Jennifer Leigh Parker on Her Summer Travel Playbook

Where are you going this summer? 

I have three major work trips planned this summer, each to coastal destinations with very distinct characters. The first is a tailored trip to the south of France, with the cookbook author Rebekah Peppler. Anchored at the Hôtel du Couvent in Nice, the itinerary is designed around access to the region’s private cultural and culinary landscape – think homes, markets, small-scale ateliers, and regional wines as an entry point to understanding daily life along the Côte d’Azur. With Peppler as my eyes and ears, I’ll be able to ‘see’ the South of France through her lens, as a cook and writer with deep ties to the destination. Mais, oui.

The second is to Costa Navarino, Greece. I’m bringing my husband and young daughter with me on this assignment, to visit the cinematic locations and historical monuments featured in the upcoming Christopher Nolan film, The Odyssey, set to debut in theaters in July. My aim is to robustly capture the Hero’s journey magic of the place for readers who want to experience Greek mythology first-hand. 

In August, I’ll be heading to Healdsburg, California, which has quietly outgrown its wine-country-weekend reputation to become one of the most dynamic food and wine destinations in the United States. A wave of openings has made the town both more exciting and more approachable. I plan to imbibe and write myself silly. But I will not drink Merlot!

What's been on your mind travel-wise this year?

A few big themes have come to the forefront this year: The art of family travel, literary travel and gloriously glamorous trains. 

Firstly, I’ve become more risk-averse as a mother. So, I tend to seek out that sweet spot of unfamiliar territory that is also physically safe for my family. The war in Iran takes some destinations completely off the table. But family travel also opens up the world in fantastic new ways. For instance, despite the fact that I lived in Paris as a student, and know the city by heart, exploring the city with my 5-year old daughter for the first time was a completely new and truly magical experience.

Literary-inspired travel has also taken on new forms this year, from Jane Austen costume galas to reading retreats, I’m thrilled that this trend seems to be bringing people back to the printed page. I’ve always believed that books are magic, and as a founding member of my own neighborhood book club, I think the power of friendship and camaraderie that comes from reading together cannot be overstated. Now, imagine doing that at the gorgeous Georgian countryside estate Heckfield Place outside London, listening to Dame Emma Thompson read and analyse excerpts from Sense and Sensibility (which she did last summer). For parents teaching children to read — think Harry Potter trips to London, for example— this trend has nowhere to go but up. 

Train travel is another bright spot this year. Both standard public train spending and luxury rail are experiencing a boom, according to a new report from Mastercard’s Economics Institute. The drivers are two-fold: Air travel is increasingly expensive this summer, and a desire for more sustainable travel has everyone saying: All Aboard! Of course, the Venice Simplon-Orient Express does it best. Having traveled through Italy by rail in 2024, visiting Venice, Umbria, Rome and Florence — I can tell you it’s the best way to see more of the country than just the tourist hot-spots.

What does a "good" hotel mean to you right now? What makes a "great" hotel?

I love properties that reveal what a place is becoming, not just what it has been. And its programming offers ways for guests to learn what’s happening with hands-on local experiences. Memorable, emotionally-driven programming, I think, is what separates the wheat from the chaff. 

I just experienced this at La Residencia, a Belmond Hotel in Mallorca. The picturesque village of Deià has been a refuge for artists and bohemians for more than a century. But an influx of wealth and gentrification has many claiming the art scene here is dead. They're wrong. Because the hotel staff at La Residencia are making it their mission to keep the legacy alive. Guests can experience this by meeting the artist in residence on property, and / or by taking a walking art tour around Deià with the hotel’s own gallerist, and see the reality for themselves. As I write this story now, I realize Deià is an example of an inspiring phenomenon in travel: when hospitality offers artists a life line, creative communities thrive. And travelers benefit.  

What got you into writing about travel in the first place?

For me, travel writing is not about voyeurism, bucket lists or even sightseeing. It’s about immersion into another place and people, such that you can imagine a totally different life. I started in NYC’s off-off broadway theater scene in the early aughts, and have always been fascinated by character and storytelling. ‘Becoming’ a character onstage meant understanding their time and place. Inhabiting a character means physically putting yourself in their shoes, including their dialect, circumstances, and contextualized reality.

That’s why I started traveling. At 19, I was cast as Brigid Mary Mangan, an Irish nun in the play Little Moon of Alban. In the story, she lives in Dublin, Ireland, during the Irish War of Independence (1919–1921) before joining a hospital as a nurse. So, off I went to Dublin with my best Irish girlfriend from highschool. When I was cast in The Crucible, at 20, I took the Bolt bus to Boston, and drove to Salem, Massachusetts to get a sense of what the witch trials were all about. It was, in a word, chilling. 

This went on for a few years, and eventually it hit me: Travel is a portal into another life, and imagining another life is a kind of spiritual experience. Because when we travel, we’re connecting to that thing that makes us all human, and we more deeply understand our own humanity. 

It’s also a big leap of faith. When you travel, you leave your family, friends, possessions and even yourself behind. Somewhere along the way, a different self emerges. A refreshed, more open self, willing to explore new ideas, new languages, new ways of being. Confront another’s reality when you travel, allow it to affect you, and you will return a slightly different person. Dare I say, more enlightened?