We’ve all been there: the night before seemed like it would stretch on forever, fold itself into a dawn that might never come, holding every promise of the long night, the eternal party. And then it’s 09.03, and your alarms go off like crazy – phone, front desk, animal instinct – and suddenly you’re at the airport, beetle-browed, far too warm, eking through security and it’s now that you really have to ask yourself: what’s that in my pocket?

Airport security contains multitudes. For most travellers, it’s the necessary evil, the paint-drying minutes spent with arms tensely folded, one eye boring into the back of the nice lady who is being patiently asked about the Thermos of guandolo, flagon of water and gallon of breast milk in her carry-on. Oh and: “Is that a roller blind you’re carrying, madam?” The other eye, meanwhile, beadily regards the trays clattering down the conveyor. Perhaps yours contains the nice watch that you shouldn’t have had to remove but were asked to anyway, a cap from Lock & Co Hatters that looked so much smarter before it was just squashed by the flaps of the X-ray machine and a Montblanc pen which – who knows? – might yet have made it safely through. It’s still called “security”, though, so maybe it’ll be OK. It’s bloody awful, though, isn’t it?

Besides the sensible desire to inaugurate a secondary filter-lane next to Fast Track – perhaps (in the style of “EU” and “non-EU”) titled “Morons” and “non-Morons” – what should you be able to take through security that you are currently barred from transporting in the cabin of a commercial flight?

Well, you’ll have doubtless bought some regional produce on your holiday: Istrian honey, jam from Alentejo, olive oil from Patmos, a wheel of Reblochon from Haute-Savoie, some Chiang Mai massage oil, a small-calibre ivory-handled ladies’ pistol from Louisiana, some challenging German… magazines. If ever there was a more wholesome panoply of locally made acorn-fed goodness that, on making landfall in your home, instantly summons the magic and memories of your holiday, then I’d like to see it. But woe betide you bring any of that lot through security! Whoa there, slow down. Cool it.

You could politely look away and hope your exciting bags trundle through the scanner unmolested – but that only invites the slowest and most boring form of torture this side of filing a tax return. Your holiday haul would open the floor to medal-winning jobsworthiness masquerading as diligence. A man with a cotton wool swab, a pinched expression and a uniform that’s surely flammable will offer a withering look and ask: “Is this your bag, sir? Mind if I have a look, sir?” 

That sinking feeling is the worst. Everything removed, inspected, peered at, pored over. YES, YES, IT’S A JAR OF HONEY WITH A PLASTIC SEAL AROUND IT. NO, I DON’T TRAVEL WITH A VACUUM-PACKING MACHINE TO SEAL JARS OF SEMTEX DISGUISED AS WILD HONEY – IN FACT, I’D GO SO FAR AS TO CALL IT “TANGY” AND “COMPLEX”, A WORLD AWAY FROM THE STUFF AT SAINSBURY’S – is what you’re shouting on the inside while officer J Obsworth invites you to throw it all in the bin and purchase a €42 jar of similar from the shop that’s suspiciously-right-there in Departures. You almost miss your flight.

It needn’t be this way. On a trip to report on the winningness of Taiwanese pop stars some years ago, I bought and brought back a foldable bicycle – a Taipei must-have – as hand luggage. This was enabled by good old Eva Air not giving a toss and using the if-it-fits-it-fits stowage philosophy. I’ve brought quite big artworks back from Hong Kong, rugs from Morocco, a hoard of pokey Mezcal from Oaxaca. And more besides (is that root ginger in your luggage, sir? Why, yes!). 

I have friends who’ve done the whole bringing-home-a-poor-ickle-cat-from-Greece thing and it’s a bad idea – even if it were a dog. But, man alive, I’d love to usher a massive, bright-plumed, aggressively territorial parrot from Ecuador through an airport and home. I’d have started the language lab over in Latin America, teaching Cortez the macaw the basic linguistic repertoire of a Millwall football hooligan (so he fits in) and take it from there. It would obviously be cruel to put him in a cage in the hold, plus I need a profoundly rude emotional support parrot, so in he swoops to perch on seat 7B. With his suspiciously large, very padded collar. And what’s that in my pocket? Bird seed. Very fine bird seed. For God’s sake, give us a carry-on-baggage-shaped break.

Robert Bound is a contributing editor at Monocle. Read more from Rob here.

Further reading:
– Cathay Pacific’s cargo hub at Hong Kong International Airport is a telling insight into the state of the global economy  

– Can building Africa’s largest airport turn Ethiopia’s fortunes around?

– When it comes to Dulles airport, Trump might actually have a point

Last week, the age-old wheeze of saying something is what it manifestly is not took an ominous turn. Such things can happen when perpetrated by the world’s most powerful man. 

In response to an executive order from Donald Trump, Apple Maps and the good folks at Google have faithfully renamed Lake Ontario “Lake America” for US users. The cartographic chicanery follows strained trade talks with Canada and the choppy wake of the US president’s unilaterally boosterish renaming of the Gulf of Mexico.

