Australia
Cross=platform content creator. 13 years as a travel writer and photographer for Australia's mass circulation publications and specialty magazines.
If you're a skier or snowboarder, I don't need to tell you about the quality of the snow in Canada, the stunning alpine scenery, the long runs and uncrowded slopes where you can ski a whole run and not see a soul. Then there's the wilderness, the breathtaking scenery and the powerful energy of the mountains.
As soon as you walk into a guest room at Sparkling Hill Resort, it's easy to see why Austrian billionaire Gernot Langes-Swarovski fell in love with the location. The contemporary design of the room and the floor-to-ceiling glass transports you into a mesmerising panorama dominated by Lake Okanagan and stretching as far as the eye can see.
One of the most impressive things you'll see in Canada this year is the garden artistry at MosaiCanada 150. In June 2017, Jacques Cartier Park Gatineau, Quebec, was turned into an artistic garden installation with 40 imaginative giant three-dimensional sculptures made from living plants.
At the end of a long driveway flanked by maple trees is a picturesque timber cottage with dormer windows. This typical scene in Québec's Montérégie is a page out of a picture book. I scoop up the orange-gold leaves with my hands and breath in the fresh autumn air.
A black-and-white butterfly flits past, flapping its giant wings; the woman dressed as the butterfly is wearing a straw hat and carrying an umbrella. In fact, almost everyone is carrying an umbrella or wearing a hat of some sort. There are giant Balinese umbrellas festooned with tassels, colourful paper umbrellas and embroidered umbrellas studded with sequins.
The sun slips behind the Aravalli ranges, casting an orange glow on the astrologer's face, which is a rippling otherworldly reflection in the glass coffee table between us. High above the village of Delwara, on a patio in Devi Garh, a former 18th-century Rajput palace fort 28km from Udaipur, I learn that I'll change careers many times, marry four times and have health problems at 70.
A LION'S pink tongue is wrapped around the rump of a gazelle. Both animals are yellow and stand out against a blanket of green. The lion blinks. Only, it isn't a lion. The eye belongs to an elephant, with a colourful face-painting of a lion catching its prey.
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Fly and flop: holidaymakers on Cua Dai Beach. Photo: Getty Images 1 STREET FOOD As with most places in Vietnam, the street food in Hoi An is mouth-wateringly delicious and very affordable. Hoi An, in particular, has several local specialties, including white rose dumplings and cao lau, which are fat noodles served with pork and mint.
The secret: The key to great Vietnamese food is fresh ingredients. Photo: Getty Images Shop, chop, cook and eat, just like a local. Christina Pfeiffer explains how. Women in straw hats squat beside baskets of green vegetables. The air smells of mango and coriander, mingled with earthier scents of vegetables and meat.
At $4500 a kilo, the truffles on sale at this fair are not to be trifled with.
The rivers of British Columbia in Canada are the perfect spot for an exciting heli-fishing adventure.
Enjoy a sluice in the spa at Scandinave Spa. I've taken two quads - the Wizard Express and the Solar Coaster Express - up Blackcomb Mountain, without my skis. The morning's private lesson has boosted my confidence on the slopes, but not quite enough to persuade me to ski with the retired Olympic-level competitor I'm meeting halfway up the mountain for lunch.
Skiing at Sun Peaks Resort, Canada. Photo: Louisa Kirby Don't hesitate to take the kids to a laid-back winter wonderland ski resort in British Columbia, writes Christina Pfeiffer. Teenage girls giggle as they ski past brightly coloured timber buildings.
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The view from Atmosphere bar, Shangri La, Beijing. Beijing's nightlife is on the up and up, writes Christina Pfeiffer. Above the gnarl of traffic and glimpses of rooftops in the Forbidden City, the bar on the 80th floor of the China World Trade Centre is abuzz.
Snow business: The powder perfection of the Canadian Rockies. A skiing holiday in the Canadian Rockies is more affordable than you might think, writes Christina Pfeiffer. A flash of tan against the wintery landscape draws me to the window of my cabin, just in time to see an elk trotting through the grounds of the Fairmont Jasper Park Lodge in Jasper National Park.
The smartly dressed man in a royal blue sherwani is my butler, Varun (which means water god). He whisks me from Hyderabad's airport into a gleaming black Jaguar and I'm deposited at the gates of Taj Falaknuma Palace, where a liveried coachman hands me into a carriage pulled by two white horses.
TURBANED guards with curling moustaches, women in saris sashaying through palace corridors and dazzling displays of extravagant royal treasures are a reminder of a lavish era in Indian history. When India became an independent nation in 1947, there were more than 550 princely states.
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