“The tourism here is slower and remains focused on the natural wonders,” says Barnhoorn, who has committed Golden Rock to environmental stewardship. On Statia, as the 3,000 or so locals call it, don’t expect St. Bart’s rosé brunches or St. Martin’s casinos. Starting at $600 per night, the low-slung 32-room resort nestles between the azure Caribbean, where candy-corn coral reefs and shipwrecks nurture incredible diving, and the shaggy dormant volcano called the Quill, which rises behind the property like a benevolent emerald dragon who welcomes hikers like a dog does back scratches. So he built his own, Golden Rock, which is slated for completion in January, just in time to welcome travelers via a new airport terminal and new ferry service from St. Kitts. What Barnhoorn didn’t love was the lack of upscale accommodations. “There are no crowds, mass tourism, commercialized areas, cruise ships,” says the Dutch cofounder and CEO of rose exporter Afriflora. The minute Peter Barnhoorn landed on St. Eustatius, a verdant Dutch blip near St. Kitts, in 2018, he fell in love. Between meals and trips to soy sauce brewers and tea farmers, guests stay on turquoise Karatsu Bay, an ideal base for exploring Kyushu, an island with “mountains to climb, waves to surf, roads to bike,” as Stuart-Wolff says.Ĭourtesy of ADT Touraine J.

The small-group program ($3,150 per person for four nights, all inclusive) follows the 72 micro-seasons of Japan-the cooking lessons, foraging walks, and artisan outings shifting slightly as persimmons yield to yuzu, sansho pepper buds ripen, and new wakame seaweed appears offshore. Kuniko’s kitchen is “how and where I started to feel at home in Japan.” She took notes, which evolved into a book of recipes-which in turn flourished into Mirukashi Salon, the immersive culinary workshop Stuart-Wolff and Nakazato launched this year, just as Japan fully reopened to overseas tourists. “I was just watching at first, then helping with dishes, and slowly trying my hand at prep tasks,” she recalls. While Nakazato worked and oversaw construction of their new home and studio, Stuart-Wolff hung around the kitchen with her mother-in-law, Kuniko. Had she relocated to Tokyo or Osaka, the American writer and photographer would have probably gotten by just fine with English alone, but her aging in-laws lived in rural Mirukashi on the island of Kyushu. Prairie Stuart-Wolff spoke next to no Japanese when she moved to Japan with her wife, ceramist Hanako Nakazato.

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