Rewriting labels is surprisingly easy: ask the cities formerly known as Constantinople (née Byzantium), Peking and Bombay, for that matter. But making it stick usually takes consensus, not caprice – a proper plan, not pencil-and-rubber diplomacy. Some names resist the mapper’s hand for harder-to-explain reasons too. Take Manhattan’s Avenue of the Americas (or 6th Avenue, as it’s still stubbornly known despite a 1945 rebrand). Restoration and counter-restoration are also a regular battleground for culture warriors. Think of Mount McKinley in Alaska, which was renamed Denali to acknowledge an indigenous name under President Obama in 2015. It then boomeranged back to McKinleydom in 2025 by executive decree. A sign of the times and a parody of the pendulum of progress, if ever there was one.

The Lake Ontario furore (call it one-mapmanship?) is easier to navigate. While Trump is well within his rights to rule on US federal nomenclature, private companies such as Apple and Google are playing politics by going along with it. Would they wince if the White House decided to rename Greenland, Venezuela or Panama? Would things be different if China marched into Taiwan tomorrow with a fresh set of road signs? Maps are never fully neutral, and making them is a responsibility.

The summer’s hit novel, Land by Maggie O’Farrell, is a worthwhile read on this topic and a canny counterpoint to this kind of short-termism and self-indulgence. Starting in 1865, its elegant plot unspools around a family in the wake of the Irish potato famine (with moments of joy as well as the hardship). The British are mapping an island caught between cultures and landed between lexica. Charts and names – even those of fields, humdrum hills and a mysterious thicket around which much of the action unfolds – are inescapably political. The novelist’s deeper insight is in parodying the short-sightedness of plastering words onto places that will long outlast us. There’s something almost Cnut-ish (yes, you read that right) about Trump’s attempts to command the waters with his hollow call.

Now for the pragmatic part. Lake Ontario as a place and name is, of course, many orders of magnitude older than either of the nations that now bestride it. Literal millennia more ancient if you mean the geographical feature, and at least centuries older as a name. That will take more than a whim to alter. The lake is enshrined in history but also the present: family boat trips, memories and cross-border conviviality bred across shared shores.

Far from showing US strength, the new name gambit reveals desperation and might have fatally misread Canadians’ cherished connection to their history, nature and land. If you need to rename a lake to establish your importance, you may already be less important than you think. 

Long after the midterms, the ripples of this reactionary little episode will dissipate like the water’s surface momentarily disturbed by the passing of a lame, ungainly duck. And in a bout of poetic justice a novelist might relish, the last laugh might well be on the biddable, never-neutral mapmakers who toady to the politics of the day.

On a late summer afternoon, well-dressed women are walking in and out of a townhouse in London’s Mayfair neighbourhood. They’re here to pay a visit to Tibi, the womenswear brand that has taken over the 12-bedroom house to host styling appointments and meet-and-greets with founder Amy Smilovic. “We’ve had appointments with the most incredible women who come from every kind of industry,” says Smilovic, as she lays back on a chair after a long day welcoming customers old and new.

Smilovic didn’t always have such a direct line of communication with the women wearing her clothes. When she founded her brand in Hong Kong in 1997, she began by following the industry rulebook: multiple collections a year, large-scale fashion shows, trend-driven designs and hundreds of stockists around the world. 

When the pandemic exposed the cracks in the traditional system, Smilovic decided to reassess her definition of success: design only the clothes she wanted to wear and start talking to her customers directly through events and style classes. Her new book, Almost Reckless: A Creative and Pragmatic Approach to Taking Risks, charts the journey of rebuilding her business on her own terms. 

Here she shares some of the most valuable lessons with Monocle.

1. Spend time getting to really know your customers
You have to be present and part of these conversations. It just keeps you on your game. You’re constantly coming up with new ideas when you talk to your customers: women who wear Tibi started cryptocurrency funds or they’re heads of boards of finance companies. We’ve created our own mini Davos [during our styling days]: in one room you have more than 30 industries being represented. We don’t even have a merchandiser at Tibi anymore – what would a merchandiser be able to tell me from a spreadsheet that I don’t get by just sitting in these rooms and hanging out with these people? Our conversations help me to make sure that with every new collection, I’m fulfilling their needs: maybe there’s a new mum who needs to feel cool again, or maybe someone needs a jacket for travel. It helps me create storylines for the product to meet different audiences. 

2. Ideas aren’t developed overnight
I called the book Almost Reckless because I like taking big swings but doing things pragmatically is equally important to me. I understand that everything is a slow build-up. When we started doing these styling days, we did one per year and assessed what worked and what didn’t. Only then did we start increasing their frequency.

3. Design your business according to your lifestyle and your principles 
In 2020 we came very close to shutting down Tibi. We decided to keep the business but only if we could run it exactly as we wanted. One thing that you can do is define your core principles. Mine was agency: having control over my own life, working with people who shared my mindset and being allowed to be creative. You then need to think about how much money it would take for you to always have those elements in place and also be able to take care of yourself in an emergency, such as a catastrophic illness. 

