EDITORS' HOT LIST 2023

from Wanderlust, Issue 225 (February/March 2023)

After the FIRES

To celebrate our 30th anniversary, we have picked 30 of the most exciting destinations to explore over the coming year

COUNTRIES 1 Bahamas

In 1973, the Bahamas finally gained independence from the British Empire; 50 years on, it is celebrating as only the islands know how: wildly. The usual festivities go longer and harder this year, with Junkanoo at the heart of things.The festival takes place across the Caribbean but is thought to have originated in the Bahamas, when West African slaves began donning homemade masks on Boxing Day and New Year’s Day. The modern-day equivalent is a colourful riot of music, costumes, dancing and parades, and is also set to take over the streets on July’s National Day this year. For more context, Nassau’s informative Pompey Museum elaborates on the horrors that preceded the party. Elsewhere, events will span the 16 main islands year-round (bahamas.com); and from March, for the first time ever, daily flights from the UK ensure that there is no excuse not to join in, so get ready to dig out your best party clothes.

2 Czech Republic

On 1 January 1993, what was formerly Czechoslovakia split into two – one half became Slovakia; the other turned into the Czech Republic.When we think how familiar Prague’s cobbled maze of Gothic spires and Baroque libraries have become, it’s amazing to think they were still locked behind the Iron Curtain around the time Wanderlust was starting up. However, while the bulk of the festivities take place in the well-trodden capital, where the National Museum is a good place to brush up on history, travelling deeper lets you see just how much has changed here. The longest pedestrian bridge in the world – the spectacular Sky Bridge

721 – opened to the public in 2022 at Králický Sněžník, and the revival of ‘timber rafting’ (an old method for transporting wood) in Český Krumlov now lets you drift its waters in peace. Add to that the Pilsners and underground labyrinth of Bohemian Plzeň, the wineries of Moravia and the rise of the ‘peat spa’ in the north-west town of Třeboň. Na zdraví

What’s in a name?

(left) The earliest known celebration of Junkanoo in the Bahamas dates back to 1801, with one theory behind the origin of its name being that it is a corruption of a mysterious African king, John Canoe, a leader of the Ahanta on what was then the Gold Coast, who fought against the European colonialists; (right) the Velvet Revolution derives its name from the comparatively peaceful way in which the Soviet regime of the time relinquished its power