no selfies or splitting the bill

Before any arrivals, the local staff — the ones who have a relationship with the fishermen, vegetable sellers and restaurant maître d’s — will have the larders stocked and storm shutters thrown open onto olive-filled gardens with uninterrupted views of Pampelonne beach. The large yachts anchor here because they’re too big for the busy marina in St Tropez.

You’d never actually stay in St Tropez these days, but an afternoon ashore is still well worth it — a visit to the bijou Hermès store followed by lunch on the terrace at the three Michelin-starred La Vague d’Or, where reservations are now closed for the summer. Then everyone converges on the beach at Le Club 55, spiritual home of the barefoot billionaire.

Not heading to the Côte d’Azur? I have friends who swear by Hvar in Croatia, calling it the St Tropez of the Balkans. The Laganini restaurant and bar in Palmizana on Sveti Klement, a private islet close to Hvar, has been billed “the new Club 55”. I prefer the old one, but then Hvar is popular with the yacht crowd because it is one of the cheapest ports in the Med to refuel. They love Montenegro for the same reason.

Or there’s La Residencia in Deia, on Mallorca, or the Cyclades, but it won’t be Mykonos this year — too much like Annabel’s on a Thursday night. A yacht itinerary is more likely to include the lower-key islands of Paros, Antiparos, Naxos and foodie haven Sifnos.

Bodrum and the southern coast of Turkey, once popular, are deemed simply too oligarch-y these days, as it’s one of the few places sanctioned Russians can still go. For different reasons there is less interest in heading across the Atlantic this year to playgrounds such as the Hamptons. It’s all Europe-looking in 2025.

But not everywhere. Como is off the list thanks to the line of tourist buses that now snake around the lakes. The hills around here, in my view, used to have some of the best under-the-radar local restaurants in Italy. Now catering for hoards of picky tourists, they serve gluten-free pasta instead of their grandmother’s recipe for ragu. Il Gatto Nero was everyone’s secret Como tip until it was George Clooney’s.

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Former fans of Como, like me, are heading to Copenhagen. From here you can easily access the fjords, whether by superyacht or helicopter, but it’s the city’s claim as the coolest and chicest in Europe that appeals. Noma, with its three Michelin stars, is a cliché and its moment has passed. Geranium is where everyone goes now — everyone who can spend upwards of £500 per head on a meal, that is.

Securing a table at this 12-table, 3 Michelin-starred restaurant is not the ultimate status symbol. The real flex is a pre-service tour of the open-plan kitchen and co-ordinating calendars with chef Rasmus Kofoed, who runs private cooking lessons at his finca in Spain.

The Hotel d’Angleterre is Copenhagen’s answer to the Ritz in Paris. Here you can ask the concierge to send a member of staff to queue at Juno the Bakery for fresh cardamom buns brought back still warm in time for your morning coffee. And the hotel’s Balthazar Champagne Bar serves vintage Dom Pérignon by the glass.

Friends who like to holiday in Italy are this year heading to the Amalfi coast or Pantelleria, a windswept volcanic rock off the coast of Sicily where Giorgio Armani is patron saint. His white-domed dammuso with thick stone walls is the most distinctive on the island. There are no beaches here, which means no influencers, but you can still jump into its crystal turquoise waters from the rocks if you are at a private estate, or dive in from the deck of a yacht.

But before you slip on the linen suit and board someone else’s boat or enter their blissfully appointed island getaway, here are a few pointers to remember.

It’s soft duffel bags for a yacht

Wherever you are invited, it is never acceptable to show up with a mountain of luggage, so take Joan Collins and her stack of monogrammed Louis Vuitton trunks off your moodboard. On yachts, hard-sided suitcases (impossible to stow) and wheeled luggage (liable to scuff interiors) are frowned upon. If you know, you know: seasoned travellers arrive with soft, worn leather holdalls.

I am not a natural seafarer, but cruising the Amalfi coast during high season aboard a very large and well kitted-out boat is, I must admit, a transcendent experience. Typically, my host invites a few close friends — the inner circle — to spend a few weeks on board. Then a tender is dispatched to collect additional guests from ports en route. The stragglers may not have made the first cut but are deemed fun enough for a night or two. I am one such guest. And I’m always grateful for the privilege.

