Tag: Travel

  • Good Hotel, London

    Good Hotel, London

    We recently had an amazing stay at Good Hotel in London’s Royal Victoria Dock. Good Hotel is part of Good Group, a social business which has community and not individual at its core, providing premium hospitality with a cause.

    www.goodhotellondon.com


    The concept

    Founded by Marten Dresen, Good Hotel is the manifestation of his social business dream. The first Good Hotel popped up in Amsterdam during 1 year and trained and re-integrated 70 long-term unemployed locals who were living off welfare. Good Hotel now has locations in London (the floating hotel was transported from Amsterdam) and Guatemala (Marten founded a NGO called Niños de Guatemala there in 2006) and plans to open 5 new properties by 2020, focusing on destinations where touristic demand meets the needs for development.

    There’s one common point in all the Good Hotel properties: the contribution they make to the local community while offering a personalised, authentic experience. The Good Group has created an in-house training program called Good Training, offering long-term unemployed locals custom-made hospitality training and the chance to build a new future. Rooted in the local community, the ingredients, materials and labour needed at Good Hotel are all locally sourced from small business owners and craftsmen.

    Good Hotel also invests in the education of children of low-income families in Guatemala through the NGO Niños de Guatemala founded by Marten – in its first year it has donated $80,000 and is now working towards a goal to donate $500,000 per year).

    If you’re running a similar project and need guidance in social care, you can find organisations like CBAT that can help you in this process.

    The hotel

    Located in the Royal Victoria Docks, an up-and-coming area in East London, Good Hotel London is a floating hotel with an innovative design in a unique waterfront location.

    The modern rooms (4 types with different bed sizes and views to the dockside or waterfront and River Thames) have a minimalistic design, with Scandinavian-style wooden furniture and special details that make the stay even more pleasant, such as the fair trade toiletries, tooth brush and shaving kits, sockets for EU guests and a little doll handcrafted by Guatemalan artisans and designed to help you have a good night sleep.

    On the ground floor guests can find The Living Room, an open space with sofas where you can relax, big tables to work and meet other people staying at the hotel and a bar serving locally inspired cuisine with an international twist. On the top floor, guests can also find a roof area overlooking the River Thames and London, whilst enjoying drinks and café classics.

    When you book direct with Good Hotel, £5 will be donated to their NGO Charity partner, per booking, per night. When you book with Booking.com, they have partnered to created a unique ‘boosted’ link whereby if you book to stay anywhere with it, Booking.com will donate a percentage of your booking to Good Hotel’s NGO.
    Find out more here: www.goodhotelbooking.com

     

  • Porto Instants

    Porto Instants

    We’re back from spending 4 great days in Porto, exploring the city and visiting a selection of cafés, restaurants, shops and places to include in our new City Guide. While we work on the guide, here’s a little preview of some of the images we shared on our Instagram profile during our trip.


    Porto views from the Douro river.


    Casa de Serralves, an art deco mansion and park that now houses a contemporary art museum.


    Inside Coração Alecrim, a beautiful shop stocking a curated selection of clothing, homeware and other new and vintage objects.


    Porto’s typical tiled facades.


    BOP Café, great music and some of the best burgers we’ve ever had.


    Douro views from the Granja de Baixo district.


    Capela das Almas, one of the most visited chapels in Porto, known for its walls covered with tiles painted with scenes from the lives of various saints.


    The walls of Ó! Galeria, a shop and gallery selling artwork by illustrators from around the world.

     
     

  • The Jaunt, art and travel

    The Jaunt, art and travel

    The Jaunt is a project by Jeroen Smeets sending artists all over the world to find inspiration and create a new artwork which is printed in a limited edition. Before the trip, you can purchase the print sight unseen only knowing about the artist and their destination – a place they’ve never visited before. During the trip, you can follow the artist whilst they get immersed in the destination and get inspired to produce their artwork.

    In this short interview, Jeroen tells us about how the idea behind The Jaunt started, how people have reacted to this innovative project and the last trip with artist Kristin Texeira.

    www.thejaunt.net

    Photos by The Jaunt

    Jaunt #021 – Scott Albrecht – Masaya

    Can you introduce yourself and tell us about how The Jaunt started?

    My name is Jeroen Smeets. I’m from the Netherlands originally, but living in Copenhagen these days with my family. I’ve been working with artists for a while now through different jobs and projects. Ranging from editor-in-chief, creative director, art agency, gallery manager, publisher, journalist and everything in between.

    The Jaunt started about five years ago when I first started talking about this project with friends and artists, trying to shape this idea I had of sending artists on trips all over the world to find inspiration. After a year of conversations we organised our first trip in April 2013, and have been running ever since up to trip number 35.

    Jaunt #030 – Jean Jullien – Marfa

    The Jaunt is an innovative take on the traditional artist residency. Can you explain briefly how it works?

    We send artists on trips all over the world with the sole purpose of finding inspiration. There is no agenda and no briefing. The artists make their own trip and their own adventure. Once the artist returns from their trip, they create an artwork which we then produce as a limited edition silk screen print. We sell this print before the trip takes place. Meaning you have no clue about the outcome of the artwork until the artist has returned and you receive your print at home.

    This way when you buy a print you become part of the experience and make it possible for the artist to go on their trip.

