Welcome to the New Issue

“The world needs a wash and a week’s rest.”

So said W. H. Auden in “The Age of Anxiety,” his postwar modernist masterpiece. And while travel is always a source of solace, right now — amid all the anxieties swirling around us — the idea of a cleansing, revivifying trip has seldom seemed more appealing.

In this issue of Further we’re celebrating creatives who, like Auden did, draw sustenance and spark from their travels. Paul Theroux, who singlehandedly reinvented travel writing as an art form, looks back on half a century of adventures in Burma/Myanmar, the setting for his excellent new novel, Burma Sahib.

We talk with L.A.-based architect Kulapat Yantrasast, whose work takes inspiration from all the places he’s lived and traveled, from Sri Lanka to Brazil to his native Thailand. Yantrasast’s renovation of the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Rockefeller Wing finally opens in May 2025, and you can bet we’ll be first in line.

We learn about a mesmerizing ritual in northeastern India from our designer friend Laura Aviva, who collaborates with artisans from South Asia, Kyrgyzstan, Mexico, Morocco, and elsewhere, translating traditional art practices into contemporary designs for the home.

Meanwhile, the peripatetic chef René Redzepi checks in via voicemail (no, really, an actual voicemail) from Japan, where his Noma Kyoto residency just got underway. Funny story: I first met René back in 2003, as he was preparing to open the original Noma in Copenhagen. We became fast friends, and he led me on a tour of the site-in-progress. Over late-night drinks at K-Bar, he shared his ideas for a New Nordic cuisine, which would forgo olive oil and tomatoes and other Southern European staples for Scandinavian ingredients like musk ox, spruce needles, and auk intestines. “Well, that’s never gonna work,” I told him. (As a Scandinavian American I felt a duty to be skeptical.) Nevertheless, he persisted — and the rest was culinary history. I dined at Noma half a dozen times before it ended regular service earlier this year (or did it?), and was never less than transported by how delicious everything was.

This month we also have a trio of stories from Italy — because honestly, who wants less Italy in their lives? Deputy Editor and issue MVP Peter J. Frank reported two of them: a lively dispatch from Bologna, the original boho college town (since 1088!), plus a rare, behind-the-scenes look inside one of the world’s most celebrated stonecutting workshops, in Tuscany. How these designers work so deftly with truck-size slabs of travertine boggles the mind; Peter’s story reveals the magic behind the process. Meanwhile, Rome correspondent Laura Lazzaroni leads the way to her beloved Friuli-Venezia, Italy’s northeastern kingdom of sensational food, wine, and the country’s best coffee. Have you been to Friuli yet? Check out what you’ve been missing.

Cartography nerds, rejoice: We coaxed graphic designer John Grimwade out of semi-retirement to create a map of Tenerife for this month’s cycling story. (Fans will remember his work from Condé Nast Traveler back in the day.) Not sure which I love more, John’s detailed rendering of Mount Teide, or Lee Marshall’s account of summiting it on two wheels (and, occasionally, two sore legs). Teide is one of the world’s most challenging climbs, so props to Lee for making it.

Finally, we have a guide to Charleston, S.C., by our dear friend and mentor Nancy Novogrod. Nancy was Editor-in-Chief of Travel + Leisure for 21 years, raising the bar for what a travel magazine could be. Many of us here at Further were lucky to work at T+L during her tenure; she imparted invaluable lessons about narrative and visual storytelling, never letting us get away with less. A few years ago Nancy traded her Manhattan apartment for an 18th-century house in Charleston, where she’s uncovered a world of insider secrets and local charms. We’ll miss her in NYC, but we’re excited to rediscover the Holy City through her eyes — and I know you will be, too. See you at The Ordinary for oysters and seafood gumbo?

Yours,
Peter

Peter Jon Lindberg
Editor-in-Chief
November 4, 2024