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Go moose-spotting in Montana, hang out with orcas in Alaska, Road Trips stargaze in the Badlands, and follow the barbecue trail through the Deep South. & Wildlife Nature Nature USA Adventure Where Nomads Go to Know Need

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World Nomads’ purpose is to challenge Contents travelers to harness their curiosity, be

WELCOME 3 brave enough to find their own journey, Getty Images / Stellalevi WELCOME Essential USA 4 and to gain a richer understanding of To paraphrase that most American of poets, Walt Whitman, the United ART & CULTURE 6 themselves, others, and the world. States contains multitudes – yawning red canyons and thick pine Music Across the USA 8 forests, steamy swamps and rock-ribbed coasts, languid small towns A Vegetarian on the Barbecue Trail 14 and cities that stay up all night. We can’t possibly cover it all in a A Nomad's Story: handful of pages, and we aren’t going to try. Welcome As American as Apple Cider 18 4 Museums Worth a Special Trip 20 Think of this guide as a series of windows into the United States – a Travels With the Gullah-Geechee 24 selection of first-hand accounts from Nomads who’ve hiked the trails, Native American Journeys 28 sampled the local specialties, and roamed the highways. With a focus CITIES & TOWNS 32 on the undiscovered and less-visited areas of the country, it’s meant

Underrated USA 34 to inspire Americans to explore parts of their own backyard they never Culture Art & Art 5 Adventures Outside knew existed, and encourage visitors to get to know the US beyond the Major Cities 44 the famous icons. Lesser-Known Destinations Join our travelers as they surf the shores of Lake Michigan, tag along for LGBTQ travelers 48 with Creole cowboys, and follow their taste buds along the barbecue

ROAD TRIPS 50 Towns &

trail. You’ll find plenty of inspiration and enough practical information Cities Celebrating the Strange in South Dakota 52 to start planning your own journey. Beauty & Industry Discover the United States, World Nomads’ style! on the Great Lakes Loop 56 Uniquely New Mexico 60 Road Trips NATURE & WILDLIFE 64 ALASKA 4 Under-the-Radar State & National Parks 66 Juneau Behind the Wheel of an Alaskan Whale-Watching Boat 70 Of Moose and Mountains: & Wildlife

Hiking in Glacier National Park 72 North Cascades NP Nature Glacier NP ADVENTURE 76 Acadia NP Bluebird Colorado 78 Providence Kauai: Beyond the Beaches 82 Buffalo Badlands NP Milwaukee A Moment of Truth in the Detroit New York Smoky Mountains 84 Oakland Chicago Pittsburgh Adventure Great Sand Exploring the Maine Coast by Boat 86 Dunes NP San Francisco Goblin Valley State Park Buffalo NEED TO KNOW 90 National River Climate & Weather 91 Great Smoky Mtns NP Los Angeles Santa Fe Oklahoma City Getting Around 92 Birmingham Charleston

Top 9 Safety Tips for the US 94 to Know Festival Calendar 96 Need Austin Essential Insurance Tips 98 Our Contributors 100 worldnomads.com Touring Utah Get a Quote 102 HAWAII

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ESSENTIAL Welcome USA Don’t miss out on these uniquely American places, experiences, and adventures. Culture Art & Art & Towns & Drink in the Cities views at Glacier National Park Catch a wave Getty Images / Jordan Siemens far from the ocean on Lake Road Trips

Michigan Getty Images / ErlienDesign Dance with Old Man Gloom in New Mexico Sample southern Enrique A Sanabria / Flickr barbecue in Summit a all its delicious massive Foden Getty Images / Stephanie forms sand dune in & Wildlife

Colorado Nature Getty Images / The Washington Post Getty Images / The Washington Getty Images / Nancy Rose Join a Creole Witness cowboy trail ride one of the in Louisiana Enrique A Sanabria via flickr world’s great Foden Stephanie migrations Meet the Gullah- Adventure Geechee of the Lowcountry Getty Images / Diana Robinson Photography Getty Images / Diana Robinson to Know Tackle an epic Need Hobnob with mountain bike goblins in Goblin trail in the Getty Images / Rachid Dahnoun Getty Images / Rachid Getty Images / Federica Grassi Valley, Utah Great Smokies Getty Images / Cavan

4 5 worldnomads.com Amanda Vandenberg Welcome Culture Art & Art & Towns & Cities Road Trips & Wildlife Nature Nature The US is a true mosaic of influences – it’s home to immigrants and pockets of culture from around the world, Adventure ART & not to mention a rich indigenous heritage. From this mix has sprung wholly original creations such as jazz and hip-hop, regionally accented foods and to Know CULTURE traditions, and the fascinating, Need sometimes checkered, history Olivia Steele's Save Me, of a country that values both Bombay Beach unity and independence.

6 7 worldnomads.com Coachella Valley Music SEEK EXPERIENCES and Arts Festival Getty Images / Frazer Harrison

MUSIC Welcome Culture

ACROSS & Art THE USA Jazz, blues, hip-hop, rock – the US has given birth & Towns & to some of the world’s most beloved and influential Cities genres. Music journalist Maura Johnston offers her insight on the best ways to experience it. Road Trips t's a sweaty May Saturday at the New one huge strand of it. Rooted in the jazz Orleans Fair Grounds Race Course, that its home city incubated in the early Iand I'm standing at the crossroads of 20th century – defined by polyrhythms and American music. A brass band marches by, an innate sense of musical chemistry that its exuberant jazz providing a beat for its has its players embarking on improvisations dancers; strains of gospel music echo from – the festival also shines its spotlight on & Wildlife

a nearby tent; depending on which way I genres that descended from the blues, Nature turn, I can hear classic rhythm and blues, which originated from the Mississippi Delta, crisp mariachi rhythms, or locally sourced and gospel, which blossomed from black jamming; and people in t-shirts supporting churchgoers' testifying at services. These the Boston-bred rock legends Aerosmith and forms have persisted and shape-shifted blues' instrumentation and added heavy is easy. Sites like Songkick (https://www.

the Colombian dynamo Juanes mill around. over the years, with new technology and grooves; rock's rise amped up the volume songkick.com) tell you what artists will be Adventure This is the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage old desires for camaraderie resulting in new – and the singer-songwriter ideal; and arriving in a particular geographic area, Festival, a multi-stage, two-weekend styles like bounce and trap bubbling up out hip-hop's earliest DJs took records from while the industry pub Pollstar will help celebration of all types of American music of dive bars and Discord chat rooms. all those genres, remaking them in a way you figure out the biggest-ticket items in – and arguably the country's best place to Look at the website everynoise.com, No matter inspired by the “toasting” (chanting over stadiums and theaters alike. experience that art form as a melting pot, a which charts nearly 3,000 genres, and you where you go a beat or rhythm) of Jamaican song styles But some venues are worth seeking gumbo of genres that runs the gamut from can see how, while almost all “American” and inspiring a whole new way of making out. The Grand Ole Opry in Nashville is

in America, to Know Americana to zydeco. music has its roots in the blues and soul, finding an music. one of America’s most storied stages. Need its final forms can vary wildly. Country Preservation Hall in New Orleans What is American music? music initially added the vocal harmonies opportunity or Finding your new favorite artist celebrates the city’s jazz traditions, and its There's no one ideal of “American” music, and pathos of American folk; R&B's origins two to see live No matter where you go in America, finding house band has become one of America’s although the Jazz Fest lineup represents happened when musicians amped up the music is easy an opportunity or two to see live music most beloved jazz combos. Minneapolis’

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as well as celebrations of iconic artists like Johnny and June Carter Cash. Many non-music-centric museums also offer music as part of their regular

Getty Images / John Hicks programming. Mass MoCA in North Adams,

Massachusetts, has a series of concerts Getty Images / Douglas Mason

that includes the Wilco-curated festival Welcome

Getty Images / Gavin Hellier robertharding Solid Sound and the experimental-minded Loud Festival, which features artists like neo-classical legend Philip Glass and loop composer Julianna Barwick. The Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh celebrates its namesake artist’s involvement in the

Country Music Hall of Culture

Fame and Museum music business – which included his & Art shepherding of art-rock legends The Velvet Underground – with Sound Series, a concert series featuring modern-day indie-rock luminaries. & Towns & Cities Getty Images / Jim Steinfeldt Festivals Multi-day, massive-bill music festivals have been popular in Europe for decades, but they didn’t gain traction in the U.S. until 1999, when Paul Tollett and Rick Van

Santen decided to bring a bunch of bands Road Trips to the Indio Polo Club near Palm Springs, California. In the two decades since Sun Studio First Avenue Coachella's founding, it’s become one of Memphis nightclub, Minneapolis America’s premier festivals, broadening its genre remit to include pop, hip-hop, and R&B stars including Ariana Grande, Childish & Wildlife

First Avenue is where Prince tore down Culture, in Seattle, began its life as a Gambino, and Beyoncé. Nature the house in Purple Rain, and the galaxy of music-only museum, an origin that lives on But other up-and-coming festivals in stars painted on its exterior wall is a who’s in its interactive Sound Lab exhibition as far-flung locales promise great artists as who of rock and soul greats. Los Angeles’ well as salutes to home-grown heroes like well as opportunities to explore new parts Hollywood Bowl is as visually breathtaking Pearl Jam and Jimi Hendrix. Sun Studio, in of America. Seven Peaks Festival, founded

as it is great-sounding, while Red Rocks, Memphis, lets visitors see the room where by Nashville star Dierks Bentley, is held Adventure located about 40mi (64km) outside of B.B. King, Elvis Presley, Roy Orbison, and in the Rocky Mountain enclave of Buena Denver, adds stunning mountain vistas to other luminaries changed the course of Vista, Colorado, and features beautiful the mix. American music. views alongside the country-heavy lineup. The Country Music Hall of Fame Big Ears Festival embraces the new, with Museums celebrates Nashville’s contributions to artists including bliss-seekers Spiritualized In Cleveland, Ohio, the Rock and Roll Hall Find music history with exhibits on new and and bluegrass revivalist Rhiannon Giddens, to Know

of Fame is the big cheese of America’s inspiration legendary country performers, as well as rubbing elbows at multiple venues across Need music museums, celebrating its storied for your next a vast archive. And the Musical Instrument Knoxville, Tennessee. And Essence Fest adventure inductees and hosting a massive collection Museum, in Phoenix, has more than 6,800 – held, like Jazz Fest, in New Orleans – Jonathon "Boogie" with Explore Long, New Orleans Jazz of memorabilia, as well as a huge library musical instruments from 200 countries in spotlights the legends and next big things & Heritage Festival of archival material. The Museum of Pop its collection, and regularly hosts concerts of soul, R&B, and hip-hop.

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UNEXPECTED

National Cowboy Welcome Poetry Gathering I first realized the National Cowboy Poetry Gathering was special when I ran into one of the musicians buying fencing at the local ranch store. Given the talent and artistry

on display throughout the week, it’s easy Culture Art & Art to forget these cowboys and cowgirls authentically live the life portrayed in their poems and songs. Their deep love and appreciation for Western heritage brings this community together in the high desert of Nevada in the dead of winter each year. & Towns & Cities My father and I attended our first gathering in 2014, wanting to explore this intersection of poetry, cowboys, and the American West. I’ve attended every Gathering since, still proudly wearing the hat I made that first year. The

opportunity to steep in a world so different Road Trips from my everyday life keeps me coming back.

Started in 1985 by the Western Folklife Center, the Gathering is a week-long celebration of the arts and crafts of cowboy culture. Though the American West portrayed in TVs and movies was overwhelmingly white, the reality & Wildlife

is quite the contrary, and the Gathering tries Nature to incorporate a different ethnic group each year – recent years have featured Mongolian, Hawaiian, Mexican, and Basque performers.

The early part of the week is filled with

workshops ranging from poetry writing to hat- Adventure making to cooking Western fare. Performances kick into high gear Thursday through Saturday, with simultaneous events at venues around town – typically three or more performers alternately reciting poems, singing songs, or telling stories centered on a theme like After a Night on a Cowboy Town. Beyond the shows, to Know

there are dances, Western goods for sale at the Need local casinos, and the Deep West video series offering first-hand stories of the rural West. Bill Sullivan TravelNevada The Gathering takes place in Elko, Nevada in late January.

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SEEK EXPERIENCES Craig Thompson A Vegetarian on the

Barbecue Trail Welcome

In the American South, barbecue isn’t just a cooking style – it’s a lifestyle. Elle Hardy gets in touch with her inner carnivore as she Culture

eats her way from the Carolinas to Texas. & Art

ll my life I’ve been a vegetarian – I like to think that I was born this way. & Towns & ABut moving to the Deep South, Cities where good company is inseparable from food, had me interrogating my relationship with meat. Being frequently confined to the kids’

menu when eating out, I started to Road Trips reconsider my own childhood preferences. They were more instinctive – you might even say picky – and less mindful than I liked to tell myself. Charmed by an episode of Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown on barbecue culture, I decided that the Rendezvous Pork Barbecue, Memphis & Wildlife scene’s holistic nature and unpretentious Nature settings were my route to exploring whether I could learn to appreciate meat – and embrace a way of life that turned out to was determined to experience as much of in. “It’ll leave y’all moaning, like any good profile. Learning to chew slowly, I began to be far bigger than just eating. In the coastal this “barbecue trail” as I could. thing that takes all night!” the server said appreciate the interplay between layers of It was a clash of worlds that brought us, regions cheerily, presenting me with a plate of their flavor, like a good red wine. Adventure what we know today as, barbecue. Starting The Carolinas finest cuts of “whole hog barbecue” – I with the indigenous Arawak people of of North In the coastal regions of North and South wasn’t feeling game enough to ask exactly Memphis the Caribbean, the colonizing Spaniards and South Carolina, pitmasters go whole hog – what that meant – and some side dishes to Though viticulture is renowned for it, translated their practice of slow-cooking Carolina, literally – slow-cooking an entire pig. take the edge off my first bite of meat since snobbery can enter any scene, even the meat over coals into barbacoa, before Whereas Lexington, in western North I was a small child. famously laidback world of barbecue. My African slaves mastered these techniques pitmasters Carolina, is famed for shoulders, ribs, and a The smoke drifted through my palate, next stop was Memphis, where I was ringed to Know

and added their own dressings of citrus go whole hog tomato-based sauce. and the tender meat had a surprising tang, by locals at a bar just off Beale Street, Need and hot peppers. – literally – Using the whole animal seemed to me rounded out by a hint of sweetness. A hotly debating the merits of their favorite In the United States today, there are five like the most ethical and sustainable way of dash of “South Carolina gold” sauce – a barbecue joint amongst themselves. A muxe main barbecue centers: Texas, Memphis, slow-cooking consuming meat, and after a small pep talk mix of vinegar and mustard unique to the John Vargos, second-generation owner

performance artist Commons Wikimedia Lukas/Creative Mario Patinho Kansas City, Alabama, and the Carolinas. I an entire pig from the kitchen staff, I was ready to dive state’s barbecue – only enhanced the of Rendezvous, which has been ‘cuing

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South, after all – and chewed the fat with my fellow aficionados. In a line that was Feel more winding around the street, my fear of when you gagging on a big hunk of cow in front of all travel, with Getty Images / Onfokus

Getty Images / John Lovette these people began to drift away with the Stories smoke around us. The deliberately informal

service, long tables, and celebratory Welcome atmosphere made it feel like a backyard family get-together. Inside, La Barbecue owner LeAnn Mueller helped me overcome some of my ethical concerns. She, too, was once a vegan and vegetarian, and is big on Culture

integrity in the supply chain. An early & Art adherent to the growing “happy cows” movement, she says that her suppliers can tell her what next season’s brisket cuts will look like. Cooking it is something of an artform, & Towns &

Carolina pulled and a good pitmaster has an almost Cities Old wood pork barbecue harmonious understanding with the animal. arrow BBQ Sign sandwich “Good brisket should be tender and moist,” she explained. “You want a nice bark around the outside. The fat should be

since 1948, explained that devotees tend to struck me most was the distinct texture, the blend, it was apparent that I was doing rendered clear and not tough. The point of Road Trips have a narrow scope, because barbecue is complex interplay of fat and flesh pros call barbecue wrong. slow-cooking brisket is that it gets the fat specific to restaurants even more so than “mouth feel”. While I was unexpectedly enjoying tender so that it renders through the meat regions. the taste of meat, the texture of it was and makes it nice and juicy, otherwise it Memphis is best known for its dry rubs Alabama still strange; at times, my throat would stalls and goes kind of snotty if not cooked – local lore says that the smoke is the By the time I reached Alabama, my early involuntarily close over. I fretted about correctly.” While I doubt sauce – and, like the Carolinas, hogs are success stalled. As my mission felt like factory farming and the environment, As she explained her family’s barbecue I’ll ever be a & Wildlife Nature Nature the animals of choice. Vargos leaves the it had turned to creatively shifting meat and the traveler’s virtues of staying roots – grilling the leftover cuts from their full-fledged membrane on his ribs because it holds the around my plate rather than actually eating true to yourself and being open to grocery store for itinerant workers – I dove juices, which isn’t to everyone’s taste, so I it, I began discovering the other great thing experimentation dueled nightly in my mind. into a plate of plain meat, unadulterated carnivore, applied my taste buds to the darker meat about barbecue: the sauce. by sauces or sides, for the first time in my conquering of the pork shoulder, rubbed in vinegar Even the flakiest roadside joint seems to Texas life. And, for the first time on my odyssey, I my fear of

and a mix of Greek and Cajun spices, and have its own top-secret sauce, although By the time my travels took me to Texas, made more than a dent in my plate. Adventure smoked for 12 hours. there’s a saying that if you need to add my gastronomical ego had been cut to the While I doubt I’ll ever be a full-fledged meat has While comforted by the familiar tangs of sauce to your barbecue, then they’re doing bone. But the idea of a plate of Lone Star carnivore, conquering my fear of meat has made me oregano and chilli, I spent most of my meal Even the it wrong; sauce should enhance the flavor, steer was made less daunting by the city of made me appreciate that there’s a lot of appreciate thinking of how to describe the taste of meat. not mask the improper way of cooking it. Austin itself. flakiest love – not to mention skill – in barbecue. that there’s Like the infamous 1964 Supreme Court case Alabama takes its inspiration from More Coachella than cowboy, its grills are That I need help in getting through my on pornography, when Justice Potter Stewart roadside all over, but specializes in chicken and nestled between art galleries and caravans plate only means I’ll never be short of a lot of to Know

said it was difficult to define, but “I know it joint seems white sauce, a blend of mayonnaise and of vintage clothes. Forget pistols at dawn, dinner companions in the South. In my love – not Need when I see it,” the taste of meat – with layers to have its vinegar that is used liberally in the cooking it’s barbeques shortly after, as diehards from quest to learn how to eat meat, I realized to mention of savory, sweet, and a dominant smokiness process. The creaminess blended perfectly around the world line up for hours at some that food is about so much more than what throughout – was something my virgin palate own top- with the sharp saltiness of chicken, but as 20 joints competing for our appetites. goes in your stomach – it’s really about skill – in instinctively knew when I tasted it. But what secret sauce I overwhelmed my plate with the house I ordered a morning beer – it is the bringing people together. barbecue

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SHARE STORIES As American as Apple Cider British Nomad Neil McRobert seeks a United States

he fears is long vanished. Welcome

went to Maine in pursuit of the “real” father Mario, a classically trained chef, world a few centuries earlier. America. I was chasing small towns, served garden-grown food to the affluent I dragged it out into the sunlight and Iclapboard homes, wooden lighthouses, community. Built in 1763, the inn had been went to fetch Lara’s husband. Jay was a diners, milkshakes, jukeboxes, baseball, lovingly restored, with painted shutters real outdoorsman, long of hair, calm of Culture

and farmers in John Deere caps. I wanted on every window, antique furniture, and temperament, and full of knowledge. He & Art to live a Bruce Springsteen song, to even a private graveyard that housed the took one look.

summon a summer from the pages of descendants of the original owners. There “It’s a cider press. It must be old.” Neil McRobert Mark Twain, Ray Bradbury, and Stephen was the aura of an institution about the Very old, as it turned out. This kind of King. The romantic in me longed for this; place. It was a landmark, an integral seam of press was common in the 19th century, the realist assumed such an America had glue binding the community. On Wednesday before the advent of hydraulics. We were The apples rolled in. We filled buckets & Towns & vanished beneath waves of corporate nights, the restaurant suspended its fine- looking at history. and sacks and carted them home in the The Cities culture, political cynicism, and the decline dining prestige and we fired up the pizza “Well, what do we do with it?” I asked, back of a rusted Ford pickup. Finally, we following of traditional economies. I didn’t expect to oven. In the lazy twilight, everyone would expecting we’d be selling it to one of the had enough to press and we set to work find the romance I was seeking, hidden in a eat and meet in the gardens, a slice in one town’s antique specialists. on an afternoon that glowed the very gold Wednesday, red-painted barn. hand, a bottle of beer in the other. “Only one thing we can do with it,” Jay of apple flesh (though maybe that’s my the town Wiscasset is a gem of a village. It sprawls One mid-October afternoon, I was tasked said. “Make cider.” memory doing its work). gathered Road Trips along the Sheepscot River in Lincoln with cleaning out a storage space in the First, some restoration was needed. It was hard work, turning the press by County, a part of the US landmass that is as barn. As I sifted through broken garden One by one, we sanded and varnished hand to crush the fruit. Each bucketful outside the much water as earth, with countless streams equipment and old tractor parts, I unearthed the wooden bucket panels to a deep, seemed to yield only a cursory amount inn, with a and tributaries carving the land into islands. an odd-looking object. An angular puzzle of cherrywood gleam. Jay went in search of juice. Hour by hour though, the volume slice in one A sign welcomes you to “the prettiest iron wheels and wooden frame, topped with of screws and bolts to fit a machine from increased, until we had liters of the stuff. It village in Maine.” Having seen much of the a wooden bucket, it looked like something another century. Somehow, he found hand and a

gave off a medicinal odor that was far from & Wildlife

state, I find it hard to argue. Main Street used to torment witches in this part of the them, proof that Mainers really don't throw appetizing. That’s where Mario’s culinary cup of cider Nature curves down to the river, where the state- anything useful away. experience came into play. Liberal amounts in the other We raided famous Red’s Eats serves lobster rolls to Finally, it stood there: oiled, stripped of of sugar, cinnamon, and cloves soon the band of drooling customers tired from ransacking rust, and with all its mechanical wounds created an apple-pie aroma that made your apple trees the bookshops and antique dealerships that healed. mouth flood. Neil McRobert that bordered keep the small tourist economy pulsing. We raided the band of apple trees that In that part of the world, cider isn’t usually Adventure I arrived by Greyhound from Vermont. It bordered the river. That small hoard filled alcoholic. It is, however, a delightful mixer the river. That was the third month of my travels around a few large buckets; not enough to make for your own brandy, whisky, or schnapps. small hoard North America, subsisting on bed and more than a few pints. Clearly, we had to That’s why, the following Wednesday, the filled a few board for a day’s work. My home was to be think about expansion. town gathered outside the inn, with a slice an inn and restaurant on the banks of the In those few weeks, as fall submitted to in one hand and a cup of cider in the other. large buckets; Sheepscot. I would spend the fall and early winter, I think I met everyone in Wiscasset. As I served the pizza, more than one to Know

not enough to winter working in the restaurant, tending the Jay, Mario, and I went house to house along person handed me a cup and a nod, and Need make more gardens and, on one perilously windy day, the rural lanes, knocking at doors and often a smile. There were faces I recognized scrambling 30ft (9m) up a ladder to paint asking the surprised inhabitants a) if they and those I didn’t, but I felt wholly part than a few the eaves. had apple trees and b) would they like to of something. I felt like I had found my pints The inn was managed by Lara, and her join our informal collective. America.