My favourite itinerary is anchoring off Portofino or further south in Positano, to allow time for exploring the mainland as well as islands such as Capri (where you can make like Jackie Onassis and head to the shopping street Via Camerelle for your Van Cleef & Arpels or La Perla fix). An idyllic day in Positano involves plates of lobster linguine with lemon cream at Terrazza Celè followed by shopping at Emporio Sirenuse, the “hotel shop” in Le Sirenuse, where Italian aesthete Carla Sersale sells ceramics, linen, raffia and perfume by local artisans, all with a stylish billionaire-friendly upgrade. Then I like to watch the sun set over aperitivos on the terrace before hopping back on board. If cabin fever strikes and you feel you must spend a night on terra firma, I would skip anything as close to the shore as Positano and brave the corkscrew drive further up the coast to Ravello and the Palazzo Avino. Ask for breakfast to be served on your private vine-covered veranda.

When it comes to packing, you won’t need industrial-sized suncream — on a yacht there will be copious amounts of it in all the outdoor spaces as well as in the staterooms. On my summer trips I just take a few pieces in breathable linen; an oversized silk scarf from Hermès; a large straw hat; swimwear and as many pairs of sunglasses as I can find.

On a yacht, highly polished floors are a point of pride for boat crews, so guests will be barefoot on board. One pair of shoes — suede loafers by Tod’s or Aurélien — should be enough for day trips. As a rule, all Mediterranean dinners — be they on a boat or in a friend’s villa or a Michelin-starred restaurant — will combine fancy food with a relaxed dress code, which can be tricky to interpret. Flip-flops or slippers are fine at dinner, but show up in shorts and you will probably get struck off the guest list. A long silk slip or chinos and a shirt are perfect; no accessories needed.

Be helpful when the property manager calls

It’s standard practice for a property manager or personal assistant to call ahead and check on guest preferences. It is also standard — or should be — for the guest to thank them politely and leave it at that. Refrain from reading out the results of your latest bloodwork confirming your microbiome prefers basmati to black rice. If you require ceremonial-grade matcha for your morning brew, bring your own.

I’m exhausted by everyone’s ever shifting dietary choices (oat milk was the best until it was the worst; coconut oil will give you a glow-up or clog your arteries). When I host at my weekend home in Burford, I skip the pre-arrival interrogation and quietly stock a few non-dairy and vegan options. If they’re not up to scratch, I won’t lose sleep over it. Since I gave up eating meat, I have sat through many meals pretending to eat rather than embarrassing my hosts.

A friend who is about to host a group of writers at her home in Vilamoura in the Algarve sent me a screenshot of the pre-arrival requests made by a well-known lifestyle columnist: raw yoghurt and activated nuts at breakfast, scent-free sheets at night. Her caption to me read, “Are we hosting Gwyneth?”

Arrive with a gift to demonstrate thought, not compensation

The pressure of picking a present for the host with the most (and then some) is enough to put you off a holiday, free though it might be. Be reassured, your host is not looking to be compensated for meals and board. I always try to go for a clever gift — say, a monogrammed bookmark or a first edition of Liar’s Poker.

Years ago I made the rookie mistake of buying the most expensive wine I could afford as a gift on a weekend at a friend’s India Mahdavi-designed chalet in Megève. My host made a point of graciously showing the large bottle of Bordeaux to the rest of the party, saying he would save it for when it had been properly decanted. It was only later, when I noticed his vast wine cave in the basement, that I discovered he was an enthusiast with hundreds of exquisite bottles. When, in spite of my rather lame gift, we were invited back, I baked a cake and was chuffed that it was quickly sliced up and served.

While we are on the subject of holidaying in the Alps, most of the one percenters I know still wouldn’t bother in the summer, even if they have the best chalet in the village, because their favourite restaurants and boutiques won’t be open until ski season. You’ll find those heading to the mountains at Eriro in Ehrwald, Austria. Its nine suites are booked lock, stock and barrel for months ahead by families looking to coax their digitally exhausted teenagers and own workaholic tendencies into a detox (no wi-fi is the default; the password is locked away unless otherwise agreed upon). And you pay £1,500 per night for the privilege.

