Prior to making headlines, Nenquimo spent more than a decade organising her community and creating alliances with neighbouring tribes to protect their territories through a shrewd combination of ancient Indigenous knowledge, a territory-mapping program, and modern technology like media campaigns, training Indigenous youth in photography and videography, and setting camera traps to document invaders. Nenquimo also encourages travellers to get to know the beauty of the Amazon, support front-line communities – the rain forest’s guardians – directly, and learn about their way of life. “The people of the world who love nature have to visit,” she says. “Travellers come from another world with another type of knowledge. Indigenous peoples, like the Waorani, have many things to teach.” Nenquimo’s work has a globally resounding message: that listening to and empowering Indigenous communities, who live in harmony with nature and closest to the land, is one of the best ways to become better stewards of the Earth and protect the places that we may be so lucky to visit. Katherine Gallardo
Benoit Linero
Clémentine Larroumet
“Hospitality, the act of welcoming someone – whether into your home or a hotel – should be rooted in simplicity, generosity, and elegance,” says designer Clémentine Larroumet. With a Parisian sensibility that encapsulates old-world artistry, utilitarian aesthetics, and timeless sophistication, Larroumet cofounded the branding-and-design studio Saint-Lazare in 2021, alongside her childhood friend Antoine Ricardou – and the pair have already worked with a string of iconic hotels: Hôtel Les Roches Rouges on the French Riviera; Les Sources de Cheverny, an elegant château in the Loire Valley; Le Barn, a pastoral escape outside Paris; and the luxury NoMad brand, bringing each space to life through narrative design, a unique approach in the hospitality space that blends branding, architecture, and, more recently, product and interior design with art direction. What sets Larroumet apart is her acute attention to detail: “Every step of our process is [grounded] in the project’s history, environment, and community.” Each object introduced to a hotel, from the artfully executed printed goods – matchbooks, coasters, books – to the vintage artwork, commissioned murals, and custom-designed furniture, earns its place in the room. “We prioritise simplicity and good design, which eliminates the superfluous,” she says. For the past two decades, Larroumet and Ricardou ran be-poles, a multi-hyphenate design studio, but it was a new office space – an 1880s Haussmann-style building on Rue Saint-Lazare – that led to their renewed focus on craftsmanship, original artisan methods, and quality raw materials. “Our new space embodies where we’re at personally and with our business,” says Larroumet. “With a kiln, workshop, and engraving press, our workshop is a laboratory of ideas.” Christine Chitnis
Sophie Morgan
Racing snowmobiles in the Arctic Circle, horse-whispering in Scotland’s Cairngorms, and trekking by camel across the desert in Morocco are all in a day’s work for Sophie Morgan. One of the few female wheelchair users with a travel television series – she is the host of the hit UK show Living Wild: How to Change Your Life and a lead presenter of the 2021 Summer Paralympics in Tokyo on Channel 4 – she uses her platform to demand equality of experience for all people with disabilities. Travelling has always been Morgan’s great love, but a car crash changed her life dramatically two decades ago, and becoming a permanent wheelchair user caused many of her travel options to evaporate. One sixth of the world’s population lives with a physical or mental disability, though – a demographic she sees as an untapped market. “We’re at a tipping point, and we need to see the provision of inclusive services for all not as a challenge, but as an opportunity,” Morgan says. Change is happening, but incrementally: American Airlines has made it a policy to proactively call passengers who request disability assistance when booking; Airbnb’s new “Adapted Category” of step-free listings is opening doors everywhere, from tree houses in Brazil to minimalist chalets in the Canadian wilderness; luxury resort Amilla’s work in the Maldives demonstrates that even a remote private-island experience and full accessibility can co-exist through on-site beach wheelchairs, accessible pool decks, pre-arrival guest questionnaires, and more. “Design with everybody in mind and everyone benefits,” says Morgan. Juliet Kinsman
Xavi Rué
Carla Simón
Before deciding to make films, Carla Simón, “wanted to be a writer for a travel magazine in order to see the world.” But then she started watching movies and decided she liked that medium better, not knowing yet that it would also allow her to travel frequently. Her debut feature, Summer 1993, premiered in Berlin in 2017, and suddenly the world opened up to her. “I went from Barcelona to Copenhagen, London, Busan, Mumbai, Taiwan, and back to Barcelona in 20 days. It was intense but very cool,” she says. With Alcarràs, her second film, which won the Golden Bear at the 2022 Berlin International Film Festival, she turned her attention closer to home, highlighting the forgotten region of inland Spain it is named after. For Simón, filmmaking has offered her a way of travelling in which she is both a visitor and a guide. Her two films are pieces of her personal history as well as portraits of a rural, inland, and hyperlocal Spain that is “normally undervalued” and overlooked by both pop culture and tourism. “Cinema is a window into the world,” she says. “When we talk about the importance of supporting cinema culturally, this is it.” The 36-year-old, who was raised in northern Catalonia, is about to leave the city once again in favour of rural life, both to give her son the opportunity to experience the same connection with the land that she had growing up – and to tell more stories about this disappearing part of Spain. Her work is proof that neglected parts of every country deserve their moment on a bigger screen. “How much of what we know about Japan or the US comes through their cinema?” she says. “Everything. Film is an opportunity to export ourselves and make ourselves known.” Irene Crespo