18 19 worldnomads.com Calakmul SEEK EXPERIENCES in Southern

Campeche Alan Karchmer

4 MUSEUMS Welcome

WORTH A Culture SPECIAL TRIP & Art

In the US, you can find museums dedicated to everything from Towns & puppetry to pizza. We chose four that taught our Nomads Cities something profound about American history and culture. Road Trips National Museum of African architect David Adjaye, is meant to appear American History and Culture, to hover above ground as a display of National Museum resilience, hope, and faith. It’s also said of African American Washington, DC History and Culture Opened in 2016, the National Museum of to mimic the tiered crown worn by African African American History and Culture is royalty of the Yoruba tribe. nestled in Washington, DC’s National Mall As an African-American woman born in a & Wildlife

area, around the corner from the White Southern state, I was eager to see it. was inspired watching the many videos of how a mother could grieve such an event. Nature House. Its bronze-colored, three-tiered The museum holds five floors of more triumph for African Americans in sports, Seeing a slave cabin and the silk shawl ziggurat design is a striking addition to than 36,000 artifacts and 12 exhibitions. medicine, music, and other areas. The of anti-slavery heroine Harriet Tubman the nation’s capital and, according to the It details the Middle Passage slave trade years of American history that constantly left me awestruck, with mixed feelings of route, the inception of America, and the depicted black people as “lesser” is gratitude and rage. But it left me feeling

Civil Rights Movement, all the way to disproved through the exhibits of greats hopeful, too. I believe, deep down, we’re Adventure present-day. like Chuck Berry (“The Father of Rock & more alike than different, and the better

Alan Karchmer Awareness of the complicated history Roll”), Muhammad Ali (heavyweight boxing we understand each other's past, the Its bronze- of African Americans in the United champion/activist), and Madame CJ better equipped we’ll be to create a colored, three- States just isn’t enough to describe the Walker (first black woman millionaire). brighter future. tiered ziggurat rollercoaster of emotions that I felt in this It was also a source of tears and anger Imani Bashir museum. Seeing outfits and costumes of as I stared at the masks worn by Ku Klux

design is to Know a striking some of my own, my parents’ and their Klan members, and the casket of Emmitt Currier Museum of Art, Need parents’ favorite celebrities reminded Till, the teenage boy who was murdered Manchester, New Hampshire addition to National Museum me of Saturday mornings singing in the and mutilated after being accused of New Hampshire's Currier Museum of Art of African American the nation’s kitchen while my Dad made breakfast and whistling at a white woman. I held my own is guarded by a giant. This is Origins: a History and Culture capital played his favorite “doo wop” records. I Baum Lynn Stacy son very close, not being able to fathom Currier Museum of Art tangle of steel crowned with hard

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thumbed a piece of paper into an empty WWII Veteran and Navajo Code Talker space. Then she left without once looking Dan Akee back. I waited before approaching. This is what I read. The most beautiful fall day.

9:00am, my daughter asked if dad had Welcome called – he had not. There was no time to say goodbye. God bless them everyone. At the top of the page was written the question: "Where were you on September 11th, 2001?" Culture

I cried because the Currier had captured & Art the most iconic of American tragedies in the most American of ways: with quiet dignity and individualism within the crowd. Neil McRobert & Towns &

Navajo Code Talkers Museum, Cities Grand Canyon NP photo by Erin Whittaker Tuba City, Arizona If I hadn’t known the Navajo Code Talkers Museum was here, tucked inside a curves. It glows dull orange or gleams historic, stone trading post in northern Museum of

Street Art Views Wayfaring

fire-engine red in the Manchester sunlight, Arizona, I’d have missed it. Established Road Trips and it announces that the Currier is not in 1906, the Tuba City Trading Post, in your typical small-town museum. the Navajo Nation territory, is flush with Inside, the museum's architectural indigenous silverwork and weaving, but also on display, along with a reminder that Bowery is apropos because the modern- anonymity belies the depth of what it there’s a second legacy here, too, in these brave Code Talkers achieved what day street art movement was spawned in contains. Ever-changing collections offer a nondescript annex at the rear. In the they set out to do: the Japanese never New York in the early 1980s. The Lower a comprehensive view of American and early days of its involvement in World managed to break the Navajo code and, East Side was pretty edgy then, and it & Wildlife

world artwork in all possible mediums. War II, tired of having its codes broken with their help, the Allies won the war in has remained a hotbed for world-class Nature Though it has an international perspective, by the Japanese, the American military the Pacific. street art. the museum also holds community at its looked to the Navajo people for a Shoshi Parks The museum was conceived by the heart, with privileged space given to local A few people complex and isolated language in which hotel’s designers and executed by artists and interactive exhibits. wandered to communicate about tactics and troops. Museum of Street Art, 20 well-respected street artists who The latter made me cry in the autumn around, each The Native American soldiers known as New York City had been part of the 5 Pointz graffiti Adventure of 2015. While trawling the halls, I the “Code Talkers” were later credited Standing at the top-floor landing of the community. 5 Pointz was a famed mural stumbled across a bare room. A few seemingly with being essential to America’s victory. stairwell, it’s hard to tell what I’ll discover space on a derelict building complex people wandered around, each seemingly alone with As a memorial, this museum is below. But, plunging down 20 stories, in Brooklyn, which was razed in 2014 alone with their thoughts. In turn, they their thoughts. humble and quiet, with black-and-white what I get is a modern history of New for a redevelopment project. When each wrote on small pieces of paper and In turn, they photographs of the recruits lining the York City, told with spray paint. It’s street that happened, New York’s street art affixed them to the walls. A few added museum’s hall. I marveled at the battle art that’s not on the streets, housed in a community experienced a collective

each wrote on to Know photographs. small pieces gear and weapons issued to each Navajo museum of the most unusual sort. mourning process. MOSA revives the spirit Need I sat for a while. Next to me, a middle- marine – helmets and machetes that seem The Museum of Street Art (MOSA) is a of 5 Pointz with a series of murals that aged woman sat clutching a note in her of paper and primitive by today’s military standards. “vertical love letter” to New York, sprayed celebrate New York’s culture, diversity, hand. She was waiting. As the last person affixed them The original communications equipment onto the stairwell of the CitizenM hotel and history. filtered out of the room, she stood and to the walls used during several of the campaigns are in The Bowery. MOSA’s location in The Carol Guttery

22 23 worldnomads.com Hilton Head Island LEARN SOMETHING NEW Travels With the Gullah-Geechee

Along the South Atlantic coast, descendants of Welcome African slaves maintain a distinct language and culture, and these influences can be felt from Charleston’s famous food scene to the music of Mardi Gras. Joe Furey takes us on a journey into

the past and present of Gullah life. Culture Art & Art

espite its dull label, the South Atlantic coastal plain is a place of decided wonder. As much air and & Towns &

D Cities water as solid ground, it’s more a state of mind than strictly mappable territory – a theater of weather, of scudding clouds, tenebrous skies, and sudden sunshine; its deck of dunes, salt marshes, estuaries,

and islands constantly shuffled by wind Road Trips and sea. Dahnoun Getty Images / Rachid As it journeys 400mi (645km) south, from Pender County, North Carolina, to St John’s County, Florida, the plain attracts more important of its titles: the Gullah-Geechee Which stood them in good stead when, developed in the '50s as America’s first poetic names: Tidewater, the Lowcountry, Cultural Heritage Corridor. in 1861, just 11 months after South Carolina eco-resort, doesn’t give much of its history the Golden Isles. But whatever sentimental The Gullah – who in Georgia are better sparked the Civil War by seceding from away, unless you know where to look. The & Wildlife

nomenclature clings to the region, it has known as the Geechee – are descendants the US, Hilton Head Island, a barrier island patchwork of bridal-white sands, manicured Nature an official designation, too, as a federal of the Central and West African slaves who close to the Georgia border, fell to Federal fairways, and protected wetlands is equal National Heritage Area, arguably the most were put to work in the cotton fields, rice troops after they mounted what would parts postcard, playground, and preserve, Take a paddies, and indigo plantations that made be the largest amphibious landing by US but the Gullah’s influence can still be felt in Heritage Trail fortunes for the English colonists who forces until D-Day. the food, arts, and crafts.

settled the Corridor 300 years ago. On her Finding the slaves who had been Take a Heritage Trail Tour of Gullah Adventure Tour of Gullah father’s side, former First Lady Michelle abandoned there living in scandalous neighborhoods such as Stoney and Squire neighborhoods Obama is descended from the Gullah. Her conditions, yet impressed by their Pope, and the sweetgrass basket-making such as Stoney great-great grandfather, Jim Robinson, comradeship, General Ormsby Mitchell studio of Michael Smalls; then visit the Getty Images / bddigitalimages and Squire was a slave on Friendfield Plantation near confiscated Confederate land and gave Gullah Museum of Hilton Head Island, the Georgetown, South Carolina. it to the Gullah, along with the means physical manifestation of a not-for-profit Pope, and the Laboring on large plantations in isolated, to lay streets and build homes. The organization that preserves culturally to Know

sweetgrass often inhospitable rural areas, with little town, Mitchelville, named in honor of its significant buildings, maintains a record of Need basket-making oversight from their captors, the Gullah benefactor, became the first self-governing Gullah history, and puts on events, from were able to develop a distinctive ethnic settlement of freed African-Americans in food festivals and oyster roasts to benefits studio of identity founded on a common language, the US. and Christmas concerts. Weaving sweetgrass Michael Smalls faith, and shared cultural traditions. Today, Hilton Head Island, which was They say that the past is another country,

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but you can get there via Daufuskie Island, (from Senegal and Gambia), Kikongo a largely unspoiled neighbor of Hilton Head The Gullah’s (Congo) and Fon (Benin), Gullah is spoken that’s just 55mi (89km) by ferry and car biggest by some 250,000 people today, up and from Savannah, Georgia. Walking dirt roads down the Corridor. Two years ago, Harvard fringed by live oaks guarding antebellum impact on University offered Gullah-Geechee as mansions, I was given an introduction mainstream a language class in its African language

to The Way Things Used To Be by Sallie culture is food program, taught by Sunn m'Cheaux, a Welcome Anne Robinson, whose family have called native-speaker from Charleston, South themselves Islanders for six generations. – and nowhere Carolina. Ebullient company, an authority on Gullah is that more Gullah is an intensely musical language culture, a chef, author, and the model for a obvious than that lends itself to performance, on the character in Pat Conroy’s bestselling novel Charleston stage and in church. In both settings, I The Water Is Wide, Sallie is the only native have seen the McIntosh County Shouters, Culture

professional guide on Daufuskie. “master artists of the authentic ring shout,” & Art To remember our history is to pay a reduce Savannah audiences to tears and tribute to those who came before us, but palpitations. Part dance, part call-and- cultures don’t live in museums. Gullah response song, the “shout” is an ecstatic, culture is at its most vital when you don’t transcendental religious experience, know it’s at work. In everyday dress which, in admittedly somewhat bastardized & Towns &

and speech, for instance, or in song form, has been adopted by the Mardi Gras Cities and worship. Even in exterior design. Indians of New Orleans. Visitors to South Carolina often note that The Gullah are also great storytellers, householders paint their porch ceilings having passed down a talent for Charleston

Charleston Convention & Visitors Bureau City Market Photography Getty Images / Ellen LeRoy Shrimp and grits and window frames a soft pale – or “haint” showmanship and a rich stock of ballads,

– blue, a color the Gullah once thought fables, and trickster tales, often with an Road Trips served as a charm against ghosts (I say animal motif. The Georgia writer Joel “once”, but many still believe in witchcraft – Chandler Harris leant heavily on these grow our own vegetables and are keen but Gullah through and through, like the wudu or juju – and practice folk medicine). stories in his Uncle Remus/Brer Rabbit fishermen. Lowcountry cooking differs big tables provided for communal eating – TRIP NOTES English-based but with many loanwords books. from other southern cooking because because, as one waiter told me, his hand Charleston and from African languages as varied as Wolof But the Gullah’s biggest impact on seasonality and seafood are central to almost on my shoulder: “There’s more to a Hilton Head, in South Carolina, and mainstream culture is food – and nowhere it, but make no mistake, however fancy night out than your own company.” Savannah, in Georgia, & Wildlife is that more obvious than Charleston, the people make it, we, the African diaspora, The wisdom of that comment was picked are the best places Nature 11th oldest city in the US, which has been gave it to Charleston. You must remember out in neon for me at the James Beard to sample all aspects of Gullah culture. The kind of a big deal on the gastronomic front that as well as preparing meals for each award-winning Bertha’s Kitchen the following Corridor tends toward for at least a decade, but has recently other, the Gullah did all the cooking in night. BJ had recommended the family- the sultry in summer, been showered with plaudits as tastes the planters’ grand homes, adapting our owned establishment, and they found me but spring and fall are long, and the sea is have turned to what it does best: highly incredible larder to European culinary a spot at very short notice, “So long as you swimmably warm as Adventure sophisticated soul food. Also known as techniques.” don’t mind sitting with a birthday party.” The late as September. “Lowcountry cuisine”, this is inarguably a I ate stupendously well in Charleston. In menu was plain-speaking – pork chops, lima Gullah creation. great restaurants housed in a jaw-dropping beans, okra stew, collard greens – but the I went to “Chucktown” to taste for myself, collection of colonial, Georgian, Regency, eating was anything but: complex, deeply and to speak to BJ Dennis, a personal chef Italianate, Gothic revival, and Queen flavored, driven by dark roux and no small and caterer of Gullah descent, about his Anne buildings, I thoughtfully chomped amount of, well, love. By the end of the to Know

people’s legacy. my way through posh shrimp and grits, evening I was wearing a paper hat, blowing Need “We live close to the earth here,” he said. with scallops and lobster butter sauce; candles out on a second cake, and arranging “We interact with our environment, and feel cornmeal-fried catfish with Carolina gold to meet my new family for lunchtime drinks, Skillet of cornbread a spiritual connection with it. It is beautiful, rice purloo; oysters, littleneck clams, and because that’s the way they do things ‘round Andrew Cebulka fertile country, teeming with wildlife. We king mackerel. It was high dining, for sure, there: the Gullah way.

26 27 worldnomads.com Tlingit Keex SEEK EXPERIENCES Kwaan tribe, Juneau, Alaska

NATIVE Welcome

AMERICAN Culture JOURNEYS & Art

Indigenous culture is still very much alive in the US, with traditions Towns & as varied as the landscape. Eric Lucas shares his insights, and Cities explains how to experience Native culture for yourself. Road Trips Want to give it a try?” A few months later, and 2,000mi Haida carver Harley Holter hands (3,220km) away in northern New Mexico, Getty Images / The Washington Post Getty Images / The Washington me a small tool and indicates the section chef Karin Snowflower Martinez has her of a massive yellow cedar log I can attempt cooking grill set up in a small courtyard to shape. I’m in the tiny village of Kasaan, at UNESCO-listed Taos Pueblo, offering a on Southeast Alaska’s beautiful Prince of “pre-colonial” meal of blue cornmeal pies the deep complexities and delights of within the United States. They govern & Wildlife

Wales Island, admiring a totem pole local with venison, corn, and red chile filling. exploring America’s indigenous cultures. themselves, set their own rules, choose Nature artisans are creating for the village hall. It represents the foods New Mexico’s There are more than 600 distinct their own leaders, and practice politics as Chalk marks delineate the figures that Pueblo peoples enjoyed before the aboriginal groups in North America; the complicated as any anywhere. will adorn the pole – Raven, the Trickster; Spanish arrived four centuries ago – and Indigenous United States government recognizes Thunderbird, king of the skies; Bear, while the concept is intriguing, the pies people 573 different tribes, with at least 3 million Native American history and culture monarch of the woods. are just plain delicious. I tell Karin so, and welcome members (though Native leaders say their Indigenous people welcome visitors, Adventure In between the figures, open planes of she flashes a wide smile beneath ebony numbers are woefully undercounted). but often have sacred ceremonies and the log are being detailed with thousands hair and wide cheekbones that reflect her visitors, Their members, histories, traditions and traditions that are reserved for tribal of scallop marks that create a lovely stipple quintessentially Taoseño makeup, Native but often cultural practices are as diverse as on any members. Some events are invitation-only. pattern. That’s my task, and I press the American and Hispanic. have sacred continent, and visiting their homelands Their traditions often differ from modern adze blade to the wood to encounter one “Totally pre-colonial?” I ask. She laughs. ceremonies reveals many fascinating realities: standards, and they ask that visitors of life’s most persistent lessons: it’s not as “Well, OK, there might be a bit of grass- observe the differences – no photography

and traditions to Know

easy as it looks. My scallops are rough, fed beef. And I’m not frying them in bear • Native peoples are still here and, in many or videography, for instance, in many Need misshapen, uneven. Holter raises his fat!” that are cases, thriving in the 21st century. locations such as some New Mexico eyebrows and hands me some sandpaper. While the broad outlines of these two reserved • They treasure their traditions, but are fully pueblos. Yes, that means no Instagram: if “Maybe you could just smooth this part episodes seem simple – ethnic food for tribal engaged in modern life. you must digitally document every moment down here,” he suggests, grinning. and regional art – the details illustrate members • Native enclaves are autonomous nations of your travel, I suggest Times Square. No

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liquor is allowed on the Yakama Nation in Washington State; if you must have a drink with dinner, there are many places to do so outside Yakama boundaries. In addition, almost every Native backstory includes colonial oppression or Getty Images / DEA L.Romano Getty Images / DEA L.Romano

genocide, whether deliberate or less overt, Welcome such as the smallpox that nearly wiped out the Haida. Most Native locales include monuments to this dark past, and while tribal members do not dwell on them, it’s ungracious for visitors to blithely ignore them. Culture

Just outside the entrance to Taos Pueblo, & Art for example, is a cemetery on the site of a church that American cavalry troops destroyed in 1847, with about 150 Taoseños inside. Their histories also include victories little & Towns &

known to modern Americans – the Lakota Cities (Sioux) 1876 rout of Custer at the Battle Spider Rock, Canyon Annual powwow, Sioux Lakota tribe, de Chelly Monument Pine Ridge reservation, South Dakota of the Little Bighorn was only the most conspicuous such event. The Tlingit people of Sitka, Alaska,

demolished Russian forces in 1802 and establish the modern American cattle Where to experience admire – and buy – Lakota art. Road Trips drove the Europeans from Southeast industry. Not coincidentally, Indian rodeo indigenous culture Canyon de Chelly: This national monument Alaska for two years. And, in New is a tougher, rawer version of the Anglo There are hundreds, if not thousands, of in northeast Arizona protects the hidden Mexico, the Pueblo peoples revolted ranch sport; the White Swan Yakama venues to experience Native culture in the enclave where a Navajo band attempted against Spanish rule in 1680, driving the Nation rodeo each June is a quintessential United States – almost all of them west of to escape their people’s own Trail of Tears, conquistadors from the Rio Grande for example. I marveled at the “Squaw Race” the Mississippi. Here are just a few: the 1864 Long Walk. Today, Navajo Nation more than a decade. To this day, Puebloan in which female riders roared around the The capital of the property, it’s home to about 40 Navajo Tahlequah, Oklahoma: & Wildlife peoples call this “the first American track at full gallop – bareback. 350,000-strong Cherokee Nation is in families and can be visited only through Nature revolution.” Athabaskan villagers in Interior Alaska Eastern Oklahoma; its nearby Cherokee tours operated by Navajo guides. spend the long winters fiddling – literally, Heritage Center offers insight into traditional Southeast Alaska: The Tlingit, Haida, and International influences putting their own stamp on the music lifestyles, and the chance to learn how Tsimshian peoples who have lived here for “Tradition” is a complex concept that, in brought by Scottish traders and trappers in to make corn husk dolls, or hunt for thousands of years today populate dozens

many cases, includes ideas and activities the 19th century. And the various iterations Almost arrowheads. of remote villages reachable only by boat or Adventure indigenous peoples have adopted from of bannock, aka Indian fry bread, use a Pine Ridge, South Dakota: One of the floatplane. Europeans. For example, Aleut dancers grain imported from Europe five centuries every Native largest Native enclaves in the United States Juneau’s Sealaska Heritage Institute is a performing traditional drum chants ago – wheat. backstory embraces a vast section of the High Plains dynamic nonprofit organization representing sometimes break into Cossack dances, When you pull off the highway in the includes that famed Oglala leader Crazy Horse loved the region’s three indigenous peoples, reflecting the Russian heritage in Alaska shadow of Shiprock, New Mexico, one colonial and tried to defend. The area’s Chamber helping their cultures thrive and grow, and that dates back three centuries. of the Navajo’s sacred landmarks, to of Commerce near Kyle serves as a visitor offering visitors the chance to learn about

oppression to Know After they were driven from North buy a Navajo taco made with fry bread, or genocide, center; the Wounded Knee Monument and them. The Soboleff Center in downtown Need Carolina to Oklahoma, along the bitterly barbecued lamb, and hot sauce, it’s almost its heartbreaking cemetery mark the last Juneau features hand-carved posts, beams, cruel Trail of Tears in 1838, the Cherokee totally post-colonial – only the chiles are whether major Indian massacre in 1890. The Red and longhouse panels that have more than established a new homeland and became pre-contact – but it is wildly savory, unique, deliberate or Cloud Indian School, north of Pine Ridge, a half-million adze marks, all of them better active livestock growers – helping and photo-worthy. less overt has an excellent art gallery where you can than I managed to achieve in Kasaan.