We were a $70m (€60m) business looking to be a $150m (€129m) business so that we could sell it to become a $300m (€259m) business. But to live by our principles, we didn’t need to generate $70m in sales anymore, so we downscaled. I can be completely happy and content at $25m (€21m) in gross sales. When the bar is clear, you have nothing to lose and things begin to work out because you decide what works out for you [and] that gives you a tremendous amount of confidence.

4. Write your own definition of success and don’t follow pre-existing rules 
Right now, I think we are wildly successful – even if a venture capitalist would disagree if they came in and looked at our ebitda [operating profits]. Everything is subjective: what I find reckless might seem completely safe to someone else. 

People believe that we’re part of an industry but in reality no one can even articulate what that means. I mean, what is the fashion industry? Is it Walmart or is it LVMH? Who’s writing the rules? I hated being beholden to the fashion industry. We shouldn’t convince ourselves that there are set ways of doing things and set levels of achievement.

5. There are opportunities in operating outside the mainstream
You might think that you can follow the same systems as those who came before you and use your product as the main differentiator. But brands are more than products. It has always been about so much more: retail, people, stories. 

At the moment, the market is conducive to entrepreneurs who want to run smaller businesses, meaning those under $100m (€86m). The door is wide open for people to do things in their own way. But for big businesses, it’s impossible for them to be on the pulse of things or create real communities made up of people who don’t just share similar bank accounts but also similar mindsets. 

Many entrepreneurs have been conned into this concept that if you are not in pursuit of scaling at all costs, you’ll die. I used to say that if a shark stops swimming, it will drown. That was my mantra: to surge ahead. But I don’t believe that anymore. There’s something beautiful about just staying healthy and small.

6. Friction makes room for creativity and unexpected opportunities
I have a chapter in the book called “Lead with a compass, not a GPS”. That’s the beauty of a compass: it lets you feel your way out and you don’t know exactly where you’ll end up. We often fall into the trap of comfort, thinking that all knowledge is now all available online. But you have to go out and research. If you’re on a train, look around you or, if you’re on a plane, talk to strangers. 

7. Get to know yourself 
When something feels right, take a moment to codify it, to put it into words. It helps to be able to describe yourself in a few adjectives. It has worked for me: knowing deeply who I am creates a through line when I’m designing. It’s not easy but it certainly is less nerve-wracking than it used to be. If I’m designing something that I want to wear, I know that I’ll find a way to sell it to someone. It can only go wrong if I start looking at trend reports.

Donald Trump has said that the most beautiful word in the English language is “tariff”. But recent evidence suggests there is another noun with a more lyrical quality that might have supplanted it in his affections: “ballroom”. Barely a speech goes by without the president musing about the wonders of the vast construction project rumbling on where the East Wing of the White House used to stand. He has even described the constant noise in his backyard as “music to my ears”. A $400m (€344m) vanity build is not, however, music to the ears of many Americans in a country grappling with a cost-of-living crisis and an interminable war overseas.
 
It’s no surprise that Trump loves a construction project: he did make his fortune in real estate. On Monday the Supreme Court ruled that the ballroom construction could continue, overturning an earlier federal appeals court ruling that ordered building work to stop because it did not have congressional approval. 

But his overwhelming obsession with a building that most Americans couldn’t care less about is befuddling Republicans who are battling to keep or win seats in the November midterm elections. The Pew Research Center asked voters which issue they would like to hear midterm candidates talk about the most: the economy came out on top, with 29 per cent of respondents listing it as their top concern, and the cost of living came second at 15 per cent. The word “ballroom” did not make the list. 
 
The Politifact fact-checking website has crunched the numbers and found that Trump has mentioned his various Washington construction projects at 84 public events since January. He has devoted nearly 45,000 words to projects such as the ballroom, the Reflecting Pool and the Arch de Trump, compared to 41,655 words on foreign policy and just 39,744 on the economy. Only Iran got more air play, with almost 56,000 of his words dedicated to the war in the Middle East.
 
The motivation behind the 8,360 sq m behemoth that will dwarf the White House keeps changing. Trump has long been obsessed with building a ballroom, in the same vein as his gold- and chandelier-bedecked hall in Mar-a-Lago. Early in the planning phases, Trump claimed that the White House needed a larger venue for hosting foreign dignitaries and events. After a foiled attack on the president at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner in April, he then said it was a security necessity. And now, designed for both cocktails and bunkers, he has taken to calling it “the greatest military-complex-slash-ballroom anywhere in the world”.
 
While the exact details of what is being built on the site are classified, Trump has said that the ballroom will go six storeys deep, complete with bomb shelters and medical facilities. The roof will be drone-proof, with measures to protect against missiles and biohazards, though little of this has convinced the electorate. In July, a poll from The Washington Post and Ipsos found that 65 per cent of respondents were dissatisfied with the ballroom and the other prominent vanity projects.
 
