Unpacked: Tromsø, Hôtel de Crillon, Hatta, Listener Q&A & more with Near & Far Editor, Isabella Craddock

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1:27Isabella Craddock: Hello and welcome to The Travel Diaries Unpacked, your weekly weekend dose of wanderlust. I'm your host Holly Rubenstein and joining me this week is Isabella Craddock. She is the founder and editor of Near and Far magazine, former editor of Condé Nast Traveller Middle East and the Middle East Academy chair for the world's 50 best hotels. Today we are heading north to the Arctic Circle as Isabella takes us to Tromsø, Norway and shares the extraordinary experience of witnessing the midnight sun. For my Hotel of the Week, we're swapping Norway for Paris as I share the details of a very special stay at an iconic Parisian hotel.

2:04We're also discovering a completely different side of Dubai as Isabella takes us to the rugged mountains of Hattah in a brand new luxury clamping retreat and we also have our listener Q &A. It's going to be a

2:25isabella welcome to the travel diaries it's lovely to see you again how's it going it's so great to be back thank you so much for having me again i love this podcast so it's an honor to

2:37Isabella Craddock: be on it oh that's so so lovely of you to say and it's an honor to have you because you have been busy again it's been another busy year of travel for you and it's been a busy it's going to be a busy episode today actually because we've got a lot to cover amazing let's get started with Sarah Davis I loved Sarah she was such a great guest so passionate about travel so passionate about Scandinavia yeah she seems very adventurous and I think we love different parts of Scandinavia and she was very outdoorsy and all about that and I'm very much maybe more kind of the coffee shops and the design and the bars so maybe we've probably had the hygge exactly we've had different experiences of Tromso which is good because you know that kind of shows us something for everyone but no I am also a Scandinavian fiend let's have a listen to Sarah on her experience in Tromso So I went to Tromsø in Norway and I went with a lovely little travel agent lost in Norway and they organized all off the beaten track stuff.

3:47So we went to this amazing, it was like a family run business who did the dog sledding and then we went to this tiny little island off the north coast called Somerøy where you could go and see the Northern Lights. Not that we managed to see the Northern Lights but we went on like a Northern Lights trip and I felt like we got to see the authentic side of Norway and I really fell in love with the culture so much so the following summer we went out with the same tour we went to see Bergen and have a look around Bergen and then last year and this was the absolute highlight we went to Alte.

