In an era where luxury has lost its meaning and everything starts to meld into a sameness, there’s something remarkable and commendable about the Four Seasons as a brand. Despite its rapid expansion and waves of different types of money (tech, for example) hitting the high-end market, it manages to signify luxury to both poor and rich people.
You tell a normal person (for lack of a better categorization) you’re staying at the Four Seasons, and with a couple of exceptions—I’m looking at you, Four Seasons Sydney—it means something. And while expensive, staying at a Four Seasons is not unattainable, with entry level rooms at many properties starting in the $500/600 a night range.
At the same time, those on the highest of ends also still think highly of the brand. When Larry Ellison transformed the properties on Lanai, he stuck with Four Seasons. Residences in properties like Surf Club go for record prices. And Comcast and its CEO, Brian Roberts, turned to it for its tower in the heart of Philadelphia.
If there’s one issue that crops up now and then with Four Seasons properties, it’s that many, especially those in new buildings in secondary American cities, verge on being cold. Things can sometimes come across as colorless, despite the psychedelic Jeff Leatham floral displays one might run into.
I recently hopped up to Philly for a dinner and stayed at the new Four Seasons there. It had received glowing press coverage, so I was curious. While I strongly dislike setups where you enter a tower and then take an elevator to the lobby and then another elevator to your room, I found myself impressed thanks to two design choices that were made.
I’m often asked what my favorite hotel is, and the sad (?) answer is I don’t have one. I have hotels that I associate with treasured memories, but a property that I hold above the rest? I’m not so sure.
There are, however, parts of different properties I appreciate. This one’s pool, that one’s beds (Vestige Son Vell), another’s spa (Estelle Manor’s is that jaw-dropping), and so on.
One of the most important, and one of the least considered, is hallway design.
Hallways are the underwear of hotel design. You’ve got to get through them to get what you want. Often, you hardly notice them. Sometimes they’re grim. But once in a while, they get you excited about what’s coming after.
And the Four Seasons Philadelphia delivers hallways that are anything but cold. They are sumptuous and warm–albeit in the beige family–and allow you to at least temporarily forget you’re in a glass box. Walking its carpeted floors back to the room after a wine-heavy dinner, the sensation of feeling embraced started long before I crawled into bed.
The second design detail I loved about the hotel was at the polar opposite of the spectrum. The hotel’s signature dining and bar space, Jean-Georges, nails that gleaming 80s finance look, and I was, frankly, obsessed.
For context, I make a habit of going inside well-preserved 80s-style post-modern finance offices. There is something so unabashedly modern in the shining geometric cuts of granite, polished chrome, and dramatic dimensions. They’re sexy in a suit-and-tie kind of way, and I hope we do a better job of preserving them in the years ahead. They also scream modern and expensive in a way that the spare glass and steel spaces so prevalent today just don’t.
It’s really easy to hate on Tatte, the cafe chain that conquered Boston, D.C., and just opened its first store in NYC. It’s, well, a chain, and you feel like your worst millennial self is being so obviously catered to that it’s borderline insulting. But here’s the thing. It nails what so many people want, so just a fair warning as somebody who lives in a city already conquered by successful Tattes, hating on it will not stop it.
Meanwhile, Chipotle is opening up its first location in Mexico…
Despite the enthusiasm (and great games) and despite some executives claiming on TV and at conferences that it proved a success, there was no World Cup bump for the U.S.—tourism was down in June.
I really must be disconnected from the world at large because I can’t understand why anybody would support Kalshi’s move to allow customers to bet on flight cancellations!
There’s something kind of funny about seeing The New Yorker engage in well-trodden clickbait like the “should you recline your seat” debate, but it did. My stance? The ability to recline exists for a reason, but be mindful of when you use it and try to not slam it back.
