Latest news with #Icehotel
Vogue
15-07-2025
- Vogue
To All the Girls' Trips That Never Make It Out of the Group Chat
To our partners and whoever is watching our Instagram Stories, my best friend Jazmine and I are known for our trip-planning prowess. After years spent living in different cities, we've settled on a two-or-three-day travel format that took us to San Francisco in our mid-20s, Las Vegas in 2023, and to the Hotel Bel-Air for a particularly memorable staycation just this past spring, for Jazmine's birthday. Our greatest and longest-held dream trip, though—a stay at the Icehotel in Sweden—hasn't actually happened, and as I get older and flights to Sweden get even more expensive, I'm beginning to wonder if that's maybe…okay? Jazmine and I have been talking about going to sleep in a bed made of ice, inside a room made of ice, inside of a whole hotel made of ice since some long-ago high school sleepover I can no longer recall the particulars of. Yet experience has taught me that even the best-laid plans for a girls' trip can go awry, no matter how much you're looking forward to it—remember my sage, White Lotus-finale-timed advice about not taking three-person girls' trips?–and sometimes, it's more fun to dream and gossip and speculate about what you'd do on said trip than it is to actually go on it. Here is the main advantage of a girls' trip that stays in the group chat: it's free. Honestly, decking ourselves out in sequins and satin and dining at the Peppermill Lounge in Vegas was worth every penny, but the economy being as it is (and I say this as a noted personal finance expert), I worry that the guilt and stress I would feel shelling out on airfare to Sweden, or on renting a big, gorgeous house somewhere in the Loire Valley with my college besties, instead of paying for car maintenance or my dog's ludicrously expensive dried duck treats would cancel out some of the fun of the experience. Am I sickeningly jealous whenever I witness social media evidence of a girls' trip that did make it out of the proverbial group chat? Of course! But instead of corralling my friends into replicating one for ourselves, I'm trying to invest more time and energy in 'micro-hangs' with the people I love. No, a quick Negroni at a sunny outdoor bar followed by a requisite trip to In-N-Out isn't exactly equivalent to a days-long European romp, but I defy you to find a meal more appetizing to the sun-baked, cocktail-basted palate than a Neapolitan shake, animal fries, and a burger—no, not 'protein style'; never 'protein style'—in the car while the new Lorde album blasts from someone's phone because we can't figure out how to hook it up to the car stereo. Who needs Paris or Rome when you've got a fried-food-redolent parking lot in Studio City?
Telegraph
22-02-2025
- Telegraph
The secret to visiting the most enigmatic region on Earth
In September 2024, Le Commandant Charcot, bearing a complement of excited passengers, nudged through pack-ice to become the first cruiseship to reach the North Pole of Inaccessibility, the remotest point in the Arctic Ocean from land. Three days later, she reached the geographic North Pole. That they penetrated so far in five-star luxury, a far cry from the hardships endured by explorers such as Roald Amundsen and Sir John Franklin, might diminish the Arctic's chiselled aura of remoteness. As do rising sea temperatures, which are reshaping its geography and accessibility. By 2024 the Arctic Ocean's sea-ice coverage had reached a historic low by extent. Yet this evolution of the icescapes and wild tundra above the Arctic Circle – outside of out-of-bounds Russia, which encompasses half the region – have opened new doors to opportunities to explore it. Just a few decades ago, the centre of attention was Sweden's Icehotel, first conceived in 1989, and a Christmas wishlist to visit Santa in Lapland. Now, there are wildlife cruises to see polar bears in the increasingly popular Svalbard archipelago and Astro-tourism is booming, driven by the sunspot phenomena Solar Cycle 25, which will yield wondrous northern lights sightings well into winter 2025/26. You can dogsled with the Inuit and learn their secrets of survival – ' coolcations ' also offer ever more unique and remote accommodation immersed in the wilderness.
