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Luxury Travel

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Luxury Travel

USA: New for 2023

Holidays to the USA are big, bold, and beautiful and with a host of new events, openings, and firm sporting favourites, 2023 looks set to continue that trend. Here is all you need to know for your next American getaway.

This is a feature from Issue 14 of Charitable Traveller. 

Sporting prowess

Headline events don’t come much bigger than the NFL’s Super Bowl. The world’s most watched annual sporting showdown is now held on the second Sunday of February (12th), and in 2023 it’s the turn of the University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale, Arizona, to host the Super Bowl LVII. The half-time show always features performances by the biggest global stars – think Prince, Beyonce, McCartney, and this year, Rhianna – and full-on razzmatazz is the name of the game once the whistle blows. Another must? The tailgate parties outside the grounds before the game starts, where fans meet for food and drinks out the back of their cars.
A sneeze-and-you’ll-miss-it event, the Kentucky Derby is the ‘fastest two minutes in sport’ and is the longest-running continuous sporting event in the USA. 

More than simply a horse race of three-year-old thoroughbreds, for the 155,00 regulars who attend it’s a weekend-long celebration full of parties in ballrooms, mansions and bars. Running since 1875, it’s always held on the first Saturday of May at Churchill Downs in Louisville, Kentucky – it’s on 6th May in 2023. In what could be golf’s most taxing major of 2023, the US Open Championship is taking place on one of the country’s toughest courses, Los Angeles Country Club, from 12-18th June. Staged over four days, the final day coincides with Father’s Day in the States (and the UK), and taking to the green will be the world’s best 156 golfers – the top 60 make the cut for the last day of play.
Lastly on the big ticket sporting events is baseball, America’s national pastime. Major League Baseball’s season runs from April to October so it’s worth checking for local games taking place if you’re visiting over the summer. A highlight is the Seattle Mariners’ T-Mobile Park, where you can enjoy extraordinary views of Seattle’s skyline from the stadium and it’s said there’s not a bad seat in the house. The hot ticket? The All-Star Game, taking place on 11th July.

Cultural Highs

Musical lovers, rejoice – there’s a new place to call home in New York. The Museum of Broadway opened at the end of 2022 and is a celebration of Broadway’s finest productions and performers over the years. Taking a behind-the-scenes look into the creation of the
magic on stage, expect to find as much heart and soul poured into the exhibitions as there has been in the shows. Staying in New York, the UK’s White Cube art gallery (of Damien Hirst and Tracey Emin fame) is celebrating its 30th anniversary by opening a New York outpost. To be found at 1002 Madison Avenue, between the Metropolitan Museum of Art and Guggenheim in the Upper East Side Historic District, the new space will take up three stories in a former 1930s bank and has both public galleries and private viewing areas.

Down in Florida meanwhile, ReefLine, a seven-mile-long underwater public sculpture park, snorkel trail and artificial reef is due to open off the coast of Miami Beach in early 2023. The structure will provide a critical habitat for endangered reef organisms, promoting biodiversity and enhancing coastal resilience, while art installations will mingle with the reef and marine wildlife.

In Mobile, Alabama, the Africatown Heritage House is due to open in spring 2023. It will share the experience of the journey to and from Africa on board Clotilda, bringing life to the 110 captives and showing artefacts of the burned and sunken shipwreck; Clotilda was the last slave ship to come to Alabama in 1860, more than half a century after the slave trade was officially abolished. Lastly, in Washington D.C., women are returning to centre stage at the National Museum of Women in Arts (NMWA) when the museum reopens its doors after a $67m renovation.

The world’s first major museum solely dedicated to championing women artists, the renovation will reveal expanded exhibition spaces, improved accessibility for visitors and re-envisioned public programming areas, all helping to champion women’s great contributions to the history of art, past and present.

Places to stay

One of the biggest hotel openings in 2023 is the Westin Beach Resort and Spa at Frenchman’s Reef in the US Virgin Islands. Set above the sparkling water of the Caribbean Sea, it’ll have 392 rooms (including 28 suites), two ballrooms, six restaurants and three ocean-view pools, plus a Heavenly Spa by Westin. But what’s most appealing is the hotel’s private catamaran, the Flying Frenchman, which guests can book to explore the islands, and take snorkelling trips and sunset sails. Austin-based independent hospitality company the Bunkhouse Group is opening its 10th hotel in 2023 – and its first in Kentucky. Hotel Genevieve is in Louisville’s NuLu neighbourhood, and the hotel’s style is rooted in the city’s history and culture. Promising a friendly, trendy interior and 122 rooms, the focal point will be its Parisian-inspired rooftop restaurant and bar.

Boston, Massachusetts, is the location for the first mixed-use Raffles property in North America. It’ll combine 147 traditional guest bedrooms with private suites, one- to three-bedroom homes and exclusive penthouses that will have full access to the hotel services. Raffles Boston Back Bay Hotel & Residences will have it all– Raffles Butler service, Raffles Spa (with a 20-metre indoor pool), five restaurants and a luxurious rooftop garden terrace and lounge.

The first Ritz-Carlton to be built in North America in over a decade is opening in Scottsdale, Arizona, and aims to be the ultimate luxury desert retreat. The 215-room, 20-acre Ritz-Carlton Paradise Valley resort is set between the breathtaking Camelback and Mummy Mountain vistas and the hotel will reflect its desert surroundings, with bedrooms featuring traditional casita stylings, the spa offering treatments inspired by Arizonian deserts, and the huge main swimming pool creating the perfect oasis escape.

This is a feature from Issue 14 of Charitable Traveller.