30 31 worldnomads.com Melissa McMasters Welcome Culture Art & Art & Towns & Cities Road Trips & Wildlife

American communities are Nature microcosms of US culture – they tell the history of the country through their

architecture, food, and Adventure CITIES customs, and are constantly reinventing themselves. Our Nomads share the multi- faceted, personality-rich cities that are undergoing & TOWNS to Know a renaissance, and invite Need you to explore the hidden Strip District, Pittsburgh treasures just outside major metropolises.

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UNDERRATED Welcome

USA Culture Often overlooked in favor of San Francisco, New York, Chicago, & Art or Miami, these eight cities are coming into their own, with newly vibrant centers, revitalized architecture, and plenty of local flavor. & Towns & Cities Oakland, California feature is its geographic diversity and Oakland finally got its share of the spotlight natural beauty, from the centrally located in 2018. This city of around 420,000, Lake Merritt – popular with runners, walkers, perpetually in the shadows of its more and families – to the sweeping bay views

famous neighbor across the Bay (San of the Oakland Hills. Visitors might be Road Trips Francisco), was featured in three films that surprised to learn about the opportunities year: Black Panther, the third highest- for hiking and picnicking at Joaquin Miller grossing movie in US history and directed Park, Redwood Regional Park, or Lake by Oakland native Ryan Coogler, and two Temescal. In short, far from the “urban war indie films that made some critics’ best- zone” stereotype that has long plagued the

Brandon Zack / Unsplash Detroit, Michigan of-the-year lists, Sorry To Bother You and city, Oakland is a vibrant, economically and & Wildlife

Blindspotting. ethnically diverse city that has a ton to offer. Nature All three films are a testament to the I currently call Oakland home, and though special place Oakland occupies in the realm I’m a San Francisco native, I doubt I’d move Midwest, Detroit is making a new name for to make our community a beautiful place.” of black history and culture. Nonetheless, Oakland’s back across the Bay, even if I could afford itself: Comeback City. Others share the same vision. In Highland it’s also one of the most diverse cities in mild weather it. I prefer Oakland’s laid-back vibe, lack of Detroit shares its residents’ spirit – proud, Park, social enterprise Antique Touring the country, home to large Latino and Asian allows for pretentiousness, and welcoming attitude unapologetic, resilient, innovative, diverse. offers tours in vintage Ford Model As. And Adventure populations and some of the best Mexican, year-round toward families. But even though it’s resurging, Detroit’s in Corktown looms the abandoned Michigan Salvadoran, and Vietnamese food around. Rebecca Bodenheimer various neighborhoods aren’t recovering at Central Station, which the Ford Motor In fact, Oakland now rivals San Francisco events like equal rates, which contributes to increasing Company recently invested US $740 million as a foodie destination. Oakland’s mild First Fridays Detroit, Michigan inequality. Where there is a Detroiter, in to restore. The 105-year-old train station weather allows for both year-round events – a family- Underneath me, pavement crumbles into though, there is a solution. will soon house local shops and a research like First Fridays – a family-friendly event potholes. Rising up from that, though, a Take the Heidelberg Project, Tyree center on self-driving vehicles. Learn how

friendly event to Know that includes local artists, musicians, and that includes mural proclaims Nothing Stops Detroit. Guyton’s street-long outdoor art Deeper in Detroit is Hamtramck, an to Travel Need food trucks – and annual events like the Art This is the city that filed for bankruptcy installation just north of the Black Bottom enclosed two-square-mile city, where Responsibly local artists, on your + Soul Festival, which draws big-name R&B six years ago – the largest municipal neighborhood. On a rainy-day visit, Guyton’s women in hijab browse through Polish next trip and jazz artists. musicians, and bankruptcy in US history. Once known sister tells me “he saw what was happening grocery stores. Originally an enclave for Perhaps Oakland’s most underrated food trucks as Motown, Motor City, and Paris of the to other neighborhoods… he just wanted Polish immigrants, Hamtramck is now

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the first US city with a majority Muslim population and city council. Some call Hamtramck a refuge, and if that’s so, then Cratt KC it’s Detroit that’s offering refuge. Has Detroit made its comeback? Not quite Getty Images / Thomas Winz yet. But that’s precisely why it’s important to Culpepper Getty Images / Rob

visit. Travelers can not only witness Detroit’s Welcome renaissance, but play an active role in it. Sarah Bence

Los Angeles, California When I moved to Southern California 25 years ago, Downtown Los Angeles Culture

was run down – a dismal landscape of & Art abandoned factories and deserted streets. But, in recent years, the neighborhood has undergone a seismic shift, with world-class art museums and trendy galleries and hotels transforming dilapidated industrial & Towns &

buildings into cutting-edge, creative Elmwood Ave. Cities spaces. Lake Merritt, Birmingham, Festival of Arts, Oakland Alabama Buffalo The Geffen Contemporary at MOCA exemplifies this transition. Once a police warehouse, it’s now home to 40,000ft2 2 (3,715m ) of exhibition space housed in a Chaplin, for screenings at the now-restored a powerhouse of early industry because actually funny – I got outside to ice skate at Road Trips Frank Gehry-designed building. Golden Age theatre. of its location on the Erie Canal, between Canalside and try cross-country skiing. But Behind an intriguing honeycomb Retail and restaurants are part of the the Great Lakes, and near Niagara Falls. Its Buffalo really comes alive in the summer, façade, The Broad houses a 2,000-piece urban renewal, too. Originally the LA fortunes changed in the mid-20th century, as if nature is rewarding Buffalonians contemporary art collection with works Terminal Market, Row DTLA is now a when much industry moved elsewhere and for enduring the winter. There are street by Andy Warhol and Jeff Koons. And, in shopping and culinary hub. I bring my the city lost more than half its population. festivals in Elmwood and Allentown, weekly an effort to make art accessible to all, appetite on Sundays, when Smorgasburg But, it never lost its mansions, Art Deco craft markets, food truck Tuesdays at & Wildlife

admission is free. LA sets up shop at the Alameda Produce City Hall, Frank Lloyd Wright-designed Larkin Square, free concerts at Canalside Nature When I want to explore the underground Market here. Dozens of vendors dish up buildings, ornate Queen Anne-style (with some really big-name acts), and scene, the Arts District’s galleries are an everything from vegan donuts to juicy homes, or proximity to Niagara Falls. opportunities to kayak and sail on the river, incubator of experimentation. A former flour porchetta. If craft beer is your beverage of All of these are great reasons to go and canal, and Lake Erie. mill, Hauser & Wirth is now a contemporary Like many choice, Arts District Brewing Company’s check out Buffalo. Plus, in recent years Elen Turner art gallery that has preserved elements of transplants, 15-barrel brewhouse is the place to be. the waterfront areas and ex-industrial Adventure its past, including the original motif of wheat And, thanks to vast improvements in apparatus, like enormous grain silos, Birmingham, Alabama sheaves. The gallery supports a range of I originally Downtown’s public transportation links, it’s have been developed and turned into It’s generally understood that phoenixes emerging and established artists across moved to Los possible to avoid the city’s infamous traffic recreational areas for residents and rise from ashes and that any city enjoying various mediums, with a steady stream of Angeles to and explore car-free via pedestrian-friendly visitors. Investment is trickling back in and a renaissance must once have had it rotating exhibits. work in the streets, the Metro, and bike and electric once-neglected places – often hiding tough. But what if the city brought the Like many transplants, I originally moved scooter shares. architectural gems – are being revived. conflagration that reduced it to nothing

film business. to Know to Los Angeles to work in the film business. Cinephiles like Allison Tibaldi I lived in Buffalo for a year and a half, on itself? That’s a question often asked Need Cinephiles like myself flock to Downtown’s and explored the city with the insider- of Birmingham, which during the civil Ace Hotel, in the renovated United Artists myself flock to Buffalo, New York outsider perspective of a resident and a rights period acquired the nickname building that once housed the production Downtown’s In the 19th century, Buffalo was one of the tourist. Although the winter is a time for “Bombingham” due to the campaign of companies of movie greats such as Charlie Ace Hotel wealthiest cities in the United States. It was hibernation – the snow can be so deep it’s terrorism waged by proponents of racial

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segregation. Between 1947 and 1965, more Bricktown, former brothel, within walking distance of than 50 crimes involving explosives were Oklahoma City Broadway shows on tour at the Providence recorded. Black community leaders were Performing Arts Center. targeted, children killed, and churches and Sure, Providence is home, and so it will houses destroyed – and the majority of always have my heart. But if you’re not those crimes went unsolved. careful, it’ll easily snag yours, too.

Birmingham’s approach to its history is to Kassondra Cloos Welcome confront it head-on. It has wholeheartedly embraced its importance as a destination on Oklahoma City, Oklahoma the US Civil Rights Trial, which was launched “Where do you want to eat?” my friend last year and connects 110 sites of historical asked me, both of us ravenous and still significance, chiefly across the South. full of adrenaline from an afternoon of But Birmingham is more than a rueful whitewater rafting in downtown Oklahoma Culture

memorial to its grisly past. Founded in City. We had conquered the Class II to IV & Art 1871 as an iron, steel, and rail town, it grew raging water at RIVERSPORT Rapids, one quickly, earning the nickname “the Magic of the only man-made urban rafting centers City”. Its recently rejuvenated downtown in the nation, and we were ready for a cold area, with its striking Art Deco and neo- drink and a hearty meal. gothic buildings, is a testimony to the good Whenever someone asks me where to & Towns &

taste of that boom time. eat in Oklahoma City, I groan a little inside. Cities Providence Birmingham’s population had been Athenaeum Providence Athenaeum VisitOKC Not because I can’t think of a decent place steadily dropping until a decade ago, to eat, but because there are so many when it started to attract the advance choices, from traditional Vietnamese in the guard of gentrification: musicians, artists, Asian District to award-winning restaurants

gourmands, and their pals in tech. To be performance venues quadrupling in under international recognition, hipster doughnut in Midtown. Road Trips fair to them, the transformation has been 10 years. shops with cult followings, and multi-story Not so long ago, OKC was considered impressive. Pepper Place, the home of The ‘Ham has a growing food scene, too. murals cascading down the city’s most a fly-over location, with a ghost-town Alabama’s largest farmers’ market and the It’s not for nothing that Zagat readers voted historic buildings. Providence has been downtown and sad nightlife. In the 1980s 19-acre Railroad Park, used to be a few it the “number one up-and-coming food slower to grow than other cities of its and early 1990s, college co-eds like me blocks of gutted warehouses and tracks city” in a recent national survey. size, and its affordability has fueled small didn't go downtown at night. Besides the going nowhere. Avondale, a formerly Joe Furey businesses – you won’t see many chains fact the city “rolled up the sidewalks” at & Wildlife

unprepossessing district of car repair downtown. 5pm, the area was shady and ominous in Nature businesses, gas stations, and rust, is Providence, Rhode Island I love walking up College Hill, one of its emptiness – a far cry from the hopping, now a walkable neighborhood lined with Providence is a small city by any measure, the state’s best-preserved colonial-era brightly-lit vibe that it has today. brunch places, bars, and breweries, and at just 20.5mi2 (53km2) and home to neighborhoods, to sit in Prospect Terrace But combine a rabid love of public art, a A massive, once-subdued Forest Park is livelier for its 180,000 people. But, without a doubt, it’s Park, overlooking the city for sunrise and ripping music and performance scene, a highly- independent stores, consignment shoppers, Birmingham also one of the most underappreciated sunset. I love tip-toeing to the second floor new public streetcar system, an NBA team, anticipated Adventure and generally bohemian air. Most of these cities in America. of the Providence Athenaeum, perhaps the and districts that get hipper every day, and neighborhoods are linked by greenways, started to I might be a little biased. I grew up in most photogenic library in the US, to write OKC is being called the new “Austin of the urban park which, come the weekend, are ablur with attract the Pawtucket, literal steps from the Providence at an ancient desk sandwiched between Plains.” now under cyclists making use of America’s first electric advance city line. And, of course, it’s often easier to stacks of old books. I love grabbing a frozen A massive, highly-anticipated urban park construction bike-share program. guard of love a place once you’ve left it. It’s been 10 Del’s lemonade – watermelon, of course now under construction will bridge OKC's will bridge Almost equidistant between Memphis, years since I’ve lived there. But every time I – and clambering for a front-row view of quickly regenerating downtown to the

gentrification: OKC's quickly to Know the blues capital of the US, and Atlanta, visit, it just gets better. WaterFire, an art installation of bonfires on Oklahoma River. Nearby, the old warehouse regenerating Need hip-hop’s center of gravity, Birmingham is musicians, Thanks in part to an esteemed culinary the Providence River that has enchanted district of Bricktown, sometimes described becoming a hothouse for musical talent, artists, and arts school, Johnson & Wales, and edgy the city on special nights since 1994. And as a miniature version of San Antonio's downtown to with punk, Americana, and metal bands their pals in art students at the Rhode Island School of I love that it’s possible to stay at a sub-US famous Riverwalk, continues to add more the Oklahoma pulling in big audiences, and the number of tech Design, you’ll find top restaurants gaining $100 boutique hotel room in a renovated nightlife and entertainment options. River

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On the south bank of the Allegheny, where mills once choked the city with smoke, the Strip District looks like a textbook illustration of a miraculous recovery. Just northeast of Downtown’s museums, galleries, and theaters, its

warehouses and factory buildings Welcome now house dive bars, art studios, craft workshops, Polish delis, the Heinz History Center, a whiskey distillery and “Robotics Row”, an area where a string of tech companies have set up shop. Pittsburghers – or Yinz – are fiercely loyal Culture

to their city. And the city celebrates them & Art The Duquesne Incline, Pittsburgh back. Its heroes come in various forms, Getty Images / Michael Lee many of them athletic. Game days are hectic – the streets are flooded with black OKC’s renaissance wasn’t by accident, and gold, the colors of its three professional though. After the April 19, 1995 bombing sporting franchises – but brain is as revered & Towns &

of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building as brawn in the ‘Burgh, so long as it’s from Cities that claimed 168 lives, the city and its there, and its cultural life is rich and diverse. citizens refused to be defined by tragedy. See for yourself at these Northside With an upswelling of pride and a crusade neighbors: Randyland, Randy Gibson’s to heal itself, the citizens and leaders bemuralled house containing his own UNEXPECTED

came together to create a downtown outsider creations; The Mattress Factory, Road Trips that mirrored the indefatigable spirit a showcase of installation art; and City of Oklahomans. of Asylum, a non-profit organization that Creole Trail Ride Heide Brandes provides sanctuary for refugee writers Long before Hollywood Westerns, where who are under threat of persecution. The men on horseback chased “Indians” and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Andy Warhol Museum, the largest museum gunslingers fired pistols in between saloon doors, black cowboys herded cattle in Pittsburgh exists in the popular imagination dedicated to a single artist in the country, Louisiana. In the late 18th century, Creoles & Wildlife Nature Nature as one of the “Rust Belt” cities that, along is marvelous, a fitting shrine to the modern of mixed African and French descent were with Cleveland, Detroit, and Buffalo, were era’s greatest iconographer, iconolater, and some of the first cowboys in the US, but left for scrap after the industries that made iconoclast. Special mention must also go to for some reason, the image of a black their names closed for business. But while the August Wilson Cultural Center, a multi- man riding a horse has been largely left it’s true “the Steel City” did lose its way purpose venue that’s a leading promoter of out of history books. Fortunately, Creole cowboy culture thrives today in the form for a spell, it swiftly rebuilt its fortune on African-American arts. Adventure of trail rides. robotics, biomedical engineering, and Pittsburgh As befits a place of punishing inclines, self-driving tech, drawing on graduates Pittsburgh has two funicular railways, Nearly every weekend in small towns from Pittsburgh, Carnegie Mellon, and reminds me though having eaten my way around the throughout Louisiana and East Texas – Duquesne universities. of a shrunken, city I can tell you walking it off is the only and to a lesser extent Mississippi, Georgia, Built at the confluence of the Allegheny, hillier, vista- proper response to dining there. Don’t get and North Carolina – African-American Monongahela, and Ohio rivers, the City of me wrong, its restaurant scene is thoroughly men and women trot along streets and

peppered dusty paths on horseback. Beside them, to Know

Bridges (Pittsburgh has multiple names, modern, with southeast Asian and Chinese Need Chicago, with jam-packed trolleys dish out cold beers and 446 bridges at last count), is defined influences, but its light bites tend toward the which it shares and grilled meats while huge speakers by water. In this respect, it reminds me of a hulking – the Big Mac was invented here, blast traditional zydeco and country music. shrunken, hillier, vista-peppered Chicago, deep blue- after all, in a local McDonald’s. Nearby, rows of young and old swing their All photos: Stephanie Foden All photos: Stephanie with which it shares deep blue-collar roots. collar roots Joe Furey arms and hips in sync, practicing

40 41 worldnomads.com

traditional line dances passed down over the years. Recently, hip-hop music and DJs have injected more bounce into trail rides, to the delight of urbanites and the chagrin of traditionalist trail riders.