Michael Gross, the author behind 740 Park and House of Outrageous Fortune, has turned his eye to the story of St. Barts with Treasured Island: The Story of St. Barth . . . and Its Barbarians, Billionaires, and Beauties. St. Barts is the Birkin Bag of travel, something that has long outstripped its cool origins and become simply the crassest way of signifying you have some money (or somebody else’s money) to burn. I have my opinions, and they’re often strongly expressed, but I try not to be a snob. St. Barts, though, tests that. I’ve been and probably will again, but I found myself largely turned off by everything I experienced. Bloomberg has a great review of the book that expresses disappointment with its lack of curiosity or reporting on the island’s famed party scene. But I am still curious to read it for the real estate coverage that is Gross’s specialty and seems to have driven so much of the island’s history.
Gotta wholeheartedly disagree, though, with Bloomberg’s assertion that Athens “is unique among European capitals in being able to easily absorb almost any number of tourists and expats.”
The EU really isn’t backing down and admitting that the rollout of its biometric system has been a disaster. It also won’t grant exemptions to the airports that have been pleading for them.
Eek. Hedge fund billionaire Ken Griffin loaned his copies of the Emancipation Proclamation and the 13th Amendment signed by Lincoln to the brand new museum under the Lincoln Memoral. But they just had to be pulled due to improper storage by the National Park Service.
The dominant story in travel post-COVID has been overtourism, but there’s a sad flip side—what happens when the tourists stop coming? It’s a relevant question as various destinations push more and more measures to curb tourists. And this little piece about the Wimbledon residents struggling to rent out their homes this year is a microcosm of that larger story. (In this case, it’s because electronic line calling replaced a lot of line judges, so fewer people to rent to!)
United has rolled out the ability to block off the middle seat in one row on each of its long-range Airbus A321XLR jets. It’s a move being lauded as an innovation for passengers who might be willing to pay for it, but as aviation reporters have noted, it allows United to fly with one less flight attendant…
Given how well Delta and United have weathered the fuel issues, expect to see more headlines like this one: “Vail CEO Says Comeback Plan for Ski Resorts Needs to Be Beyond Epic: New moves to revive growth and upgrade mountain experience take a page from Delta, United, Rob Katz says.” And while I’d normally roll my eyes, especially since it’s coming from an industry that is already charging outrageous prices, it is noticeable which areas the CEO detailed improvements they want to make to stand out to premium customers—technology and food.
If this is all the return to “traditional” architecture can give us, then I’m out:
The Aesthetic City@Aesthetic_City
In Puteaux, just outside of La Défense - the business district of Paris - they are building a new Paris. Old slums (bidonvilles) and industry is making place for Haussmann-inspired apartment buildings and skyscrapers with a French aesthetic.
6:06 PM · Jul 9, 2026 · 190K Views
45 Replies · 43 Reposts · 555 Likes
Well, well, well. A couple of weeks after Getting Around was about whether or not people should start keeping nice things to themselves, The New York Times just ran a piece titled: “In Travel Hot Spots, Gatekeepers Are Hiding Their Favorite Places”
…and I noted that Inquirer story about frozen soft-serve margaritas being a thing back in April, and now New York magazine is on the trend!
This New York Times headline is frustrating, as there’s no evidence that Delta’s “Business Basic” actually is cheaper…
This interview with Emily Wilson but solely because the interviewer is faced for the first time with Philadelphia’s BYOB scene.
Demetrious Ioannu, a photojournalist I’ve worked with throughout the years for stories in Greece and Turkey, has started a Substack called “Unframed” that I hope you’ll all check out!
I am a homebody when in DC, but apparently this little gay bar has become the city’s selfie hotspot and it’s causing a line.
Finally, some sanity. Skift column titled: “What If AI Doesn’t Fix Travel’s Labor Problem?” pointing out some pretty basic fundamentals that can’t be hyped away.
Aer Lingus is cutting routes from Minneapolis, Denver, and Las Vegas
Dua Lipa opened a library of banned books under the famed Livraria Lello in Porto
Congress is pushing to ban in-flight calls
Frontier plans to add Starlink wi-fi in 2027
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