NOW AVAILABLE: Manifesting a traveller's wish list

ED'S NOTE:

I have journalism to thank for many of the stamps I have accumulated in multiple passports spanning decades. During my almost two years in this seat, I have spent much of my time in the air, mostly domestically, but Europe has also been somewhat of a stomping ground, most recently Switzerland, for Watches and Wonders Geneva. We are all different types of travellers, with quirks developed over years of travel hits, misses, and downright disasters. After all these years, I know what I want from an international travel experience and, though I may not always score all my desires — what can be scraped out of a family-holiday budget is different from what a trip sponsored by a luxury brand means — all the time, all at once, on the day that all of these happen in tandem, what a glorious time is to be had. From getting there and getting clean, to what to do and how to sleep, here goes just five entries in my international travel wish list, from my keyboard to the universe:

Business class: Among other delights — champagne, a dedicated chef, free Wi-Fi — it’s the lie-flat bed. Social entrepreneur Gavin Weale may be over business class, but I am not. When I was younger, I was much more tolerant of an uncomfortable plane ride and travelled to numerous far-flung locales in economy. The years have flown by, so to speak, and I no longer want to play. When I can help it, if a flight is longer than three hours, it had better be in business. And don’t be distracted by that scam dubbed “premium economy” — it is not the same, far from it.

A bath. Oh, the tyranny of the hotel room with only a shower. Give me a bath, the deep kind, designed to comfortably fit two bodies. To soak in and wash away all the work frustrations and missed opportunities, if only for a solitary, candlelit hour immersed in healing bath salts.

A good bed. Beds again. One of the greatest luxuries in life, and while travelling, is a firm, king-size bed with extra length, like the one on which I rested my bones at The Gritti Palace in Venice. There are few things a good night’s sleep will not soothe, and for the rest, there is always therapy.

An easy itinerary. What this really means is that on day 1, you can at most take a leisurely walk, but the ideal is to do nothing but settle in, get some room service, and spend at least seven hours on that firm bed. Other activities can commence the next day.

Good service: Finally, I always manifest good service — the patient, confident kind that speaks English at a really great hotel, or the polite, energetic, and always helpful sort at a South African service station, with top-of-mind knowledge that after “six robots, you take a sho’t right”. The exhaustive list is much longer — I may share more when we revisit the travel theme later in the year — but designer and tailor Rahim Rawjee shares his own travel essentials, which are guaranteed to be far more discerning than the above.

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