The posh holiday cottages that come with their own supercar
The latest news from the world of high-end travel — including the insider’s guide to Sri Lanka
The daffodils have withered. The cherry blossom has fallen. But as the days slowly get longer, and we begin to feel the sun’s warmth on our skins, we all start to think of summer holidays. Deciding where to go to is often the trickiest bit. For those wanting to take a break close to home, but in considerable comfort, a good starting point is collections of beautiful British homes amassed by such companies such as StayOne. This summer not only do they have the keys to some of the most stunning pads in Britain — but also, through a classic car club, access to equally glam motors. Those wanting to look a bit further afield — to taste delicious curries, sit on beaches lined with palm trees, learn about island life full of cultural riches — might want to turn to a British Sri Lankan, who has years of insider knowledge to share. And for others who can’t get away just yet, there are two new ranges of candles that emit the scents of foreign lands.
Sri Lanka bounces back
There’s a reason that Althea Bunce knows almost every inch of Sri Lanka from the hills of Kandy to its coast. As a child, she was taken there on holiday every year by her Sri Lankan father. She went into banking, but in 2017 gave that up to start her own boutique travel agency, Sri Lanka Bespoke. Since then, she’s been back three times a year, often inspecting up to 50 hotels at a time on her journeys around the island.
On her trip this year, she says, after a few years of quiet following the pandemic then protests, the country is booming. In Colombo, there’s a reinvigorated food and cocktails scene, with new spots ranging from high-end Japanese to fashionable street-food bars. New boutiques have opened up, featuring sophisticated local fashion and crafts. And in the past two years, a host of new hotels and smart villas have become available.
It’s this family-owned accommodation, the passionate Sri Lankan says, that is luring back luxury travellers who want to be immersed in local culture and experiences. For instance, the new Taru Villas in Habarana — run by an interior designer Bunce describes as being “obsessive” about details. From here guests can take a journey over the forest in a balloon at dawn, “to watch villagers waking up below, and listen to elephants and monkeys in the trees”. There are also refurbished private homes such as Ishq Villas, which can be used as bases on a cooking tour around the country. Or the charming Kurulu Bay, surrounded by forests, for a nature-based Ayurvedic wellness retreat, followed by a coastal boutique hotel, like the new Sundara, for a seaside holiday. “I’d always been told by my father that Sri Lanka was the jewel of Asia,” Bunce says. “But now it really is. The hotels compete on a global stage, the service is incredible, and it’s got real soul.”
Vrooms with a view
There’s often one hitch that comes with renting country houses: rural hideaways are usually in the middle of nowhere — that’s why you chose them in the first place. Which means they are often nowhere near a town that offers decent cars for hire (hence the ten-seater van I was once given, on what should have been a dream road trip in Scotland, instead of the nippy two-seater I’d booked).
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Which is why the smart people at StayOne — which rents out some of the loveliest private homes in 250 destinations around the world — have teamed up with one of the world’s largest private members’ super-car clubs, so their clients’ wheels are as smart as their digs.
From Auto Vivendi’s £6 million pool of motors, which is at present made up of 27 vehicles, and updated every year, members can arrange for a car to be delivered directly to one of StayOne’s houses, an airport or a train station.
Helpfully, the home-rental company has also put together suggestions for driving trips that start near their key properties — up Cheddar Gorge, for instance, from a stone Georgian manor house in Somerset; along the Atlantic Highway from Bridgwater to Bude from a contemporary beachside glass home in Devon; winding through the glens from a Scottish castle in Perthshire.
The cost of Auto Vivendi membership depends on how many cars you rent during the year, how far you drive, and the models of cars you choose, from an Aston Martin DBS Superleggera Volante to a Rolls-Royce Wraith. Annual fees range from £15,950 a year plus VAT for 20 days’ use to £113,450 for 365 days’ use; plus a £2,000 membership fee. Homes from StayOne cost from £150 a night for a Cornish treehouse to £26,000 a night for a Midhurst manor.
Smells like holidays
For those who can’t get away, the publisher Assouline has cleverly commissioned the nose Jérôme Epinette to create six fragranced candles to evoke the smells of iconic destinations. So, from May, while perusing glossy photographs of camels and deserts, readers of Assouline’s coffee-table book on Marrakesh can now also breathe in the heady perfume of tobacco, bergamot, neroli and citrus — or, lusting over a holiday in Greece while looking at pictures of the Aegean, can make do with a waft of cyclamen, green fig, almond and tonka bean (from £75, available early May, assouline.com).
For those wanting arty as well as olfactory inspiration, the painter Luke Edward Hall has designed five candles designed to take fans on a multisensory journey to his best-loved spots, from the Cotswolds to Marrakesh. His light, colourful Profumi Luchino designs have been painted on Ginori porcelain to conjure up imaginary journeys — “to a crumbling palace with legendary rose gardens still watered and cared for” in Rajasthan, for instance, or a place in the Big Sur where the “scents of cedar, cypress, balsam fir and coriander and the sound of the crashing Pacific filters through the forest” (£140, harrods.com). They’re not quite as lovely as a summer holiday — but are a step in the right direction.