Trump’s approval plummeted to a record low of about 33 per cent in August and, with no end in sight for the Iran War, it makes sense that the commander-in-chief is looking for distractions. As the conflict drags on and pulls the US economy down with it, Trump is desperate for things he can control – and what can be more comforting to a luxury real estate magnate than bricks and mortar and marble and gold? Then there’s his legacy. Barring any attempt at a third term, Trump has some two years left in office and, with his domestic and foreign policy legacy looking precarious, he wants to make sure that a physical reminder of his presidency will stand long after he has departed. 
 
On Wednesday evening, Trump finally reassured Republicans that he would get on the campaign trail and speak in key battleground seats ahead of the midterms. They’ll just be hoping that he manages to stick to the script and doesn’t drop too many b-words.

Charlotte McDonald-Gibson is a Washington-based journalist and regular Monocle contributor. For more from her, click here.

Are you one of those people who are prone to post-party depression? Or are you more the type who can celebrate a grand event, collapse, recover and get on with whatever’s lined up next? On this particular Saturday afternoon, I feel wedged between the two. A couple of hours ago we officially wrapped up our Quality of Life Conference in Lisbon (see more details in Andrew Tuck’s column yesterday). As I said my goodbyes to speakers and delegates, I was overcome by a certain melancholy as I descended the stairs at Lisbon’s Museu do Design. 

To say that our annual global gathering is intense not only undervalues the sheer amount of energy generated over 48 hours but also doesn’t quite capture the depth of the connections formed within the varied group of participants. As this was the 10th edition of our conference, matched with the countdown to our 20th anniversary, we looked back at the founding of Monocle and the people behind the scenes – on page, on air and at events – who have built a truly unique, extended, far-flung family. I was about to use the increasingly overworked word “community” to define our crowd but they’re so much more than that – the most loyal and engaged among them are more like first cousins or a dear auntie or uncle. Over the years, you learn about people’s stories in depth. Conversations about fresh ventures and opportunities missed, starting out in a new city or a Monocle story that sent someone off on a new trajectory not only inform how we shape our editorial agenda but also creep up as constant, real reminders of who we’re speaking to and the lives that they’ve lived. Whenever we host a party or summit, I want to speak to as many people as possible and attempt to make connections between those who I feel need to know each other. We’re very proud that we’ve helped form business alliances and been responsible for some long-standing romances, thanks to a couple of extra glasses on a terrace or just one more cigarette on a balcony high above terracotta roof tiles. 

As with most families, there are always pleasantries and basics to cover. But perhaps because they can choose to opt in to the Monocle family, the conversations can be far more candid and raw than they might be with a brother in Oslo or an aunt in Phoenix. Just before I left our farewell brunch, I was approached by a gentleman who wanted to offer a word or two of thanks and a small story. He started by telling me that his partner had died suddenly, that he had the support of friends and family but as he searched for comfort and some kind of perspective, he needed something else to turn to – perhaps a little lift. “I’m here because I started listening to your radio station and I immediately felt connected to the voices, the music and the stories,” he explained. “I really appreciated the type of music you were playing and how you were looking at the world. It was a bit later that I became a subscriber and that’s how I came to be here. I just wanted you to know that.”

I haven’t been able to get this exchange out of my head. It’s why I feel a bit heavy in the heart on this sultry Saturday, as the light fades over Lisbon and I gear up for what feels like official back to school from Monday. I want to say thank you to this most elegant gentleman for telling me his story. It will accompany me as we move into our third decade of heading up this family called Monocle.

Enjoying life in ‘The Faster Lane’? Click here to browse all of Tyler’s past columns.

What would happen if the developers, architects, engineers and electricians building an apartment complex were all women? Visit Reina condos at 689 The Queensway in Toronto, and you will discover that it leads to generous design decisions, wise consideration of the risks of loneliness for at-home parents and the mother of all stroller parks.

Reina has been designed by Heather Rolleston, principal at BDP Quadrangle. But this project started when her client, Taya Cook of Urban Capital, read an article in Toronto Life about the “Condo Kings” – the 20 men who were said to be transforming the city’s skyline. Cook thought to herself, “I’ve been working in this industry for many years and it’s time for this conversation to change.”

So along with Sherry Larjani from Spotlight Development, she pulled together a women-led team and, after a competition, Rolleston joined as lead architect. Monocle’s Andrew Tuck spoke with Rolleston about how this flipping of the bird to this male-dominated industry led to many wonderful outcomes but also a heavy sense of responsibility. Listen to the full conversation on The Urbanist.

This conversation has been edited for clarity and length.

Could you take a step back for us and explain how this project came about? What decision was made that said: we need an all-women team on this project?
A client of mine, Taya Cook of Urban Capital, was reading an article in Toronto Life magazine called “Condo Kings”. It was about men who had been building a lot of condos, transforming Toronto’s skyline, and she thought to herself, ‘You know, I’ve been working in this industry for many years and it’s time for this conversation to change’. She and Sherry Larjani from Spotlight got together and brainstormed this idea of having a women-led team. That was the impetus for the project and I was interviewed with other female architects and ended up winning the job.

