We Go There: Welcome to the New Condé Nast Traveler

Thirty years ago, when Condé Nast Traveler made its debut, the average price of a flight was a hefty $550 (50% more than it is today). Rolling luggage had just been invented. When planes reached 30,000 feet, pilots didn't just turn off the seatbelts light, they encouraged passengers to light up. More importantly, travel was still a relative luxury, reserved, for those of us outside the leisure class, for special occasions. Worldwide, only 350 million people took an international trip in 1987. Which may sound like a lot, until you consider that last year the number of international arrivals hit 1.37 billion. Billion. Yes. More than four times as many in just three decades. One sixth of the world's population, in a single year. Each month brings more flights to more destinations—the list of new direct routes coming in 2018 alone includes Chicago to Venice, Boston to the Azores, Houston to Sydney, Newark to Dubai, Baltimore to Rejkavik, JFK to Nairobi—and that’s just a sampling. With new flights come new places to stay, and more—so many more—ways to track it all. Everywhere we turn there's information, data in endless streams from—and about—every corner of the earth. Never before has everything known or said about every pin on the map been so available, so thoroughly, exhaustively covered. It's a blessing, right?

Right—and, of course, a curse. In fact, nowhere is the curse of modern-day overload more evident than in travel. Hundreds of thousands of write-ups; millions of reviews. Billions—there it is again—of photos. Which are real? Which matter? Which come from a source that gets you, and the kinds of trips you like to take? Not many. We all know that the tyranny of too much choice—and a deafening chorus of so-called expertise—causes a kind of travel paralysis. Especially when all you want is a little help from a voice you can trust, a voice that cuts through the noise.

Which is where we come in. At Condé Nast Traveler, we don’t aspire to be everything to everyone. We don’t believe more is always better. At this moment of recommendation overload, when Appleby’s gets five stars from the Trip Advisors and Yelps of the world, there’s an ever greater need to narrow the universe and get advice that actually helps. So we don't try to cover every hotel or restaurant in every city; we just cover the ones worth knowing about. The ones worth your time, because we know how precious that is. We want to be that travel lifeline, that friend who can name you a place to stay in Tokyo that’s more ryokan than big chain hotel, or where you should take your mother-in-law for brunch in Los Angeles. That's why, when we set out to create our new city guides, our response to this overload of data was to call on our most trusted contributors—an army of writers, photographers, artists, designers, chefs, entrepreneurs, dancers, craftspeople—and ask them to give us their lists. Those lists got cross-checked, gut-checked, and then they got reported. The result is what you'll find here in The Places in the new Condé Nast Traveler. Nineteen cities in rich detail, like you've never seen them before. Not everything: just the important things. The "best" things, by our lights, like the 21 best restaurants in New Orleans, from po’ boys to degustation, not necessarily the most famous.

And because, like you, we're unabashed obsessives when it comes to the how of travel, we want to stay on top of the latest news, the cleverest tricks, the hacks that will save us money or—better still—time. So to indulge our habit, we started a brand new vertical called The Intel. You can read all about The Intel here.

And we're just getting started. In the coming months we'll bring you more cities, more ways to put our work to work for you in planning and taking trips. Because as much as we know how important good recs are, we also understand you’re sick and tired of toggling 40 different browser windows to plan day one of your 10-day journey. We’ve always been good at inspiring travelers to get excited about a destination. As of today, we’re hell-bent on making it easy to turn that excitement into action.

Soon, in addition to booking reservations, you’ll be able to pull whole itineraries into your profiles, keep running wish lists of the things you want to do. And you’ll be able to tell us what you, our readers, think of the places you visit—because you're part of our network, too. Through 30 years of Readers' Choice surveys, you've shown you're every bit as enthusiastic, demanding, and obsessive as we are when it comes to your travel experiences.

So please have a browse, get inspired, go explore, and make sure you report back!