Do you have a geographical fix on your happy place? Is it the end of the jetty at your weekend house in northern Maine? Or a quiet stretch of beach north of Comporta? Or perhaps it’s the corner table at the café in your Madrid neighbourhood? I have a few happy places but one of my favourites is about 50 minutes’ flying time north of Nome, Alaska. As most Japan-to-Europe flights fly over the North Pole these days, there’s a certain point where satellite footprints cut out, in-flight wi-fi disconnects and you’re instantly cut off from colleagues, newsfeeds, cloud services and whatever counts for 21st-century humanity. Bliss on a Boeing.

On Thursday, I boarded the LX 161 service from Tokyo Narita to Zürich with my colleague Noriko. For the first 40 minutes after take off I cleared the emails that had landed overnight, then settled into bed mode for a few hours and woke up just as we were crossing the international date line. I typed out a few more emails, read the news from various sources and went back to reviewing some material for upcoming shoots and future issues of Monocle. 

As Alaska passed by below, I started to wrap up my correspondence and within the hour the signal dropped – right on cue. I put my phone and laptop to one side, rustled around the overhead locker, plumped up the pillows, asked for a glass of chasselas and started to dig into the pile of mags that I’d bought in Tokyo over the past few days. When a big part of your job is running a company that produces more than 25 magazines and books a year, there’s a fine line between consuming periodicals for professional intelligence versus pure pleasure. 

Sometimes I open a favourite magazine – I started with a copy of Japanese lifestyle title Premium on this occasion – and get lost in its pages, simply enjoying the pleasure of good photography, cleverly commissioned illustrations and smart layouts. But at other times it only takes a few flips before I’m wondering how we might get a meeting with the advertiser in the opening spread or if we’re connected to the photographer who snapped the food story in Kyoto. 

For the next four hours, I went through copies of Brutus, Popeye, Uomo and assorted special editions before moving onto some European and North American titles, including The Atlantic, The New Yorker, WSJ, Les Echos’ weekend supplement and tattered copies of The New York Times and the Financial Times from earlier in the week. Somewhere along the way I dozed off. When I woke up, I went back to the Japanese titles for a closer study. What do the Japanese do better than publishers in Europe or the US? Here’s my take:

1.
Japanese print quality is a cut far, far above. Photos are sharp, rich and dense. Illustrations have texture and life. Words stand out from the page.

2.
There is a complexity in page layouts and stories we no longer see in most corners of the world. Features go deep and are detailed. This demands research, layers of fact-checking and, above all, planning.

3.
Japanese mags put the “j” in jealousy. I get very envious of how the smart editors at a publisher such as Magazine House are able to layer a story that ranges in scale, with micro images, break-out fact boxes, witty accompanying illos and then expansive images. 

4.
Western titles are slaves to templates. Make that Western media in general. I like the fact that I can deliver you this column in digital newsletter format on a Sunday but it can be a straitjacket that inhibits creativity, designed for efficiency rather than complex layouts. If you care about these things, spend time in the pages of Brutus to see how they tackle a single subject and constantly surprise.

5.
Japan shows us Western periodical publishers how to not only stay relevant in a digital world but also how to push ourselves. Ninety-six hours in Tokyo this week was a creative kick in the ass.

What does all of this mean for you, dear reader? If you’re a subscriber or newsstand buyer of our monthly edition, it means even better things are coming. As Monocle approaches its 20th anniversary (cards, bouquets and rare works of art can be sent our way on 14 February 2027), you’ll notice some fresh changes – not only on page but on air and on-screen. If you’re not a paid-up subscriber to the print edition (and its digital sibling), time to jump aboard. More from Lisbon next weekend.

Hakushū in Japan’s Southern Alps is famed for its cool climes, rich soil and clean water, which emerges from Mount Kaikoma before flowing through the forested Ojiragawa Valley. The river has sustained the Shichiken saké brewery for nearly three centuries and, since 1973, it has been the lifeline of an award-winning Suntory whisky distillery too. This landscape dotted with traditional houses, rice fields and well-tended vineyards is just a two-hour drive from Tokyo. 

Hakushū was once a rest stop on the Kōshū Kaidō, the highway that carried merchants through this part of Yamanashi Prefecture to Edo (present-day Tokyo). It has now become a place that people travel to on purpose – and forget to leave. “We eat local vegetables, breathe clean air and spend many mornings bathing in the Ojiragawa river,” says Dawid Nowosadzki.