4:18Isabella Craddock: Yeah so she had this fantastic experience there and you've been to Tromsø as well Isabella so tell me for somebody who's never been to Tromsø which is which is me I would love to go can you help us to kind of paint a picture like set the scene of course so I mean you're probably you know in the majority there aren't that many people I know who've been to Tronzo and it was actually a kind of random trip um I wouldn't really say it had been on my list but I kind of ended up there a couple of years ago with um Hurtigruten Cruises which is a Norwegian cruise brand and they were launching this new ship um MS Roll Amundsdon which was it was big news kind of at the time I think this was maybe like six years ago um it was you know it's kind of hybrid electric polar class and kind of cruise obviously through all those waters very cool so the launch was in tromso so you know i was a travel reporter they were like do you want to come i said amazing i love going to obviously these kind of strangest new places that you've never been before and not many people have been but i actually went in june so i went at a different time and i yeah i mean it was really cool so it was the midnight sun and I just remember yeah being so in awe like it was kind of eerie ethereal um I actually talk about it all the time to this day I would love to properly go back yeah so I remember arriving and it was just me and it was late and obviously like sun was still up it was all very odd and then yeah what does it feel like at that time like when you say you've you it was very late but the sun was still up like it's just very strange like yeah it's kind of like magical and it seems but odd to say fairy tale but you do kind of feel like you're in this magical place and it's just very otherworldly and I was so fascinated by it and I remember the first night I obviously the hotel had blackout curtains but I remember kind of not being able to sleep just knowing that the sun didn't set so I was up at one and then I had a look again at three and the sun is just kind of above the horizon the whole night um which actually I mean it was very cool and I know people go for the northern lights but it was actually probably a very fun time to go because you're guaranteed to see this midnight sun and you know you're not always guaranteed to see the northern lights so and I like kind of knowing what I'm going to see um and not kind of chancing it so that was very cool and I think the whole city just kind of you know from the short time I was there had this kind of energy and buzz about it I think you know the launch of the new ship was a thing but I guess kind of you know there were people out later on the streets I went for a walk around 11 p.m which I would never do on my own in a city you know that I just landed in and didn't really know exactly so and it was just yeah I mean it was odd the streets were light it felt fine there were people around so yeah it was it was just a very magical you just feel very far away and disconnected from everyday life which I just loved about it um and it was just obviously stunningly beautiful and yeah it's kind of stayed with me for all those years I feel like both of those things which are the the polar opposite in terms of the kind of way that nature can dictate our travel both the northern lights as part of the height of winter and then the midnight sun as a high to summer are both things that should be on anybody's uh travel bucket list in a way I've experienced both and like you say they are there's just something about the fact that it alters your your innate rhythm you're like your circadian yeah I suppose yeah and the rhythm of therefore the rhythm of the people and therefore the rhythm yeah place that it yeah like you said it it sits with you yeah and I felt energized really because I mean the journey there was pretty brutal I mean we flew from London to Oslo long layover in Oslo and then on to Tromso so you know I probably could have got to Brazil or something in that time but I often been like that yeah I know so I should have been exhausted but I was weirdly just very energized ready to see everything completely kind of enchanted by everything and um yeah it's just it's a very odd and very cool thing to see I walked across the bridge to the cathedral which is incredible um you know saw some of the kind of very all outdoorsy hikey fishingy kind of shops so again not really me um but I just I loved seeing it so it was great so we got all of that in before and then yeah went on board this ship and the ship I mean I know you can cruise the Norwegian fjords and people you know are quite familiar with those massive big ships but this is a lot smaller and you know kind of hot tubs on the deck and it's able to break ice so it can you know sail to Svalbard and all these incredible places and it also was able to it was hybrid so it could switch off its engines to be able to not disturb wildlife and just give people a general I mean it's still in service today and also she talks on the episode about Alta that she she flew up to on another trip which also sounds just beautiful and that she loved it so much that she's going up going up again with her mum next year which sounds so so special have you ever been to one of those ice hotels I haven't um and I was yeah I did agree with Sarah's husband that he didn't want to stay there um I don't know if that's for me again it made me laugh because I recorded um with Sarah and with Celia Imri who was my guest uh last week yeah um on the same day and having never come up before at all on the podcast this the ice hotel came up on two consecutive episodes one in the context of it being like her all-time favorite experience although they didn't stay inside and then Celia's being her worst all-time worst travel experience so it was so funny to hear those both opposite opinions both of them express the same like experience of needing to go through the night and that being like yes all these things what happens I think there are just there are so many questions you know if you can I and I feel like I can't seem to get answers about them I would love to stay around just because they're so beautiful and you know I mean I'd stay in one of the igloos in a heartbeat but um yeah I mean can you guarantee being warm when you sleep what you do when you need the loo I genuinely don't understand it at all no I don't understand lying on a block of ice like to me that doesn't appeal I would be I would so be in the main hotel and just walk around it like Sarah did as an attraction to look at the craft spaceship you know have a meal have a drink an ice bar that's all fine but no way to sleeping I mean if they can find a way where you're sleeping maybe on something and you're warm but it's still frozen and ice then 100 % I would be there but I mean the whole that whole part of the world just has such incredible places now I'm dying to go to Svalbard and I think that's kind of maybe from I can't remember the name but there was a series of books I read