The first time Enrique Alex Garde, a travel influencer based in Madrid, went to Mexico, the trip was a bust. “I was so overwhelmed, I couldn’t wait to get out of there,” he said on a recent video call. “And then, when I returned, I fell in love.”
Mr. Garde, 38, is hardly the first traveler to rediscover a place. On a series of video calls last month, travel content creators spoke about the destinations they would most like to return to and why.
Eleanor Hamby and Dr. Sandra Hazelip took their first trip together, from Moscow to Beijing by train, in 2008. Since then, the 84-year-old best friends from Texas have visited 44 countries together. In 2023, the women embarked on an around-the-world voyage that inspired a book, “Here We Go: Lessons for Living Fearlessly from Two Traveling Nanas,” published in September by an imprint of Penguin Random House.
“There are three things that stand out to us when we travel,” Ms. Hamby said. “Number one, the people we meet — it doesn’t matter who you are, your political views, what country you’re from. The second thing is the beauty of the world, God’s creation. And the third is the beauty of what man has made.”
Maz Green can relate. The 33-year-old Japanese British content creator, who splits her time between London and Tokyo, began posting travel images to Instagram about eight years ago. Ms. Green said she liked the personal touch of boutique hotels. “They tend to be family owned and have stories rooted in their locality,” she said.
Murad and Nataly Osmann helped pioneer the travel influencer category on Instagram in 2011 after their #FollowMeTo series of images, depicting Ms. Osmann leading Mr. Osmann through locales around the world, went viral.
“Modern tourism is very strange because people just constantly take photos without feeling the places, without connecting to them,” Mr. Osmann, 40, said from Dubai, United Arab Emirates, where the couple, who got married in 2015, is now based. “Train travel is on the rise because you need to slow down.”
A kindred spirit lurks in Mr. Garde. In 2016, he resigned from his job as a designer and, over 906 days, circled the globe with his boyfriend, intent on documenting his interest in sustainable travel. “When I started, brands were really scared of a gay man talking about sustainable tourism and veganism,” Mr. Garde said. “Back then, Instagram was just for posting cute breakfast pictures. And now it’s my core business.”
Kobina Ackon, from Ghana, had a similar awakening. In 2013, Mr. Ackon, 34, better known as Wode Maya on social media, moved to Shenyang, China, to study aeronautical engineering and began posting videos to YouTube. “I was sharing my experience as a Black man living in China,” he said.
Five years later, Mr. Ackon decided to return to Africa and use his growing platform “to change the narrative about Africa for Africans.”
The following remarks have been edited for clarity and condensed.
Dr. Sandra Hazelip
@aroundtheworldat80, Texas
When it comes to natural beauty, we love the island of Bali. I grew up in Fort Worth, in a very low-income family and no one had pretty lawns back in those days. So when our families got together, we went to the Fort Worth Botanical Gardens and had our family pictures made there. Well, we land on the island of Bali and the entire island is a botanical garden.
Murad Osmann
@muradosmann, Dubai, United Arab Emirates
We went to Tibet, to Mount Kailash, in 2019 for the first time. It’s the sacred mountain for a lot of religions. And there’s a saying that if you walk the circumference once, your previous negative karma is going to be cleansed forever.
The overpass is nearly 18,700 feet, which is about 1,000 feet higher than the base camp of Mount Everest. I had altitude sickness. I was so sick, I couldn’t lie down. I swore that I was never going to come back. Last year, I did it again. I swore again that I was never coming back — because it was 50 percent easier, but still difficult. And this June, we’re going back again. Because it’s the Year of the Fire Horse — which happens once in 60 years — and in Buddhism, if you do the circumference once during this sacred time, it counts as 12 times.
Maz Green
@where.to.find.me, London and Tokyo
What makes Japan so special is that if you go to a different region, or at a different time of year, you will have such a wildly different experience. Even though I’m Japanese, I discover a new side of it every time I go. There are so many prefectures. It’s not just how diverse the landscape is, it’s the seasons: cherry blossoms, autumn leaves. I have yet to go to another country where the ultramodern coexists so harmoniously with the traditional.
I’m especially drawn to the Nagano region. There are a lot of beautiful onsen towns, where you’ll find the hot spring baths. There’s a place called Kamikochi and it’s known as the Switzerland of Japan. The nature there is so, so beautiful.
Enrique Alex Garde
Enriquealex.com, Madrid
Mexico is such a big country and, like Spain, it’s got different cultures — you go to one part and the language is different, the culture is different, the food is different. I love when you go to a place and you can see the roots of the past. You can see that in Mexico.
I feel a really strong connection with Mexico City. There is a street food truck that serves vegan tacos. My Mexican friends love it. It’s called Por Siempre Vegana and it’s in the Roma district. I think half of the reason why I go to Mexico City is just to go to that place because it gives me such happiness.
Kobina Ackon
youtube.com/@WODEMAYA, Accra, Ghana
A country that I will forever go back to is Lesotho. I feel like the entire country deserves to be declared a natural wonder of the world. It’s like a fairy tale. It’s a very small country. From the south to the north, you just drive through this hilly, green landscape, and it’s just breathtaking. The beauty is that during winter, the entire country is covered in snow because it’s at elevation.
I was there at the end of 2024. And then I went back during winter, in May 2025. It was beautiful to see a whole different landscape.
The post Destinations So Good They’re Worth a Return Journey appeared first on New York Times.