Dawid and his partner, Ayako Ono, left the bustle of London for Hakushū – Ayako’s hometown – in 2023. “When I came back, I was surprised,” she says. “More people from Tokyo had bought second homes here and there were foreigners settling too.” Together they opened Koma, a deli serving colourful plates of seasonal vegetables, from roasted broccoli and sesame seeds to radishes topped with a creamy turmeric sauce and pita with red cabbage.

Koma’s produce reflects Hakushū’s agricultural richness. “Everyone heads to michi-no-eki [roadside stops] for their vegetables,” says Ayako, but not far away “you’ll find lettuce, sweet tomatoes, asparagus, cabbages” growing up and down the mountain. 

Hakushū is part of Hokuto, where the aroma of Japanese cedars and momiji (maple trees) drifts across the rural city. “Today, many people want to live in Hakushū but very few houses are for sale,” says Inaka Life real estate agent Yudai Komiyama. “About 10 per cent of those looking for a place are foreigners, with some coming for retirement and others for remote work. They all seem to be looking for the same slower rhythm.”

There’s also a steady stream of weekend visitors. Some head to the Suntory distillery, known for its 25-year-old single malt, while others queue for a shingen mochi with molasses at the 124-year-old confectionery shop, Kinseiken. The 13th-generation saké brewery Shichiken occupies a wooden house in the beautifully preserved Daigahara-juku. 

Yamanashi also houses some of Japan’s oldest wineries. Château Charmant, founded in 1919, produces Japan’s indigenous koshu grapes alongside French varieties. “The water nourishes the soil – you can taste that in the wine. That’s why our cabernet franc thrives,” says Yamamoto Masahiko, a third-generation winemaker. 

Unlike Tokyo, Hakushū offers a cooler, calmer place to put down roots. Just don’t be surprised if, somewhere between its produce, the river and another glass of saké, the return journey begins to feel wonderfully optional. 

Five recent arrivals to the region: 

1.
Esoto  
Shichiken’s newest intimate stay for just four guests, with a traditional Japanese set-up: kaiseki dinners, a private onsen, tea ceremonies and the house’s finest saké. 
sake-shichiken.com

2.
Itoma
This bean-to-bar chocolate workshop does everything in-house, from roasting cacao beans to moulding the final bar. Opened this past October, it is Kōshū Kaidō’s sweetest new arrival. 
itomachocolate.com

3.
Eighten
A restored kominka (folk house) for yoga with tatami floors and shoji screens, surrounded by cedar trees and overlooking the Minami Alps.
eighten.jp

4.
Albero
Italian frittata, house-baked focaccia and local sausages. This riverside breakfast spot opens at 08.00 on weekends. 
cafe-albero.jp

5.
Listude
Japanese wooden-speaker brand Listude arrived in Hokuto a year ago, bringing a programme of artists who perform alfresco in the forest. 
listude.jp

The forecast says 29C and not a cloud in the sky. Neither perfect weather nor the promise of a glass of wine sat under the shade of a jacaranda should really determine whether you attend a conference but, well, they kind of move the dial, don’t they?

I hope that by now we have tapped you on the shoulder a couple of times to remind you that The Monocle Quality of Life Conference is imminent. We gather this coming Thursday for the welcoming drinks and then spend all of Friday and Saturday morning together.

And, yes, even at this stage, I want you to clear your diary and come. So just in case you are dithering, I wondered whether answering a few of the common questions and concerns that hit my inbox might help.

1.
I’m a bit shy – is it OK to come alone?
Yes. Most delegates fly solo. Everyone makes friends and finds their people. I love watching guests arriving solo at the registration and then spotting them again surrounded by their new besties at the leaving breakfast, which is on a rooftop overlooking Lisbon this year. Again and again, I hear about friendships forged and business ideas hatched – in the arc of one conference – that have endured and flourished.

2.
I’m not a conference kind of person. I hate lanyards.
So do we. There are no lanyards, no workshops, no breakout sessions. There are no over-rehearsed Ted Talks, no CEOs doing Powerpoint presentations. We will not make you sing a song or hold hands with anyone in some weird bonding exercise (if you want to have a moment with your neighbour, that’s down to you). Think of it as an urban retreat with interesting people who are keen to do even more with their lives.

3.
It’s quite a lot of money.
Not if it changes your life.

4.
Is everyone super cool? Do I need a new wardrobe?
Yes, most people are super cool but not because of who their tailor is or the logo on their handbag. They are cool because they are inquisitive, caring and know stuff. It’s relaxed: there will be people who embrace a shorts-and-T-shirt vibe and others who feel happier in a blazer. It’s an event where you can be yourself.

5.
I’d like to meet the speakers. Is that possible?
We don’t run their diaries but I am happy to say that most of our on-stage talent is going to be around for the whole event. Conversations that begin on stage often continue late into the night.