When the sun creeps below the horizon after several hours of riding, the horses get some much-needed rest, but the fun is far from finished. DJs and MCs keep the party going all night long with the help of bands, guitarists, and rappers while smoking food Welcome stands and coal-fired barbecues deliver juicy meats including rabbit, venison, squirrel, pork, chicken, or turkey legs smothered in gravy. You’re also sure to find steaming bowls of gumbo (meat stew) with ingredients like shrimp, okra, sausage, veggies, spices, and Culture

probably the kitchen sink. If it’s the right time & Art of year, usually between January and July in Louisiana, you might also see tables of boiled red crawfish from nearby swamps. Care for a cold one? Trail rides tend to be BYOB (which means you’ll also need to bring a drink- responsibly attitude). & Towns & Cities Horse or not, all are welcome at trail rides, and tickets tend to be extremely affordable, but despite their popularity, they can be tricky to find. Ask around in places like Lafayette or Breaux Bridge or visit the Zydeco events

website. Don’t forget to wear your cowboy hat Road Trips and your best dancing boots. Joel Balsam & Wildlife Nature Nature Adventure to Know Need All photos: Stephanie Foden All photos: Stephanie

42 43 worldnomads.com Shark Valley Hiking & LEARN SOMETHING NEW Biking Trail, Everglades National Park, Miami

5 ADVENTURES:

OUTSIDE THE Welcome

MAJOR CITIES Culture Many visitors to New York, Los Angeles, Miami, San Francisco, & Art or Houston never go beyond the city limits. But you don’t need to travel far to find yourself in a totally different world. & Towns & Cities Outside Houston: Although the Texas Czech Heritage Czech communities and Cultural Center in LaGrange is worth I love visiting the area I affectionately call a visit, I prefer to base myself in quaint Czexas, about a 90-minute drive west Schulenburg. The area is filled with

of Houston via Interstate 10. Settled by historic sites, museums, and antique Road Trips Getty Images / Wilsilver77 Bohemian and Moravian immigrants in the stores to peruse, and the churches in the mid-1800s, these pastoral communities communities of Dubina, High Hill, Praha, maintain their proud Czech heritage in and Ammannsville are awe-inspiring with everything from music to food, language, their hand-painted interiors based on see alligators, and the Shark Valley did through sawgrass plains, and it’s teeming architecture, and culture. October is festival traditional Czech designs. not disappoint. A 10ft (3m) long behemoth with life. (The waters feed into the nearby season, and the towns come alive with Local, family-owned meat markets and sunned itself on the side of the road, just a Shark River, which gives the park its name & Wildlife

old-fashioned church picnics and lively bakeries showcase all manner of Czech few steps away from us, jaws open to absorb and is home to numerous species of sharks.) Nature street fairs. foods. For breakfast, I get kolaches heat on a chilly day. Soon, we’d see ‘gators For those wishing to see an incredible (pastries filled with fruit or cheese) and at every turn, as well as turtles, fish, birds – concentration of Everglades wildlife, Shark klobásník (savoury ones filled with so many birds – and even a family of deer. Valley offers a remarkable glimpse of natural sausage) from the Kountry Bakery. Lunch Mother Nature was clearly in charge here, For those Florida as it once was. See it via tram ride, consists of smoked meats and homemade indifferent to the gawking humans with their wishing to see or better yet, hire a bike and take the 15mi Adventure sausages at City Market in Schulenburg, or cameras and binoculars. (24km) loop through the preserve. Just Kolacny's Barbecue and Novosad's Meat Just an hour before, we'd been having an incredible remember to brake for alligators. Market in Hallettsville. And, for a cold one breakfast on bustling, busy Miami Beach. concentration Elizabeth Heath with a side of Texas polka, Schulenburg’s Shark Valley Visitor Center is on the of Everglades historic Sengelmann Hall and the Moravia northern boundary of Everglades National wildlife, Shark Outside Los Angeles: Store are an absolute must, whether to Park, easily reachable from Miami via US Bombay Beach

Valley offers to Know dance or just soak it all up. 41. Here, visitors don't see a primordial, a remarkable Driving east from LA past the glittering Need Claudia Alarcón mosquito-filled swamp, but the true “River resorts of Palm Springs, a sense of doom of Grass” about which local conservationist glimpse of sets in as the dying Salton Sea appears St Mary's Catholic Outside Miami: Shark Valley Marjory Stoneman Douglas so tenderly wrote natural Florida on the horizon. Once a playground, where

Church, High Hill, Texas Donaho Jerry and Pat I promised my Italian boyfriend that he’d in the 1940s. Clear, clean water flows swiftly as it once was stars like Sinatra and the Beach Boys

44 45 worldnomads.com

LEARN SOMETHING NEW

and beach trails. The Bear Valley Visitors Center provides maps and info for activities

including hiking the Limantour Spit Beach Doron Resheff Trail, visiting the historic Point Reyes Lighthouse, or gray whale watching and

Getty Images / Sara Essex Bradley Getty Images / Sara Essex elephant seal viewing from the overlook at

Chimney Rock. Welcome

Getty Images / Tetra images RF / Adam Hester Getty Images / Tetra If I close my eyes, I can picture the Coastal Miwok, the peninsula's first human inhabitants, living peacefully off the land and its waters for more than 5,000 years. The only federally protected seashore in the western US, Point Reyes was Culture

rescued from potential development and & Art incorporated into the National Park System in 1962. Horse riding with a guide from Five Riding horses Brooks Ranch is one of my annual spring or Bombay Beach through the Point drive-in Reyes forest summer highlights. And on dark, moonless & Towns &

nights, pre-scheduled bioluminescence Cities night kayaking tours in the glowing tidal performed in its mid-century heyday, the The Last Resort, out of shipping containers. waters of nearby Tomales Bay are an motels and yacht clubs of California’s so- The inland sea may never be repopulated, unforgettable experience. called “inland Riviera” were abandoned by but we feel exhilarated to walk the deserted Frances Rivetti

the ’80s, as rising salinity killed off the fish streets, join a surreal dinner party in a Road Trips and the dream. derelict house hung with chandeliers, and Outside New York City: SUP It’s a desolate landscape for sure – until be part of something exciting happening, on the Hudson we turn off Hwy 111 at Bombay Beach and against all odds, in a place time forgot. The summer sun warms my bare shoulders our hearts lift with signs of life. This town Anthea Gerrie as I plunge my carbon paddle into the dark, built for 1,000, and where only 100 diehards sparkling water. Gliding by the massive SUP on the New remain, boasts a drive-in, an ersatz art Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum on my York Harbor near Outside San Francisco: Point Liberty Island & Wildlife museum, even an “opera house,” thanks Reyes National Seashore stand-up paddleboard, I head south on Nature to a crew of creative optimists who, every I always discover something new and New York City’s mighty Hudson River, spring, make it magical for the Bombay unexpected at this 71,000-acre (271km2) overtaking the tall skyscrapers and Beach Biennale. coastal wildlife sanctuary, about an hour weathered piers flanking the shore. destination, comes into view as I reach We’re here for a taster of the festival, If I have a north of San Francisco. If I have a couple The blue sky is clear and the waterway Battery Park, where the water grows marveling at the art installations which couple of of days, I like to hike in and pitch a tent at busy with ferries, speed boats, and jet bouncy from the wakes of the imposing, Adventure are now permanent and, unlike the other the small Coast Campground, with its easy skiers. I wave to tourists gawking at the orange Staten Island Ferry and Liberty attractions, can be experienced any days, I like access to the beach. One of the park's NYC skyline from the deck of the Circle Island ferries. Delicately balancing on the time. Those not taking in a movie, as we to hike in four backcountry campsites, it requires a Line harbor cruise as it sails past me. choppy water near Lady Liberty, I gaze up do, come to see live ballet and opera, and pitch a backcountry camping permit. It’s easy to forget that Manhattan is an with an awe that never fades, no matter slurp oysters in a St Tropez-style beach tent at the The weather can be changeable, with island. Over the past two decades, the how many times I see her. After a final club, or dance the night away in view of thick, coastal fog most mornings and Hudson River has become my year-round peek, I turn my board north and paddle

small Coast to Know a neon Save Me sign hanging wistfully Campground, evenings, so I've learned to dress in layers paddling playground, providing a mini- back to my boathouse. Need over the water. “It’s more a movement with a waterproof jacket in my backpack escape from fast-paced city life. Stefani Jackenthal than a festival,” says co-founder Stefan with its easy whatever the season. As I continue south, scores of sailboats Ashkenazy, who like many artists has access to the Hiking trails cover 150mi (240km) dance in the distance, criss-crossing New SUP lessons and daily tours are available from bought into the town and built its first hotel, beach through scenic fir and pine forest hilltops York Harbor. The Statue of Liberty, my MKC Kayak at Pier 84.

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CONNECT LOCALLY

LGBTQ TRAVELERS:

LESSER- Welcome

KNOWN Culture DESTINATIONS & Art Ed Salvato reveals the best LGBTQ-friendly destinations & Towns &

Provincetown, Cities

beyond popular urban centers in the USA. Getty Images / B0 Zaunders Massachusetts

here are many queer-friendly places biggest gay celebration women in Palm Springs, California; home to super quirky, hippy gays and

in the United States and very few • Boston and Northampton (especially for Southern Decadence in New Orleans, lesbians for decades, until a bridge and Road Trips Tthat LGBTQ travelers should avoid. lesbians), Massachusetts Louisiana; Fantasy Fest in Key West, large mainstream cruises connected it to For the most part, big cities are more In a sign of changing times, Tulsa, Florida; and Carnival in Provincetown, the outside world. It’s more straight than accepting and welcoming of diversity than Oklahoma; Cleveland, Ohio; Houston, Massachusetts. gay nowadays, but it still retains its quirky, rural places, though it’s more complex Texas; southern Illinois; and other “Red independent all-are-welcome vibe and than that. There are parts of big cities State” cities are also eagerly promoting Top LGBTQ-friendly beach boasts one of the world’s greatest and where local, out gay people may not wish themselves as LGBTQ-friendly. longest-running all-men’s gay guesthouses destinations & Wildlife to demonstrate even mild expressions of And there are breathtakingly beautiful (Island House Key West). Nature affection like hand-holding – for example, national parks in the American wilderness Provincetown, Massachusetts parts of the South Bronx in New York, or Queer that actively cater to LGBTQ travelers. So Provincetown is probably the gayest resort Palm Springs, California South Central Los Angeles – though it’s visitors are queer visitors are encouraged to keep an in the United States, in some ways on par Palm Springs is a fabulous mid-century- unlikely any visitors would find themselves encouraged to open mind and do their research; a warm with Mykonos and Ibiza for gay popularity, modern resort in the desert two hours east in these places. keep an open welcome may await in surprising locales though not so much in terms of vibe. P-town of Los Angeles. This is mostly popular with Adventure Obvious hubs for LGBTQ visitors include throughout the US. (as locals call it) is located at the curlicue tip gay men who flock here all winter long and TRIP NOTES New York, San Francisco, Chicago, and mind and do of Massachusetts’ arm-shaped Cape Cod. gather around their all-men (sometimes WHEN TO GO: You Fort Lauderdale. But here are a handful of their research; Artists and queer people started coming clothing-optional) guest house pools to flirt can visit the cities all LGBTQ events year round, of course, the many other urbane hot spots where a warm If you can plan around one of the major here in the late 1800s to live relatively over cocktails. and in fact many are queer travelers will feel super welcome: welcome queer events, it’s even more fun. Gay free lives and have been returning every more fun and much • West Hollywood and San Diego, Pride in some of the big cities can be an summer since then. Other beach-oriented gay less expensive off-

may await season. New York, to Know California in surprising extremely good time – the two best for getaway spots include: for example, offers all Need • Miami, Florida visitors are in San Francisco and New York. Key West, Florida sorts of specials on • New Orleans, Louisiana, home to the locales Other major events to watch out for Key West was a quintessential gay colony Saugatuck, Michigan restaurants, Broadway entertainment, and fourth-highest concentration of LGBTQ throughout include: Winter Party in Miami, Florida; in a remote area in the Caribbean (only Rehoboth Beach, Delaware attractions in January people in the country and the South's the US White Party for men and the Dinah for 90mi/145km north of Havana, Cuba) and Waikiki on the Hawaiian island of Oahu. and February.

48 49 worldnomads.com Getty Images / Daniel A. Leifheit Welcome Culture Art & Art & Towns & Cities Road Trips & Wildlife Nature Nature

For many travelers, the USA is synonymous with the open road

– and why not? Getting there is Adventure half the fun. Join our Nomads as ROAD they explore three very different regions of the country: the sand dunes and industrial cities of the Great Lakes, the surreal to Know

landscapes and towering Need TRIPS monuments of South Dakota, George Parks Highway, Alaska and the rich convergence of cultures in New Mexico.

50 51 worldnomads.com Devil's Tower, SEEK EXPERIENCES Wyoming

Rockies – and experiencing downtown Getty Images / Theo Theron Sturgis, during Sturgis, the world’s largest Celebrating motorcycle rally. Every August, the population explodes from 6,000 to 500,000 the Strange in as the rally takes over this small town which borders Black Hills National Forest.

From a distance, the Black Hills look black. Welcome South Dakota Up close, they look like any other rolling hills blanketed in green pine trees – except they’re the site of Deadwood, once home to There’s a lot more to South Dakota than four the legendary Who’s Who of the Wild West. presidents carved into a mountainside. Katie It’s where my brothers and I flinched during Jackson shares three memorable journeys through the Main Street Shootout reenactments. Culture

the Badlands, the Black Hills, and Custer State Park. I’ll never forget watching Wild Bill Hickock & Art get assassinated, fake bullets and blood flying, while the crowd cheered. It’s where we visited the grave of his lover/companion, edged between my brothers on Calamity Jane, and learned how gold rushes the back seat – that’s how I road- boom and bust. We also stayed in a Holiday & Towns & Wtripped through South Dakota Inn that was once a mining plant processing Cities the first time. South Dakota meant Mount millions of dollars in gold – aka a “slime Rushmore to us kids. But before reaching plant” after the nickname for the gold before the famous rock faces, we encountered it’s purified. another unforgettable stone body part. Hands down, though, the Black Hills’

most famous residents aren’t in Deadwood. Road Trips Where history and superlatives They’re carved into the hillsides outside of are made: Devil’s Tower, Sturgis, Keystone. and the Black Hills My Dad called it Devil’s Thumb, but Humbled by Mount Rushmore, officially, the skyscraping butte we saw Crazy Horse Monument, on our 1997 road trip from Montana to and Custer State Park & Wildlife South Dakota is Devil’s Tower National Pedaling a hybrid bike, as part of a six- Nature Monument. In 1906, it was designated the day rail-to-trail cycling trip with Austin first United States National Monument, Adventures, is how I saw South Dakota and in 1977, made famous by the film for the third time. Our tour guide, along memorable for its sheer size. Once The Unforgettable Corn Palace, Wall Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Today, the 109mi (175km) Mickelson Trail, made completed (if ever), it will be 10 times the Drug, and Badlands National Park

this extraordinary Wyoming landmark sure we reached Mt. Rushmore by sunset, size of Mount Rushmore, and will become My other most epic epicurean South Adventure is revered by rock climbers and Native when they do the flag-lowering ceremony the world’s largest rock carving. Dakota memory is picking popcorn ball Americans (who believe it’s sacred and and honor veterans in the crowd. One of We ended our visit at nearby Custer remnants out of my teeth at the “World’s want to rename it Bear Lodge). We didn’t Today, this the cyclists in our group had served in State Park. Imagine driving a wildlife loop Only Corn Palace.” Imagine a secular have time to climb it on that trip. Just 60mi Wyoming Vietnam. On stage, in front of hundreds of where you encounter antelope, bison, mosque comprised entirely of corn kernel (97km) beyond, the Black Hills beckoned. visitors, he held one of the corners of the elk, and even wild burros before sitting mosaics, planted in the middle of Mitchell, Behind the wheel, my best friend from landmark is flag. I think he cried while helping fold the down to dinner at the State Game Lodge South Dakota, just another dot on the to Know

college riding shotgun, is how I road- revered by hallowed piece of fabric. (President Calvin Coolidge’s “Summer map along the interstate. It’s about as Need tripped through South Dakota the second rock climbers While Mount Rushmore is memorable White House”) where most of what you bizarre as it gets – unless you’re in South time. The highlight of that 2015 adventure for its symbolism, the far-from-finished saw earlier is on the menu. It was here, at Dakota, where it’s impossible to drive is a toss-up between climbing Black and Native Crazy Horse monument commemorating the age of 26, I lost my rattlesnake and 50mi (80km) without being tempted by a Elk Peak – the tallest point east of the Americans the great Oglala Lakota leader is rabbit virginity. roadside attraction so wacky you have to

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SEEK EXPERIENCES Getty Images / Danita Delimont South Dakota Departhment of Tourism South Dakota Welcome

UNEXPECTED Fiestas de Santa Fe Culture

“Burn him! Burn him!” At first, this sounded & Art like a macabre chant straight out of my nightmares. But I soon found it’s par for the course at the Burning of Zozobra – the fiery kick-off to the Fiestas de Santa Fe, in New Mexico. Founded in 1712, to celebrate

the return of Spanish rule following the Towns & 1680 Pueblo Revolt, the fiesta is billed as Cities Corn Palace, the longest-running community festival in Deadwood, Mitchell, South the US. South Dakota Dakota Zozobra, aka Old Man Gloom, is more recent. Local artist Will Shuster first created a six-foot puppet in 1924 for a celebration Road Trips take photos or the people back home won’t My attitude toward South Dakota’s inspired by a Catholic ritual where an effigy believe you. Badlands is similar. If the Badlands are bad, of Judas is burned. Word of this backyard For example, there’s Wall Drug, home to then I don’t want to be good. Seven miles celebration spread, and it went public two the world’s most famous ice water. There south of the six-foot-tall jackalope, and years later. As the festival has grown, so has are so many Wall Drug billboards and “free Wall Drug’s other man-made photo ops, the puppet. Zozobra, who takes his name ice water” signs along I-90 that the idea is a national park with ethereal geological from the Spanish word for anxiety, is now a 50ft tall (15m tall), green-haired, tuxedoed & Wildlife of driving by the town of Wall (pop. 800) features you only expect to see in a Star Nature marionette that’s burned to cast off worries. doesn’t seem physiologically possible. Wars movie. Distinct layers of red, pink, and In fact, each year more than two million gray earth form dramatic, mini-mountain At the festival, I cautiously approached the travelers visit. It’s just a small, frontier town- chains and abstract rock formations part-ghost, part-monster with a slip of paper themed shopping center, but I remember only scientists know by name. It’s where inscribed with my personal woes. I dropped Distinct layers the slip into the “gloom box,” where it

my first visit to Wall Drug, as an eight-year- dinosaur bones are found during the day, Adventure of red, pink, joined countless others to make up his old, with the same fondness as I remember and at night, you can see every single star. stuffing. As the pageant began and flames Disney World. Wall Drug is where a life-sized It’s also where my parents threatened to and gray started licking his feet, the marionette T-Rex model scared my brothers and leave us if my brothers and I wouldn’t settle earth form writhed above the audience, taunting us me more than the entire Jurassic Park series. on a ceasefire. A backseat rubber-band dramatic, and moaning eerily. Yet, by the time flames It’s where we spent our allowance on rubber- gun battle was not what they’d signed up engulfed his body and cries of “Burn him!” band guns, and our Dad, after one too many for when we’d set off on our family road trip. mini- rose from the crowd, I had joined in the

revelry – hopeful that my gloom would to Know

cups of Wall Drug’s famous five-cent coffee, But the rubber bands kept flying. If mountain Need be carried away in the flames along with convinced us jackalopes were real. Now, my parents were going to abandon us chains and Zozobra. Ashley Biggers 21 years later, I choose to still believe. Who anywhere, it may as well be South Dakota. abstract rock wouldn’t want to live in a world alongside At least we wouldn’t be bored. And we’d Las Fiestas de Santa Fe is held the first or second giant rabbits with antelope antlers? never run out of free ice water. formations / Flickr Roybal Tobias week of September.

