Private Jet Club Bermuda

Before Instagram, before Bermuda became a fixture of the travel postcard, Mark Twain was already doing the island’s marketing for free.

He first arrived in 1867, a four-day stopover on his way home from the Holy Land. He would return seven more times, becoming a familiar face at the Hamilton Princess and spending much of his later visits at Bay House, the home of friends overlooking Hamilton Harbour. The hotel would eventually name a suite in his honour.

“You go to heaven if you want to,” he famously wrote. “I’d rather stay right here in Bermuda.”

His final visit ended in April 1910. Seriously ill, he returned to New York aboard the Oceana, just seven days before his death. Among the last known photographs of the great American writer are images documenting his return from the island to which he had returned so often.

📷: Kullen Coble

In private aviation, refinement is as much about what engineers eliminate as what they achieve.

The Citation Longitude offers a compelling illustration.

As the flagship of Cessna’s Citation family, its performance credentials are substantial: 3,500 nautical miles of published range and a maximum cruise speed of 483 knots. Yet its more interesting story lies beyond the specification sheet.

During development, Textron’s acoustic engineers worked alongside the aircraft’s design team, examining how sound and vibration travel through its structure. From cabin windows to the smallest interior details, considerable thought went into making several hours in the air feel remarkably undemanding.

It’s a different perspective on aircraft refinement, where progress isn’t always measured in greater speed, range or scale.
Explore the full story, The Art of Refinement: The Citation Longitude, in our Altitude Journal. Read here: pjcbermuda.com/the-art-of-refinement-the-citation-longitude/

Sources: air.one, aviationweek.com, fusionjets.com, globalair.com, newatlas.com, veryon.com

A living tradition at the heart of Bermuda’s cultural identity.

Bermuda’s Gombey tradition traces back to enslaved Bermudians, who brought together African, Native American and Caribbean influences into something distinctly Bermudian. At times actively suppressed by the colonial establishment, it survived through generations and today stands as one of the island’s most important cultural traditions.

This year’s Bermuda Gombey Festival returns this Saturday October 3 at the Botanical Gardens, bringing the island’s troupes together for a celebration of drums, masks and dance passed down through generations.

Across this year’s Carnival and cultural calendar, we’ve once again had the pleasure of following the region’s Atlantic masquerade traditions with deep African roots — from Bermuda’s Gombeys to Moko Jumbies and related Caribbean forms, each with their own history, symbolism and character.

We have a longer Altitude Journal article coming shortly on the wider story: how these traditions developed, travelled, and endured across the Atlantic world.



📷: Culture.bm

Few golf courses are defined so strongly by the landscape they occupy. Port Royal is one of them.

As part of our partnership with the PGA TOUR’s Butterfield Bermuda Championship, our latest Altitude Journal explores the design genius behind one of Bermuda’s most iconic landmarks — and the philosophy of Robert Trent Jones Sr., whose work transformed a challenging coastal site into a championship course recognised around the world.

From dramatic elevation changes and ocean views to the strategic decisions woven into every hole, Port Royal is a study in how thoughtful design can shape the way we experience a place.

Read the full story:
https://www.pjcbermuda.com/the-architectural-genius-behind-port-royal/

Sources: Ben Hogan, Bermudagolf.bm, Dave Hill, Golf Digest, Henry Picard, My Palmetta Dunes, Perry Dye, Robert Trent Jones Sr., Ron Whitten, RTJ2, Shutterstock.

Faena has always been more interested in shaping an experience than simply furnishing a hotel.

From the converted grain warehouses of Buenos Aires to the theatrical scale of Miami Beach and the restraint of New York, the group has spent two decades testing how art, architecture, performance and hospitality can work together. Red velvet, commissioned works and cultural programming have become signature cues, but the more interesting idea sits beneath them: how much should a hotel direct the way a guest experiences a destination?

In Miami, that instinct expanded beyond the property line, with Faena Forum, programming and art moving into streets and onto the beach. In New York’s Chelsea, the equation changes. Surrounded by galleries, the High Line and some of the city’s strongest contemporary architecture, Faena has had to make room for the city to speak for itself.

The result is a study in how a hospitality brand can become instantly recognisable without allowing its identity to overwhelm its setting. That tension creates intrigue and anticipation each time Faena announces a new address.

Step into the world of Faena and read the full story: pjcbermuda.com/studies-in-red

Private aviation has no fixed route map. And that is precisely the appeal.

Commercial travel is naturally scheduled and built around fixed networks, hub airports and published timetables. Private aviation starts somewhere else: where the passenger actually needs to be.

That might mean avoiding a connection, using a secondary airport or reaching a destination that would otherwise take most of a day. The value is often less about luxury than logistics — reducing wasted time and building the journey around the passengers.

For Private Jet Club, Bermuda is our wheelhouse, but coverage extends far beyond the island. Flights are provided worldwide, regardless of departure or arrival points, through a curation of regular and off-market charters.

Enquire to learn more about PJC membership.

A hark back to a time before Bermuda had a full runway, and to its broader aviation heritage.

Pan Am’s Bermuda Clipper, a Sikorsky S-42B, made its inaugural commercial passenger flight from New York to Bermuda in June 1937, alighting on the water at Darrell’s Island. Bermuda’s civil flying-boat airport remained in use until 1948. No runway required, just a calm stretch of water and a very large plane.

It would be easy to file that under nostalgia, except seaplanes never really went away. They’re still integral to resort transfers in the Maldives, used for private access into the Florida Keys and flying scheduled harbour-to-harbour services in the Virgin Islands. The aircraft have changed, but the basic logic hasn’t: islands still reward the most direct way of getting there. Bermuda was doing it in 1937.

The Pan Am airline itself followed a very different path. Deregulation, its costly acquisition of National Airlines and mounting losses steadily weakened Pan Am, with Lockerbie and the Gulf War travel downturn adding further pressure. It filed for bankruptcy protection in 1991 and ceased operations that December. The name, though, proved harder to retire. In June 2025, “Tracing the Transatlantic” put the blue globe back in the air on a Pan Am-branded Boeing 757 for a 12-night private-air journey inspired by its historic Atlantic routes, priced from $59,950 per person. Bermuda was its first stop after New York, welcomed at LF Wade with a water-cannon salute before the journey continued across the Atlantic.

Nearly nine decades after the Bermuda Clipper, the Pan Am globe was back in Bermuda.

Source: Bartelings, Bermuda Tourism Authority, Criterion Travel, Inside Travel Report, Metropolitan Airport News, Pan American World Airways, Inc. Records / University of Miami Libraries Special Collections, Skyport, The Royal Gazette