Category: Travel

Long before NYC’s Meatpacking District became well-known for its high fashion, trendy restaurants, and late-night parties, the neighborhood had humbler beginnings. On Manhattan’s far West Side, tucked between Chelsea and the West Village, the Meatpacking District got its name in the 1880s for the throngs of butcher shops and meat wholesalers that lined its brick streets. In the 1970s, as the highway system and the rise of supermarkets altered the meatpacking landscape, the area became one of Manhattan’s burgeoning zones of arts, culture and LGBTQ+ nightlife. In the late 1990s, fashion designers such as Christian Louboutin, Diane von Furstenberg, and Alexander McQueen opened studios and boutiques, ushering in a new creative era for the district. 

Today, the Meatpacking District is still one of Manhattan’s coolest areas, where travelers can shop, stroll along the High Line, and sip spritzes on rooftop bars before spying celebrities on the dance floor in glitzy clubs and hidden speakeasies. Here, a few places not to miss. 

Green Spaces, Art Galleries, and City Beaches

Check into the Gansevoort Meatpacking hotel, which recently underwent a multimillion-dollar renovation, debuting a lobby filled with large-scale art pieces, two new restaurants, and 187 redesigned rooms, including the art-filled, lavish penthouse suite by Italian furniture designer Poliform. Not to miss: a Sicilian Sangria cocktail by the pool at the Gansevoort rooftop bar.

The centerpiece of the Meatpacking District is the 1.45-mile High Line park, which sits above street level, stretching from Gansevoort Street to 34th Street. The former rail line features art installations, beautiful landscaping, spectacular city views, and more.

Before or after strolling the High Line, make time to explore the Whitney Museum of American Art, located near the park’s southern entrance. The building – an asymmetrical marvel of modern architecture designed by architect Renzo Piano – stands out among the neighborhood’s brick facades. Inside, the space encompasses more than 26,000 pieces of contemporary American art, including a series of rotating exhibitions and a permanent collection that features works by Edward Hopper, Georgia O’Keeffe, Louise Bourgeois, and Donald Judd.

Just a short walk away, Fort Gansevoort – a two-story gallery housed inside a nineteenth-century Greek Revival brownstone – showcases rotating exhibitions and hosts annual art fairs. Named after an abandoned army fort on the Hudson River, husband-and-wife founders Adam Shopkorn and Carolyn Tate Angel established the gallery in 2015 to host artists-in-residence who could sell their pieces and teach weekend craft workshops for the public.

Summertime travelers should be sure to leave plenty of time to hang out at Manhattan’s first public beach. Just across the Hudson River Greenway from the Whitney, Gansevoort Peninsula, which opened in 2023, is home to a sandy stretch fronting the Hudson River, a salt marsh, pine groves, ball fields, and Day’s End, a permanent art installation by David Hammons presented by the Whitney and Hudson River Park. For more fresh air and beautiful views, walk five minutes up the street and across the pedestrian bridge to Little Island, an interactive public park on top of a floating pier. Attend a theater, dance, or music performance in the amphitheater; walk to the park’s highest point at 63 feet above the Hudson; and explore the interactive dance chimes, spinning discs, and tilted spun chairs.

Pastis, a neighborhood favorite, stuns with vintage mirrors, mosaic floors, and subway tiles.

New York City Tourism.

A day out in NYC’s Meatpacking District.

New York City Tourism.

More than 200 miles of dense jungle, mango orchards, and golden beaches make Mexico’s Costalegre (“Happy Coast”) feel much farther away than just a couple of hours south of buzzy Puerto Vallarta. In this remote section of Jalisco along the Pacific Coast, a small group of private landowners protect unspoiled shores and surrounding mountain forests from the kind of tourist development that pervades other coastal communities.  

“Costalegre is Mexico’s crown jewel, not only because of its natural beauty and varied ecosystems, but because it’s being developed in a very mindful way,” says Ricardo Santa Cruz, the co-founder and CEO of Xala, a new eco-conscious planned community along Costalegre’s northern shores. Santa Cruz has spent 17 years carefully developing the 3,000-acre beach destination with an organic farm and agave plantation amid nature reserves and wildlife sanctuaries. Like other major landowners in this area, he hopes to inspire travelers while diligently preserving a part of Mexico’s spectacular – and still wild – landscape. 

In 2008, Santa Cruz and his partners started reforestation efforts at Xala, and nine years later, they received Ramsar wetland designation for two estuaries that support more than 100 bird species. Abutting the estuaries, 300 acres of mango trees supply fresh fruit to Xala and its surrounding communities. Still to come: a 51-room Six Senses hotel, slated to open in 2026, along with affordable employee housing that’s currently under construction.  

