Happy Friday, everyone! It's time to unwind with some of our best weekend reads spanning real estate, fitness, food, travel, and style. We're going to show you the best Caribbean islands for a post-vax vacation, dive into Crocs' comeback story, and introduce you to a travel subscription that lets you live and work in luxury hotels across the US.
Let's get to it.
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With travel on the verge of a booming comeback as vaccination rates increase, many Americans are looking to explore the Caribbean. Riselle Celestina, a blogger in St. Maarten, shared her favorite isolated destinations where you can avoid crowds of tourists.
Here are 10 under-the-radar islands to visit.
If you're looking to travel this summer but haven't locked down a beachfront rental yet, you may be out of luck. As more people are looking for summer getaways, premier beach destinations are seeing a dearth of rental inventory. We spoke with people in the Hamptons, Martha's Vineyard, Outer Banks, and Kauai, who said this summer is the wildest rental market in years.
A look at beachfront rental madness.
Twelve bottles of wine were sent to the International Space Station in 2019 to study the effect of space on wine aging. Now, one of those bottles is up for sale at Christie's - and could fetch up to $1 million.
More on the extraterrestrial Bordeaux.
Crocs, the foam clogs dubbed one of the "ugliest shoes ever," saw a surge in popularity this year, with revenue increasing 64% year-over-year to $460.1 million. The shoe's rebound from near bankruptcy in 2009 proved that the shoe people love to hate is also one of retail's greatest comeback stories.
Here's how they turned things around.
Residents of Missoula, Montana are being forced to leave the city they love as outsiders drive up rent and housing prices. The mountain town is experiencing a "Zoom boom," which is drawing people from out of state who can snap up homes sight unseen - and often for far higher than the listing price.
Six locals share their stories.
Valentino's cofounder sold a Basquiat skull painting at auction for $93.1 million - $40 million more than it was expected to go for. The 1983 painting, titled "In This Case," is the second-most expensive Basquiat ever sold at auction; the priciest sold for $110.5 million in 2017.
A 24-year-old ditched her NYC apartment for Inspirato, a travel subscription that costs $2,500 a month to live and work in luxury hotels across the US. Inspirato gives customers access to hotels that cost thousands a night, and she used it to stay in Florida, California, and Colorado.
Plus…
- Seychelles and the Maldives, previously hailed as pandemic tourism success stories, just reported the highest global COVID-19 cases per 100,000 residents.
- Trump's cleared to live in Mar-a-Lago permanently and his son just bought a new mansion nearby. Here's a peek inside the family's Florida bubble.
- A seventh-generation Vanderbilt heiress is using the "Disney Model" to grow her exclusive startup. These are some of her strategies.