I took my first cruise only a couple of summers ago. I remember waking up to the sound of seagulls flying over the Atlantic Ocean, as the then new Silversea cruise ship Silver Ray made its way from Lisbon to Vigo, Spain. I didn’t realize how soundly I would sleep, how poetically the sheer white curtains would flutter with the gentle nighttime breeze, how slowly the scenery would change. It felt restful, calming, and restoring—not what I expected that day.
I had lost my father just a few weeks prior, and the brain fog was real and persistent, so moments like these that managed to pierce through felt even more profound. As we were setting sail from Lisbon, I ate a pastel de nata, the ubiquitous egg custard tart, with pastry so crisp and flaky I could hear it crackle over the sound of the waves—and it filled me with delight. It was only moments before the cloud returned, but I registered the thick, creamy, not-too-sweet filling, the dark brown baking spots on the bright yellow surface.
Memories, even of our most ambitious travels, for which you will find plenty of inspiration in this issue—like sailing California’s Channel Islands, cycling in Tanzania, drifting down the Amazon, or exploring Greenland by ship—often boil down to just a few moments. For me that means my sister jumping into the waves on a beach in Mauritius during golden hour, my mother and I sharing a pint of Guinness at The Devonshire in London’s Soho, my niece running through a glorious field of red tulips near Amsterdam as the rain began to fall, fast and heavy. My father in his gray Nehru jacket thumbing through Urdu poetry books in the library of a dilapidated but grand Mahmudabad palace, near his hometown of Lucknow.
All we can hope for is the accumulation of these scattered moments over the years, the ability to store them in a happy compartment in our minds and to replay them on demand. I know time will help heal, but, for now, I am grateful for the sound of the seagulls over the ocean, with wings outstretched, flying gracefully and intuitively, as if they know something we don’t about the heavens.
This article appeared in the April 2026 issue of Condé Nast Traveler. Subscribe to the magazine here.
