DestinAsian - December 2022 - February 2023

I dette nummeret

With winter coming soon to the Northern Hemisphere, that long-awaited ski trip to Japan — something that was off-limits during the previous two seasons — can finally become a reality. Who wouldn’t want to balance some action in Hokkaido’s powder playgrounds with onsen soaks and superlative seafood? Being more of a beach person myself, I tend to gravitate toward warm-weather destinations like Bali and the Maldives. But wherever your preferences lie, I’m sure you have the upcoming holidays all planned out. This, our closing issue of 2022, is jam-packed with travel ideas for the next year and beyond. Two months before the World Cup kicked off, our editor-in-chief Christopher P. Hill flew to Qatar to take in the Gulf country’s burgeoning art and creative scene, which includes cultural institutions designed by the likes of Jean Nouvel and Rem Koolhaas. Farther west at the very intersection of Asia and Europe, Joe Yogerst explores the rich history and culture of the Republic of Georgia, and gets a memorable taste of local hospitality along the way. There’s also a special pictorial feature of images by the late photojournalist Alison Wright, drawn from her remarkable new photo book Grit and Grace: Women at Work in the Emerging World. In South Korea, longtime DestinAsian contributor Jonathan Hopfner guides us through Seoul’s bohemian Seongsu-dong district, which is perhaps the definition of an industrial-chic neighborhood. Tokyo based photographer James Whitlow Delano catches the ferry from main-land Honshu to Sado Island in the Sea of Japan, a bastion of traditional culture that’s still off the radar of most foreign visitors. Meanwhile, food writer and Morocco expert Jeff Koelher samples mouth-watering tagines and more when he ventures deep into the Berber heartland of the High Atlas mountains.