Reina is a polite two fingers up to the world of male-dominated business in the city. The building is beautiful. Tell me the scale of the building and what you’ve designed.
It’s a U-shaped courtyard building. It’s a mid-rise and it gently terraces down towards the adjacent low-rise established neighbourhood. It’s on a main street, The Queensway, and it feels like a well-established neighbourhood. There’s a public school to the west and a vibrant shopping street. Ironically, this project replaced a gentlemen’s club, so that was a great topic when we had groundbreakings and other events on site.

It’s fascinating that you have this [all-women] team – of construction workers, engineers – working on this project. How did that change the decision-making process? What kinds of things did you implement?
We were surprised by the amount of attention that this topic and project got; we were unprepared for that and we were feeling the pressure from the very beginning. We wanted to come at the condo from a different angle but the kind of attention that the project got forced us to think differently. A lot of that came from doing outreach. We had to meet all the same parameters as any other condominium with respect to efficiency, affordability and suite sizes that were great for everyone. But we were aiming higher than that on this project, [so] we started to have conversations with the community. Our client hosted a giant brainstorming session talking about the pain points that people experienced in condominiums.

Tell me about the tenant mix. I hear there are 30 to 40 young children who live there with their families?
There is a wide variety. There are a lot of families, a lot of teenagers. We also designed some intergenerational suites on the ground floor so there are people living here with their aging parents or with their kids in their late twenties. There are single people with dogs. There’s a great sense of community and the amenities that we designed attract like-minded people.

Among the things you’ve added is a stroller park. You go into many nice condominiums and people have to drag the buggy up to their apartment or they’re left in hallways. It’s a simple thing but you thought: let’s sort that out.
When we asked about people’s pain points, that was one of them. For a long time, condominiums aimed to [offer] a kind of a hotel lifestyle but now it’s a different time. A place to put your stroller in an underutilised place in the building, having a shared library so that you can sign out the Kitchen Aid mixer that you only need a couple times a year instead of having it take up space in your linear kitchen. All of these things were suggestions by people [we spoke to]. We planned the ground floor so that people could work out in the gym [while] watching their children play safely. These aren’t difficult things to think about. But when someone suggests it, it’s like: yes, why isn’t it like that?

You’ve created a building where the end users are the key focus. Normally when a building gets made, there’s an investor or a developer who wants to make sure they maximise their profit. Things like ‘let’s have ample space for parking strollers’ or ‘let’s put aside additional space for children to play while mum or dad goes to the gym’ – those things often get engineered out very quickly. Is this an example of when women are in charge of the process, you realise you don’t need to do it in the same old way?
It is a little bit of that. It was just taking more time in the design process, knowing that this was going to be more of a community building from the beginning. We wanted to make a mark with this project. It was about designing from the inside out, which is something that has fallen out of favour recently. Architecture lately has been a bit more about ego – what things look like from the outside – and what’s going to sell in different countries. This was not that. I’m proud to say that the building is beautiful. We didn’t sacrifice any of the beauty in that process of designing from the inside out.

Ah, Saturday morning. Looks like we made it – and in some style. As you read this, the 2026 edition of the Monocle Quality of Life Conference is in its final stages, wrapping up with a host of special-access city tours and a farewell breakfast on the rooftop of the Museu Do Design. But yesterday was the biggie – a day of talks, discussions and entertaining interludes – set within the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, surely one of the most beautiful museums in the world. Throughout the day we heard from pioneers in everything from architecture to foot health, industrial design to fashion, and they all had lessons to impart. Here are 10 of them.

1.
Artist and designer Joana Astolfi was tasked with explaining Portugal in 10 objects (she ended up bringing 20 – we forgave her). And one key theme that became evident as she spoke was that this is a country where soul matters, where taking your time is considered a good thing (“we enjoy being a little late at times”) and where a love of poetry is the norm.

2.
Lisbon is a city where tolerance endures. The city’s mayor, Carlos Moedas, talked us through the urban projects that are helping to transform his city. He also explained how Lisbon is special because of intangible elements – one of which is tolerance. The city has welcomed 200,000 people from around the world and the mayor explained how quickly they feel at home. He also stressed that for this to endure, new arrivals need to participate in the city’s rich cultural life.

3.
The creators of Amble One – a Portuguese electrical vehicle that looks like a souped-up prestige golf cart – revealed that they took orders for more than 3,000 vehicles during the debut model’s first few weeks on sale. Made in Portugal might be reaching beyond clothing, furniture and wine by driving deep into tech but, staying true to its roots, Amble One has a nice cork steering wheel.

4.
How do you fix the shopping mall model? Paul Sirisant – the CEO of a multi-use development called Cloud 11 in Thailand – said his company thinks beyond the ding of cash registers and focuses on delivering cultural value. In his case, this has included providing recording studios and spaces to hang out.