when I was a child and so many of them were set in Svalbard it wasn't the Philip Pullman books yes it was the Philip Pullman books yes yes yes Philip Pullman's books Northern Lights exactly exactly Northern Lights yes so it just has this kind of nostalgic you know it's so curious and fascinating it seems so far you know you're north of the Arctic Circle which just seems this place you don't really cross if you're a human so yeah exactly do you know what I mean so it's just it's such a special fascinating place and I just yeah like you need some proper time there to see those incredible places my hotel of the week this week is one that is also up there in my all-time favorite hotels and I know that it's one that you love as well it is the beautiful world's 50 best uh what number was it it was in the top oh let me check I'm terrible it's been in it for a while right I think the last couple yeah have a look at it 14 oh that's really high is it 14 wow yeah and 2025 it was number 23 so it's climbed nine places this is Hotel de Crayon in Paris and this was a really special experience actually because my daughter Isabella a good choice of name she was the one who received the invite uh to hotel the crayon so they um i know you know the hotel really well Isabella and i'll ask you about it in your feelings about it in a sec but just to tell you why we were there they uh launched a new offering over the summer called le petit crayon which is specifically designed for younger guests and they don't like have a traditional kids club there but their approach was so hyper personalized it was so amazing so the hotel has a butler service and the butlers personalize the room according to your child's interest so they wow all these little surprises and special amenities and thoughtful touches so when we arrived our room was like so we we left it was actually we left our baby son at home um so we just took our our daughter who was three at the time with us and she arrived and the room was filled with exciting things so there were gifts that they have their own stife elephant that they give to their child guests which was just amazing and there were other cuddly toys they'd got a couple of photos of us obviously from my Instagram and they put it in a frame of my head bed but also like what else did you see when you were going through my Instagram you know if you see that I'm like okay that was five years ago yeah exactly very no it's so sweet though it's so sweet there were snacks and there were smoothies and balloons there was a little bookcase with age-appropriate books about Paris it was such a magical arrival they have all these um new special branded children's amenities so there are baby accessories and there are there's now um a children's menu and all the different restaurants throughout the hotel as well and we did which was her highlight because she has such a sweet tooth i mean i tell you one word of warning if anyone is bringing their kids there they love to shower them with sweet treats so if you want to kind of like manage your child's mood that can be quite challenging that is true they um they have this new dedicated children's afternoon tea there so you have all like the ceremony and elegance of an afternoon tea in paris but adapted for kids so it was really really really special um and she had an amazing it was a really wonderful place to to experience paris through her eyes and just um to kind of paint a broader picture about Hotel de Creon it's a rosewood hotel it's one of Paris's most iconic properties isn't it yeah I mean hearing that too like you say exactly you know it's so unexpected for a hotel like that you know that you would think I mean you can tell it just doesn't rest on its laurels at all you know it's it's won all the awards it's one of Paris's best palace hotels you know it was the former home of the Dukes of Creon it has this kind of illustrious history and you think it might be stuffy and you might not be able to have your kids there and you might have to be on your best behavior but it was just such a breath of fresh air and the total opposite to that um and I think that was just you know kind of literally how you were saying all these unexpected things that I went there obviously expecting it to be beautiful incredible you know to dress up for dinner and to have a butler exactly and to have that kind of you know Parisian palace hotel experience but it ended up just being I mean everything it was that as well but just modern and fresh and relaxed and the crowd was kind of you know in their 30s and 40s not everyone was you know less kind of in their 70s you know as you've got a lot of these kind of older hotels it had an energy didn't it yeah it definitely has an energy which was just it absolutely was maybe our favorite stay in Paris it feels like the bar also at um which is at the front which you obviously don't have to be staying in the hotel to frequent it's like a place to go a place it is it's visiting Paris because it's just the most uh opulent um design with the the sky murals on the ceiling that are all original frescoes aren't they and they've been restored back to their most glamorous self I mean it really is really I think it's probably one of the best if not I think it's my personal favorite hotel bar in Paris that and um bar Hemingway at the Ritz but the it's the ambassador's bar so um yeah yeah it's just such an occasion and it's always busy and you know even if you're staying there you kind of have to jostle a bit for a for a seat at the bar or a table which I like I love that kind of you know the energy is busy it's in demand um the cocktail menu is incredible but they'll do any classic for you I remember the bar bites menu too um being just exactly what you want to eat when you're having a drink you know little fried chicken bits salmon tartars mini kind of croque moussures just it's just modern and cool but old school and elegant and they do it so perfectly that so many hotels are trying to do that now um and maybe slip up a little bit right they just absolutely nail it and i also love its location i love the fact that it's right by the tuileries gardens yeah and if you're traveling with with with children as well like because there's the carousel there there was um a little fun fair there there's the boats on the pond there that you can race it's really one of the most family friendly parts of paris and the louvre is also in walking distance there's the big ferris wheel there um so i feel as though if i was to be picking a part of paris to stay in or recommending to anybody who is visiting paris with a child it would be there like the ultimate like location as well and we walked just to the river as well so a big thank you to them for for inviting Isabella she is yes and thank you I was like yeah thank you for as well please they invited me as well so thank you for inviting both me Isabella's today's episode is supported by Una Italian Hospitality you know how much I love Italy and it's somewhere I'm always happy to return to once summer is over.