6.
And the Monocle team?
We love being good hosts and if you want to catch up with our design editor, Nic; Konfekt’s editor, Sophie; or Tyler, just say hello (it’s likely they will find you first). Or join them on the dancefloor – because there’s always a dancefloor.

7.
Some of the panels don’t seem relevant to me.
You’ll change your mind. Take the hospitality session – this week I have caught up with all three speakers on that panel and I am genuinely excited to see what unfolds. Between them, they know about making brands and going against the flow but also about reorienting a family business and changing careers later in life. Their stories hold the promise of reshaping yours.

8.
Will there be time to explore? I want to see the city.
Yes and we have organised access to some amazing places on the Saturday. We’ll ensure that you go beyond the usual sites that Lisbon visitors see.

9.
Are there any surprises this year?
Of course.

10.
How do I get one of the final tickets?
You can purchase tickets here or email my colleague Hannah Girst now at hmg@monocle.com. Be spontaneous. End summer with a smile.

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

Monocle touches down in Lisbon early next month for our annual Quality of Life Conference. For some, the design of the Portuguese capital echoes saudade, a romantic form of longing for an absent person, place or time. To satiate this yearning, most visitors turn their attention to the yellow trams winding up the 16th-century cobbled streets but in doing so, they often miss a different vision of the city – one built on boldness, foresight and rationalism – in its downtown Baixa neighbourhood.

The reconstruction of this locale is an epic tale that begins with a crisis of biblical proportions. In 1755, Lisbon was struck by an earthquake, followed by a fire and a tsunami, that left thousands dead and much of the city in ruins. Enter Sebastião José de Carvalho e Melo – later known as the Marquis of Pombal – a minister who seized the moment to transform the city’s urban fabric and, ultimately, its society. Three years after the catastrophe, De Carvalho e Melo’s team of engineers and architects produced a plan for Lisbon’s reconstruction – a revolutionary document considered by many to be the first modern urban plan in the Western world, predating Haussmann’s Paris by a century.

Under this 1758 blueprint, housing, commerce, mobility, sanitation and, crucially, the financing of reconstruction were all accounted for. Streets were levelled and straightened into grids; land was parcelled into standardised blocks. Stone window frames and wooden slabs were made uniform, allowing for off-site prefabrication. Each building was reinforced by a cage of timber beams, known today as the gaiola pombalina, to withstand earthquakes.

Baixa was reimagined as a whole. It’s now home to landmark structures such as the Praça do Comércio gate (pictured, left) and the neo-gothic Elevador de Santa Justa (pictured, right). The city remade itself in the language of the Enlightenment, shifting from a medieval landscape of alleys and cloisters to one of wide boulevards, where commerce thrived and a middle class emerged. Today the measured elegance of Lisbon’s Baixa endures. Visitors who look beyond the havoc of tourists, tuk-tuks and souvenir shops that now crowd the streets can still admire the harmony and order of a city centuries ahead of its time. The neighbourhood has become a global benchmark for architects looking to reshape their own metropolises, proving that saudade can be transformed from transient beauty into permanent urban-design wonder.

Gaia Lutz is Monocle’s Lisbon correspondent.For more opinion, analysis and insight,subscribeto Monocle today.

Join the fun: Join us for Monocle’s annual Quality of Life Conference in Lisbon from 3 to 5 September, where we’ll meet the people who know how to deliver better quality of life for all. 

South Korea’s soft-power ascendancy goes beyond catchy songs, skin-care routines and K-pop Demon Hunters: it also extends to its artistic exports. Multidisciplinary artist Suh Do-ho held a hit exhibition at London’s Tate Modern last year while Lee Bul’s mid-year retrospective arrives this November at the Museum of Contemporary Art Antwerp. 

Though Suh and Lee, both in their sixties, attract global eyes on merit, it is impossible to ignore the influence that K-pop’s genre-crossing stars are having on the country’s art scene. The growth of global interest in recent years can be traced to musical icons-turned-patrons such as G-Dragon and BTS’s band leader, RM, whose passion for collecting has moved young people toward fine art. After completing his military service last June, RM is back to growing his collection (and performing); a single post from his Instagram account can ensure that a museum show in Seoul sells out. 

