Read 52 Places to Love in 2021 here.
Right now of 12 months The Instances’s Journey desk normally publishes its lavish “52 Locations to Go” listing, a compendium of ideas for the locations which might be particularly value visiting within the coming 12 months, accompanied by showstopping images.
However on this pandemic 12 months, creating our typical listing was out of the query. For one factor, there have been the logistics: We normally deploy a small military of photographers in quest of these good photos. That was clearly not possible. Past that, our listing is constructed on a journalistic crucial: What’s new? What makes a spot so thrilling and totally different — lodge openings, new museums, an increasing meals or cultural scene — that it jumps to the highest of the listing of locations to see now? However the pandemic has put a maintain on most of these newsworthy developments.
As an alternative, in 2021, we face a 12 months of uncertainty. With vaccines newly accessible, maybe the journey trade — which provides tens of millions of jobs and is a vital a part of the worldwide economic system — will begin to revive. Nevertheless it’s exhausting to know when and the place that rebirth will start. And an inventory that appears to encourage folks to hurry again onto planes when so many are struggling felt unconscionable.
And but, the world with all its gorgeous pure magnificence and cultural richness stays. If 2020 has executed something for individuals who like to journey, it has reminded them that the world shouldn’t be a guidelines of locations to tick off — Venice, been there, the Serengeti, executed that — however one thing to discover, to savor and to like.
That grew to become the animating concept behind this year’s 52 Places. As an alternative of turning to our contributors and correspondents, we turned to a different group of passionate vacationers, our readers, and requested them to inform us about their most beloved locations, and why they deserved a spot on our listing, in addition to to share their pictures.
Greater than 2,000 of them responded.
They advised us about hometowns for which they’d gained new appreciation throughout the pandemic. Of nations the place their household connections run robust, however which for the second they’ll solely view with longing. Of trip locations the place they immediately acknowledged one thing essential in themselves. In studying by the submissions, it grew to become clear that whereas our listing normally focuses on what’s altering in a spot, folks could be profoundly modified by the locations they’ve visited — and isn’t that why we journey to start with?
After we’d made our decisions, a gaggle of reporters interviewed the contributors, in some instances to attract extra from them. (We additionally weeded out the submissions from journey professionals seeking to promote their locations.) The entries listed here are a mix of the unique submissions and people subsequent conversations, condensed and edited for size and readability.
Our contributors are drawn from everywhere in the world, underlining that regardless of the present shutdowns, we actually are a worldwide neighborhood. This listing skews extra rural than our typical one — within the pandemic the wilderness has held particular comfort, it appears. It additionally contains locations that might be unlikely to make the lower in a conventional 12 months — too “humble,” too “harmful,” or too private to placed on a places-to-see listing.
However this can be a listing of locations to like. And that has made all of the distinction.
Supply: www.nytimes.com
