Festive greetings from us to you

So, here we are, on Christmas Eve — one more sleep until the big day. We hope you have time with family and friends, enjoying the echo of past journeys and the thought of future ones.

Traditionally, this is a time to pause and reflect, and we’ve been doing just that. It’s been quite a year.

+ Let’s start with Casey, my faithful suitcase (with me in tow). He loved staying in a Venetian mansion, at the start of our West Travel Club tour around the backroads in Italy, which we ran in partnership with our friends at Albatross tours. Straight after that, we were staying in Oberoi hotels in India — and actually agreed that the Oberoi Rajvilas in Jaipur is our favourite hotel in the world. (And Casey and I rarely agree.)

+ Leyanne Baillie seems to have spent half her year in Singapore. I’m pretty sure she’s been there six times in 2025. And that just exemplifies the fact that what we do is not about us, it’s about you. Singapore is an easy five-hour flight from Perth, with lots of places to stay and things to do (making it a good destination), and an important air hub (making it important for transits and stopovers). So we pay consistent attention to it, on your behalf.

+ Jessie Stoelwinder has been to Vietnam twice — south and then north. Once again, that’s a good example of what we do, in visiting and revisiting popular destinations. And anywhere with direct flights connecting it to Perth is particularly important to us.

+ Megan French loved England, Scotland and Wales — as she always does. She toured large parts of the British Isles and filed a pretty stream of enlightening and engaging, inspiring and amusing stories. One of my favourites was her day cycling around Oxford and exploring behind the scenes.

+ Michael Ferrante, our cruising specialist, seems to have barely been on dry land. From Celebrity Edge and Discovery Princess to Viking Venus, and from Mexico to Svalbard and Sydney, he brings first hand voyage knowledge to his writing.

+ Olga de Moeller combines her role as Motoring editor with her fabbo travel (and food) writing to file stories for us from the places she visits for car launches.

+ Penny Thomas is on maternity leave, and we’ve loved the pictures of her and son Roscoe, particularly on Rottnest Island. But she’s back with us for this week’s special episode of The Pod Well Travelled. (And NICE to hear her.)

+ And Mogens Johansen left us this year, to ease into retirement. Shortly after pulling the plug, he told me on the phone: “I get up every day and decide whether I can be bothered doing anything or not.” I can’t remember now whether I stopped myself saying: “So nothing has changed then.” Just kidding. Mogens was a brilliant colleague, and remains a brilliant friend.

And on that note, we’ll just wish you a happy festive season, and promise you more authentic, first-hand, honest and engaging stories in 2026.