This is why we endure the tedium of airports, restless hotel nights and dodgy meals: the charmless practicalities of travel get forgotten, but the brilliant moments of wonder, exhilaration and happiness remain. YearInReview 2019inreview
Traveller's wandering writers have spent another year on coaches and cruise ships, up mountains and down canyons, at the summits of glamorous skyscrapers and crammed into hole-in-the-wall backstreet bars. They ought to be jaded, but the world always throws up novel encounters that keep them enthralled and amazed.
We've asked our peripatetic writers to rummage through their ragbag of memories for the year and produce the single moment that stands out. Here's their mosaic of magic. You will now receive updates from Traveller Newsletter Traveller Newsletter Get the latest news and updates emailed straight to your inbox.
Music from Verdi's opera La Traviata plays and the crowd – and the anticipation – grows in the glitzy promenade of MSC Grandiosa, as we wait for the godmother to grace us with her presence. I am a few metres away, looking up, when she appears on the balcony: goddess of the silver screen, Sophia Loren, 85 years young, bespectacled and as elegant looking as ever.
The hot Chiapas jungle is eerily still yet furious with life. Huge green mounds alert us to the presence of man-made structures and suddenly they appear – the excavated pyramids and temples of Palenque, once called Lakamha, place of great waters. We enter this magical, World Heritage List Maya city, witness to an ancient erudite culture, one of Mesoamerica's most important archaeological sites, dating from 226BC to AD900.
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Comanche takes out 2019 Sydney to HobartA nail-biting finish in the River Derwent saw Comanche virtually parked as second-place InfoTrack began to pick up speed moments before the end of the race.
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Wild Oats XI crosses finish line third after disappointing 2019 Sydney to Hobart campaignThe 2018 winners managed to crawl their way back after they were pushed back to 11th place on Friday morning, but the effort was not enough to compete with the firepower of Comanche in this year's race.
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Highlights from 2019: Elle Macpherson, Karl Stefanovic, Napoleon Perdis, James Packer and moreFrom one of the year's great ego battles to a ring-side seat at the legal stoush between Elle Macpherson and her former 'bestie'. Private Sydney featured 400 stories in 2019. Here are the stand-outs
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It wasn't quite 'annus horribilis' for the Queen, but 2019 came close'Quite bumpy'. That's how the Queen described the year in her Christmas message. In Queen-speak, that is a rare and blunt public acknowledgement that all has not been well inside the royal family | BevanShields
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