own small place in it. I travel because it cracks open my heart and gives me joy like nothing else. (If you’re holding this magazine, chances are you know what I’m talking about.) But mostly I travel to meet people. The people are everything, which is why at Departures, we center our storytelling around them.

Many of you have been following along with us on our new website, through our weekly newsletter, or on our social channels. In that case, you will be familiar with our new look and feel, which is carried through here in print. Why print? some may ask. Why not? The format lends itself to different, beautiful ways of telling stories. We love making things, and many of us love to hold an actual object when we read (though every piece here is also available digitally).

We’re very excited to bring you along with us, and hope you enjoy the following stories. We hope they impart the thrill of a journey, wherever you are.