From the Editor-In-Chief

My favorite Sophisticated Living features are always the travel articles. Not that I don’t appreciate a great luxury style trend or a beautiful car or fine wnie, but give me breathtaking landscapes and interesting culture, art, and history all day long. A bench near my reading nook is stacked with past issues, dog-eared and post-it-noted up marking my aspirational adventures. One of my favorite aspects of my job as Editor-in-Chief is writing about a distant or interesting destination. In the past year alone, work (and some relaxation, of course) has taken me to Puerto Vallarta, Madrid, Barcelona, Palm Beach, Palm Springs, Las Vegas, Joshua Tree National Park, La Manzanilla, Amsterdam, Philadelphia, and (very soon) Berlin, Potsdam, and Prague. It is, thankfully, a pretty diversified list (Philadelphia might not top your list of places to visit, but hit me up for a long list of recs, including the historic Rittenhouse Hotel).

My first memorable big trip was to the World’s Fair in Knoxville, Tennessee when I was 11. It was a school-sponsored field trip and I may have mentioned it in these pages before. I still distinctly remember the first time I saw and tasted a kiwi at the Australia exhibit; and the exhilaration of experiencing an overwhelming number of international sights and sounds that were completely foreign to a little Appalachian girl whose most worldly experience until then was a visit to the medical center at West Virginia University.

For me, travel was once an escape from my circumstances and a source of much inspiration and determination to change those circumstances. Now, it is a soul-feeding practice that keeps life in perspective and expands my understanding, which always expands my compassion and connection to other humans.

In these pages, the last issue of 2022, you will see a number of travel articles. It is my sincere hope that they offer to you and yours a bit of aspiration, inspiration, perspective, understanding, and maybe even a little determination.

Amelia Editor in Chief ajeffers@slmag.net

From top to bottom: Embracing a holiday celebration in Amsterdam. Experiencing a traditional Dia de Los Muertos. Hiking Joshua Tree with my daughter, Ellie. The view from the Barcelona Cathedral. Thrifting at an iconic "shop" in Slab City, California.