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SEEK EXPERIENCES Beauty & Industry on the Great Lakes Loop

From the gleaming skyscrapers of Chicago to the Welcome towering dunes of Lake Michigan, the Great Lakes region is full of contrasts, with cities as cool and scenery as refreshing as its waters. Elle Hardy dives right in. Culture Art & Art ormed more than a million years ago, it served as the playgrounds for literary by melting glaciers along today’s greats like Saul Bellow, who is celebrated FUS-Canada border, the Great Lakes among his colleagues in the American – Michigan, Erie, Huron, Superior, and Writers Museum. Ontario – contain around 18% of the world's & Towns &

fresh water. Lake Erie and Niagara Falls Cities Embarking on one of the great American Some 250mi (400km) east of the Windy road trips, I set out from Chicago to loop City, Toledo, Ohio is known as the Glass around these vast beauties, and explore City after its dominant industry – although it the contrasts of the Rust Belt – the great could just as easily be for the way its skyline

industrial cities of the 20th century that is reflected onto Lake Erie. I took it in with a Road Trips later fell into decline – with the lakes that local specialty – a loaded hot dog – in hand, serve them. before getting back on the road for the 300mi (480km) drive to Niagara Falls. Ann Arbor Chicago (the “Windy City”) Some 30 million visitors come each year Thompson Leisa Thanks to the Great Lakes Compact, an to see, feel, and hear 530,000 gallons agreement between the eight Great Lakes (two million liters) of water per second & Wildlife states and two Canadian provinces, that cascading over three falls. I’m not one Ann Arbor Sleeping Bear Dunes Nature governs the use of the water basin, they for crowds, so I got my fix and headed to Traveling back west, I pulled up for a The hills that roll into Sleeping Bear Dunes are in pristine condition in spite of the cities the Niagara Glen Nature Reserve, on the This walkable night in Ann Arbor, a charming university form an honor guard of cherry trees, hops that line their shores. Canadian side of the border, for a few miles city would town that feels like something of an island plantations, swaying corn, and silver firs, In Chicago’s busy ecosystem of of hiking trails, blissfully removed from my rival any other between the lakes. A perfect stopover with a welcoming committee of bald eagles

skyscrapers, I immediately saw that this fellow travelers. heading up into sparsely populated parts of flying overhead. Named after an Ojibwe Adventure was a city that cut nothing down to size. Crossing back into the US, I decided for bookstores Michigan, it features a vibrant, multicultural legend, I felt like one myself just for making The best way to see it is on an Architecture to balance out the kitsch of peak tourism per square food scene and a European affection for it to the top of the eponymous dune – only Foundation river cruise, which takes (which, somewhat surprisingly, is more mile, not sidewalk dining. to discover that it’s not even the most visitors through the city’s history that is concentrated on the Canadian side of the to mention This walkable city would rival any other demanding. inseparable from its built environment. Falls) with something deliberately absurd: for bookstores per square mile, not to I regathered my breath looping around a hectic Alongside deep-dish pizza and baseball, Prophet Isaiah's Second Coming House. mention a hectic calendar of theatre, film, the stunning Pierce Stocking Scenic Drive. Improve to Know

Chicago is perhaps best known for housing The Prophet began turning his house calendar and art exhibitions, but it’s best known for While the route has 12 stopping points, your writing, Need two of the defining paintings of American into a piece of outsider art in 2007, with a star college football team the Michigan locals say to park at #9 and get out to see photography, of theatre, and videos modernism, Nighthawks and American centerpiece crucifix that he hopes will be Wolverines, which between September and the view. A precipitous 450ft (137m) below, with Create Gothic, at The Chicago Art Institute. the final cross all sentient beings will see film, and art January plays in its 110,000-seat stadium – a few colored dots on the sand turned out Outside, the parks and streets surrounding before Judgement Day. exhibitions only 5,000 shy of the city’s population. to be souls who had braved the warning

56 57 worldnomads.com

SEEK EXPERIENCES UNEXPECTED Surf’s Up in... Sheboygan? Rhea Anna

Leisa Thompson Leisa Sheboygan, Wisconsin may be the last place you’d expect to catch waves, but it’s in this lakeshore town (known as the “Malibu of the Midwest”) where I have my first

surfing experience. Welcome

While some coastal surfers might scoff at the idea of freshwater surfing, Lake Michigan is not for the faint of heart. Despite visiting in late September, I still need a wetsuit, since the lake’s temperatures hover between

30 and 50°F (-1 and 10°C) year-round. The Culture

absence of salt also makes the water far less & Art Lakefront Niagara buoyant, which means it’s a much greater Brewery, Milwaukee Falls challenge to pop up (go from a paddling to a surfing stance).

My instructor, Mike Miller, owns EOS signs and climbed down the steep slope to The county is a favorite summer holiday

Outdoor & Surf, the only surf shop in town, Towns & the Lake Michigan shore – according to the spot for Wisconsinites, a place where time and is exactly the type of person I want Cities signs, it takes around two hours, or a hefty slows and the fresh local food never stops. teaching me a potentially hazardous sport. rescue fee, to make it back to the top. Long days of swimming and kayaking His calm demeanor echoes the surfer dude required plenty of sustenance – top of stereotype, but he, like the others in the Marquette the list: ubiquitous fried cheese curds and hearty band of local “hang tenners,” has a charm that could only be cultivated in the Crossing Mackinac Bridge, which connects whitefish paste. Road Trips heartland. Some popular surfing spots are Michigan’s Lower and Upper Peninsulas, famous for being unwelcoming to beginners the changing weather became its Milwaukee and tourists, but the Sheboygan boys are own journey. I fancied some sunshine, Two hours northwest of Chicago, the hospitable to anyone willing to brave the so stopped for a couple of nights in revival of this great industrial city is chilly waters and share a beer post-surf Marquette, the jewel of Lake Superior well underway, named by Vogue as the (after all, it is Wisconsin). The group is towns, distinguished by its photogenic, Midwest’s coolest and most underrated helmed by local legend, Larry “Longboard” & Wildlife

disused copper wharf, fishing, and city. Williams, and his press-shy fraternal twin, Nature Lee “Waterflea” Williams, who co-authored gastropubs. Sprawling north to south along Lake Some Like It Cold: Surfing the Malibu of the Wherever I pulled up a seat, locals were Michigan’s western shore, Milwaukee is all Midwest. keen to divulge their secret swimming about refreshment. After getting attuned spot – beaches of black sand, white sand, to the city’s heavy German and Polish The group meets every morning at a local cafe to check the weather conditions. If or known pockets of warmth in water that cultural accent when buying snacks at the Adventure spends much of the year frozen. Marquette Milwaukee Public Market, I moved on to a storm is on the way, it’s all the better for choice waves – but the early autumn is a hub for the many small towns along I found my Brew City favorites Lakefront and Miller for weather is kind to me, and I have a gentle North America’s largest lake, which is home inner child a flight of tasting ales, finishing it off with a introduction to the sport. to the brilliance of Aurora Borealis on clear by joining tour of the revived Pabst Brewery before nights in autumn and late spring. crawling into bed in the old distillery- Try as I might, I do not master a pop- the locals at turned-hotel across the street. up. Instead, I basically body board (or

sometimes knee board) through the mild to Know

Door County The best cure for a heavy Milwaukee Need Cave Point to wake. A disappointment for sure, but I’m Moving southeast, Door County looks like night is, of course, water, so the next day jump feet-first having too much fun to care. I even wind up a thumb jutting into Lake Michigan. I found I headed to popular Bradford Beach for a into the aqua missing my flight back home that night, but my inner child by joining the locals at Cave swim in a lake that felt close to freezing, it’s worth spending extra time with the nicest ErlienDesign Point to jump feet-first into the aqua waters. waters until my head was as clear as the water. brood in surfing. Gina Zammit

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Out-of-this-world food

and art in Santa Fe Getty Images / Marilyn Angel Wynn Uniquely I can’t tell you if the heat was oppressive or not in Santa Fe, as I was completely New Mexico distracted by the city. Smooth, beige adobe buildings lined the streets like so many

anthills, housing shops selling artisanal Welcome When he arrived in the Land of Enchantment, wares, art galleries, and restaurants – Joel Balsam wasn’t sure what was in store. What plenty of restaurants. he got was a crash-course in Pueblo cooking, a At Tia Sophia’s, I drove a fork and knife newfound appreciation for green chiles, and a into a descendent of the first-ever breakfast brief trip to another dimension. burrito, a recipe that was dreamed up in 1975. Like nearly every New Mexican food Culture

worth eating, the burrito (“little donkey” & Art in Spanish) was bathed in a bright was driving west like a bandit on the run. green sauce derived from green chiles, The July hellfire and the behemoths on an ingredient so beloved that New Iwheels cutting me off on the highway Mexicans drive around with them on their were way too much – I had to get out of license plate. & Towns &

west Texas. Fortunately, I found refuge in After spending the night in my RV in the Cities a state I’d heard very little about, save for parking lot of Santa Fe’s Visitors Center, Pueblo woman baking bread in an adobe oven UFO conspiracies and what I’d seen on I took an Uber to what might as well be a Breaking Bad, and I was willing to bet the different galaxy. Part art gallery, part trippy show about meth dealers did not portray alien amusement park, Meow Wolf is an

the best of New Mexico. experiment carried out by a collective of Taos Pueblo, and broke the thin piece of husk used to tie Road Trips hair-brained artists that is just as much fun pueblo-style cooking it. Meanwhile, Naranjo – a member of the Carlsbad Caverns for adults as for children. One moment, North of Santa Fe, I gazed out the window Tewa-speaking Ohkay Ohwingeh Pueblo Over the state border, I parked at Carlsbad you’re trying to put together clues to figure at vast mountain ranges suitable for framing group – was wrapping delicious packets Caverns National Park and zig-zagged out a family’s disappearance, the next, until I reached Taos. This artist colony that looked like they belonged in an art down into the cave mouth. Every summer you’re walking through a refrigerator door and ski town is neighbor to the UNESCO- gallery. evening, millions of Brazilian free-tailed leading to a spaceship from the future. And recognized Taos Pueblo, a settlement of “I don’t use machines,” she said, & Wildlife

bats soar out for dinner in a thick, black it only gets stranger from there. multi-story adobe homes that have been looking down at her hands. "These are my Nature cloud, but all I craved was cool air. As I continuously inhabited for more than 1,000 machines.” approached, a wave of freshness washed years. As we tucked into our Pueblo feast of over me and I exhaled. I felt like Indiana After a tranquil couple of days spicy posole, fresh pico de gallo with Jones as I delved deeper and deeper Russell Kate meandering around Taos’s winding streets, I was quickly horno bread, and a veggie stew made

into the enormous, 73mi (117km) maze of I headed back south towards Española for from zucchini, squash, corn, and green Adventure caverns, though instead of a whip, I was a lesson in traditional Pueblo cooking at hustled off to chiles roasted in the backyard adobe oven, carrying a far less badass GoPro. Harrison Norma Naranjo’s Feasting Place. the sun room Naranjo explained that New Mexico is a Ford, eat your heart out. I was late and the group of women from and handed complicated place to nail down. There are The next day, I’d planned to roll around Missouri and Oklahoma let me have it with hunks of masa the Native American, Anglo-American, and in the surreal sand dunes at White Sands their glares – they were starving, and so was Spanish/Mexican cultures as well as African- National Monument, but the heat was I. I was quickly hustled off to the sun room (corn dough), Americans and others who comprise the to Know

overpowering, and I was in no mood to and handed hunks of masa (corn dough), shredded state’s intricate mosaic. Need become a fried egg. So, I powered directly shredded spiced pork, and corn husks. I spiced pork, “New Mexico is a very unique place,” to Santa Fe and dove face first into a prickly tried to wrap my tamales, but they came Naranjo said to the group. “I think that’s why pear margarita at The Shed cantina, housed out oblong, instead of the cute, rectangular and corn people like coming. It's the uniqueness, and Meow Wolf in a hacienda that dates back to 1692. packages they’re supposed to be, and I husks that’s what we hold onto.”

60 61 worldnomads.com Getty Images / Jason Connolly Welcome Culture Art & Art

UNEXPECTED Frozen Dead Guy Days & Towns & Cities You’d think coffin racing would be a and a couple of inflatable corgis, and team euphemism for chain smoking or some other Royal Bloody Family was born. deadly pursuit. But you’d be wrong. In the mountain town of Nederland, Colorado, it’s It seems so simple. Teams of six pallbearers, the star attraction of arguably the world’s and one rider, must carry a home-built coffin over a 650ft (200m) course filled with most eccentric festival: Frozen Dead Guy Road Trips Days. hay bales, mud pits, and icy hills, without it breaking or dumping the “corpse” inside The story starts in the mid-90s, with a young on the ground. Hundreds have gathered in Norwegian lad, Trygve Morstol, getting support of the 30 teams that compete, racing kicked out of the country and leaving behind a head-to-head knockout: Lady Lumberjacks his dead grandpa, Bredo, whom he’d frozen versus the Disco Queens, Rainbow Unicorns in a cryogenic chamber he built himself in his against the Toilet Plunger Knights. As we & Wildlife

garden shed. Talk about a cool man-cave. approach the start line, the crowd is hushed. Nature This is our moment. What did the locals do when they discovered Gramps? Contact a legitimate cryogenic Or not. I’d love to tell you we won. But the facility? Bury the poor chap? No. They threw truth is: coffins are heavy, we’re out of shape, a party. Frozen Dead Guy Days has been and team Mario Kart scuppers us with an actual banana peel thrown out the back of held every year since to help raise funds to Adventure keep the dead dude on ice. their box.

Think of the festival as a cross between But then, something amazing happens. After Monty Python and the zombie apocalypse: the race, the teams take part in a Death three days of frosty, death-themed March through town. Her Majesty is a hit. merriment and silly games, including 30+ Strangers hoot and high-five us as we pass. live bands, costumed polar plunges, frozen- We may have lost the race, but we win the

turkey bowling, and more. parade. And that’s the thing: To compete to Know is honorable, but to laugh at yourself while Need But I haven’t come as a spectator – I’ve come doing so is truly enlightened. Grandpa Bredo to compete. The UK had never had an official would be proud. Aaron Millar entry in the coffin race before. I convinced my wife and five friends, bought some masks Frozen Dead Guy Days takes place every March.

62 63 worldnomads.com Getty Images / Paul Souders Getty Images / Paul Welcome Culture Art & Art & Towns & Cities Road Trips & Wildlife Nature Nature

With landscapes that range from glacial peaks to subtropical deserts, the United States has Adventure enough diversity of terrain, NATURE flora, and fauna to satisfy the most avid wilderness lover. Our Nomads share their favorite off- the-beaten-path parks around to Know & WILDLIFE the country, take you inside the Need cockpit of a whale-watching boat in Alaska, and do some Juneau, Alaska moose-spotting in Montana.

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LEARN SOMETHING NEW Getty Images / Adventure Photo UNDER THE RADAR:

4 STATE Welcome Culture

& NATIONAL & Art PARKS Icons like Yellowstone, Yosemite, and Zion draw visitors like Towns & Cities magnets – and they’re famous for good reason. But if you want to see astonishing natural landscapes while avoiding the crowds, these lesser-known parks are more than worthy alternatives. Road Trips

Great Sand Dunes National Park to explore the tallest sand dunes in North and Preserve, Colorado America, ever-shifting mountains up to The first time I climbed the Great Sand 750ft (230m) high. We tried traversing the Canyon country, Utah Dunes in southern Colorado, I couldn’t fully sand, zig-zagging up dune after dune, comprehend it. I was in the middle of one stopping to pant every few steps. The & Wildlife

of the driest, most land-locked states in the higher we got, the steeper the hills were, Nature US, and I was gazing upon what appeared and the more they shifted under our bare rivers, shrieking with joy. should visit Goblin Valley if you want to to be an inverted beach. feet. I started to crawl, digging in hand over The more I travel, the less often I find be a kid. There’s something so delightful I went on a whim, taking the three-hour hand until I reached an 18-inch (45-cm) ridge myself truly surprised by nature. But I’ve about the mushroom-shaped hoodoos that drive from Colorado Springs with a friend that extended across the tops of the dunes. been back to the Dunes at least a dozen populate Goblin Valley. As you come to the

Below us, the dunes sloped downward times since that first visit, and I’ve yet end of the 1.5mi (2.4km) Carmel Canyon Adventure and out – they stretched for miles, framed to grow tired of this playground. I love trail, you’ll find them bubbling out of the Castle Creek, Great The big five Sand Dunes National by the snow-topped Sangre de Christo watching people fly down the dunes on valley floor like a game of Jurassic whack- Park, Colorado Mountains and the San Luis Valley. How national parks sandboards and sleds, and sharing it with a-mole. They’re so goofy that they were funny it was, to see snow and sand in the in Utah get all others who’ve never visited before. The even the star attraction of a comical fight same place. I couldn’t stop smiling and the attention, climb never gets easier, but even on the scene in the sci-fi spoof Galaxy Quest.

Getty Images / Witold Skrypczak spinning my head in every direction, trying 13th trip, the view is always worth it. The big five national parks in Utah get

but smaller to Know make sense of this anomaly of nature. state parks Kassondra Cloos all the attention, but smaller state parks Need To get down, we ran and slid through like Goblin Valley deserve more love. the sand, leaping heel-first to dig in. like Goblin Goblin Valley State Park, Utah Nearby Arches National Park receives The sand made the sound of scratching Valley deserve People say that you should visit Goblin 1.5 million visitors per year, while Goblin records as we dragged it down with us in more love Valley State Park if you have kids. I say you Valley receives just 268,000 (not counting

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the goblins, of course). This allows you to ideal for hiking or cold-weather paddling. experience similar terrain on a much more Heide Brandes intimate scale. Goblin Valley is an hour and a half from North Cascades National Park, Arches, making it a good day trip or an Washington Getty Images / Cavan easy stopover on the way to Capitol Reef or One of the United States’ least-visited parks, Getty Images / Olivia Sandoval EyeEm

Bryce Canyon National Parks. There are six North Cascades National Park is a treasure Welcome miles of trails which lead into and out of the hiding in plain sight. Just three hours from main valley. The valley itself is a large 3mi2 Seattle, its rugged peaks, deep forests, and (7.8km2) area ideal for roaming free among alpine lakes get passed up for parks with the hoodoos. bigger names – and bigger crowds. That You can camp inside the state park, but means I often have the trails nearly to myself. the nearby Bureau of Land Management There’s nothing like a silent hike through Buffalo National Culture (BLM) land is better. The undeveloped BLM mist-shrouded groves of ancient Douglas & Art River, Arkansas land near Goblin Valley is so beautiful that firs. With an abundance of day hikes, multi- it could qualify as its own national park. If day treks, and the iconic Pacific Crest Trail you’re self-sufficient (with food, water, tent, running through, North Cascades is forest and a shovel), you can camp for free. The An hour away from Eureka Springs bathing at its best. area is also one of Utah’s Dark Sky Parks. (considered the capital of the southern Winter in the heart of the Cascade & Towns &

So, when you’re finished playing hide and Ozarks), the park draws locals and visitors Mountains is even less crowded, and if you’re Cities seek with the goblins, you can set up camp year-round. These rolling mountains willing to brave the cold there are more than and put yourself to sleep under the stars. feature of some of America’s prettiest 300 glaciers to play on. The stillness of a Carol Guttery waterfalls, easy-to-reach campgrounds and snowshoe walk through the park’s snow- cabins, miles of hiking trails, a ghost town, covered fields is just as enchanting as when

The Buffalo National River, and a variety of canoeing and kayaking they are covered in wildflowers. Road Trips Arkansas adventures. The park engulfs some 130 glacier- I’m hiking along the 36mi (58km) Buffalo The Buffalo National River was fed lakes. Lake Chelan, America’s third River Trail in north-central Arkansas when a established in 1972 and is one of the few deepest, is one of them. On its crystalline herd of wild hogs stampedes across the trail. remaining, undammed, free-flowing rivers shores is the tiny village of Stehekin and A mother hog, followed by four juveniles, in the lower 48 states. The 135mi (217km) the park-run North Cascades Lodge. dance about on their elegant little hooves river offers challenging rapids and calm Accessible only by foot, boat, or plane, & Wildlife

for a bit before disappearing just as fast spots, but my favorite stretch is the Ponca Stehekin is one of those magical places Nature into the forest, startling a white-tailed doe to Kyle’s Landing section. I fantasize about quitting my job for and that leaps out of sight as soon as I spot her. Spanning just over 10mi (16km), this moving to. Life is slower here – you Hiking this trail in the Buffalo River While the river section is without a doubt one of the most can take the time to chat with the town National Park Region always results in steals the scenic sections of the river. Big Bluff, one gardener over a cinnamon bun the size of tons of up-close wildlife sightings, which is show in the of the tallest bluff faces in America, joins your head at the bakery, then rent a bike Adventure one reason it’s among my favorite national Hemmed-In Hollow, one of the tallest from the local school teacher. Take it on parks and protected areas to visit. summer, I also waterfalls between the Appalachians the shuttle to the top of the road and feel Down below the trail, the Buffalo National love visiting in and the Rockies, to make this the perfect like a kid again careening down the gravel River – America’s first national river – winter, when kayaking day trip. path, all downhill to Rainbow Falls, where flows through a spectacular stretch of the leaves While the river steals the show in the the mist sprays your face. Or simply give in the Ozark Mountains, winding between summer, I also love visiting in winter, when to the lull of the lake with some homemade

have dropped to Know towering limestone bluffs and through to open up the leaves have dropped to open up ice cream on the dock and watch the flutter Need oak-hickory forests dotted with caves and spectacular views of the bluffs. Though the of swallows diving into its shimmering hidden “hollers” (v-shaped ravines) that spectacular area does get snow and ice, fall and winter surface. After all, this kind of serenity feel as untouched as they must have been views of the are often mild – unlike the crushing, humid doesn’t come every day. North Cascades National Park centuries ago. bluffs heat that ticks love in late summer – and Catie Joyce-Bulay

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TRIP NOTES Behind the Getty Images / John Hyde Design Pics Whale-watching in Juneau There’s no shortage of whale-watching companies in Wheel of an Juneau. Most run multiple trips, seven days a week, during the high season (May-September). Smaller boats offer a more intimate and adventurous experience, while a large vessel may have heated interiors and snack bars. Welcome Alaskan Whale- The best operators voluntarily abide by “Whale Sense Alaska” guidelines, which include reduced speeds and time limits around whales. A tour typically includes sightings of humpback whales and Steller sea lions Watching Boat (daily), orcas (occasionally), and bald eagles. Booking well in advance is recommended, especially in June, July, and August. Cost varies by operator, but average