That kind of K-power does not go unnoticed. San Francisco Museum of Modern Art is presenting RM’s personal collection in October, with the show including works by modern masters, such as Yun Hyong-keun, Park Rehyun and Kim Yun Shin. The National Museum of Korea (NMK) in Seoul was a traditional and staid museum until its embrace of popular Korean culture, which transformed it into the third most-visited museum in the world, trailing only the Louvre and the Vatican Museums. Blackpink’s members – Jisoo, Jennie, Rosé and Lisa – recorded multilingual audio guides for its galleries, while NMK’s grey façade and grand plaza were illuminated in hot pink for the group’s latest EP. The museum mania went into overdrive with the release of K-pop Demon Hunters merchandise; fans queued from dawn to buy limited-edition collaborations from the institution’s gift shop.  

Say what you will about these pop-culture crossovers but they are injecting plenty of fresh energy and buzz into Seoul’s already well-established museum and gallery scene. 

However, it was the arrival of industry heavyweights, including blue-chip international institutions from Centre Pompidou to the Victoria and Albert Museum, as well as Frieze art fair in 2022, that truly transformed the South Korean capital into a must-visit destination for art professionals. Choi Soo, director of gallery PS21, says that she now spends more time in Seoul to meet with visiting collectors and improve her shows instead of hopping fairs worldwide. Homegrown prospects are looking hopeful as well: the country’s art dealers are expecting serious buyers with patronage to emerge from the surge of young collectors seeking quick investment. 

Korean art’s global momentum continues this October with Korea, a major showcase at the British Museum. The exhibition, which features works from the collection of late Samsung chairman Lee Kun-hee and NMK, spans 2,000 years of Korean artistic history, including famous celadon ceramics, ink paintings and the works of Suh Do-ho. NMK director Yoo Hong-jun has talked about fans of K-culture going beyond pop music and film to uncover the country’s history. If Korea can pull off a smash hit without the influence of G-Dragon, RM and Blackpink, then K-art will have truly made it on the world’s stage. 

Western European countries have some impressive embassies in Bangkok. The riverside compounds of France and Portugal, Thailand’s oldest diplomatic partners, rub shoulders with the capital’s ritziest luxury hotels and premium shopping centres. Dutch diplomats, however, have recently had a change of scenery. Since earlier this month, they have been reporting to an address at Dusit Central Park, a landmark mixed-use development opposite Lumpini Park, rather than their century-old former premises on Wireless Road.

The Hague’s decision to sell off one of its most beautiful Asian outposts – occupying a prime, leafy spot next to the US embassy – is a repeat of a regrettable move by the UK. London left the same road in 2018; British diplomats now occupy the 12th floor of a nondescript office tower that is named after an insurance company. Is it a sign of the times for these middle powers or a sign of decline? The answer depends on who you ask and where you sit.

Young attachés from The Hague on their first posting outside Europe will no doubt enjoy the new facilities, including the shopping centre below and the rooftop bar above. But greyer heads will surely raise a glass of Heineken to mark the passing of their globetrotting nation’s most prestigious shop windows in Asia – a platform for values and principles as much as products. The outgoing ambassador has said that the move has caused a “pain in his heart”, according to foreign correspondent Annelie Langarak, who has been covering the story for national newspaper De Telegraaf.

Langarak is a longstanding member of the Dutch expat community in Thailand. Her family typically spends King’s Day, Liberation Day and St Nicholas Day at the embassy party, and she shares her fellow Nederlanders’ anger and frustration about the decision. “We are all part of this and it is a part of home,” says Langarak. The new embassy will now have to hire a ballroom or conference room to host large-scale events and presumably work 10 times harder to deliver the same wow factor to invited guests and visiting dignitaries.

The Netherlands’s decision to downsize its embassy comes after 400 years in Thailand. Dutch ships first arrived in Siam, as Thailand was then known, in the early 17th century, several years before those of their UK rivals. In the first half of the 20th century, both trading nations moved into large compounds on Wireless Road on the outskirts of the capital. Today the road is home to the Swiss and Japanese embassies, alongside a growing number of high-end property developments. The Central Embassy shopping centre was built in the garden of the former UK embassy, which was sold off in 2006. The UK government flogged the rest of its embassy, including some remarkable heritage buildings, during Boris Johnson’s time as foreign minister for £420m (€490m). The proceeds were meant to be spent on upgrades to other diplomatic outposts around the world and the Dutch government seems to be following the same playbook. 

At the time of the UK’s embassy sell-off in 2018, the British ambassador claimed that London’s standing in Thailand would not be affected. “Prestige is nebulous and we should be judged instead on what we’re doing here,” he reportedly said. There is merit to that argument but the UK has been fairly invisible during my time in Bangkok. It’s perhaps no coincidence that the two middle powers that have made the biggest impression, France and Australia, have invested in their presence in Bangkok with new buildings designed by homegrown architects. I will leave the architectural critique to our design editor but those two nations’ efforts have demonstrated a concrete commitment to their work in this country that says more than the often nebulous words of many diplomatic speeches. 