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22:17Isabella Craddock: So where are you most recently back from? So I actually just got back last night from Hattah, which is a mountainous area. It's actually in the Emirates of Dubai, um but it's quite close to the border with oman and it's an area you know i've lived here for six years now in the uae it's something that has always been you know on my list to go to people talk about it again i'm going to go back to the fact i'm not that outdoorsy and it is a hiking kayaki you know typically kind of mountainy destination for people who love that vibe and that's not really me or my husband but recently Habitass which I love as a brand it's opened a caravan by Habitass in Hatter so I think only a couple of weeks ago so we were there to kind of experience it spend the night was the perfect excuse it is what I've been waiting for to be able to visit Hatter it's obviously a very big domestic market destination but I think like if you've been to Dubai a few times, if you want to see something different, you know, everyone wants to go and see the desert and people make time for that.

23:29But, you know, in the same amount of time, you can, okay, a little bit longer, you can also see these mountains, dams, beautiful waterways. It's all kind of very browny hued. The mountains kind of look like little sugar loaf, triangular pointy things. You know, it's very kind of almost like St. Lucia-esque. and yeah it's just you can't believe you're in Dubai I mean it's obviously very close to the border with Oman and it feels very kind of northern Emirates style but it's not just for kind of outdoorsy people anymore now that they have this very cool new kind of luxe glamping experience there so that was very very fun.

24:08Isabella Craddock: That sounds amazing so how long did it take you to get there? It's an hour and a half in the car we live kind of near downtown Dubai so you know I'm sure kind of from all around the city it's quite similar which is fine you know for an overnight stay I mean approachable price point too because you're staying in these airstreams so airstreams are kind of what those those hyper shiny yes exactly the kind of the classic ones you see on American movies or you know it always reminds you of like Utah or Route 66 you know it's that very American-y style thing um yeah yeah they're metallic and that but they've taken them and I think they've probably taken them off their wheels and they've just created these 50 little individual purchase for them around this protected area um so you have to be a guest to be able to enter the area so it's very peaceful very exclusive feeling and yeah i mean they've made them basically like mini hotel rooms i mean they're probably the size of half of the hotel rooms i've stayed in you know they've got beautiful private bathroom showers double bed you've got a mini bar wardrobe robe, slippers, coffee machines.

25:17And then obviously it has a, it has a beautiful swimming pool, which overlooks the mountains. It has a restaurant. So you don't have to, you know, you don't have to do any barbecuing. You don't have to bring your own food. It's, um, so it's kind of the perfect mix if you just want to like dip your toes in the outdoorsy vibe, but not too much. So they have, yeah, you know, full hotel breakfast. There's a spa, a proper spa area where they can do all you know massages facials there's a gym sauna outdoor plunge it's just very cool it's very the Habit House brand very lifestyle very modern in this kind of very old ancient beautiful rugged landscape and it was just yeah it was really really cool to see and and speaking