One of a handful of women captaining whale boats US $110-150 for adults, US $100 for children, aged 3-12, Culture and free for infants. Most tours offer add-ons including & Art in Juneau, Libby Baldwin shares the fears, the visits to the world-famous Mendenhall Glacier, city tours, challenges, and the unrivaled joys of spending her nature hikes, and outdoor salmon-bake buffets. days with humpbacks and orcas. Other must-sees Take a helicopter tour, then walk on a glacier or catch a ride with a dogsled team. Ride the Mount Roberts Tramway up 1,800ft (550m) for unbeatable views of & Towns &

the Gastineau Channel. Or for a truly unforgettable Cities t’s 7am in southeast Alaska. The sun has experience, book a seaplane ride and close encounter on nearby Admiralty Island, home to the world’s largest been up for hours already, but because concentration of grizzly bears. we’re near Juneau, a capital city nestled I Getting there in the world’s largest temperate rainforest, Juneau is surrounded by mountains and a massive

it’s raining, and the temperature has yet icefield, so there is no road access. Independent Road Trips to reach 50°F (10°C). Nearly 300 days of travelers must fly into Juneau International Airport or take a ferry from Washington state. Flying is much precipitation each year keep the sky thickly cheaper, but the ferries travel the Inside Passage, one of blanketed in clouds. When the weather the most spectacular waterways in the world. Whale watching, Alaska finally clears to reveal the sun, it transforms the vast stretches of channels, rivers, and old-growth forest into dazzling blues and & Wildlife

greens; but most of the time, relentless, on the course, and I’m one of a handful of boats around you in danger. You’re doing everyone looks to me for how they should Nature chilly rain is the name of the game. of women driving boats in Juneau. Every this for three hours at a time, up to four times feel. This is the place I choose to live every woman who’s worn a deckhand’s knife on a day, six days a week. It is an exhaustion But some days, it is sunny enough to see summer in pursuit of my lifelong dream. I am their belt or stood at a vessel’s helm has felt you feel deep in your bones and can be every glittering peak of the snowcapped a whale-watching captain, charged with an the leer of a suspicious old-timer or been downright terrifying in bad weather. It is also Chilkat Mountains as we zoom along at

oft-overwhelming pair of responsibilities: asked, “You know what you’re doing, little the purest form of joy I’ve ever known. 30 knots. Some days, a woman embraces Adventure to keep my passengers safe, and to I have the girl?” But if you show them you’re tough Some days, I can’t see the boat in front me with tears in her eyes and thanks me, successfully deliver an experience they’re astonishing enough, you’ll find friends for life. of me through the fog, and my guests are because she’s been waiting 50 years to likely to have just once in a lifetime. privilege of As a captain, your surroundings are snapping at me because they have yet to see a whale. Some days, I’ll be sitting with I have the astonishing privilege of spending my shifting constantly beneath you, and your see a whale. Some days, I have to muster engines off in silence, and suddenly, an spending my work day in the company of fellow travelers are 50ft (15m) behemoths up excitement for the same whale I’ve seen entire family of orcas bursts to the surface humpback whales and orcas. I spent six work day in who spend 90% of their time completely out all day. Some days, we see lots of whales not 5ft (1.5m) away, and a starry-eyed to Know

summers working as a deckhand and tour the company of sight, so letting your attention drift isn’t an Travel and go home with zero tips. Some days, little girl tells me she wants to be a marine Need guide before I was allowed to sit for my option. You’re making small decisions every smart with four-foot waves are lashing at the hull and biologist someday. I was that little girl on of humpback our Safety captain’s exam, a notoriously difficult four- few seconds for hours, measuring the desire advice it’s all I can do to keep the boat in a straight whale-watching tours, and now I lead them. part test administered by the Coast Guard. whales and to get your guests as close to the whales as line; but every moment, I must keep smiling, Those are the days that make every tough I was the only woman out of 25 students orcas possible against putting them or the dozens no matter how wracked my nerves, because moment worthwhile.

70 71 worldnomads.com Moose, Glacier SEEK EXPERIENCES National Park Of Moose and Mountains: Hiking in Glacier National Park Welcome

Cyan-colored lakes, spectacular views, and surprise encounters with charismatic megafauna – Tim Neville’s latest journey to one Culture of his favorite parks doesn’t disappoint. & Art

There!” the stranger booms. He seen this side of Switzerland. lowers his binoculars and points Experiencing the park, like pretty much & Towns &

off trail. To my right, a hillside of broom and any park in the US, is best done on foot. Cities buckwheat collapses into a wide ravine More than 700mi (1,125km) of trails trace before regrouping on the other side. I across Glacier’s 1,583mi² (5,000km2), and squint and scan. A tree. A rock. Another over 25 years I’ve seen my share of them. rock. Wait. That rock moved. I’ve backpacked under the gaze of white

“There!” I blurt out. Even from a distance mountain goats for days in the backcountry Road Trips you can see the telltale bony mitt of a above Lake McDonald, and used the moose’s antler rack. park’s free shuttle buses to connect trails Getty Images / Walt Snover Getty Images / Walt “Oh,” the stranger says, quizzically. He’s up and over Siyeh Pass. Step only a few an American in a navy-blue Georgia Tech feet off the Going to the Sun Road, the t-shirt. He points 200 yards (180m) and a park’s spectacular through-road that rises good 30 degrees to the left of my find. “I to more than 6,600ft (2,101m), and you’ll gingham cloths. We pull out a map and Swiftcurrent Lake. Young couples float & Wildlife

was looking at that one,” he says. That one find meadows fuzzy with flowers. Once, I make a plan. atop the denim-blue water in handmade Nature is another moose accompanied by – what’s eased myself into a frigid alpine lake for a In all we have three days to hike in the rowboats rented from a shack near the this?! – a baby moose! We all gawk for a skinny dip when I heard a splash along the Once, I eased park and we want to spend them ticking Many Glacier Hotel, a 214-room throwback bit and then walk on feeling rather giddy. far bank. That’s the first and only time I’ve myself into a off easy to moderately difficult trails into of wood and stone built in 1915 at the far It’s been a good hike, a three-moose kind bathed with a moose. frigid alpine the alpine country. We want day hikes no end of the lake. An eagle circles overhead.

of hike. longer than 11mi (18km) round trip, and we I find a small stream feeding the lake from Adventure Many Glacier lake for a plan to explore two regions of the park the southwest and fish for a few hours with Day hikes in Glacier National Park For this trip, we get a car-camping site skinny dip – Many Glacier and Two Medicine. We’ll no luck, while Heidi and Evie hike on. They My wife, Heidi, and daughter, Evie, and at the Many Glacier Campground not far when I heard take time to sniff the asters and reward don’t go far – maybe another mile. It’s a I had rolled into Glacier National Park in from Swiftcurrent Lake and settle in under a splash along ourselves with ice cream. I pack a light little over 8mi (13km) one way from here up northwestern Montana the day before. the pines. Campgrounds in American fly-fishing rod in hopes of landing a rainbow to a viewpoint over Grinnell Glacier, one Glacier sometimes plays second fiddle to national parks are wonderful places, a the far bank. trout. We’re pretty sure we’ll see some big of the rapidly shrinking features that gives to Know

Yellowstone National Park, the world’s first woodsy microcosm of the nation bound That’s the first mammals, too – you pretty much always do. the park its name. You can cut the distance Need national park, which sits about six hours by a love for being in wild and beautiful and only time On our first day, the air hangs hot and down to about 8mi (13km) round trip by south. But, for all the seismic, geyser- settings. Kids roar around the campground smoky over the valleys, blurring the piebald taking two free boat rides across two of spewing wonder of Yellowstone, Glacier on bicycles. Parents set out potato salad I’ve bathed peaks. It’s August, fire season, so we stay the lakes you’d otherwise hike, including sings with a wild alpine grandeur rarely and sausages on picnic tables draped in with a moose. low and set out on an easy hike around this one.

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SEEK EXPERIENCES UNEXPECTED Sandhill Crane

Getty Images / Tyler D. Rickenbach D. Getty Images / Tyler Migration The feathery squadron fans out across a cloudless sky, like lines of a composition

Getty Images / frankazoid book – thousands of sandhill cranes flying into the Platte River Valley. At a distance, the hazy lines of birds, described once as “whiffs of smoke” by legendary naturalist Welcome Dr. Jane Goodall, appear to be endless. I’m spellbound. What’s the chance that anybody could see cranes in such massive numbers within minutes?

I discovered that the possibility is almost

certain – if you visit South Central Nebraska Culture during March and early April. A key stopover & Art point along the Central Flyway Path, the valley’s braided channels are a literal bird magnet for migrating species to rest, recover, and refuel before they continue on their journey to breeding grounds in the North. & Towns & Cities Iceberg Lake The numbers are staggering; 80% of the world’s population of sandhill cranes migrate through the state – in total, that’s about 500,000 to 600,000 birds feasting on When George Bird Grinnell, an the three moose. farmland grain leftovers and resting along TRIP NOTES protected river sandbars for six weeks. And, ethnographer and explorer, first saw the By the end of the trip, we’ll see two more. Road Trips at four to five feet tall, with a wingspan of up to glacier that now carries his name in 1887, Getting there It happens on our final day, when we pack six feet, the sandhill crane is quite impressive the ice covered more than 700 acres The most popular way up camp and drive to Two Medicine in to get to Glacier is by in stature. I wanted to see this epic, annual 2 (2.8km ). Today the glacier spans less than car. The closest airport the southeast corner of the park, a fairly “big bird” party with my own eyes. 150 acres (0.6 km2). is in Kalispell, Montana, remote region that was once a railroad “The glaciers would be melting anyway,” about 30mi (48km) from depot. We take a boat ride across Two The best way to view the birds en masse is West Glacier. Missoula, a ranger later told me. “Climate change is Medicine Lake before setting out on a at dusk or dawn, within the covert shelter of Montana, about 150mi a blind, either at the Iain Nicolson Audubon & Wildlife just speeding it up.” (240km) south, has more 4mi (6.5km) round-trip hike up to Upper Nature Center at Rowe Sanctuary or the Crane Trust frequent air service. Two Medicine Lake. Here the smoke from Nature and Visitor Center. Both organizations Iceberg Lake and Two Medicine When to go wildfires has cleared. Sinopah Mountain offer guided, educational migration tours with The joke goes Montana Day two is our big day, a 10mi (16km) trip rises above like us like a bell. viewing opportunities from these enclosures. has two seasons: Winter up to Iceberg Lake. We set out early to and August. It’s not too The world up here is reduced to blues Peering through the blind windows only a

avoid the heat. The trail climbs steadily far off. Snow can stack and greens with flashes of white. The views Adventure few feet from the sandbars, I see the wavy and steeply out of the Many Glacier area, up to 80ft (24m) or more over soaring mountains and placid lakes atop Going to the Sun “whiffs of smoke” approaching. An inky haze passing in and out of the woods until it Road. Late July is lovely are what keep me coming back. Some day begins to fill the sky. Hovering like helicopters, pokes through the tree line. A spur trail as is August, though fire I’ll head up and over Gunsight Pass or spend each bird suddenly drops down, claiming a leads north to Ptarmigan Lake, but we season can make things a night at the Granite Park Chalet. I’d like to spot on the coveted sandbar. I expect the smoky. Expect snow as courting rituals – dancing and curtsying – but carry on to one of the more stunning sites early as September. see Grinnell Glacier, too, before it’s gone. in the park: a cyan bowl of glacial meltwater For now, though, I’m happy to hike along, not the deafening sound. I’m soon engulfed

Wildlife in the noisy vibration of fluttering wings to Know

cupped against an amphitheater of sheer Glacier is home to grizzly the soft steps of my daughter and wife Need overhead and the screeching and squawking black rock. Mountain goats wander along bears, moose, and other plopping along in rhythm. Suddenly, we of the crane reunion. I follow the orchestral the cliff bands. Chunks of ice bob below. varieties of charismatic, hear some rustling off in the woods. We all but dangerous, performance with relish – it’s my portal to an

The place is so magical it can be hard megafauna. Here’s how to freeze. A bear? event that’s been happening in the same spotJoel Carillet /Getty Images to leave. But we do. That’s when we see keep yourself safe. (p95) Nope, just another pair of moose. for many millennia. Gigi Ragland

74 75 worldnomads.com Getty Images / Feng Wei Photography Getty Images / Feng Wei Welcome Culture Art & Art & Towns & Cities Road Trips & Wildlife Nature Nature

Whether your happy place is the

top of a mountain or the deck Adventure of a sailboat, the extraordinary variety of landscapes in the US ADVENTURE means the range of outdoor activities is just as broad. Find a hidden trove of fresh powder to Know

in the Colorado Rockies, tackle Need

Grinnell mountain-bike trails in North Glacier, Glacier National Park Carolina, or kayak in secret coves along Maine’s rocky shore.

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BLUEBIRD Welcome

COLORADO Culture Greg Benchwick finds freedom, connection, & Art and speed on the Rocky Mountains’ famed slopes. & Towns &

kiing is about freedom. It’s about With the birth of my daughter eight years Cities exploration. It’s about controlling back, I’ve changed the way I view skiing Sspeed and adrenaline and fear to as a sport and as a way of life. As I strive forge a remarkable connection with the to hand over the sense of freedom that mountains, with yourself, and with all the skiing can bring to a new generation, it’s

other like-minded fools who find purity and less about getting radical, and more about Road Trips solace in high, cold, and windy places. finding peace in a world dominated by I started skiing when I was just two years 140-character rants, short attention spans, old – I still have a picture of me walking and little connection with our wild and open around the base of Breckenridge, Colorado, places. It’s also about keeping the whining The Maroon Bells with red plastic skis and brown corduroys, at bay – I’ve found bringing Starbursts for a to prove it. power-up every chair lift ride helps. & Wildlife

Since then, I’ve skied resorts across the Nature US West, and taught skiing in Vail, Colorado, Champagne powder, world-class Growing up, Aspen’s Buttermilk Mountain paradise, while Aspen Highlands is home to and the Sierra Nevada in Southern Spain – bumps, and perfect bunny slopes was one of my favorites. This is, without a my favorite powder run in the United States. the skiing is terrible, but the après parties While I’ve skied the world, for me, there doubt, the best learner hill in all of Colorado The hike-to-terrain Highlands Bowl is are off the hook. is no better place on earth to take to the (and perhaps the world). Every run is wide truly the stuff of Colorado legend. You’ll

slopes than in my home state of Colorado, While I’ve and perfectly pitched for beginners. While have to earn your turns to get to this Adventure land of Champagne powder, legendary a private lesson with an instructor here will 2,500-vertical-foot (762-vertical-meter) Aspen ski resorts – 28 in all – and 300 days of skied the top out above US $900 a day, it might just bowl. It’s about a 30-minute hike to get to sunshine a year. world, for me, be worth it. the 12,392ft (3,775m) summit. From here, I grew up here, tackling the super-fun there is no Best of all, it seems nobody really skis you have perhaps the world’s finest view of tree paths like Schoolmarm at Keystone, better place Aspen. Mostly, they just walk around town the Maroon Bells peaks. Best of all, this out- and taking half-day Fridays to ski my local in furry boots. of-the-way spot is patrolled for avalanches

on earth to to Know hill at the Broadmoor in Colorado Springs take to the Aspen is comprised of four unique by ski patrol, so you don’t need to have Need (it’s closed now – and if we don’t act on mountains. Snowmass is perfect for families avalanche gear or training. climate change, we’ll all face a future of less slopes than in with skiers of all abilities. Buttermilk is a It’s a special place. From the top, it offers snow, warmer winters, and less powder for my home state great beginner hill. Aspen Mountain (aka some of the steepest powder turns around. Getty Images / John P Kelly everyone). of Colorado Ajax) is incredibly steep and a bump-lovers’ Because the hike separates out the gapers

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TRIP NOTES UNEXPECTED Skiing Colorado is easier and cheaper than you’d think. Here are a few tips to A Slice of Portugal

Getty Images / gladassfanny get you started. Skip the day lift ticket. The on Cape Cod way to go is a season pass Steering between Cape Cod’s cranberry Welcome or four pack, such as the Epic Pass and Ikon Pass. bogs and sand dunes, I spin the car radio dial in search of music. What I find surprises Pick a destination that fits me, because instead of pop hits or country, your needs. Families will love Steamboat, Copper I pick up the haunting sounds of a fado Mountain, Snowmass, and song coming from a Portuguese station. Keystone.

When I moved to New England a decade Culture Snowboarders love Art & Art Copper and Vail, while ago, I discovered a region rich in languages: big-mountain riders should indigenous Wampanoag people working look to Aspen, Crested to revive an ancestral tongue, neighbors Butte (some of the gnarliest calling Italian greetings in Boston’s North skiing in the US), Telluride, End, and the French Canadian accents I and the one-lift wonder of hear near my Vermont home. But it took a Silverton. While runs are Cape Cod road trip to meet the Portuguese- Towns &

a little short, the biggest Cities powder is almost always speaking descendants of Azorean and found at Wolf Creek. Madeiran families who settled on the shores of Massachusetts. Mom-and-pop resorts are still worth it. You’ll save I am reluctant to switch off the radio when a bunch of cash, people are friendly, and the relics I pull into Provincetown, the town perched Road Trips of freedom and anti- at the end of Cape Cod. While Plymouth, Aspen establishmentarianism are Massachusetts, is often remembered as alive and well on forgotten the first landing-place of the Mayflower hills like Ski Cooper, Pilgrims, they originally touched down Monarch, Arapahoe Basin, right here. There’s even a monument. But Purgatory, and Sunlight. (a local word for tourists), you can almost Why would I pack my feet into impossibly first, I make a beeline for Provincetown Most people fly into Denver always find fresh powder here. After a big tight boots that make me walk like a robot? Portuguese Bakery, where a baker is rolling (DIA), then schlep up I-70 to & Wildlife

pieces of fried dough, called malasadas, in Nature dump, this is truly epic. Why would I take my daughter into the cold the Summit County resorts. a generous layer of sugar. to slide down icy slopes when there’s a But Steamboat, Aspen, Vail, Telluride, and Crested The times, they are a-changing perfectly good TV at home? Butte all have airports Crispy and sweet, the Madeiran specialties Skiing has changed a lot in Colorado since I The answer comes when the sun peeks nearby, with regular direct are a favorite at the Provincetown was rocking my neon fanny pack and ripping out from the grey clouds and that big, flights all winter long. It's a Portuguese Festival that’s held every June. little more expensive than To ensure a safe year on the famously sweet backscratchers on mogul runs like beautiful Colorado sky appears. It’s my Adventure going into DIA, but missing Drunken Frenchman at Winter Park’s Mary daughter’s ear-to-ear smile after she and her treacherous coast of Cape Cod, the the traffic is priceless. fishermen line up their brightly decorated Jane (like they say no pain, no Jane). BFF took their first run without parents down Colorado gets better later boats for a traditional blessing of the fleet. Snowboarding has caught on in a big Arapahoe Basin’s steep front face. It’s the in the winter, but the snow way, and the resorts in Summit County feel of the wind on my cheek, the laughing can be finicky. Check out Malasada in hand, I wander from the bakery a source like OpenSnow to the nearby Pilgrim Monument. Locals (including Breckenridge, Copper Mountain, crowds and whoops from the chair when I (https://opensnow.com/ call Provincetown “the end of the world,” and Keystone) are often packed to the pull off my trademark backscratcher grab, dailysnow/colorado) for spot-on snow forecasts. but to me that fried dough was a sugary to Know gills. Consolidation means more resorts and the collective feel of comradery and Need rejoinder to the nickname. Because for Skiing and snowboarding are owned by big conglomerates. In short, community as we fly down slopes of snow hopeful immigrants from the Pilgrims to the skiing has gone corporate, and that sucks. and ice in a ridiculous pursuit that makes no are dangerous sports. Wear a helmet, ski in Portuguese, Cape Cod wasn’t the world’s

Sometimes I wonder why I do it. Why sense on paper, but makes perfect sense in control, and, for heaven’s end, it was their first glimpse of a new one. Joel Carillet /Getty Images would I pay US $209 to ski Vail for a day? our hearts. sake, don’t cut me off! Cape Cod Chamber of Commerce Jen Rose Smith

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KAUAI: Getty Images / Nonac Digi for the Green Man

