Kat Odell

Travelers today are more aware than ever of all the world has to offer. It’s thrilling to be confronted with so much possibility — but daunting, too. Each year, we curate a list of the best places to travel in the months ahead.

Our travel experts — from travel writers around the globe to T+L's A-List travel advisors to our own editors — offer their recommendations. Then, we take a look at what places are now at the forefront of the global conversation, whether for new hotels and museums or ma...

Every year, Travel + Leisure editors look at thousands of hotel openings and renovations around the globe with one mission in mind: what properties will truly be game changers for our readers. A great location, thoughtful design, and intuitive service are a given. What’s harder to define is a little thing called buzz-factor. A standout hotel might be adding to the fabric of a neighborhood through events, opening up entirely new destinations by their very presence, and going above and beyond i...

The future of American dining looks bright. Here’s what to get excited about in 2018, conveniently arranged in alphabetical order. In Austin, Uchi’s chef is opening a casual Asian smokehouse (with sake slushies, obviously), while a new Cosme is coming to Los Angeles by the end of the year. Find your city (or the one you’ll be in next) and make travel plans around these much-anticipated openings.
Clark’s Oyster Bar Aspen
Key Players: Larry McGuire, Tom Moorman, June Rodil
Estimated Debut: June...

As one of the globe’s most forward-thinking bartenders, London-based cocktail king Ryan Chetiyawardana is wed to environmentally-friendly practices. In 2013, he launched White Lyan—the world’s first cocktail bar entirely devoid of perishable ingredients.
While some U.S. restaurants are beginning to make strides toward reducing waste—most notably New York-based chef Dan Barber of Blue Hill, who brought attention to the issue of repurposing kitchen waste via his wildly popular wastED pop-up din...

For about 30 days during the months of March and April, Kyoto—Japan's former capital city and its current cultural and historical hub—blushes pastel pink for miles as its most famous botanical, the cherry tree, comes into bloom. Cherry blossoms (known as sakura in Japanese) herald the first sign of spring, and tourists from around the world descend on the cozy city to experience nature's stunning transition.
But while parks, shrines and temples flooded with cascading pink and white cherry tre...

Bangkok is a city cluttered with dining options—from street sellers hawking bags of boat noodle soup to World’s 50 Best-recognized engagements, all of which boast some of the world’s freshest and boldest flavors. It’s here where culinary enthusiasts queue up for hours in anticipation of Michelin-starred crab omelets, and attempt to secure in-demand seats at modern Indian fusion spot Gaggan—which currently holds the top spot on Asia’s 50 Best Restaurants list. Kolkata-born chef and owner Gagga...

It really wasn’t until about a year ago that I started to take airline miles seriously. But in 2017, I went from having no status anywhere to the highest-tier elite on Delta Airlines. Here’s how I did it, and how the last step of the journey turned into a daylong adventure for the ages.
My parents signed me up for frequent flyer programs when I was a kid and, typically taking one family vacation per year — usually a skiing trip to Colorado or Utah — it took me until I was in my 20s to have ac...

One could argue that pop-ups, food trucks and cold-pressed juicing all began in Los Angeles. After fostering some of the country's biggest-name chefs—from Roy Choi to Michael Voltaggio to Ludo Lefebvre—all within the last decade, the city has rapidly matured from a chain-restaurant wasteland into one of the country's most exciting cities in which to dine. And though L.A. offers countless distinct dishes from these ingredient-bending, forward-thinking chefs—many of which have become social med...

Food and beverage research.

A tropical enclave popular among American hippies in the 1960s, Goa—a state in western India that hugs the Arabian Sea—is now home to as many rustic yoga retreats as there are luxury hotels. Over the last two decades, dual-personality Goa has earned a following among tourists for its all-night parties in the north and its calm disposition in the south (most style their holiday based on latitude).
Relics of Goa’s past as a Portuguese province still color the architecture and cuisine; in its so...

You’d think that a Michelin star would launch any restaurant into the mainstream. But that’s not always the case, especially in cities filled with next-level dining spots. We've rounded up some of America's most delicious, yet underrated gems.
Within a beautifully-designed space channeling the feel of a home dining room, chef John Shields has been plating one of Chicago’s most exciting and inspired meals for the last year and a half. Set above his more casual American bistro The Loyalist, Smy...

En route from Chicago to São Paulo, Brazil, with a three-hour layover in Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport (ATL), I decided to stop by Delta’s newly-minted Asanda Spa Lounge, located within Concourse E’s Delta Sky Club. The spa is a collaboration between Delta and New York City-based Asanda Spa, a six-year-old Soho wellness center that’s currently shuttered, but formerly offered a pretty standard mix of hair salon services and spa treatments — massages, facials, that ...

After an hour-long wait, I finally earned one of the eight coveted counter seats at Sakurai Japanese Tea Experience – a modern, minimalist-designed Tokyo tea café decorated in copper, practising some of the city’s best leaf-steeping etiquette.
Perusing a menu of premium Japanese teas with prices to match (nearly $50 for a pot of tea!?), out of the corner of my eye I caught sight of a barista slowly whisking away at a bowl of koicha (or thick-style) matcha. And in what appeared to be the blink...

The dessert course at meat master Kentaro Nakahara’s Sumibiyakiniku Nakahara — the essential three-year-old grill-focused restaurant on the ninth floor of an unassuming office building in Tokyo’s Aoyama neighborhood — isn’t green tea mochi or a melon wedge. It’s a fat hunk of panko-crusted, prized top-scoring A5 wagyu tenderloin that’s fried and served between two thick, crustless cushions of pillowy white bread, sealed with butter and a rich tomato jam.
It’s unclear who was the first to elev...

Here’s where to refuel, re-caffeinate, and intoxicate between New York Fashion Week shows—from Michelin-starred-chef pop-ups to Sex and the City-inspired barrel-aged Cosmopolitans.
For a healthy caffeine kick: Legendary two-Michelin-star chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten, of his eponymous Upper East Side fine dining boîte, is joining team matcha. In line with his newer wellness-concerned plant-based number abcV, Vongerichten has written a concise menu of antioxidant-rich, powdered green-tea sips...