Celebrity Travel

Gossip

Megève Is the French Alps Resort Old Money Never Left

Built up by the Rothschild family in the 1920s as a French answer to Switzerland's grand resorts, Megève has stayed a low-key favourite of French aristocracy and old European money.

Gossip

Punta del Este Is South America's Answer to St Tropez, and Has Been for Decades

A slim peninsula on Uruguay's Atlantic coast has drawn Argentine and Brazilian high society for generations, and has long carried the nickname the Monaco or St Tropez of South America.

Gossip

Tulum Turned From Backpacker Secret Into One of Mexico's Most Expensive Postcodes

A quiet clifftop ruin town on Mexico's Caribbean coast spent the 2010s turning into a design-led beach hotel scene that pulled in a steady fashion and entertainment crowd.

Gossip

Barbados's Platinum Coast Has Been Quietly Hosting Old Money for Decades

The calm west coast of Barbados, long nicknamed the Platinum Coast, has drawn a discreet mix of British old money and international celebrity for years, and it remains one of the Caribbean's most understated luxury addresses.

Gossip

Capri: The Italian Island Where Old Money Has Wintered for a Century

From the emperor Tiberius to the film stars of Italy's dolce vita years, Capri has spent nearly two thousand years drawing people who could be anywhere to one small island in the Bay of Naples.

Gossip

Cabo San Lucas: The Baja Resort Town Hollywood Never Really Left

A mid-century sport-fishing outpost that drew Hollywood names long before its resorts existed, Cabo San Lucas has stayed a favoured escape for wealthy Americans, a short flight from Los Angeles at the tip of Mexico's Baja peninsula.

Gossip

Val d'Isère: The French Alps Resort Where Royals Learned to Ski

An Olympic ski-racing pedigree and decades of British aristocratic patronage, including reported childhood ski trips by Princes William and Harry, have made Val d'Isère one of the French Alps' most storied resorts.

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Palm Springs: The Desert Retreat a Studio Rule Built for Old Hollywood

A studio-contract clause requiring stars to stay within a set distance of the lot is widely credited with turning Palm Springs, exactly two hours from Los Angeles, into old Hollywood's preferred desert escape.

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How the Aga Khan Turned a Stretch of Sardinian Scrubland Into Europe's Yacht Set Capital

Porto Cervo and the wider Costa Smeralda were undeveloped scrubland until the early 1960s, when Prince Karim Aga Khan IV led a consortium of investors, including Aristotle Onassis, to build the marina resort that still anchors Europe's superyacht calendar.

Gossip

Cannes Was a Sleepy Fishing Port Before British Aristocrats and a Film Festival Made It Famous

Long before the Cannes Film Festival made it an annual fixture on the celebrity calendar, wintering British aristocrats had already turned this French Riviera fishing port into a fashionable address.

Gossip

Estoril Became Europe's Waiting Room for Exiled Royalty After the Second World War

Portugal's wartime neutrality turned the seaside towns of Cascais and Estoril into a refuge for dethroned European monarchs, a history the coast's grand old hotels and casino still trade on.

Gossip

St Moritz: The Swiss Resort a 19th-Century Bet Turned Into Europe's Original Winter Playground

A wager between a 19th-century hotelier and his departing English summer guests is credited with inventing Alpine winter tourism at St Moritz, a lakeside resort in Switzerland's Engadin valley that has drawn Europe's aristocracy and old-money set ever since.