TRIP NOTES Getting there Welcome Several airlines fly direct into Kauai’s Lihue BEYOND Airport from major cities on North America’s west coast. Alternatively, take an inter-island flight with Hawaiian Airlines from Honolulu. Once

on the island, the best Culture THE BEACHES & Art way to get around is to The hint is in the nickname – the “Garden Island” hire a car. beckons you to venture outdoors. Shaun Busuttil is more Kayaking the than happy to answer the call of Kauai. Wailuā River Kayaks can be rented from as low as US $50

per half day including Towns & all equipment (paddles, Cities Kayaking down the Wailuā River Mountain, aka the Sleeping Giant, so called lifejacket, dry bags, It’s just after dawn, and I’m paddling up the because of its profile: viewed side-on from lunch containers, etc). Na Pali Coast It’s also possible to join Wailuā River en route to a “secret” waterfall. the coastal town of Kapaa, the mountain a guided kayaking and The water is a shimmering, orange-tinged looks like a giant lying down. And that’s hiking tour to Uluwehi Falls. mirror to the sky – so still, and so peaceful. pretty much what I want to do, right now, Road Trips It’s just me out here, for the moment anyway, as I scramble up the summit – the Giant’s to fly. My legs tremble as I look across the sighting, but I have the rest of the day to Sleeping Giant amongst the birds and the trees and the Head – and finally reach the roof of the valley, knowing that, in mere seconds, see one. I’m sailing along the breathtaking East Trail The trailhead of the silence. My map says I’ll need to bank my mountain. I’ll be zooming over it at some significant Nā Pali coast in Kauai’s northwest, easily Sleeping Giant East kayak at a small island roughly 2.25mi The Sleeping Giant East Trail is one of speed. Though my nervousness might the island’s most majestic and dramatic Trail is near the end (3.6km) upstream, passing an old Hawaiian Kauai’s most popular hikes, and for good not be evident to others, nerves are to be backdrop, featuring 3,940ft (1,200m) of Haleilio Road, off Kuhio Highway. Plenty village on the way, before commencing reason. First, at only 3.5m (5.6km) round-trip expected. Humans weren’t meant to fly. jagged peaks, hidden beaches, and of parking space is & Wildlife a 20-minute jungle trek to reach the 98ft along a mostly-shaded forest trail, with just I’ve driven over to Kauai’s north shore, towering waterfalls. The marine life is available. Nature (30m) Uluwehi Falls, which, to be honest, a 985ft (300m) change in elevation and past taro plantations and under looming, almost beside the point. Zip-lining isn’t so much of a secret anymore – it's way There are minor scrambling in parts, anyone – from rugged mountains, for a half-day adventure The Nā Pali Coast is considered the 8th Several operators offer too beautiful to be kept under wraps. little Tommy to Nana Beatrice – can do of zip-lining, threading my way over lush natural wonder of the world, and it easily zip-line tours all over several Kauai, all year-round. But Wailuā River was, and still is, sacred. trails up to it. And second, the views from the top, forest canopies that stretch to the horizon. tops the list of must-dos in Kauai. This part A half-day tour starts Besides being Kauai's longest waterway, the summit which compensate adequately for the slog, The longest of the nine thrilling zip-lines of the island is completely inaccessible by at around US $130 per Adventure Wailuā River was once the center of royal are sublime: a 360-degree panorama of is just shy of 1,312ft (400m), and you need road, so the only way to see it is on a sailing person. power on the island. Indeed, it was here, of Nounou Kauai’s beautiful east, including cameos by to walk up a 33ft (10m) ramp to get to the trip along its coast, on a helicopter scenic Sailing the coast Mountain, but Choose between a on the river's banks, that native Hawaiian Kalepa Ridge, the Wailuā Valley, and the platform. Once at the top, facing the Hanalei flight, or on a strenuous 11mi (18km) hike. morning or afternoon royalty came to give birth. Today, the site the Sleeping sweeping coast. There are several trails up Mountains, there’s nowhere to go but down, Personally, I’d choose a sailing trip every cruise around the Nā is a National Historic Landmark, a refuge Giant East to the summit of Nounou Mountain, but the letting go of the fear as the zip-line roars like time. Nothing beats seeing this jewel of Pali coast. All sailing of ancient stone temples set amongst the Sleeping Giant East Trail is easily the most a small jet engine. Hawaii from its most awe-inspiring vantage trips depart from either Port Allen or Kikiaola Trail is easily to Know lush interior of the valley – it isn’t called the the most accessible, and photogenic. point – from the sea looking up – exploring Small Boat Harbor in Need Garden Island for nothing. Sailing around the Nā Pali Coast secluded sea caves and snorkeling in Waimea. Half-day tours accessible, Zip-lining over Kauai's It’s only been 30 minutes and I’ve already crystalline water where you have every can be booked for about and US $180 per person Hiking the Sleeping Giant East Trail verdant valleys spotted three pods of Hawaiian Spinner chance of seeing a green sea turtle, as I Underwater(including Museumlunch and of Art Not far from Wailuā River stands Nounou photogenic I’m strapped into my harness and ready dolphins. I’m still waiting for my first turtle eventually do. refreshments).

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SEEK EXPERIENCES Getty Images / Cavan The Kessel Run Quandary: A Moment of Truth Welcome in the Smoky Culture Mountains & Art TRIP NOTES Poised at the top of the gnarliest mountain bike In addition to campgrounds in Great run in the Great Smokies’ Fire Mountain Trail Smoky Mountains

System, Jason Frye has a big decision to make. National Park, there Towns & are plenty of places Cities to stay in Bryson City and Cherokee. Campgrounds cater panning the border of North Carolina to tents and RVs, and and Tennessee, Great Smoky there’s glamping in yurts and vintage Mountains National Park sees more Road Trips S trailers, rustic cabins than 12 million visitors every year. They throughout the come for waterfall hikes and mountain area, and even the Mountain biking, high-roller suites of views, to get a taste of the great outdoors. I North Carolina go for another reason: adventure. Cherokee’s casino hotel. I switch it I grew up a few hours away and I’ve up, going for the hiked hundreds of miles in the park, visited big sky views of a & Wildlife

at least two dozen waterfalls, seen bear run. Now, I’m here at the top of the biggest cool water. The next day, I’m at Nantahala cars every Wednesday and Saturday until mountaintop campsite Nature one trip, and chic and elk – and crowds of visitors. So when run around. Outdoor Center boarding a bus bound for 10am from May through September). That Airstream glamping I go to the Smokies now, it’s to places the I take off my sunglasses to wipe the the French Broad River and an afternoon of ride – flat, paved, placid – is about as far the next. throngs haven’t found yet. Today, that’s sweat away and to take an unfiltered look rafting Class II and III rapids. There are big away from Fire Mountain’s Kessel Run as Bike rentals are where I am: straddling the saddle of a at the wildflowers growing in riots nearby. Class IV and V rapids nearby, but I’m not you can get. available through I take off my several outfitters,

mountain bike looking down at Cherokee, The ride up contributed to my sweat, but ready for that. But now I really do have to decide: Adventure sunglasses depending on where North Carolina from the top of the Kessel my nerves have added just as much. I take This trip has been the same, so before Kessel Run or an afternoon of fly fishing the you’re riding. In Cades Run, a hardcore mountain bike trail that’s to wipe the a long drink from my water bottle and run I headed to Fire Mountain, before I rode Oconaluftee River? Another sip from my Cove, the Cades part of the Fire Mountain Trail System. through the decision I have to make: ride Tsali, I went to Cades Cove in Great Smoky water bottle. Another look at the mountain Cove Camp Store sweat away has a fleet of bikes Yesterday, I rode the Tsali Recreation and to take the Kessel Run or admit defeat. Mountains National Park, one of the park’s peaks around, at the dirt and wood track available for those Area Trail System near Bryson City, It’s been like this the last few times I’ve most-visited places. Here, an 11mi (18km) leading downhill, at the glittering ribbon of car-free mornings. getting reacquainted with mountain bikes an unfiltered come to the Smoky Mountains. I blend my loop road circles a valley once thick with the Oconaluftee River below. For mountain bikes,

try outfitters in to Know

and downhill rides. I worked the looping look at the adventure, balancing a relaxing day with cabins and farms, now home to black I picture myself hip-deep in the river, Bryson City. And for Need trails, going from retired logging roads wildflowers a knuckle-whitening, adrenaline-pumping bears and hordes of white-tailed deer. I fly rod waving overhead, and it’s settled. whitewater rafting on to downhill runs to roads, building up my afternoon. One day, I float down Deep avoided the crowds by showing up early There’s no quicker way down than the tame or wild water, growing in stop by Nantahala confidence as each loop increased in Creek in an innertube, lounging, swimming on a Saturday morning when the loop road Kessel Run, though. I know I’ll be donning Outdoor Center to difficulty, technicality, and the size of the riots nearby in the few deep pools, and relishing the is closed to cars (Cades Cove is closed to my waders in less than 12 parsecs. book a trip.

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SEEK EXPERIENCES Getty Images / Peter Dennen Getty Images / Peter

EXPLORING Welcome

THE MAINE Culture COAST BY BOAT & Art From discovering hidden coves to joining the crew on & Towns &

a working lobster boat, Barbara Rogers explains why Cities Maine’s rugged shoreline is best experienced by sea.

he typical Maine vacation involves Visitors seldom venture to the Schoodic Road Trips lying on the beach, visiting Peninsula, north of the main part of Acadia Tlighthouses, and eating lobster on National Park on Mount Desert Island. Only a wharf. I prefer to explore Maine’s rocky here in Frenchman’s Bay can we paddle with coast by sea each summer – it introduces just seals and eagles for company, beach me to the local wildlife and shows me on tiny islands, or explore the sea caves that aspects of the region that land travelers pierce the solid wall of cliffs on uninhabited & Wildlife

can never experience. Whether aboard a Ironbound Island. Devil’s Den is an eight- Nature kayak or a windjammer under sail, I feel foot gap that opens into the island’s interior, A lobsterman prepares bait on every movement of the sea and appreciate one of the park’s secret places and only Casco Bay its power. reached by kayak.

Kayaking in Acadia National Park Looking a Catching lobster in Portland Adventure I’m not sure who was more surprised, as Looking a live lobster in the eye as it more to catching lobster than hauling traps. we could buy our catch at a discount, and I silently rounded the sloping rock, me or live lobster in tries to catch my hand in its snapping Sustainability laws, for example, which a dockside restaurant cooked it; lobster the seal 10ft (3m) from my kayak. The seal the eye as it claw is quite different from meeting one is why we were measuring this one to doesn’t get fresher than that. hesitated, clearly unsure whether to stay tries to catch on my plate. I was grateful for the thick determine its age. Tossing undersized or slide off into the water. He chose the my hand in rubber gloves Captain Tom had given me lobsters overboard, along with a hitchhiking Sailing on a Maine windjammer latter and was gone in a splash. The swells when I boarded his lobster boat, Lucky hermit crab, we add a bag of bait herring Red sails against the two masts formed

its snapping to Know grew larger as my husband and I headed claw is quite Catch. I was helping haul big wire traps before dropping the trap back into Casco an ever-changing pattern overhead as Need across the bay. We played our kayaks over the side and retrieve these tasty, if Bay. This is how all 130 million pounds (60 I lounged on the deck of the 95ft (29m) like surfboards as we rode the waves, different from feisty, crustaceans as part of his 1.5-hour million kg) of Maine lobster are harvested ketch Angelique, sailing through the waters little black-and-white guillemots coasting meeting one lobstering trip. I had never been on a annually, by hand and trap by trap, in boats of Penobscott Bay. It was two days into through the water beside us. on my plate working boat and I learned that there’s a lot like Lucky Catch. Back in Portland Harbor, my week-long windjammer cruise and

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TRIP NOTES Catching lobster Cruises leave from Portland; others leave from various Maine UNEXPECTED ports, but not all are Getty Images / Portland Press Herald Getty Images / Portland hands-on experiences. Welcome Trip cost: US $35 for World Ice Art Getty Images / Jerry Monkman / Aurora Photos Getty Images / Jerry Monkman Aurora adults, US $20 for children. Championships Kayaking in Acadia National Park I can’t help but think of Robert Frost’s famous Kayak rentals and tours philosophical puzzle as I stroll through the are offered all along the World Ice Art Championships in Fairbanks, Maine coast, in Acadia Alaska: will the world end in fire, or ice? Culture at Bar Harbor and & Art Judging by the shimmering, phantasmagoric Southwest Harbor. Half- day guided tours cost sculptures at the Tanana Valley Fairgrounds, about US $50. it won’t be ice. Though they may be standing still, these sculptures are far too lively to Sailing in a Maine Kayaking in Acadia Puffin, represent the end of anything. National Park Eastern Egg Rock windjammer Windjammers sail from Camden and Rockland, More than 100 experts from Europe, Asia, Towns & Cities on cruises ranging from and North America have turned one-ton Puerto Escondido three days to a week. (927kg) blocks of ice into vibrant depictions already I was comfortable with the moving Spying on puffins Six-night cruises begin of mythical beings, wild animals, and historic deck and the rhythms of shipboard life. My I’m not normally a birdwatcher. But puffins? around US $1,000, scenes. Alaska’s second-largest city is a shorter from about US reliably frigid venue for the planet’s best ice husband Tim, who loves any craft under They’re different, and on a cruise to $600.

sail, was happily hoisting sails, hauling Machias Seal Island I discovered that I carvers to work outdoors from mid-February Road Trips Puffin watching to the end of March. Happily, this is also an lines, and taking turns at the helm; my could watch them for hours. There are two Cruises sail from New excellent time to view the Northern Lights. 12-year-old daughter Mary staked out a places in Maine to see these denizens of Harbor, Boothbay Harbor, and Cutler; perch on the flat deck-house roof, handy chilly North Atlantic waters: Egg Rock, off I’m bundled up against temperatures that prices begin at US when it was time for her favorite job of Boothbay Harbor, and the larger colony $35, children US $15. can dive below 14°F (-10°C), but Fairbanks’ furling Angelique’s red sails. Me? I gave an at Machias Seal Island. Puffins nest on Learn about local puffin sheltered location with little wind means I occasional hand, but was happy leaning these remote outcrops in the summer to conservation projects at can wander the festival grounds in comfort. the Project Puffin Visitor & Wildlife against a chest on the deck, watching the raise their pufflings, sharing the island with Arthurian jousting, Wagnerian apocalypse, Nature Center in Rockland. soaring griffons, and elvish fairylands – the shore slide past. nesting razorbills, murres, and Arctic terns. sculptures depict universes both real and That proved surprisingly absorbing. We We saw all of these on our cruise from imagined. passed little fir-clad islands shaped like Cutler, but the puffins stole the show with hedgehogs, larger ones with summer their big, bright-colored bills and orange Local carvers offer workshops where I try my hand at this art, and I find it is nowhere near cottages and an occasional lighthouse. In feet. I discovered that I’m enchanted by Adventure the evenings, we’d put in at a deserted cove their stuffed-toy shape and bouncing walk, as easy as it looks, even though I’m wielding a small electric saw meant for delicate shaping. or tiny village where the only businesses and by the way they seem dressed in little were artist studios and an ice cream stand. tuxedos that make them look like ducks “You’re working without a net,” explains my One night, the crew built a driftwood fire on playing penguin. instructor because, once it’s sawn or ground the beach and we feasted on fresh corn and As we slowly circled the island, we had away, ice cannot be put back. And, although lobsters. For an idyllic week, without phones plenty of chance to watch them on the this is a winter art, it turns out heat is the

final touch: I smooth all my ragged surfaces to Know

or email, we played tag with porpoises, rocky shore, flying, diving, and bobbing up Need and curves with a small blowtorch, and wind waved at lobstermen, and watched osprey and down in the water. Although this is a up with a mediocre, faceless, alien-planet soar overhead, following the winds and trip for birders, not a sightseeing cruise, the monolith. As always, best to leave the real

tides and often not knowing where we were puffins provided plenty of entertainment work to professionals. Joel Carillet /Getty Images Getty Images / Cultura RM Exclusive/Stuart Westmorland Getty Images / Cultura RM Exclusive/Stuart or caring where we anchored that night. for me. Eric Lucas

88 89 worldnomads.com Climate & Weather Getty Images / Pete Lomchid Getty Images / Pete

Getty Images / Michael Hanson The USA’s size and varied topography and weather mean you can have an unforgettable holiday experience somewhere, Welcome any time of year.

There’s never a bad time to go on Aurora Borealis, Alaska vacation in the USA. While the west coast’s maritime climate is mild year- Culture

round and Hawaii is consistently balmy, Spring (March-May) & Art some regions enjoy four distinctive Spring comes late in northern states and seasons – sometimes all in one day. higher elevations, but makes up for it with Beware Mother Nature’s fickle moods an explosion of blossoms. at certain times of year. Unless you like Highlights: wildflowers bloom in the it hot and steamy, summer might not be alpine meadows of the Four Corners region & Towns &

best for a Southeastern sojourn. Expect where Arizona, Utah, Colorado, and New Cities Mt. Redoubt, North Cascades National Park searing summer temperatures in desert Mexico meet. Or visit Nebraska for the states, including California, Nevada, spectacular, annual sandhill crane migration. Utah, and Arizona. TRAVEL SMARTER From June to November, hurricanes Summer (June-August)

can affect Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic Ski resorts become mountain playgrounds. Road Trips Climate & Weather 91 coastal states, with late August and Beaches beckon on every coast and September typically the peak. Spring lakeshore. National and state parks offer Getting Around 92 brings tornado threats to a swathe of adventures (and visitors) galore. Snowmelt NEED Top 9 Safety Tips for the US 94 the Great Plains known as Tornado and warmer weather makes summer Alley. perfect for white-water rafting in Colorado. Festival Calendar 96 Here is when to travel where, and Highlights: go whale watching off Maine, & Wildlife

Beware Nature Essential Insurance Tips 98 what to watch for: Massachusetts, and Long Island. Or watch TO KNOW the world’s largest colony of urban bats Mother Ready to explore your boundaries and plan Our Contributors 100 Winter (December-February) leave their downtown Austin, Texas bridge Nature’s your own US adventure? First, check out our Powder hounds can get their fix roost every evening at dusk. Get a Quote 102 fickle moods expert tips to help you travel smarter and in the Pacific Coast Ranges and at certain

Rocky Mountains of the West or the Fall (September-November) Adventure protect yourself against weather, crime, and Appalachians in the East. Or dodge the Autumn brings a kaleidoscope of colors and times of year. other dangers. What’s the best way to get cold with a winter sunshine escape in harvests of grapes and pumpkins. The fierce Unless you around? How can you ensure you’re traveling Florida. heat of summer dissipates in desert states like it hot responsibly? What should you do if you Highlights: winter is less crowded at and the Deep South. and steamy, encounter a bear? Learn all that and more. popular national parks like Yosemite Highlights: see the brilliant golds of summer and Yellowstone. See Yosemite’s rare Colorado’s aspens and glorious foliage

might not to Know

firefall in February, when Horsetail Fall across New England, the Great Smokies, and Need resembles cascading flames in the Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. Fall is also the be best for a low sun. Yellowstone is stunning in the start of Northern Lights season in Alaska. Southeastern snow, with wolves easier to spot. Peter Ellegard sojourn

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Responsible Travel in Getting the US

As a traveler, your Around choices and behavior

Getty Images / Jordan Siemens have an impact. Here’s Planes, trains, or automobiles how to ensure it’s – Peter Ellegard has tried all positive. of these ways to get around Support the local

economy Welcome the USA, including RVs (aka Steer clear of chain motorhomes). Each has hotels, stores, and restaurants – by advantages and disadvantages. dining in local cafes, shopping in independent boutiques, hiring It’s easy to forget just how big this local tour guides, and Culture

country is. More than 1,500mi (2,415km) staying in family-run & Art from north to south and nearly 2,700mi lodging, you’ll help support local jobs and (4,345km) across, the continental USA have a more genuine spans four time zones. So, what’s the experience, too. best way to explore its cities, rural Keep it real communities, and beyond? Seek out experiences (cooking classes, Towns & Cities dance performances) Flying that celebrate the For long-distance journeys, where time local culture and matters, flying wins. It’s also good value, traditions in an authentic way and as competition from low-cost airlines help keep them alive.

has driven ticket prices down. Avoid manufactured Road Trips RV camping in the experiences that But because airline routes radiate Arizona desert are put on solely for from large hubs, getting from A to B tourists. often involves flying via C and even D Protect wildlife if traveling between regional airports. Overnight parking at city hotels is also Long-distance routes are limited, but offer Angeles is also expanding its six-line Metro Don’t harass, touch, Domestic baggage allowances are expensive, even more so for valet parking. wonderful, scenic journeys like Amtrak’s Rail system ahead of hosting the 2028 or feed wild animals, lower than on international flights and Renting a car in one state and dropping Los Angeles-Seattle Coast Starlight train. Olympics. and always keep a safe distance. Support & Wildlife you’ll pay for every bag. Factor in the it off in another typically incurs a hefty Long-distance buses are popular and local conservation Nature extra time at airports and the hassle one-way drop-off fee, sometimes hundreds affordable, operated by Greyhound, Homes on wheels efforts by respecting of security screening, and its appeal of dollars. Megabus, and other companies. Bear in My favorite way of exploring the USA? guidelines and barriers designed to wanes. Road signage can also be confusing. mind some longer journeys may involve Nothing beats trundling around the great protect wildlife. Avoid Missing a turn or taking a wrong freeway several changes of bus. American outdoors in an RV with all its activities where wild animals are exploited Hit the road exit can scupper plans – as I discovered home comforts, stopping where you want Adventure Road signage for profit, used for Built around the automobile, the USA on an early Miami trip when I got lost for City transportation to brew a cuppa and dine al fresco. selfies, or otherwise is crisscrossed by multi-lane freeways can also be hours trying to find the Everglades and Most American cities have minimal public It isn’t cheap; family-size RVs can average forced to interact with and state highways. Driving is a joy and confusing. accidentally drove onto the old, banked transport – usually only buses – although less than 10 miles (16km) per gallon and humans. inexpensive thanks to low fuel prices; Missing a Miami racetrack after a wrong turn. some have light-rail systems, with Uber, camping fees in national parks and popular Minimize your I rarely spend more than US $40 on a Thankfully, these days you can rent a GPS Lyft, and taxis as alternatives. Notable areas add up. But it’s the most fun you can footprint turn or taking Avoid plastic water tankful of gas (as it’s called here). unit along with your car for around US $10 a exceptions include New York’s huge have on four wheels. bottles – instead, a wrong to Know

Expect traffic jams driving in and day, or use a smartphone app. subway system, Washington DC’s metro, Just don’t lock yourself out, as I did when carry a large, reusable Need around big cities. The five most- freeway exit San Francisco’s BART network and cable stopping to empty the trash at my final water bottle and refill it. If hiking or camping, congested cities are Los Angeles, New can scupper Trains and buses cars, Boston’s subway, New Orleans’ Wyoming campground, prior to a three- pack out any trash you York, San Francisco, Atlanta, and Miami. plans Why not relax and see the USA by train? street cars, and Chicago’s L trains. Los hour drive back to Denver to drop it off. carry in.