Or, for those who like cooler climes, there’s Eleven Deplar Farm in Iceland, perched on the wild rugged slopes of the country’s remote Troll Peninsula. Best known for its heliskiing, it’s the spot for salmon fishing in summer. For £40,000 per night you can buy out the 13-room Scandi-chic lodge and house for up to 26 guests — a steal when you consider the cheapest room is £5,000 per night.

No selfies, please

A few summers ago, en route to a wedding in Saint-Paul de Vence, one of the oldest medieval towns on the French Riviera, I made an overnight stop at a friend’s clifftop villa overlooking the Mediterranean. The host — scion of a venerable banking dynasty — expressed his views on discretion in a characteristically elegant manner. Alongside the jaw-dropping views and threadbare Aubusson rugs, each guest room had a handwritten note encouraging us “to make memories, not content” and refrain from taking pictures indoors. A gentle reminder that this was, above all, a family home.

Even when there’s no danger of pictures being flogged to the tabloids, it’s impossible to relax around someone armed with a smartphone and not afraid to use it. Resist the temptation to take a selfie with every meal served and do not facetime your cousins in Cornwall from the skylounge of someone else’s yacht, panning slowly so they can “feel like they’re here”. They’re not. And the next time you may not be either.

Don’t try to split the bill

Picture this: a hard-won table on the sun-dappled terrace of La Colombe d’Or in Saint-Paul de Vence laden with platters of grilled fish and jeroboams of rosé. As the meal winds down, one guest — eyes darting towards the bill — loudly insists on paying their share. Or £47.50 of it, since they “weren’t really drinking”. Don’t be that person. No one in the top tax bracket is looking to be reimbursed for what they spend on a good time with friends. What they are looking for — what they will remember — is appreciation. One can express that in so many ways that don’t involve using Splitwise.

One of the most gracious gestures came from a cousin’s boyfriend, a photographer who was relatively unknown at the time but whose work now regularly features in Vogue, who joined us for a six-star holiday in Rajasthan: think palace hotels and a private chef. He didn’t pay for any of it, nor was he expected to. A few weeks later, we each received envelopes of beautiful black-and-white prints of ourselves. No one remembered whether he’d contributed to the rosé fund when he made us feel like we were in a Wes Anderson film.

Don’t hijack the itinerary

Whether in a castello in Tuscany or on a yacht off Montenegro, it takes meticulous planning to move a posse of guests from one highly sought hotspot to the next in peak season. Don’t derail it with a casual suggestion to swing by the gelato place that keeps popping up on your Instagram feed.

If you’d like to contribute a meal or outing to the schedule, clear it with your host well in advance. Make a reservation yourself and — this is crucial — pick up the tab at the end without calling attention to it. If it was your suggestion, you pay. Just make sure you can afford it: the chicest summer scene in Europe often unfolds at deceptively simple-looking beach-shack restaurants, so you may require nerves of steel — or, at the very least, a platinum credit card. I learnt this the hard way on a Balearic cruise aboard a friend’s yacht when I organised lunch for the group at Juan y Andrea, a restaurant on the beach of Formentera. I was introduced to it by a cousin who was a very generous host on a previous trip. Guests can show up in swimwear; the lobster, calamari and catch of the day are spectacular — and priced per 100g. Lunch for 20 quickly outstripped my monthly mortgage, before anyone ordered champagne. Which is a neat segue into my final piece of advice.

Just be a good friend

Even in the most gilded surroundings, try not to lose sight of what your friends value about you. Is it your sense of humour? Your ability to defuse tense situations? Your concern for the child who is unhappy at boarding school? Show up as funny, kind and curious and try not to fret about whether or not you can afford to return the hospitality you have been shown. Better still, show your gushing appreciation of this summer’s most popular holiday flex — the historian or archaeologist, brought along with the chef and PT to give extra panache to the museum and ruins visits.