The Tastemaker

A woman walking down a sunny street wearing a red dress, sunglasses, and hoop earrings, carrying a woven basket filled with a pineapple and other fruits, with hats and towels displayed outside a shop.

A smiling man in a beige blazer and dark pants is getting out of a white car while holding a brown leather duffel bag, in front of a luxurious building.

Core Drive: Beauty, pleasure, and presence
Opportunities for Growth: Learning to slow down and find depth in simplicity

The Tastemaker moves through the world guided by the senses. They notice what others overlook: the way sunlight falls through a café window, the texture of linen sheets, the balance of a meal that feels effortless but perfect. Travel, for them, is about experiencing the art of living well. They are drawn to places where design, culture, and flavor intersect and where every detail feels considered.

Tastemakers are discerning but not fussy. They value authenticity over extravagance and understand that luxury is less about price and more about intention. They curate their itineraries like they curate their homes, with thought, consistency, and a deep appreciation for what feels right. Their travels often revolve around local craft, good food, and architecture that tells a story.

They prefer boutique hotels to chains, guided tastings to buffets, and moments that engage the senses rather than overwhelm them. They often inspire others without trying to, simply by knowing what feels stylish, balanced, and true. The Tastemaker’s strength lies in their ability to bring beauty into motion and to make travel itself a form of design.

Their opportunity for growth lies in stillness. Because they are so attuned to beauty, they can sometimes rush to capture or perfect it. The next step is to allow moments to be beautiful without curation, to experience pleasure without documenting it, to feel wonder without needing to refine it. In doing so, The Tastemaker learns that presence itself is the ultimate luxury.

Check out some sample itineraries for The Tastemaker below.

The Tastemaker in Paris

Five Days of Taste and Texture

Paris rewards those who look slowly. The light hits the stone differently here — softer, somehow more intentional. For The Tastemaker, it’s an orchestra of texture: velvet chairs, golden croissants, perfume in the air, and that particular hush that falls in a well-designed restaurant. Pleasure lives in precision, and Paris has mastered it.
Duration: 5 Days
Stay: Hotel des Grands Boulevards has candlelit corridors, quiet elegance, and cocktails that arrive like small works of art.
Top Three Things To Do

Have dinner at Septime. A minimalist temple to taste with seasonal, subtle, and plated like sculpture.
Visit the Musée Rodin. Sensuality in marble. Walk the gardens slowly; it’s a masterclass in restraint.
Spend a morning at the Palais Royal. Coffee at Café Kitsuné, then watch the light shift over the black-and-white columns.
Must see:
The Musée de l’Orangerie.Two rooms, eight paintings, and silence. Monet’s Water Lilies swallow you whole. It’s proof that stillness can feel infinite.
Challenge Yourself

For The Tastemaker, the temptation in Paris is to consume. It’s to taste, to buy, to collect. The lesson is to observe. Spend one afternoon doing nothing but people-watching from a café window. No phone. No notes. Just attention. Because sometimes, the richest experiences are the ones that never make it onto a menu.

The Tastemaker in Bali

Six Days of Light and Ritual

Bali is a mood that never asks permission. It doesn’t perform, it pulses. For The Tastemaker, it’s a sensory immersion in earth, water, and ritual: incense curling through morning air, mango on the tongue, the sound of rain on bamboo roofs. Every sense sharpened, nothing wasted.
Duration: 6 Days
Stay: The Slow, Canggu is part gallery, part sanctuary. Polished concrete, teak, and salt air. Rooms that feel like music slowed down.
Top Three Things To Do

The Morning Table at The Slow. Order the turmeric tonic and coconut pancakes, then linger. This isn’t breakfast; it’s ceremony.
Afternoon at Taman Beji Spa, Ubud. Cold plunge meets candlelight — proof that contrast heightens pleasure.
Private dinner at Mason. Barefoot dining under frangipani trees, a menu that treats fire as flavor.
Must see:
Tirta Empul Temple. Skip the crowd. Go early. Watch the water ritual in silence before stepping in, not to be cleansed, but to understand rhythm. The repetition is its own kind of luxury.
Challenge Yourself

The Tastemaker’s challenge here is surrender. Bali doesn’t need you to curate it. Skip the photos, the playlists, the yoga studios. Sit on the edge of a rice terrace at dusk and listen to the frogs begin their chorus. It’s not about quiet, it’s about receiving.

The Tastemaker in Kyoto

Five Days of Quiet Luxury

Kyoto is beauty with restraint, elegance translated into temperature, texture, and light. For The Tastemaker, it’s proof that pleasure doesn’t always mean abundance; sometimes, it’s a single perfect thing done with precision. Here, indulgence takes the shape of order: soft tatami under bare feet, porcelain cups that fit the hand just right, silence that hums like music.
Duration: 5 Days
Stay: Hotel The Mitsui Kyoto has ambiance that whispers. Steam, stone, and stillness held in balance. The onsen alone is worth the flight.
Top Three Things To Do

Private tea ceremony at Camellia Garden Teahouse. Learn the choreography of grace with small, deliberate movements that make time stretch.
Dinner at Kikunoi. Kaiseki dining as theater: seasonal ingredients, ten courses, no misstep. Every dish feels like a poem about temperature and tone.
Morning walk through Arashiyama Bamboo Grove. Arrive before dawn. Watch the light shift from silver to gold as the world wakes.
Must see:
Nanzen-ji Temple Gardens. Moss, rock, and raked sand. It’s composition as meditation. The kind of beauty that reveals itself only if you’re quiet enough to notice.
Challenge Yourself

The Tastemaker’s instinct is to consume beauty; in Kyoto, the challenge is to coexist with it. Don’t try to capture the moment. No photos, no notes. Let the details imprint themselves by repetition: the sound of sliding doors, the warmth of miso broth, the feel of paper lantern light on your skin. Pleasure, here, is precision.

The Tastemaker in Tulum

Four Days of Earth and Ease

Tulum is never still. The air hums with heat and salt, and the jungle feels alive enough to breathe for you. It’s a place that indulges the senses completely with its sound, texture, and taste layered like a slow song. For The Tastemaker, it’s paradise in raw form: the kind that asks you to let go of polish and feel something real.
Duration: 4 Days
Stay: Nômade Tulum a barefoot blend of canvas, sand, and candlelight. The kind of hotel that smells like wood smoke and lime. Dinner under woven lanterns, hammocks swaying with the sea breeze, its indulgence stripped down to essence.
Top Three Things To Do

Swim in Cenote Dos Ojos. Cool limestone water, echoes in the dark, prooving that pleasure can also be elemental.
Dinner at Arca. Fire, mezcal, and open-air dining that blurs the line between kitchen and jungle. Every dish is an argument for imperfection.
Late morning at Yäan Healing Sanctuary. A solar-powered spa tucked into the canopy with sound therapy, herbal oils, light shifting through palm leaves.
Must see:
Sfer Ik Museum. A structure made of curves, clay, and air. Part gallery, part meditation. It feels less like architecture and more like a thought that never quite settles.
Challenge Yourself

For The Tastemaker, the temptation here is to keep seeking the next high — another cocktail, another swim, another photo. But Tulum teaches a different kind of luxury: presence. One evening, skip the beach clubs and stay by the firepit. Listen to the jungle at night — the low drone of insects, the rustle of leaves. You’ll realize stillness has a sound, too.