Imagine fleeing in the dead of night to the British or Dutch embassy for protection, only to find yourself banging fruitlessly on the front gate. That scenario might sound like something straight out of a Hollywood film but it’s a genuine concern in this part of the world, where China likes to flex its authority. Our double agent, free-speech warrior, outspoken artist or valiant human-rights whistleblower turns up at the correct Grade A Sathorn tower – but finds that the lobby is closed after office hours and the security guard has fallen asleep. Jogging over to the US embassy compound would take at least 20 minutes and who knows what reception our hero would get? At a time when the US has abandoned its role as a responsible power and become a playground bully, the world needs to see more from countries such as the Netherlands and the UK – not less.

Will other middle powers follow London’s lead? Selling an embassy in any of Southeast Asia’s rapidly growing cities, from Jakarta to Hanoi, could raise some precious pennies for cash-strapped Nato countries that are under pressure to spend more on defence rather than diplomacy. But before they do, they should consider a third way. Around the same time that the UK sold its embassy in Bangkok, Germany threw open the doors of Deutsches Haus, a state-of-the-art skyscraper in Ho Chi Minh City built on the site of the old consulate. The German consul-general and his team now share the address with some of the country’s leading corporations, including Siemens, BASF and Merck. It’s an impressive calling card in Vietnam’s commercial capital and the Deutsches Haus sign illuminated on the top of the tower can be seen from across the city.

The UK and the Netherlands could have done something similar in Bangkok. Both countries still have the globetrotting multinationals to fill such a tower. Instead, they are both sending out new ambassadors to Thailand to share an office tower with insurers, co-working companies and other paying tenants.

In January the new Film Institute of Greenland was launched, while this September the Nuuk International Film Festival will be celebrating its 10th anniversary. The autonomous Arctic nation, which is part of the Kingdom of Denmark, is bolstering its cinematic credentials for good reason. It sees film as a tool to reclaim the story that’s being told about it globally.
 
“We think of it as taking back narrative sovereignty,” Inunnguaq Petrussen, the Film Institute of Greenland’s CEO, tells Monocle when we visit his office in central Nuuk. “For about 100 years, other nations, especially Denmark, have been making films about Greenland, our culture, our nature and our environment, and it’s very important for us to tell our own stories.”

Of late, that narrative has revolved around a story not of Greenland’s making: Donald Trump’s takeover plans. “We have never had so much focus as we’ve had recently,” says Petrussen. “The timing is a coincidence because the institute has been in the pipeline for some years. But many film festivals have already been in contact to say that they want Greenlandic films and want me to come and talk.” That interest resulted earlier this year in a trip to Cannes, where short-film auteur Inuk Jørgensen, the country’s most awarded film-maker, was featured prominently.

The capital’s film festival originally emerged from the initiative of local film-makers and the new institute is considered a natural progression. It has three aims: to network with other similar organisations to help develop the domestic industry; to fund locally made films; and to promote Greenland as a destination for foreign film companies by offering a 25 per cent “refund” of money spent here. The organisation’s initial budget is DKK5.8m (€775,000); a significant portion of this will go towards administration costs, while the rest will be used to help fund films. The Danish government has also contributed a one-off sum of DKK10m (€1.3m) to fund productions that share stories about the territory.
 
“I have been talking a lot with the Canadian film-makers’ organisation and especially the International Sámi Film Institute, which has been a huge inspiration, and also the Danish Film Institute,” says Petrussen. The Indigenous Cinema Alliance is another ally. “We see being labelled as makers of Indigenous films as a big opportunity because it gets us to the festivals, which gets us seen by the industry, then the public.”
 
Petrussen has always had one foot in the institutional political world and another in the arts: he has worked both as a political adviser to several Greenlandic political parties and as a singer-songwriter in indie band Inuk. He explains that Greenland’s film scene is particularly strong when it comes to two genres: documentaries (often about climate change) and low-budget horror (most notably by director Malik Kleist). In 2023, Greenland received its first Oscar nomination in the Live Action Short category for Ivalu by Anders Walter and Pipaluk Kreutzmann Jørgensen. “Local people are really supportive of the industry,” says Petrussen. “Every time a Greenlandic film comes out, more people will go to see it than watch Spider-Man.”
 
Greenland might only have a couple of cinemas, with about 30 or 40 people working full-time in the industry. It typically makes just one full-length feature a year and budgets are small. But Petrussen’s ambitions go far beyond telling domestic stories for domestic audiences. “We want to co-produce films with international film-makers. Canada has been so successful in attracting film companies. We want to work with HBO, Netflix and Disney. That’s the kind of level.”
 
