Editor's Letter: Adventure Has a New Meaning This Summer

This, the summer issue of Condé Nast Traveler, is meant to be about adventure of a gentle sort: a few tastes of the great outdoors, some new destinations and experiences, all chosen with those of you in mind who may still be getting your travel bearings again. But I’d submit that virtually any kind of travel can be construed as an adventure right now, especially if you go by the Merriam-Webster definition of “an exciting or remarkable experience.” Last weekend, I took my family on a perfectly ordinary Memorial Day trip to Washington, D.C., and it was wild. Getting to eat at not one, not two, but three restaurants (Maydan, Compass Rose, and Moon Rabbit) on my list? Thrilling! The Mad Men-goes-to-Washington vibe and everything-you-could-ever-need service at our hotel, the reborn Dupont Circle? Indulgent! Wading through the Great Cicada Invasion of ’21 on the Mall, maskless, visiting monuments I hadn’t been to since I was 12? Well, that really was an adventure.

So in these pages you will find experiences, from Tasmania to Antarctica, in the mountains of the West and the waters of the Dominican Republic, that might raise your heart rate a tick or two. But you’ll also encounter moments that present a more inclusive definition of adventure—like an appreciation of how visiting your parents’ place in Sarasota can unlock a wonderland, if you only know how to look, or a vow to explore a destination you’ve fallen in love with while bingeing on a Netflix show in quarantine.

That latter piece comes from “What Travel Means to Us Now,” a collection of our editors’ musings about how the pandemic has changed us and our priorities as we begin to make plans again for future trips. Making plans again will be a theme for this magazine during the second half of the year, as we cover the worldwide return to travel. We know that this crisis is far from over and that the recovery will be ragged and uneven. But the world is opening up rapidly, and it’s time now to go forth and see what awaits us all.

This article appeared in the July/August 2021 issue of Condé Nast Traveler. Subscribe to the magazine here.

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