By some accounts, the deathbed sounds like a pretty splendid thing. Here is the location and the occasion where, at the relevant moment, the major incidents of our lives “flash before our eyes” – childhood dreams, teen romances, adult achievements, parental joys. A glorious extended highlights reel – edited, and broadcast, for a single engaged viewer.
Does this really happen? Unhelpfully, nobody has stuck around long enough to confirm or deny conclusively. But what if this is the case? And if it is, which travel memory will make the cut, wedged somewhere between your first girlfriend/boyfriend, the birth of your children, and that day when you took all the glory in the school egg-and-spoon race?
We all have one – a halcyon afternoon when the world seemed perfect, and every footstep taken to reach that exact spot felt worthwhile. It might be a first glimpse of a particularly remarkable artwork. An encounter with a landmark of utter magnificence. A road trip through a landscape of astonishing beauty. An arrival at a place that you never expected to see first-hand, only to find that it is everything you hoped. A beach both gorgeous and deserted in a sunset glow. Whatever it is, it becomes indelibly engraved on the cranial hard-drive, there to be remembered forever. And, perhaps, re-enjoyed at that final curtain.
Here, 15 of Telegraph Travel’s regular writers take a trip back to their favourite travel experience – their own, subjective, finest hour, pulled from a treasure trove of journeys.
Of course, you will have your own. By all means share it with us, in the comments box…
1. Kaieteur Falls, Guyana
“A rainbow flashed across it, like a farewell wave from some ancient deity”
By Chris Leadbeater