Outlier

The North is pretty cool, isn’t it?
And why this is no coincidence.

Southern Europe has made up its mind. It wants to be a sauna. Not the pleasant Scandinavian sort with wood-burning stoves and philosophical silence – it prefers the sort where, after two minutes, you want to get out and wonder why on earth you’re doing this. Mallorca in August. Tuscany in July. Rome in any month without an ‘r’. The air conditioning’s on, the wine’s warm, and somewhere a lizard is wailing.

Or your companion.

It’s now called ‘Coolcation’ – a term that sounds like an advertising slogan, but really just describes what sensible people have known for a long time. Canada. Norway. Iceland. Scotland. Places where summer still knows its place. Where 20 degrees isn’t seen as a meteorological failure, but as an invitation to finally put a jumper on again.

The Wickaninnish Inn in Tofino on Vancouver Island (Canada) sits on a rocky outcrop overlooking the Pacific Ocean, as if it had decided to watch nature at work. Which is exactly what it does. Every day. Nature returns the favour with waves, driftwood and, occasionally, a whale that swims past like someone who knows they’re the highlight of every holiday photo album. The hotel is part of Relais & Châteaux – so it’s very good and discreetly proud of it. But the real attraction has always been outdoors. The morning coffee tastes of sea air and the pleasant realisation that no email in the world is as important as this moment.

→ wickinn.com

A few hours’ flight further east, different light, the same idea. Norway. The Storfjord Hotel high above the fjord – wooden architecture, tranquillity, a light that brings photographers to tears and gives non-photographers food for thought. Mighty glaciers have shaped this landscape over millennia. You don’t realise this as an educational experience, but physically – as that quiet sense of wonder that sets in when you realise you are standing in a place that is older than any human concept of luxury.

→ storfjordhotel.no

That said: luxury. Let’s talk about it briefly.

Luxury isn’t a superlative. No infinity pool, no butler, no thread massage at six in the morning. Luxury is the moment that takes you by surprise. The one that does you good. That makes us feel alive. Moments when we’re fully present. Moments you can’t book. That simply happen – usually just when you’ve stopped expecting them.

When cool sea air streams through the open window. When the fjord turns pink in the morning light and you think: That really just happened. When you put on your jumper and realise that 18 degrees feels surprisingly liberating.

Not every temperature record needs to be experienced first-hand.

Two jumpers. Just to be on the safe side.