5.
Architect Manuel Aires Mateus explained how design can change your life – and your health. He gave a good example: cutlery, which he designed in the form of a lightweight set that encourages you to eat slower (and perhaps a little less).

6.
Nicolas Gabard, owner of Parisian tailoring house Husbands, spoke eloquently on the power of making an effort, on why having an image is not superficial. His session encouraged everyone to embrace the joy of getting dressed. “It should be fun,” he insisted. 

7.
Many people dream of changing careers and we happened to have many perfect case studies on stage. One of the best was Pedro Oliveira, who left a successful career in finance to open a jewel of a hotel in Lisbon, Das Amoreiras. He’s a man who cares deeply about design and hospitality but perhaps the key lesson he imparted was that sometimes you have to change course if you want to be truly happy.

8.
We had a great panel on foot health and why walking can fix not only your balance but your mind too. Courtney Conley, the founder of Gait Happens and the author of Walk, shared numerous lessons. Here’s one takeaway: when you take your shoes off, the widest part of your feet should be your toes. If you can’t splay them, you need to think about your toe strength. Oh, and barefoot is best.

9.
António M Feijó, the president of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, talked about the challenges of extending the institution’s museum, with the recent addition of a new wing designed by Japanese architect Kengo Kuma. How do you add to a building that people already see as a masterpiece? One of the ways that they triumphed in stitching it all together was through planting. The resident ducks definitely approve.

10.
A final lesson: if you missed the 2026 outing, you need to join us in 2027.

Want to read more of Andrew’s columns? Click here.

The lakeview rooms at the Fairmont Chateau Lake Louise are like stepping into a painting. Throw open the curtains and you’re enthralled by one of the most famous mountain vistas in the world: the regal Victoria Glacier hanging above the turquoise Lake Louise.

But down on the lakeshore is another matter. In high season, the water’s edge is packed with early birds who snagged a precious parking spot, late risers who caught the shuttle and motorcoach masses on their grand tour of the Canadian Rockies. Under a sea of selfie sticks, Lake Louise scarcely resembles the charming landscape that painter Albert Bierstadt immortalised on canvas in the 1880s, just a few years before the site became part of Canada’s first national park.

Ecotourism is hardly a new phenomenon but places such as Banff National Park are facing a particular crush. This is thanks to the runaway success of the Canada Strong Pass, a government initiative now in its second year, which made entry into all Canadian national parks free of charge from June to September. While some more obscure locations could use a boost, marquee destinations have been overwhelmed. Last year, Banff broke records with 4.5 million visitors – a 30 per cent increase in a decade. On a recent visit, Monocle hiked shoulder-to-shoulder with crowds more often found in central railway stations at rush hour and abandoned plans for an alpine breakfast at one of the park’s famed backcountry teahouses when the queue stretched an hour long.

Destinations from Barcelona and Kyoto to Venice have long expressed similar laments but cities were built for people. The endangered black rhinos in South Africa’s Kruger National Park can’t wave placards at a city-hall protest, nor can Iberian lynx in Spain’s Doñana National Park, whose habitats have been disturbed, wield squirt guns to unload their displeasure into the crowds. How can national parks protect their flora and fauna for future generations, while also inviting humans to engage with the natural world? “We call it the dual mandate,” says Jonathan Jarvis, a lifelong park ranger and former director of the US National Park Service, who now consults for national park systems around the world. Jarvis shares a few suggestions for striking the right balance.

Design boardwalks where you want people to walk

In the most crowded settings, too much foot traffic can trample fragile vegetation or create a spider web of social trails that deviate from official footpaths. Enter the boardwalk, a simple but elegant solution that clearly signals where you should – and should not – put one foot in front of the other.

Boardwalks are versatile tools, just as easily deployed in deserts as in mountains. The Snowies Alpine Walk – a 55km trek through Australia’s Kosciuszko National Park – opened two years ago with an extensive network of steel mesh and wooden boardwalks to protect rare alpine grasses while keeping boots from getting mired in bogs and wetlands. Rechristened this year, the Salt Creek Boardwalk in Death Valley National Park prevents hikers from disturbing the rare pupfish. 

Encourage visitors to see less popular locales

Social media has wreaked its havoc on countless natural landscapes, with people swarming a handful of digitally famous viewpoints. As the former superintendent of Mount Rainier National Park, Jarvis knew the pattern well. “If the sun was out and the mountain was visible, by 10.00 the parking lot at Paradise was full,” he says. Visitors would flock to the tallest volcano in the continental US, whose flanks are home to what naturalist John Muir calls “the most luxuriant and the most extravagantly beautiful of all the alpine gardens I ever beheld in all my mountain-top wanderings.”

But when those mountain-top wanderings involve shuffling in a line of people, Jarvis and his staff nudged visitors to look elsewhere in the vast park. There are other visitor centers, vantage points and alpine gardens besides the one with a name as alluring as Paradise. 