25:57Isabella Craddock: of trips to do when you're in the Middle East and you know it sounds like a great bolt on to a to a holiday in in Dubai our listener question this week is from Margaret and Lester and in fact it's something I've been asked a few times and I wondered if you might be able to offer us your two cents being based out in Dubai she says that she's been planning to go to the Middle East on a holiday for ages and she's just feeling uncertain about it she says I'm not sure if it's safe what are your thoughts and I guess you know it is an understandable question I guess a lot of people saw people getting stuck out in Dubai out in the Middle East and the situation is maybe a little bit unclear so how would you approach um that question and you know I mean I don't want to sound like a press officer or someone who works for Dubai tourism or something because I'm definitely not um but I like at the moment you know we're in October things feel completely fine I would say you know obviously every you have to feel comfortable going on holiday if you have anything in the back of your mind I just think don't don't do it because you're just not going to feel you know you're going to feel on edge you're not going to fully enjoy it but as someone who lives here someone who's been here throughout kind of the beginnings of the conflict and the regional kind of issues that have been going on since March there hasn't been a safer time since before everything since you know kind of February you know if you'd have asked me in March April May I'd have said don't come um right but yeah things have kind of returned to basically normality now you know the city is very busy traffic's back you know the airport's packed taxi queues are you know around the corner so we haven't had any you know scares in in months everything seems very is not seems everything is very calm and um and back to normal restaurants are open hotels beach clubs reopening it's event season in Dubai so you know everyone who lives here and who works here is going to this opening and that opening and this new restaurant so as someone who lives here has lived through it all here it's completely fine and I would say anyone can come here you know actually our my mother and father-in-law you know he's 80 she's in her 60s they're with us for two weeks at the moment so they they feel completely comfortable being here I know all of my friends are having you know their usual kind of annual visitors return um but I would say I guess in kind of advice terms I would say don't fly on a non-golf airline um I just think it's a bit risky with cancellations and you know they it feels like it doesn't take much for BA or airfront you know these airlines I don't even think they've restarted maybe but to cancel so you know you kind of want to book with emirates interesting book with catar you know they're flying hundreds of flights every week and also they're kind of obviously government owned so they're more in tune with kind of you know they they know what's happening they're on top of communication they're informed so i would yeah i would say definitely if come if you if she feels comfortable um she will have an amazing time the weather's getting lovely again everything's open everything's fine but fly um yeah fly a gulf carrier because they get it they know they're in touch with communication you know they understand how everything is working and that I mean I think it would take a lot for them to cancel a flight that's that's really really good really good to know would you feel the same just out of interest would you feel the same going to Oman or um other yeah yeah yeah I mean at the moment probably I would not be going to Saudi so we were actually meant to be at the Red Sea the past weekend we went to Hattah instead I'm not I don't scare easily and I really did want to go to the Red Sea but Flight Dubai did cancel the flight so I couldn't actually get there so no I would not go to Saudi um but Oman yeah Oman seems completely fine, completely safe.

30:08Again, I don't want to feel like I'm kind of pushing this narrative because I know it's kind of been there the whole time where everything is safe and fine and we're all kind of, you know, just living our lives as normal. But honestly, it really, it really does feel like that now again. I'd say Qatar is fine. You know, Abu Dhabi, Oman, just probably not Saudi at the moment.

30:30Isabella Craddock: It's basically back to normal.

30:35Isabella Craddock: Well, I always like to wrap up by asking my guests what destination is at the top of their travel bucket list. What is at the top of yours, Izzy? So, I mean, it was and it probably still is. I know it's quite basic, but Japan. So we, it's been at the top of my husband's for years. And every year I'm a bit of a creature of habit outside of work. Travels for work. I'll go anywhere, you know, Luderitz, Bhutan, you know, wherever. Tromso but for personal life I'm like France, Greece, Italy. The classics. We were meant to be there probably now actually in October but then now I'm pregnant and I said there's no way I'm going to Japan if I can't eat sushi or honestly or drink Japanese whiskey or just how miserable.

