One of the advantages of getting older is the ability to see the kids come into their own, ideally doing exactly what it is they were born to do. I’ve followed David Prior’s travel leads since he was Alice Waters’ gatekeeper, our work conversations quickly segueing into where he’d just been for his side hustle as a writer for Australian Vogue Living. When he pitched me far-flung stories at Bon Appétit, I knew they’d have just the right touch, from the concept to the location to the guest list. So it made sense that he would take his combination of perfectly honed editorial spidey sense, excellent taste and global connections to create a first-of-its-kind travel company.
It’s been fun to watch PRIOR flex over the last few years, whether it’s creating top-secret itineraries for heads of state or deciding which World’s Best chef would host the next weekend experience in a ridiculously exclusive locale. And then, as we know, the world stopped — the world of travel especially. With the crystal ball hidden from all, David and his team quickly adapted to both meet the moment and look ahead to that seemingly distant future in which three weeks in India seemed possible again. They created a trove of stories for the newsletter that served its own sort of travel, each sparking ideas for trips to come. They signed a deal with Apple to create special maps. And, bigger still, PRIOR, which initially billed itself as a club for curious explorers, opened itself up to become a world, introducing a lower membership fee, more destination guides and a range of locally curated experiences that anyone could build into a dream trip. Of course, David couldn’t stay home in New York for long. (“Spending the last year in my chair has taught me one thing,” he said: “I hate being in a chair.”) By last fall, he had already been to Africa, Haiti and the Dominican Republic. It won’t be long before he packs his beat-up bag and heads out again soon, into the PRIOR world.
Christine Muhlke: How do you think we’ll travel differently from this point forward?
David Prior: I feel completely electrified in the sense that everything we'll feel when we trek out into the world again will be that much more acute. I just love seeing New York bursting with life right now, the restaurants out on the sidewalk—whether that it is Queens or downtown—or the parks just full of people. New York is a perfect example of how every action has an equal and opposite reaction: It was the first and hardest-hit major U.S. city and it’s exciting to see it come back. We were all so sensorially deprived during Covid, and I think we’ll be gravitating to places where our senses feel most alive—where we can see/touch/feel and connect again. That’s what we’re craving right now.
One hundred percent! It makes me think about something I read on your site, that idea of, “We're not going to waste a moment of your time. We're going to make every meal count, every minute count.” Because there is this sense that we have to make everything count on the one hand, but also our senses are much more open to any experience.
I think that we've had this collective moment of, We have one life. We're only at the beginning of waking up to remembering how incredible the world is, and all of those little tastes and sights and sounds. This intense, intense period is going to resonate for, I think, decades around all of the things that we missed out on. And so I think now you won't want to waste a meal. You won't want to waste a night. You want to have these distilled, richer moments.
It also feels like we've lost a year. There’s so much to catch up on.
Yes, but I've never thought about travel as a bucket list, to be honest. I've never thought about it as having “done Japan.” “I've done Machu Picchu. I've done the Alhambra.” It sounds kind of trite, but for me, it's more about a feeling, because I think the things that stay with you are less that I went here, but more that I inhaled the scent of that chili powder in Delhi or danced to that beat in Salvador or saw those vivid pinks in Rajasthan. It's much more of a sensory thing. And I think that's the feeling alive of travel.