On that score, Parks Canada has done a clever job with its Red Chair campaign. In 2011, staff at Gros Morne National Park in Newfoundland set up Adirondack chairs at beautiful locales away from the Unesco World Heritage Site’s most obvious vistas. The scheme caught on and now the seats with a view, always in patriotic rouge, are sprinkled across more than 100 sites from coast to coast. 

Give visitors a nice ride

If you build it, they will come. And if “it” is a beautiful place that you can drive right up to, then they will come in droves – with traffic jams to prove it. For national parks that have reached peak traffic, the best model is the zero-emission electric Zion Canyon Shuttle System, which has moved more than 100 million people through Utah’s stunning red-rock countryside since its 2000 debut. Other well-branded buses include the Island Explorer, which carries visitors around Maine’s Acadia National Park, and the seasonal Wasdale Explorer in the UK’s Lake District National Park. Top marks also go to two mammalian-inspired systems: the Igelbus (“hedgehog bus”) in Germany’s Bavarian Forest National Park and the Yamanakako no Kaba amphibious bus, which tours a Japanese forest in a hippopotamus-themed bus before splashing into Lake Yamanaka in Fuji-Hakone-Izu National Park.

While the Swiss are known for their trains, the canary-yellow Express Parc Naziunel that climbs the Engadin to the country’s lone national park is actually a ride on wheels. For a first-class rail journey, Belmond’s Hiram Bingham promises a rolling Peruvian feast and fiesta en route to Machu Picchu National Archaeological Park.

Require reservations

The world’s hottest tables require booking months in advance, so why shouldn’t the most popular natural attractions? From climbing Mount Fuji to swimming in the coves of Parc National des Calanques near Marseille, you’ll need to plan ahead. Reservations might frustrate locals who are used to spontaneous jaunts but they are often the best strategy for dealing with the tragedy-of-the-commons scenario where too many people degrade the experience for everyone.

The US national park system experimented with reservations earlier this decade as a way to manage seasonal draws, receiving generally positive reviews. But in February, the Trump administration scrapped timed entry everywhere except at the Rocky Mountain National Park, turning park rangers into harried maître d’s. “Now some poor ranger who should be handling bear incidents is in the road directing traffic, parking cars and herding crowds instead,” says Jarvis.

Mandate local guides

In many developing countries, national parks can be economic drivers, attracting nature-inclined travellers who disembark with top-of-the-line gear and return home with a new perspective gleaned from local knowledge. In order to make the most of tourism’s economic benefits, the right rules that require domestic guides and porters must be in place – otherwise “some foreign company is going to come in and leave with all the money,” says Jarvis.

Countries that have already heeded this advice include Nepal for trekking the Himalayas, Costa Rica for touring three of its most ecologically sensitive parks, Ecuador for climbing its glacier-capped volcanoes and visiting much of the Galápagos, Indonesia for observing the venomous dragons on Komodo island and Uganda for safaris to see mountain gorillas.

Charge foreigners more

Foreigners hoping to climb Mount Kenya or hike the Parque Nacional da Serra dos Órgãos outside Rio de Janeiro must fork out an entry fee higher than what the locals pay. A similar dual-pricing scheme applies at Volcanoes National Park in Rwanda, Yala National Park in Sri Lanka and across the board from Argentina to Thailand. Jarvis says this is understandable, given that user fees cover more than 50 per cent of the budget for national park systems in many African nations. For someone who has planned an international trip around a national park visit, the additional fee is a small price to pay.

Ottawa is currently plugging the gap opened by the Canada Strong Pass but entry fees have historically made up about 25 per cent of the national park budget. The percentage is lower for the US National Park Service – just 10 per cent – which raised eyebrows this year when the Trump administration began charging non-residents $100 (€86) to visit 11 of the country’s top parks. As deferred maintenance takes a toll on national park facilities, an extra bit of coin from the 14 million overseas visitors to the likes of Yellowstone and the Grand Canyon could help keep parks in tip-top shape, improving the experience for everyone.

Gardeners have set down their tools and are watching as a crane lifts a 60-year-old olive tree and slowly lowers it on to a large truck. It’s only 09.00 but the sun is beating down on Finca Hermosa, a tree nursery near Spanish city Alicante. This careful choreography is the final step in a process to ensure that this shipment of trees arrives at its final destination, across the continent in Romania, in good condition.

“Olive trees are incredibly strong and adaptable,” says Sílvia Botía, the company’s sales representative, as we seek shelter below the branches around us. This shade is precisely what many of Finca Hermosa’s clients are after. “Sooner or later, an awning will tear or get dirty and you’ll have to replace it. But a tree, especially one like this, can be planted for the next generation to enjoy too.”

With Europe experiencing brutal heatwaves exceeding 40C this summer, trees are important business. They keep cities cool and improve wellbeing, which is why everyone from local governments to individuals with private gardens are planting more. The global tree-services market has grown rapidly in recent years and is expected to reach €2.5bn in 2030 – largely thanks to an increased focus on urban greening and a rising investment in green infrastructure.