Michael Booth is Monocle’s Copenhagen correspondent. For more analysis and insights, subscribe to Monocle today.
 
Further reading:
– If Donald Trump’s threats have made anything clear, it’s that Danes don’t care about Greenland

– Meet the daredevil stunt performers helping Europe’s film-making industry to reach new extremes

– Hollywood is undergoing an economic revolution. Is cinema’s future on course for a plot twist?

China’s technological development has long been perceived as an existential threat to the global order but perhaps Shenzhen’s spooks, America’s TV hawks and the ambassadors of Beijing’s diplomatic quarter have it all wrong. You might have read the headlines this week: “Humanoid robot beats Usain Bolt’s 100-metre record” or “Robot smashes human 400-metre record”. But have you seen the World Humanoid Robot Games? Moments after “smashing” Bolt’s record by 0.19 seconds, the faceless metallic form also smashes into a padded wall, before being doused with a fire extinguisher and stretchered away (by humans). It’s not quite as cool as Bolt’s victory lap at the 2009 World Championships. Rather than being scrapped for parts, he also picked up gold in the 200-metre and four-by-100-metre relay that week too.

While China’s technological and military prowess is altogether more complicated than this charade, we can take some solace from this event. Just as AI can’t replace the art of a Studio Ghibli film, nor write journalism worth reading, humanoid robots can’t better the spectacle of athletes. We will not be watching droids joust, fence or shoot hoops any time soon. That’s a relief.
 
Creating humanoid forms capable of sprinting into a heap or even pouring a cup of coffee feels a lot like a big waste of time. We invented machines long ago that are quicker than us over roads, seas and assembly lines. Drones have already begun to offer devastating defence capabilities. Coffee machines are in every home and office. (Indeed, at Dubai’s Museum of the Future, an automated mechanical arm called Café X once made me a coffee in twice the amount of time it would have taken a machine in any hospital waiting room.) China’s robotic and technological capacity will define much of the next century but it needn’t take human form. Morgan Stanley bets that, by 2030, China will produce 450,000 humanoids a year. Whichever Silicon Valley start-up inevitably decides to invest in these dumb droids over human interns or baristas deserves the liquidation that’s surely headed its way.  

Almost a decade ago, industry analysts were predicting the decline of the hotel. Decentralised and cheap peer-to-peer business models such as Airbnb were supposedly sounding a death knell. Initially, I must admit, it was a thrill to stay in somebody else’s home and go through their medicine cabinet (I wore the cologne of a man named Matt for the duration of a week-long stay on New York’s Upper West Side in 2013). It was predicated on the notion that, by staying in someone else’s residence, you would have a home-away-from-home experience of slotting into somebody else’s life.

But the novelty is fast wearing off and the consensus seems to be that travellers are returning to hotels for a host of different reasons. Latterly, staying in an Airbnb usually comes with a chore list to complete on check-out; inconsistent property quality is also a factor. My holidays this summer have also helped pinpoint a design issue that’s worth considering too. “You need a house that speaks for itself – the best hotels have good hardware for visitors to enjoy,” explains Constantin Ziegenhain of the Chesa Grischuna in Klosters, whose “hardware” is a multi-storey Bündner Haus – a rural residence defined by heavy stone masonry and deep-set timber forms. Originally a simple wooden inn, it was transformed in the 1930s by Zürich-based architect Hermann Schneider, who commissioned illustrator Alois Carigiet to paint murals on the façade. A bowling alley and grand dining room also define the property. Chesa Grischuna’s guestbook, says Ziegenhain, spans the globe – some people travel here just to seek out the murals.

This international pursuit is a reminder that so much of a holiday is built around the environments in which we immerse ourselves – a well-designed hotel, with outstanding “hardware”, can dictate how guests move and feel; how they interact with each other and the surrounding environment over the course of their stay. It’s a level of consideration that simply can’t be replicated by a stay in someone else’s home. The newly opened Teffont House (pictured, above) in Wiltshire is another prime example. Co-owned by Charlie Luxton, whose design sensibilities have been shaped by the likes of London-based Ilse Crawford, the new hotel by the Beckford Group sits in a centuries-old stone house, complete with grand gothic windows and dramatic eaves. Working with designer Natasha Hidvegi, Luxton created a series of distinct public spaces for guests, spanning an orangery, a bar, a lounge, a brasserie-style dining room and an outdoor terrace with Sénat chairs.

