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Debbie Rackard Travel Curated luxury travel experiences—custom journeys, cruises & voyages to the places you’ve always dreamed about.

Let’s turn your travel dreams into unforgettable reality!​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​ Virtuoso Luxury Agent and affiliate of Departure Lounge

Holidays in the sun, anyone?Hotel Bel-Air has been a Hollywood hideaway since 1946, with 12 acres of gardens in Stone Ca...
09/11/2026

Holidays in the sun, anyone?

Hotel Bel-Air has been a Hollywood hideaway since 1946, with 12 acres of gardens in Stone Canyon, pink stucco buildings, a stone bridge, and a spring-fed lake out front, and it turned 80 this year, making a celebratory stay a little extra significant.

In December, the whole property goes festive, with lights through the gardens and along the paths, poolside palms wrapped in sparkle, carolers in the restaurant, holiday cocktails and mulled w**e in the Bar & Lounge, afternoon tea by the fire, and cookie-decorating classes from the pastry team for the kids.

Advisor tip: ask for a Canyon Suite with a fireplace for the full December effect, or a lake-view suite for the quietest corner of the property. Message me to learn more!

Swipe through, then ask me the question everyone asks. Can you actually stay there? Yes.It’s Vik, two hours south of San...
07/11/2026

Swipe through, then ask me the question everyone asks. Can you actually stay there? Yes.

It’s Vik, two hours south of Santiago in Chile’s Millahue Valley, and it took the No. 1 spot in The World’s 50 Best Vineyards 2025. The building you’re looking at tops a hill above a lake in the middle of an 11,000-acre private estate of vineyards and natural landscapes, with the Andes along the horizon, and that titanium roof is the reason people fly across the world to see it.

Here’s what the photos don’t show. With 22 individually designed rooms and 15 glass-walled bungalows, the room you choose matters, and I have opinions. Tell me what you like before you book, and I’ll request the right one.

Once you’re there, everything is included, from w**ery tours and tastings with the house w**emakers to horseback rides through the vines, bikes, the infinity pool, and asado dinners cooked over open fire in the forest.

Advisor tip: Vik is the easy add-on to a Patagonia or Atacama trip, two or three nights on the way home. Choose your suite with the same interest you’d bring to choosing a bottle.

You sent me a list of five hotels, pulled together with a little help from AI. I came back with three, and two of them w...
05/11/2026

You sent me a list of five hotels, pulled together with a little help from AI. I came back with three, and two of them weren’t on your list. Here’s why that happens.

First, keep using AI for research. It’s a great place to start, and it probably surfaced names you wouldn’t have found on your own.

But my shortlist is built from things no search can see. I know which hotel on your list changed management last year and hasn’t recovered. I know which one photographs beautifully and stands on a busy road. I know which room category is real and which they sell to people who book direct.

I also know you. If you told me you hate long transfers, I removed the one with the three-hour drive. If dinner matters, I moved you toward the property with the restaurant, not the one with the beach you’d see once.

And sometimes the list changes because of access. One of those two additions came with a suite upgrade, daily breakfast, and a credit through my partnerships that the others couldn’t match.

Different doesn’t mean I ignored you. It means I listened. Send me your list, however you built it, and I’ll explain every change.

04/11/2026

The question has changed. It used to be “where?” Now it’s “why?”

Rome, because you want to understand a place, not just see it. Surfing in Portugal, because you want to come home with a new skill. Stargazing in the Atacama, because you’ve followed that passion for years and it’s time to follow it somewhere. Greece, because you need to reconnect and recharge, and the islands do that better than anywhere.

Every trip in this reel was booked by a client with a reason first and a destination second. The reason shapes everything: the pace, the splurges, who guides you, where the trip ends.

So tell me your why. I’ll take it from there.

One person wants golf. One wants the beach. Someone else has spotted the climbing wall.A family hotel should give everyo...
02/11/2026

One person wants golf. One wants the beach. Someone else has spotted the climbing wall.

A family hotel should give everyone something to argue for, and this one does.

Aurora Anguilla covers 300 acres across Rendezvous Bay and Merrywing Bay, making it the largest resort on an island known for tiny ones. On the kids’ side, a water park with slides and a lazy river, 18-hole mini golf, that climbing wall, a teen center, a kids club, pickleball and tennis clinics, bonfires with s’mores, and movie nights. Rendezvous Bay is one of the calmest, longest beaches on the island, which matters when small swimmers are involved.

On the adult side, the only golf course on Anguilla (a Greg Norman design), a full spa, and six restaurants, including the island’s only steakhouse and a dinner served inside the resort’s own hydroponic farm.

