Wild at heart
America’s national parks take centre stage this year as they mark 100 years since the formation of the National Park Service, but that’s not the only reason to visit, with ranching growing in popularity and new hotels and flights to sample
author: April Hutchinson I f clients needed any more convincing
of the appeal of the US, they need look no further than its epic national parks; if luxury means space, time and privacy – those things are certainly achievable out in America’s wide-open spaces. In 2015, a record 305 million people visited the
parks, an increase of 12 million and a figure that looks set to grow this year, thanks to the centenary of the National Park Service. In celebration of this, renowned IMAX 3D filmmaker MacGillivray Freeman released America Wild – National Parks Adventure in partnership with Brand USA in February. The film runs for a year at the BFI IMAX Odeon in London and as well as being an accomplished piece of film making, it’s a glorious advert for holidays in the US. With its immersive cinematography, it takes
audiences around some of the nation’s most awe-inspiring wilderness within the likes of Yellowstone, Glacier, Yosemite and Arches national parks. But while the film goes deep into the heart of the parks and showcases some extreme ways of experiencing them, it’s relatively easy for anyone to access quite a few of them too, with a national park within fairly comfortable
drive times of many cities, making urban-meets- nature twin centres a great client suggestion. Miami can be paired with Biscayne national park (40 miles); Washington, D.C. with Shenandoah (68 miles); Denver with the Rocky Mountains (85 miles); Portland with Mount Rainer (138 miles); and San Jose with Yosemite (158 miles). And getting to San Jose will be easier this year
How to book it Western & Oriental offers a seven-night Pacific Northwest and ranching trip from £3,715pp, including flights into Seattle with British Airways; three nights at the Fairmont Olympic Hotel (room only); a full-day small group tour to Olympic national park; onward flight to Missoula in Montana with Alaska Airlines; transfer to Triple Creek Ranch and a four-night stay in a Cedar Cabin (all-inclusive). Return to the UK via Seattle, travel in October. Tel: 020 3588 6130,
westernoriental.com
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TTGLUXURY.COM SPRING 2016 DESTINATIONS
with the arrival of a new daily service with British Airways launching from Heathrow on May 4. It’s a quieter gateway than San Francisco and also means it’s easier to make a start on a road trip to southern California, or it’s just a short drive to laidback Santa Cruz, considered by many to be the birthplace of surfing in California. Still in the laid-back state, super-cool Hotel
Zeppelin, part of Viceroy Hotel Group, is just opening its doors as a celebration of San Francisco’s tradition of counter culture. The reopening in May of San Francisco Museum of Modern Art gives another tie-in reason to visit, the museum having doubled in size and now presenting one of the world’s greatest collections of modern and contemporary art, including the Fisher Collection, with works by Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, Sol LeWitt and Gerhart Richter.
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