“It’s important to have little areas with different moods,” he says. “You might have a high table where you do some work, a lounge where you sit back and read the paper, then a more upright setting where you can talk. It’s about creating a series of vignettes.” Added to this is the fact that the property doesn’t look to separate itself from its base of Teffont Evias: the reception opens onto the road that runs through the small village and its outdoor spaces, including badminton and croquet courts in a walled garden, sit on the other side of the thoroughfare.

Both projects are a demonstration of the fact that, yes, good hotel design is about the details but also the orchestration of a variety of experiences and movements. “It’s fascinating, the power that the design of a hotel has over how people behave when they’re staying,” adds Luxton. At least in my case, it was a much more powerful force in shaping my holiday experience than cologne from Matt on the Upper West Side.

Beckford beckons: For more from the Beckford group, head to monocle.com for a round-up of exceptionally designed hospitality spaces.

Nic Monisse is Monocle’s design editor. For more news and analysis, subscribe to Monocle today.

Porpoises and bald eagles greet the GSL Lydia as the 350-metre-long container ship glides into Prince Rupert Harbour in British Columbia after a 12-day journey from Yokohama. It makes an 180-degree turn, then pulls up to a terminal where cranes are waiting to lift its cargo onto trucks or railcars. Until recently, containers would often go back empty. North American consumers have long been eager to buy Asian goods but Canada hasn’t been exporting across the Pacific with the same gusto. Sending raw materials to its southern neighbour, the world’s largest economy, has simply been easier. But a year and a half of belligerence from Washington has damaged the once ironclad relationship between the US and Canada, causing the latter’s prime minister, Mark Carney, to pivot his country’s trade policy towards global diversification. For Ottawa’s current leadership, the race is on to end the nation’s reliance on America.

New facilities for exporting commodities and propane are now arriving at Prince Rupert. The GSL Lydia docks alongside a sliver of port infrastructure that runs for 800 metres. Barely a blemish on this landscape, the container terminal hugs a stretch of coastal rainforest where British Columbia drifts into southeast Alaska. But this remote area, with a population of just 13,000, is the linchpin of Canada’s economic strategy to cultivate new trading partners and build closer diplomatic relations with fellow middle powers.

“We have had a tendency in the past to chart bold new foreign policies without substance behind them,” says David Perry, the president and CEO of the Canadian Global Affairs Institute. “Making a meaningful contribution to a country’s food security or keeping its lights on is something substantial that you can anchor a relationship around.” However, Canada is also discovering how difficult it is to have a virtuous foreign policy and thrive in a fractious world.

On the day that Monocle boards a De Havilland Dash 8 plane for the sole Air Canada flight from Vancouver to Prince Rupert, the White House announces 50 per cent tariffs on a range of Canadian goods. The latest broadside against a neighbour that Donald Trump has needled as the “51st state” is likely a high-stakes tactic in the ongoing renegotiation of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (which replaced Nafta in 2018). The move elicits a fresh round of harsh words – at least, by Canadian standards. Trump is “clearly a bully”, says British Columbia’s premier, David Eby, during an annual meeting of provincial leaders, vowing that there’s “not a chance in hell” that Kentucky bourbon or California cabernet will be returning to his territory’s liquor stores any time soon. A US-Canada trade war has also scuttled a planned opening ceremony for the Gordie Howe International Bridge. The long-awaited crossing between the city of Windsor in Ontario and Detroit, Michigan – named after a Canadian ice-hockey player who made his career on a US team and designed to improve trade flows – couldn’t have come at a worse time.

These rocky relations, however, could be welcome news for the Port Authority of Prince Rupert, which has been tasked with ensuring that Canada’s most geographically favoured Pacific port is ready for a future in which exports increasingly head west, rather than south. “I don’t focus on soundbites,” says its CEO, Kurt Slocombe. “I focus on what countries need from a stable trading partner.” Originally from Vancouver, Slocombe moved his family to Prince Rupert, Canada’s rainiest city, in 2007 to open the Fairview Container Terminal. But why offload cargo almost 500 nautical miles from Vancouver, a west-coast metropolis with a major international airport?

Railroad baron Charles Melville Hays would probably have said it was destiny. In 1905 he determined that this deep, ice-free harbour promised the quickest shipping route from North America to Asia, while offering the flattest rail route through the Rockies to a western terminus. Prince Rupert’s pre-eminent booster perished aboard the Titanic in 1912. Two years later, the first train from Winnipeg arrived but Hays’s vision of a “metropolis of the north” didn’t come to pass.