    The Jaunt #007 – Jordy van den Nieuwendijk at work on location in Los Angeles

    We love the surprise element of buying the print before the artist travels to their destination, without knowing what they’re going to create. How did your first customers react to this? Can you share some of the feedback or comments you’ve received since you started The Jaunt?

    We work with a variety of established and upcoming artists, and this way we get to introduce artist whose work we admire to a new audience. One of the things I personally enjoy hearing the most is when people order a print from an artist they did not know before, but are very pleased with in the end and the artwork ends up hanging on the walls in their house.

    The screenprint studio of Joris Diks where the artworks are printed

    Your last trip has been with artist Kristin Texeira, whom we’ve interviewed before. Why did you choose Kristin and her destination, Newfoundland?

    I actually just stumbled upon her work by clicking through different hashtags on Instagram, and it immediately captured my eye. Her work is to me a great example of an artist putting her own feelings and experiences into the artworks. Meanwhile she is able to tell a vivid story with her quite abstract work. So I got in touch with her and two weeks later her tickets were booked.

    Originally I was looking into the Caribbean islands for her trip, but Kristin expressed a bigger interest in less tropical climates, enjoying the different elements of the weather and nature. Newfoundland, Canada seemed like a perfect fit for her.

    Jaunt #012 – Cleon Peterson – Athens

    You have published a book about your first 10 artists and their trips. Are you planning a second volume or other ways to expand the project outside of prints?

    It’s in the works. The first book was self-published which is a big challenge, especially on the distribution end of things. So ideally I would like to collaborate with a publisher on the second book and make sure it gets the proper international distribution.

     

  • Utrecht Instants

    Utrecht Instants

    We’re just back from Utrecht, where we’ve spent 3 amazing days working on a new City Guide thanks to Visit Holland and Utrecht Marketing. Before we publish our full City Guide on our website, here’s a little preview of some of the places we visited and shared on our Instagram profile during our stay.


    The rooms at Eye Hotel, a boutique hotel located in a former eye hospital.


    Some of the beautiful buildings by the Oudegracht, the “old canal”.


    Daen’s, a coffee shop, hotel and clothing store in the heart of the city.


    Miffy, a creation by the late Dutch illustrator Dick Bruna and a symbol of the city.


    The impressive Rietveld Schröder House, built in 1924.


    Koffie Leute Brauhaus, a coffee shop in the southern part of the city centre.

  • The Bothy Yard

    The Bothy Yard

    Designed in Edinburgh, The Bothy Yard is a home away from home for the modern explorer, combining the comfort and character of a boutique hotel with the buzz and social experience of a hostel. We chatted with The Bothy Yard’s founder Max Strzelecki to find out more about this innovative concept.

    www.thebothyyard.com
    Photos by The Bothy Yard

    Future-Positive-The-Bothy-Yard-2-Low

    Could you please introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about your background?

    My name is Max Strzelecki (str-let-ski). Edinburgh has been my home for five of the past seven years. My life here tends to revolve around people, waves, wind and building things… probably in that order. It’s easy to get the balance right here; you can enjoy the social buzz of city life and you’re also a stone’s throw away from the hills and the ocean. I’ve always enjoyed rich, simple experiences, whether it’s camping on the Isle of Tiree, hostelling in a surf town or cycling through Edinburgh’s side streets, there’s a lot to be said for the less-is-more approach.

    How did the idea of The Bothy Yard come about? Could you tell us a little bit about the concept behind it?

    It was the coming together of my love of experiencing the outdoors from the cosy comfort of a tent, and that of meeting new people and sharing stories from the road. I recently returned from 15 months in Australia, during which I spent a lot of time travelling and staying in hostels, mixing work (if you can call building Tough Mudder events “work”) and pleasure (being in the ocean).

    I love the social element of the hostel experience; there aren’t many places where you are so strongly encouraged to approach a group of strangers and introduce yourself. That’s a beautiful thing, but I find communal dorm rooms very tedious. I know a lot of people who miss out on the social experience hostels offer because they don’t want to stay in a shared room. Knowing this and appreciating the unique cosy and protected feeling of camping in the wild, I had the idea of The Bothy Yard. The Bothy Yard is a hostel that offers each guest their own Bothy Box – a private sleeping and changing space with storage and all the other features a modern explorer needs, all behind a lockable door.

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    Who is The Bothy Yard for?

    The Bothy Yard is for today’s explorers who want their days to be action packed, to meet new people, experience new places and really get in amongst it. At the end of the day when you’re tired and weary, you can close your Bothy Box door and have the peaceful, heavy, undisturbed slumber you deserve. We’re for people who want all of the social benefits of staying in a hostel, but with a bit of extra comfort and privacy.

    You are launching a crowdfunding campaign in February, could you tell us more about it and the plans for the upcoming months?

    This is a very exciting time for us! The crowdfunding campaign will be the first opportunity for people to book their stay at The Bothy Yard. We will be opening the doors of the first (mini) Bothy Yard in July of this year. The next few months will be filled with a lot of box construction, coffee, Frank Ocean and Tallest Man on Earth (our “getting stuff done” music). Edinburgh will be our home, but for now the exact location is a secret. Stay tuned for the announcement in the coming weeks. If you’re planning on visiting Edinburgh in the next year, be sure to follow our journey and book your stay!

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