Send me the full wish list, golf and climbing wall included. I’ll make room for all of it.

Your out-of-office message may finally mean it.Three Camel Lodge is part one of my Most Remote Hotels on Earth series, a...
01/11/2026

Your out-of-office message may finally mean it.

Three Camel Lodge is part one of my Most Remote Hotels on Earth series, and it earns the title. It sits in Mongolia’s Gobi Desert, about as far from a coastline as you can get on the planet. Getting there means flying into Mongolia’s capital, then taking a second flight south, then driving off-road for 90 minutes. And that’s the short way.

The lodge itself is a camp of 40 gers, the round felt tents Mongolian nomads have lived in for centuries, set on an open plain with the Altai Mountains along the horizon and nothing else in sight. Inside, a wood stove, hand-painted furniture, camel-hair blankets, and a proper bathroom.

Days are spent on the desert’s greatest hits. The Flaming Cliffs, where the first dinosaur eggs were found a century ago, and paleontologists still dig. The singing dunes of Khongoryn Els. Camel treks, evenings with nomadic families and throat singers, and a night with no artificial light for a hundred miles in any direction.

How far off your usual travel map would you like to go?

Yes, I know you're asking AI about your next trip. Honestly? Keep doing it.AI is useful early on: gathering ideas, compa...
31/10/2026

Yes, I know you're asking AI about your next trip. Honestly? Keep doing it.

AI is useful early on: gathering ideas, comparing regions, figuring out what kind of trip you're actually in the mood for, drafting the packing list. Bring me all of it. A client who arrives with a screenshot of ideas gives me a head start I love.

Here's where the handoff happens: AI hasn't slept in the rooms. It doesn't know the hotel changed hands last year, which room category is worth the jump, or that the famous restaurant is coasting. It can't see live availability, add upgrades and credits through my partnerships, or answer the phone when your connection cancels at midnight.

Dream with AI. Book with a human. Send me what you've got and I'll take it the rest of the way.

Part of my job is tracking every big hotel opening in Europe. Here's one worth bookmarking for your next Mallorca trip.M...
30/10/2026

Part of my job is tracking every big hotel opening in Europe. Here's one worth bookmarking for your next Mallorca trip.

Mandarin Oriental Punta Negra, the brand's Mallorca debut, opened in June on its own pine-covered peninsula along the Costa d'en Blanes, and the dining alone would justify the trip. Nobu Matsuhisa and Dani García each opened a restaurant here, one serving Nikkei-style plates against the sea views, the other built around fire, smoke, and local tradition.

Away from the table, it gets even better. A spa with nine treatment cabins pairing Mallorcan traditions with the brand's famous Oriental wellness philosophy, interiors by Laura Gonzalez, one of the most sought-after designers working today, and two private coves for a swim steps from your room. Puerto Portals and Palma are both minutes away.

Mallorca in shoulder season is Europe at its easiest. Message me to start planning!

A question I hear from clients who have already done Tokyo and Kyoto: what does round two of Japan look like?One of my f...
28/10/2026

A question I hear from clients who have already done Tokyo and Kyoto: what does round two of Japan look like?

One of my favorite answers is Amanemu, Aman's hot spring resort on the Ise-Shima peninsula, a coastline of green coves and fishing villages a couple of hours southeast of Kyoto and Osaka. Every suite and villa has its own onsen bath fed by mineral-rich thermal springs, so you get Japan's beloved bathing ritual in complete privacy. No shared pools or second-guessing the etiquette.

It shines brightest on a return trip, slow and deeply Japanese in a way the big cities can't be. First-timers shouldn't rule it out either: tack three nights onto the end of a Tokyo and Kyoto route, and you'll fly home rested instead of running on fumes.

First visit or fifth, Japan always has more to give. Reach out, and I'll start planning.

My favorite under-the-radar Mediterranean capital? Valletta. And I know exactly where you should stay.Iniala Valletta is...
27/10/2026

My favorite under-the-radar Mediterranean capital? Valletta. And I know exactly where you should stay.

Iniala Valletta is the only Forbes Five-Star hotel in Malta, four years running, and it just received the country's first two Michelin Keys. The hotel occupies a row of centuries-old townhouses on St. Barbara Bastion, looking straight across the Grand Harbour. Just 23 rooms, each one different, with a spa carved into the old stone vaults below.

The rooftop is the showstopper: ION Harbour by Simon Rogan, the most celebrated dining room in the country, with the harbor and the Three Cities glowing across the water at sunset. Book that table before you book your flights.

Malta squeezes 7,000 years of history into a few square miles, and this is the place to sleep in the middle of it. Let's plan it.

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