31:24So that bless him is still at the top of our bucket list which we hope to make work soon. obviously Kyoto I love these places which I don't know I don't love kind of city I love cities but I prefer the kind of more heritage dreamy very kind of like traditionally places so I think Kyoto would be absolute top for me but I mean there's been a couple of things as well that we were meant to do this year but then obviously with everything happening in the police and work and different situations just didn't happen. It doesn't really feel like a bucket list, but I'm just dying to see more of Austria as well.

32:07I just think it's such a stunning country. And Vienna is one of my favorite cities in the world. I just think it's so, you know, people love, you know, always in Rome or Paris or wherever, but Vienna is just so special. And I'd love to see, you know, the kind of Austrian lakes, Lossfuschl, the mountains, you know, just how the lakes and everything the water is so clear and the air is so crisp um so there's all

32:34Isabella Craddock: yeah so i mean i love austria and we're going again in january um oh amazing what's great what i can reassure you is that once you have your little one um you will still very much be so beautifully accommodated in austria because they have the best family friendly yeah a few and uh we're going in january to one that a lot of my friends have been to that they've recommended called more gut um which is i haven't heard of this it's a kinder hotel it has um child that's probably why i haven't been yeah yeah exactly you wouldn't listen you lost me there but when you hear that they've got let me just double check what age it is that they have the the kids club from yeah so Morgut have age inclusive child care that is complementary from one month old and up so yeah I'm I'm not that I require the one I've never seen that before yeah quite a few of those ones I'll be there in you know in the um European mountains it's from like that's one month old two month old and it by that you know people it's you know somebody might think objectively that oh god you can't leave your one month old with somebody else but it's yeah it's more that you actually you might want an hour to go and eat a meal and exactly doesn't have to be all right your child um yeah we took casper to a hotel i went to a place in the austrian alps uh yeah so it was i paired it with frestus actually um called aki family resort it opened last year i've talked about it loads on the podcast because it is yeah incredible but it had right hands down yeah aki casper was only a tiny baby like four months i think he was and they had these hammocks that were suspended from the ceiling that had like a scrunchy um motorized mechanism and he was wrapped up like when you see a uh disney cartoon and they say this is how a baby arrives with the stalk holding it it's literally he we have these videos of him just fast asleep being bobbed up and down mechanically in the kids club in this so it's that kind of thing being able to deposit your little baby while they have been being watched that's so sweet incredible lovely local person yeah i would i would trust yeah i would trust austrians with kids they're just they're very sensible they're very safe they speak english well they speak english well yeah like i just they're really nice people yeah um love that i'm right it was actually uh thinking about that it was like in the it was technically in the italian alps but we um flew into innsbruck to get innsbruck but yes also going back um in january to more good so i'll update everybody what that is like as well i'm trying to work my way around all of these uh family ones we went to also in austria isabella we went to nato hotel forst off gut another brilliant family to add all these to my list is very adult pleasing there are loads of them so yeah the austrian world is your oyster that's such a relief to hear because yeah i've been feeling a little bit not sad but you know just gosh what are my years gonna look like now and i'm quite a selfish solo traveler so let's see but brilliant news about austria yeah you're gonna love it you will do oh thank you so much as well for joining me on the podcast it's been a joy to catch up and wishing you all the very best with what's to come thank you and I've got so many things I need to plan now and my head is brimming with things I need to do and places to stay um so it's equally not that great to talk to you too because I'm probably going to go and spend loads of money our huge thank you to Isabella for joining us on the pod make sure you check out near and far for lots more inspiration particularly if you're planning a trip to the Middle East.

36:49Thanks so much for listening today. If you enjoyed today's episode, do remember to hit follow or subscribe on your podcast app. It really helps other people to discover the podcast and it also means that you'll get a double dose of one blast in your podcast library each week. If you'd like to find out who's joining me on Tuesday, come and follow me on Instagram and TikTok. I'm at Holly Rubenstein. I'd love to hear from you. In the meantime, wishing you guys all safe travels. I'll see you on Tuesday.

37:18Thank you.

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