National Geographic Traveller

The number of locations

in Japan that are part of a new

animé tour, including train

stations, schools and shrines

featured in the country’s

ever-popular animated art forms.

animetourism88.com

GLEN MUTEL //

FEATURES EDITOR

88

1

The Pan-American Highway doesn’t run the whole way

from North America (Alaska) to the southernmost

point of Argentina. Colombia’s Darién Gap is an

infamous 100-mile stretch of impassable jungle

interrupting the 29,826 mile-long highway.

2

Visiting the Darién Gap is inadvisable. On the border

of Colombia and Panama, it’s notorious as a lawless

wilderness with dense impenetrable jungle and

inhospitable wildlife.

3

Instead, you can traverse, at a distance, the sandy

borderlands with the jungle-clad mountains behind

them, visiting the tiny Caribbean coastal villages of

Capurgana and Sapzurro for a trip with a difference.

MARIA PIERI // EDITORIAL DIRECTOR

WHAT I DIDN’T KNOW

LAST MONTH...

Editors' icks

We’ve been here and weʼve been there, and our team

have found a few things we thought weʼd share

METAXA MAKEOVER

WHAT: Greece’s much maligned ‘brandy’

is getting a hipster revamp.

HOW: Used by frugal barmen in

age-of-austerity cocktails that are low on

euros but high on taste and style.

WHERE: A scattering of bars across

Athens, including at the sceney Baba au

Rum, and Molecular Mixology, which

serves it fl aming in a pan, ‘braised’ with

Cointreau and sweet wine from Samos.

babaaurum.com momixbar.com

SARAH BARRELL //

ASSOCIATE EDTIOR

What we're

watching...

NETFLIX

Stranger Things

SKY ATLANTIC

Westworld

BBC THREE

Fleabag

NETFLIX

Narcos

AMAZON PRIME VIDEO

Mr Robot

Voice-activated

lights

How many times have you

gone round a hotel room,

desperately trying to turn

out the lights? Or worse, to

make the room temperature

less fridgey/tropical?

Starwood’s Alo
 is boasting

new voice-activated hotel

rooms — let’s hope they can

cope with regional accents.

alo hotelshub.com

PAT RIDDELL // EDITOR

IMAGES: GETTY; ISTOCKPHOTO

GOLDEN THRONE

With a growing wealth gap in the US, one installation at

New York’s Guggenheim Museum is a bold comment on

the 1%. Entitled America, visitors are invited to relieve

themselves on a working 18-carat gold loo by Italian

artist Maurizio Cattelan. The $2m (£1.5m) commode

even has its own security guard. guggenheim.org

STEPHANIE CAVAGNARO // ASSISTANT EDITOR

November 2016 21

SMART TRAVELLER