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attractions, monuments, shopping malls, depending on your needs. If you're in Pride Parade, Top 9 protests, on transport, and in places of the wilderness, check your body for ticks San Francisco worship. But bear in mind that statistically, after walking beneath trees or through tall the odds of being a victim of a terror attack grasses. Ticks can cause many illnesses Safety Tips are very low. such as Lyme Disease and Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever, which are spread across Getty Images / Arun Nevader for the US Transit safety the United States. If not treated promptly, With multiple big cities and vast Whether it's by rental car, taxi, campervan, these diseases can have long-lasting

train, bus, or plane, there are multiple complications. Learn more about how you Welcome areas of wilderness, the US ways to get from A to B in the US. In cities can stay healthy while traveling in the US. presents its share of hazards. like New York and Washington DC, public Here are the main concerns transport reigns and is a cheap way to get Bear safety travelers should be aware of. around. Visitors need to take care when The US has an incredible variety of wildlife, traveling at night and on busy, packed including moose, wolves, bison, alligators, peak-hour services which can be tempting and mountain lions, but is probably best Culture

Street safety for pickpockets. For nomads wanting The US is known for its bears – they can cause & Art In any big city (US or otherwise), there to road-trip across the country, a bit of notorious for serious injury or even death if provoked, are places where travelers need to take preparation can help make sure your trip its expensive so it’s important to take precautions. open arms, and annual Pride celebrations care at night or during the day; whether is a safe one, rather than breaking down in Park rangers are your best resource continue to grow each year. it's securing your belongings and being the middle of nowhere, miles from help. health care for information on local bear activity. aware of your surroundings as you walk system, so If camping, make sure food is secured Tornadoes and hurricanes & Towns &

in crowded areas, or avoiding known Health whether you're in bear-proof containers, and consider Tornadoes occur annually in the US, with Cities high-risk areas where crimes may occur. The US is notorious for its expensive road-tripping, carrying bear spray if hiking in areas bears most forming east of the Rocky Mountains health care system, so whether you're hiking, or are known to frequent. in a place dubbed “Tornado Alley”. Gun violence road-tripping, hiking, or snowboarding, snowboarding, Although not officially defined, Tornado The United States has a high level of it's vital to have travel insurance which Snow safety Alley extends from the border with Canada it's vital to gun possession. Unfortunately, with that includes cover for emergency medical The US offers fantastic skiing and down to northern Texas. Tornadoes also Road Trips comes gun-related crime, and it’s not expenses, medical evacuation, and 24/7 have travel snowboarding, for all ages and experience occur in southern states such as Alabama, limited to mass shootings. The chances emergency assistance, plus other benefits insurance levels. But things can and do go wrong if Mississippi, and Florida, and north-central of being randomly targeted are slim, you’re not careful. Ways to avoid accidents states like Indiana. The main tornado but if you stroll into the wrong area, or injury include wearing a helmet, sticking season is spring, with more than 1,000 your risk of being caught in the crossfire to open trails in the resort, staying within tornadoes touching down in the US each of violence increases. Always ask resort boundaries, making sure your gear year. Although short-lived, tornadoes can & Wildlife

locals which neighborhoods or blocks is up to warmth and safety standards, and cause widespread damage to homes and There are Nature

to avoid. Getty Images / Grant Faint keeping an eye on the weather. infrastructure, and also cause fatalities. many well Stay tuned to local radio and TV stations established Terrorism LGBTQ safety – if the area you’re in is under a tornado and vibrant Terrorism has now become a global There are many well-established and warning, seek shelter indoors (in a room LGBTQ

issue, and no country is immune. Since vibrant LGBTQ communities across the without windows, preferably underground). Adventure 9/11, there have been several terror- United States, not just in urban centers but Hurricanes are another natural hazard communities related incidents in cities across the in regional towns as well. LGBTQ people which cause significant damage and loss of across the United States, including places that have most of the rights that same-sex life each year. Hurricanes form out over the United international visitors may frequent. people have, however discrimination tropical, warm waters of the Caribbean and States, not Wherever you travel in the United unfortunately still exists in many locations track their way north and west towards the just in urban States, it's important to keep yourself and industries. Unfortunately, recent years mainland United States. Hurricane season

centers but to Know

informed via local news reports and have seen an increase in gay hate crimes, in the US is June through November. To Need government advisories. Be aware transphobia, and homophobia. But despite learn more about staying safe during in regional of your surroundings, particularly in Times Square, these challenges, there are many places a hurricane, check out our article for towns as

New York Phototravel Getty Images / Massimo Borchi/Atlantide crowded locations such as popular which welcome LGBTQ travelers with preparation and survival tips. well

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February/March August Festival Calendar The World Ice Art Championships Bat Fest More than 100 experts from Europe, Asia, 1.5 million Mexican free-tailed bats Celebrating history and culture, music and literature, and North America turn one-ton (927kg) streaming out from under the Congress long-held traditions, and just plain weirdness, blocks of ice into vibrant depictions of Bridge at dusk is as good a reason as any interesting festivals happen all over the US, in every mythical beings, wild animals, and historic to celebrate. The festival also features bat scenes. The Northern Lights often make an costumes, two stages of live music, and season of the year – and they’re well worth planning appearance as well. food and craft vendors. your trip around. Here is just a small sampling.

Fairbanks, Alaska Austin, Texas Welcome

Early March August/September January/February Frozen Dead Guy Days Appaloosa Music Festival National Cowboy A cross between Monty Python and the Held in the Shenandoah Valley about an Poetry Gathering zombie apocalypse, this festival features hour from Washington, DC, this roots- The Gathering is a week-long three days of frosty, death-themed based music and camping festival is one Culture

celebration of the arts and crafts of merriment and silly games, including of the best places to see up-and-coming & Art cowboy culture, with real-life wranglers more than 30 live bands, costumed polar bluegrass, Celtic, Americana, folk, and reciting poems, singing songs, or telling plunges, and frozen-turkey bowling. country musicians from around the country. stories about life on the range. You’ll Nederland, Colorado Front Royal, Virginia also find workshops on everything from poetry writing to hat making to cooking May August/September & Towns & Western fare. 1.5 million bats Fiesta Asia Southern Decadence Cities Elko, Nevada This free street fair coincides with Asian The name says it all – with six days of streaming out Pacific American Heritage Month and costume contests, drag shows, concerts, January/February from under is part of the month-long DC Passport and parades, this event is not for the Whitefish Winter Carnival the Congress event. Highlights include live martial arts ascetic. The biggest LGBTQ party in the

Based loosely on a Nordic tradition and dance, as well as interactive hula, South has also been called the “Gay Road Trips involving the god Ullr and a yeti, this Bridge at dusk Bollywood, and belly dancing lessons. Mardi Gras,” with all the merriment and festival includes a Penguin Plunge in is as good a Washington, DC indulgence that implies. a frozen lake, a Viking parade, and a reason as any New Orleans, Louisiana Pat skijoring competition (where skiers are to celebrate June pulled by horses). Mermaid Parade Second week of September Trailing of the Sheep

Festival, Idaho Crow Robert Whitefish, Montana Founded partly to raise the self-esteem Fiestas de Santa Fe & Wildlife of a so-called “entertainment” district, this Bring your troubles to Santa Fe. Founded Nature event is the largest art parade in the US. in 1712, this fiesta is billed as the longest- the hands-down highlight is the Oyster More than 3,000 costumed participants running community festival in the US. The Shuck-off competition. and a half-million spectators gather for an highlight is the Burning of Zozobra, aka Old Wellfleet, Massachusetts American version of a summer solstice Man Gloom, a 50ft tall (15m tall) puppet set The name

celebration. aflame to cast off worries. Mid-October Adventure Getty Images / JAndy Newman Getty Images / JAndy Coney Island, New York Santa Fe, New Mexico says it all – Trailing of the Sheep with six days Started as a way to reduce conflict Mid-July Mid-October of costume between ranchers and newcomers, this Hemingway Days Wellfleet Oysterfest contests, festival preserves the history and culture Honoring the famed, bearded, burly writer The oyster beds off the coast of this Cape drag shows, of Idaho sheep ranching and herding. who lived and worked here for much of Cod town are considered some of the There’s traditional dancing, music, and

concerts, and to Know

his life, this festival includes a Hemingway world’s greatest. Oysterfest honors the crafts, but sheep are at the center of the Need parades, this Hemingway look-alike contest, literary events, and a town’s deep shellfishing heritage with event, including a 1,500-sheep parade Festival, Key three-day marlin-fishing tournament. two days of music, storytelling, cooking event is not down Ketchum’s main street. West, Florida Key West, Florida demonstrations, and nature walks, but for the ascetic Ketchum, Idaho

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50 states. Countless adventures. Colorado canyon See our other guides Make sure you’re covered. Mexico: Where Nomads Go Whether you're visiting from another country or another state, travel Getty Images / SWKrullImaging Join our travelers as they insurance can help protect you if and when things go wrong. kayak with marlins, surf the Mexican pipeline, and eat their

way from coast to coast. Welcome

The land of the free (and the home of Adventure Iceland Insiders’ Guide the brave) is as marvelously eclectic Skiing, snowboarding, and hiking Get our Go beyond the Blue Lagoon smart, flexible as it is grand and vast. Whatever The country’s terrains have an adventure Travel and Gullfoss to discover region you’re roaming – whether for every level of sportsman, from novice Insurance out-of-the-way hot pools and Culture

you’re exploring a quaint small town to near-expert, and every traveler should here Water sports cascades. & Art or a remote geological wonder – here have the appropriate tier of travel insurance From white-water rafting to sea kayaking, are a few things to know about travel to match. Depending on your country of World Nomads provides cover for a wide insurance cover. residence and your travel insurance plan, range of activities taking place on lakes, Canada Insiders’ Guide World Nomads provides cover for activities rivers, and oceans. Some activities have Culture in Haida Gwaii, Medical emergencies such as hiking, trekking, and alpine, cross- conditions (such as the accompaniment of northern lights in Yellowknife, & Towns &

The United States has one of the most country, and helicopter skiing. a licensed guide) or exclusions to the level or camping in the Canadian Cities expensive and complicated health Caveat: some exclusions apply, including of activity. Additional premiums may apply. Rockies... where to start? care systems in the world. Even a activities above certain elevations, brief consultation with a doctor could mountaineering and solo expeditions, and Things to avoid do some damage to your wallet, search-and-rescue missions. Be sure to Encounters with nature can be awe- Japan Insiders’ Guide

not to mention that an emergency check your policy carefully to see what is inspiring and educational – up until you With awe-inspiring Road Trips (hospitalization, evacuation, or a and isn’t covered. inadvertently get hurt. Travel insurance temples and world-famous repatriation home) could cost hundreds can provide protection for accidents and food, there’s plenty to love of thousands of dollars, as well as injuries when you act responsibly – but not about Japan. North Cascades ruining your trip. Travel insurance can National Park when you’re feeding bears in the woods help you and your family with medical or petting porcupines; gallivanting in the Your journey starts here. Get off the beaten track emergencies and the associated remote backcountry; or teetering at the and experience destinations like a local with our & Wildlife

expenses when you’re out of town edge of a cliff or geyser for the ultimate free travel guides. Nature on a trip (it’s not the same as health Getty Images / Cavan selfie. The consequence of going head first insurance, which is for routine or into an iffy situation? You’re not covered. www.worldnomads.com/explore/guides ongoing medical care when you’re at home).

Our emergency assistance team can Adventure support you 24/7 to give you advice on Travel insurance doesn't cover everything. All of the information we provide is a brief summary. It does not include all terms, conditions, limitations, exclusions, and termination provisions of the plans described. Coverage may not be the same or available for residents of all countries, states, or provinces. Please carefully read your what to do in the case of an emergency. policy wording for a full description of coverage. WorldNomads.com Pty Limited (ABN 62 127 485 198 AR 343027) at Governor Macquarie Tower, Level 18, 1 Farrer Place, This could be locating suitable medical Sydney, NSW, 2000, Australia is an Authorised Representative of nib Travel Services (Australia) Pty Ltd (ABN 81 115 932 173 AFSL 308461) and is underwritten by certain underwriters at Lloyd's. World Nomads Travel Lifestyle (Europe) Limited (CN 601852) markets and promotes travel insurance products of Nomadic Insurance Benefits facilities where you can be seen by Limited (CN 601851), First Floor, City Quarter, Lapps Quay, Cork, Ireland. Nomadic Insurance Benefits Limited is regulated by the Central Bank of Ireland. WorldNomads. health care professionals or arranging com Pty Limited markets and promotes travel insurance products of Nomadic Insurance Limited (License No.1446874), at PO Box 1051, Grand Cayman KY1-1102, Cayman Islands. World Nomads Inc. (1585422), at 520 3rd Street, Suite 201, Oakland, CA 94607, plans are administered by Trip Mate Inc. (in CA & UT, dba, Trip Mate Insurance ambulance transportation and overnight Agency) at 9225 Ward Parkway, Suite 200, Kansas City, MO, 64114, USA, with 24-hour and Assistance Services provided by One Call Worldwide Travel Services Network,

Inc. and plans underwritten by Nationwide Mutual Insurance Company and affiliated companies, Columbus, OH. World Nomads (Canada) Ltd (BC: 0700178; Business to Know

hospital stays if that’s what your case Need No: 001 85379 7942 RC0001) is a licensed agent sponsored by AIG Insurance Company of Canada at 120 Bremner Boulevard, Suite 2200, Toronto, Ontario, M5J 0A8, requires. Be sure to check in with the Canada. World Experiences Seguros De Viagem Brasil Ltda (CNPJ: 21.346.969/0001-99) at Rua Padre João Manuel, 755, 16º andar, São Paulo – SP, Brazil is an Authorized Partner (Representante) of Zurich Minas Brasil Seguros S.A. (CNPJ: 17.197.385/0001-21) at Av. Getúlio Vargas, 1420, 5th floor, Funcionários, Belo Horizonte, State of Minas team to get the okay on what your plan Gerais through the SUSEP Process 15414.901107/2015-77. All World Nomads entities listed above, including Nomadic Insurance Benefits Limited*, Nomadic Insurance is able to cover. Limited and nib Travel Services (Australia) Pty Ltd*, are subsidiaries of nib holdings limited (ABN 51 125 633 856).

98 99 worldnomads.com Meet Our Contributors True Nomads all, our writers are world Claudia Alarcón Libby Baldwin Joel Balsam Imani Bashir Sarah Bence Greg Benchwick Ashley Biggers UNITED STATES UNITED STATES CANADA UNITED STATES UNITED STATES UNITED STATES UNITED STATES travelers bound by the desire to truly Claudia is a Mexico A writer and USCG- Joel and his partner, A former sports Sarah is a Michigan Greg lives in Colorado An award-winning understand the countries they visit. City-born writer based in licensed captain, Libby photographer Stephanie broadcaster, now a native and global and writes about travel journalist and Austin, Texas, where she eschews comfortable Foden, are Canadian full-time writer, Imani nomad who loves travel and adventure contributor to CNN and Welcome If you’d like to contribute, keep an eye on our Assignments page, covers dining, drinking, year-round employment freelance journalists is raising her son as a raising awareness for publications Fodor's Travel, among and travel, with a focus to share her passion and digital nomads who global citizen and has of misrepresented worldwide, while also others, Ashley lives where you can apply for upcoming opportunIties. on local ingredients. for whales and ocean are permanently on lived in Poland, Egypt, or disadvantaged working on sustainable in Albuquerque, New stewardship. the road. and China. communities and places. development for Mexico. the UN. Culture Art & Art

Rebecca Heide Brandes Shaun Busuttil Kassondra Cloos Peter Ellegard Jason Frye Joseph Furey Anthea Gerrie Carol Guttery Elle Hardy Bodenheimer UNITED STATES AUSTRALIA UNITED STATES UNITED KINGDOM UNITED STATES UNITED KINGDOM UNITED KINGDOM UNITED STATES AUSTRALIA UNITED STATES Heide is an award- A freelance travel writer Kassondra is a freelance Peter has been exploring Author of multiple Joe hit the road in his Anthea is based in the Carol is a travel writer, Elle loved traveling so Rebecca is an Oakland- winning journalist and photographer travel writer and former the world for 35 years guidebooks, Jason teens, and he’s barely UK but travels the world photographer, and much that she found based freelance writer and editor. Besides originally from Australia, crime reporter. When as a travel writer, editor, writes about food stopped for gas since. in search of stories. Her philanthropy consultant a way to make a living and cultural critic who freelancing full time, Shaun loves writing not on deadline, she can and photographer. The and travel across the Writing credits include special interests are art, whose travels have out of it. Hailing from Towns & Cities publishes on a range of she’s a medieval warrior about adventure, be found road tripping USA is one of his favorite American South and The Guardian, National architecture, culture, taken her to 44 Australia, she has visited topics, including Cuban and professional culture, and the human around the American destinations. around the world. Geographic, and Vice. food, and drink. countries and territories. over 70 countries so far. culture and society. bellydancer. condition. Southwest. Road Trips

Elizabeth Heath Stefani Jackenthal Katie Jackson Allyson Jennings Maura Johnston Catie Joyce-Bulay Eric Lucas Neil McRobert Aaron Millar Tim Neville UNITED STATES UNITED STATES UNITED STATES AUSTRALIA UNITED STATES UNITED STATES UNITED STATES UNITED KINGDOM UNITED KINGDOM UNITED STATES Former Florida girl Stefani is an adventure Born in Montana, Katie Allyson is a scientist, A writer, editor, and Catie is a freelance Eric’s work focuses on Neil is an ex-academic An award-winning A frequent contributor Elizabeth now lives in travel and wine journalist was raised on a farm conservationist, and journalism professor writer based in the the meaning of travel who ditched a travel writer, journalist, to The New York Times, the hills of central Italy, and elite endurance before being educated explorer. When she’s based in Boston, Maura Pacific Northwest of the and human culture, particularly bad job to and author, Aaron is Tim has scaled glaciers & Wildlife

where she writes about athlete who has in the concrete jungle of not out on her next is a contributor to US, where she fell in with special emphasis roam around the US and The Times of London’s and cycled hundreds Nature culture, travel, and competed and reported NYC. She covers travel, adventure, she’s Pitchfork, Vanity Fair, love with adventure and on sustainability and Canada, doing odd jobs North American travel of miles to report his culinary adventures. from around the world. food, and other lifestyle producing travel safety and Entertainment mountains. indigenous peoples. and living precariously specialist. stories. topics. content for World Weekly. for a year. Nomads. Adventure

Shoshi Parks Gigi Ragland Frances Rivetti Barbara Radcliffe Ed Salvato Jen Rose Smith Bill Sullivan Allison Tibaldi Elen Turner Gina Zammit UNITED STATES UNITED STATES UNITED STATES Rogers UNITED STATES UNITED STATES UNITED STATES UNITED STATES NEW ZEALAND UNITED STATES Shoshi is a recovering A freelance travel writer Frances is a Northern UNITED STATES Considered one of the With a home base Born in California, Bill Allison is a New York Elen is a travel writer Gina is a Connecticut- academic, travel based in Colorado, Gigi California-based Barbara is a travel and world’s leading experts in Vermont’s Green has traveled extensively City-based travel and and editor who divides based freelance junkie, and national writes about outdoor freelance journalist who food writer specializing on gay travel, Ed is co- Mountains, Jen writes around the globe, food writer. She’s lived her time between New journalist, SATW Lowell

park aficionado who recreational experiences travels the greater San in her native New founder and editor-in- about travel, adventure, and now wanders the in Rome, Melbourne, Zealand and Nepal, with Thomas Award recipient, to Know specializes in writing for a variety of online and Francisco Bay Area in Hampshire, the chief of ManAboutWorld and culture around the western US looking for Toronto, and LA, but previous lives in the UK, world traveler, and self- Need about travel, history, print publications. search of extraordinary northeastern United magazine. globe. the authentic Western a piece of her heart Japan, and US among proclaimed cat lady in and food. stories. States, and southern spirit. remains in NYC. others. training. Europe.

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