Canopy cover plays a crucial role in cooling cities. Studies recommend a minimum of 30 per cent tree coverage in urban areas to meaningfully improve microclimate, air quality and health, so this is becoming a priority for densely populated cities. In April, New York announced plans to increase its tree canopy to about a third by 2040.

Limited space in urban areas means that planting large trees is not always viable; pollution and lack of space for the root system can also be challenging. Small trees can take several years or even decades to grow – but saplings are easier and cheaper to plant and will adapt to their environment. “In five years, saplings can grow into a forest but a mature forest is much harder to create – the chance of a big tree surviving is lower,” says Belgian landscape architect Bas Smets. His projects include a new park around Notre-Dame in Paris that is set to be completed in 2028.

As the need for shade becomes more urgent, full-grown trees are becoming more desirable. Those with a larger trunk diameter can store more carbon; are better at intercepting precipitation and air pollutants; and regulate temperatures more effectively. Planting and protecting taller species in cities is something that officials and landscape architects are also having to consider. “There’s no trick formula,” says Smets. “It’s about understanding the timeline in five, 20, 50 years and then coming up with the right strategy.”

Finca Hermosa, founded in 2008 by eight Dutch business partners, including Anton Visser, specialises in fruit trees such as fig, palm and citruses, as well as a variety of olive trees. It also has one of the oldest examples of urban green space on its doorstep. Nearby city Elche is home to a vast Unesco World Heritage-listed palm grove, planted during the Moorish era as a planned oasis. Its irrigation network, combined with the palms, is a good example of an effective cooling method for extreme heat.

Despite geographical limitations, demand for trees is rising. Vivers Planas, a nursery near Girona in northeastern Catalonia, supplies conifers across the EU and beyond. “We’re seeing a 20 per cent increase of our revenue yearly; we can hardly keep up with demand,” says Vivers Planas’s Manel Gálvez, who works with private and public clients. “There has been an important shift in mindset at the public level. Town councils have realised – perhaps a bit late – that there’s a clear need for more trees.”

Gálvez adds that many redevelopment projects must now include greenery. “Before, you had public projects that were all pavement with just one or two trees; now, with the temperatures that we’ve had recently, it’s clear that this will be unbearable. There’s a huge demand from town councils and architects coming from public works for large quantities of plants,” he says. “We’re also seeing more demand from smaller nurseries, private homes, architects and landscapers.”

There’s still a long way to go before officials and architects move away from concrete paving and make towns that resemble forests. But the business of trees is growing. “The question you must ask yourself is: would you prefer to live in a desert where it’s hot, unprotected from the sun and the wind or in a forest with a constant temperature and moisture?” says Smets. “Instead of just saying that we need more trees, the whole city should be rethought as a way to introduce nature.”

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A generational transition is taking place across the Asian art market. While seasoned Gen X collectors continue to be top spenders – acquiring high-value, blue-chip pieces to build their private collections – a wave of young, wealthy buyers is painting a new picture. 

At the centre of this phenomenon is Frieze Seoul. As the fair ushers in the autumn art season, Minju Kweon, its head of VIP and business development for Asia, shares what this budding cohort is after and how they are changing the culture around collecting.  

What are young collectors in Asia looking for today? 
They aren’t just looking for art. While they often start their collections with art, [most begin looking] for ways to appreciate the pieces in their living space. So they want to [combine a range of practices including] design and craft to create a total artistic space. To address this, we have introduced a new section called Material Practice this year, [exploring where design converges with art and craft]. 

How do their collecting habits compare to older collectors?
The older generation followed market trends more closely. These days, young collectors in Asia don’t buy something just because it’s trendy. They really dig to find [something] they like personally. Collecting is much more personal for them. 

Where do they go to discover new art?
Young collectors are not just following fairs. Biennales, for example, are great platforms to learn and to discover what’s new. And this year, [South Korea] has two major events – the Gwangju Biennale and the Busan Biennale – happening in the same week. It really helps that everything is happening at the same time.

Are they changing the collecting culture? 
Historically, in Asia, collectors have been more discreet. The new generation is much more open to sharing. They post on Instagram and they don’t mind doing press interviews to promote what they like. They also form their own communities.

What are you doing to engage this younger cohort? 
Frieze Seoul is a fair, of course, but we try to make it a citywide festival. We engage with other institutions in the city – not only the established ones but also the alternative spaces so that people can find new things. For example, we host [an event called] Euljiro night. Euljiro is a place where emerging artists run smaller alternative spaces. We have many established museums in Seoul, so we wanted people to experience the other side of the city’s creative scene as well. We launched Euljiro night last year but we have a bigger programme for it this year because art lovers appreciate it. And it’s not only art: we also host Frieze Film and Frieze Music Night to introduce [other cultural] elements, such as performance art, film and music. It creates a space where the younger generation – and really our audience as a whole – can experience art in a broader way.