Instead, the town grew more modestly, focusing on fishing and logging. During the Second World War, it served as a logistics hub. By 2001, commercial fishing had collapsed and a pulp mill closed. From a peak population of 18,000, Prince Rupert lost a quarter of its residents. The shift from halibut and lumber to containers was a gamble but also the realisation of Hays’s vision, almost a century after he scoured Canada’s coastline for a suitable Pacific port.

The bespectacled Slocombe is mild-mannered and prone to understatement. He has been here from the get-go: first at the container terminal, now at the port authority. Over the past two decades, he has watched both the port and the town grow slowly but surely. Canada’s northern communities can often feel neglected but here there’s a sense of optimism and prosperity in the air. Monocle visits a new longshoremen’s union hall and strolls past a sleek detachment for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. New trucks and SUVs are parked outside a well-stocked grocery shop, with abundant fresh produce on display – a rare sight in most remote pockets of Canada. The bar and restaurant at Crest, the town’s best lodging, are packed on a Monday night.

How much the longshoremen will move in the coming years depends on the success of Carney’s globetrotting during his first year in office. His four-day trip to China in January, the first by a Canadian leader in almost a decade, pointedly included a stop in Prince Rupert en route. He has also been to India, Japan and Saudi Arabia this year on trade-focused trips.

While the prime minister was making his rounds, construction workers 5km south of the container terminal were toiling in the rain to build Canxport, a CA$750m (€468m) facility designed to make it easy to move exports into containers for shipment overseas. Carney might be returning to Prince Rupert in late August to formally inaugurate it.

Monocle hops in a Ford F-150 Lightning for a spin around Ridley Island, a port-authority-owned hive of industrial activity. In addition to Canxport, a CA$1.35bn (€842m) project named the Ridley Island Energy Export Facility will help to unleash a flood of Canadian raw materials onto global markets. When it becomes active at the end of this year, it will welcome tankers destined for countries such as China, Japan and South Korea that rely on liquefied petroleum gas (of which Canada is a leading global producer) to power homes and industry.

In the meantime, customers can already make orders for another, less glamorous Canadian export: polyurethane pellets. Their exporter is Montréal-based Ray-Mont Logistics, for which our guide, Ryan Storry, is the local terminal manager. “I’m in charge of this jigsaw puzzle,” he says, gesturing at the choreographed chaos of cranes and containers. Inside a huge, white-domed building, an army of vacuum pipes suck pellets from hopper cars, before soaring five storeys to fill 25kg bags with tiny plastic beads, then stacking them on pallets. Ray-Mont’s Vancouver-based automation expert Luca Villa is troubleshooting the state-of-the-art equipment, which has reduced railcar unloading times from four hours to one, ensuring that Canxport is running at full steam before a potential prime ministerial visit.

Prince Rupert’s new export investments are just the prow of the ship for Canada’s Indo-Pacific trade ambitions. While projects such as Canxport faced traditional regulatory and permitting hurdles that took years to overcome, many of the flurry of new proposals are from Carney’s Major Projects Office, which promises to cut red tape and expedite construction. “The government of Canada is working at a pace we have never seen before,” says Slocombe.

Inevitably, there are detractors: the full-steam-ahead trade strategy, much of it powered by fossil-fuel-based commodities, jars with the image of a country that until recently prided itself on its green credentials. As former prime minister Justin Trudeau said in 2016, “My predecessor wanted you to know Canada for its resources. I want you to know Canadians for our resourcefulness.”

Under his successor, a fellow member of the Liberal Party, the pendulum has swung back in the other direction. Though Carney has maintained a ban on oil tankers in northern BC waters such as Prince Rupert, there has been enough of a U-turn to cause the environment and climate change minister, Steven Guilbeault, to resign from his cabinet. But dissent in the Liberal ranks is unlikely to cost Carney much political capital, says Heather Exner-Pirot of the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, an Ottawa-based conservative think tank. “Elbows up has become more important than environmental purity,” she says.

The economic underpinnings of this Canada-strong foreign policy seem to have also become more important than holding the line on human rights. With the exception of his March trip to Japan, Carney’s trade-focused tours have been to nations where, until recently, the maple leaf was flora non grata. The 2018 arrest of Chinese telecom executive Meng Wanzhou in Vancouver angered Beijing; yet the Canadian prime minister made a point of visiting the city in January to meet Xi Jinping. New Delhi and Ottawa withdrew their respective high commissioners in 2023 following the assassination of a Sikh separatist leader in British Columbia; in February, Carney talked business with Narendra Modi in Mumbai. “Whereas Canada led with its values for those 10 years [under Trudeau], now it’s leading with its interests,” says Exner-Pirot. “We are in an era of realism and pragmatism.”