“When you’re developing a large tract of land in a remote location containing [fragile] ecosystems and neighbored by marginalized communities, you have to consider the environmental, social, and economic impact on all stakeholders,” Santa Cruz says. 

A Fledgling Sanctuary

Just a few miles south of Xala on Highway 200, another community, Careyes, marks the metaphorical beginning of modern Costalegre. When Italian banker Gian Franco Brignone arrived at this stretch of the Pacific Coast in 1968 looking for untouched wilderness, he began creating a blueprint. Back in the Mediterranean, Brignone had witnessed tourist enclaves take over with little regard for the local ecology, so he kept conservation at the forefront of his plans in Jalisco for an arts and nature destination backed by a community foundation.   

In four decades of operation, Careyes has only developed two percent of its 7,000 acres – for Mediterranean-style lodging, local restaurants, and arts programming, including annual music festivals. Most of the community remains wild.   

Travelers visiting Careyes might watch migrating humpback whales and participate in sunset releases of sea-turtle hatchlings. Biologist Alejandro Peña de Niz opened the community’s own turtle sanctuary in 1983, before the Mexican government’s official ban on turtle-egg harvesting. More than 40 years later, and largely because of Careyes’ protection measures and public education, four of the world’s six sea-turtle species – three of which are on the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s critically endangered list – return to the Costalegre to lay up to 5,000 eggs daily during the high-summer mating season. Now similar sea-turtle camps dot Jalisco’s shores, protecting turtles from poachers and natural predators such as coatis and jaguars.

Sea turtle sanctuaries are spread across the Costalegre’s protected shores.

Costalegre Tourism Board

Four Seasons Resort Tamarindo, where a small farm and pollinator garden complement the natural ambience.

Four Seasons Resort Tamarindo

Gothenburg works hard for its seven-time title of top eco-friendly city in the world. In this coastal archipelago – Sweden’s second-largest metropolitan area – 92 percent of hotels proudly hang international environmental certifications. Göteborg Landvetter Airport powers its shuttles with vegetable oil as it transitions to net-zero emissions – it’s one of only ten airports in the world to receive the highest Airport Carbon Accreditation.

Public transportation in the city runs almost entirely on renewable energy, carrying locals and visitors to Gothenburg’s car-free islands. An entirely new emission-free transport system in the Gothenburg Green City Zone provides wireless charging stations for taxis, electrified freight transport for shipments, and fully electric buses for commuters. Beyond this cutting-edge infrastructure, Gothenburg’s natural beauty shines. After all, it’s the Swedish city with the most parks per inhabitant. Start or end any trip with a stroll along the waterfront Kungsparken to enjoy the verdant oasis at the heart of the metropolis.

Eat

Chefs at Japanese-Swedish fusion restaurant Vrå harvest vegetables from the Clarion Hotel Post rooftop farm to serve in dishes such as miso-roasted cabbage. The seven-course tasting menu at Vilda uses wild-sourced ingredients in dishes such as duck with parsley root and apple. Perhaps the most adventurous of Gothenburg’s sustainable restaurants, Restaurang Svinn, located east of the city, takes food “waste” – products nearing expiration, incorrectly marked packages, and imperfect produce – and creates lamb tikka masala, beef stroganoff with pickles, and other hearty but climate-smart menu items.

Cum Pane, an organic bakery certified by KRAV (the regional organization promotes animal health and toxin-free farming), sells its famous cinnamon rolls and stone-oven-baked sourdough in Gothenburg’s Majorna and Olskroken neighborhoods. 

Drink

Behind the scenes, Wine Mechanics’ organic and vegan winery removes any animal products from the traditional fining process and reuses grape skins and vines to reduce waste. Behind the bar, the winery’s Real Bad Lookin’ chenin blanc tastes like summer in a can.

Those who prefer stouts or IPAs gravitate toward the organic Poppels City Brewery, which produces the largest quantity of eco-beer in Sweden. The brewery harnesses wind power, packages beer in recycled glass bottles, and upcycles spent grain as livestock feed.  

Bruno’s bartenders take neighboring restaurants’ cast-offs to muddle in seasonal cocktails such as the In-House Confusion, made with vodka, soju, and a veritable vegetable garden of tomato, ginger, garlic, cucumber, and spices⁠. The KRAV-certified Yaki-Da nightclub whips up more-traditional cocktails – including whiskey sours and espresso martinis – using farm-fresh and organic ingredients.

Vibrant agriculture thrives at Gothenburg’s Botanical Garden.

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