There was a time when traveling required a map, a compass, several months of provisions, and a willingness to die of dysentery somewhere west of Missouri.
Today we have GPS, smartphones, satellite imagery, weather radar, online reservations, and approximately 47,000 travel blogs explaining where to buy the best croissant in Paris.
And somehow we still manage to take the wrong exit.
Welcome to our Travel Guides, a growing collection of useful information for people who would like to see interesting places without accidentally turning a relaxing vacation into an expensive logistical shitshow.
These guides are about figuring out the important stuff before you get there.
Where should you go?
When should you go?
What should you see?
What’s worth skipping?
Where the hell do you park?
And perhaps most importantly:
Is there somewhere nearby to pee?
These are the questions upon which civilizations are built.
Travel Planning for People Who Hate Travel Planning
Planning a trip occupies a strange position in human recreation.
You spend months dreaming about going somewhere, then eventually realize that going there requires accomplishing roughly seventeen administrative tasks.
Hotel.
Transportation.
Reservations.
Tickets.
Parking.
Weather.
Opening hours.
Restaurants.
Routes.
Backup plans.
And somewhere along the way you discover the attraction you built the entire damn trip around is closed every third Tuesday following a full moon from October through April.
Excellent.
Our travel guides attempt to gather the useful stuff into one place so you can spend less time researching logistics and more time doing the thing you presumably wanted to do in the first place.
Going somewhere.
The Stuff You Actually Want to Know
There’s plenty of travel information on the internet.
The problem is that much of it reads like it was written by the local tourism bureau after drinking six cups of coffee.
Everything is charming.
Everything is historic.
Everything is conveniently located.
Everything offers something for everyone.
That phrase frightens me.
Nothing offers something for everyone.
Not even pizza.
Our guides take a more practical approach.
We’ll talk about things like:
- What makes the destination worth visiting
- Major attractions
- Interesting history
- Scenic drives and worthwhile detours
- Hotels and places to stay
- Restaurants and local food
- Seasonal considerations
- Crowds and traffic
- Parking
- Hiking and outdoor activities
- Nearby places worth adding to the trip
- Things that could screw up an otherwise perfectly good day
Basically, all the stuff we’d want somebody to tell us before we packed the car.
We’ll Probably Tell You Some History Too
One problem with visiting interesting places is that they’re usually interesting for a reason.
So our travel guides have a habit of wandering into history.
Sometimes quite a lot of it.
We might start by explaining where to park and somehow end up discussing Indigenous civilizations, Spanish explorers, mining booms, abandoned railroads, questionable nineteenth-century businessmen, archaeological discoveries, or some lunatic who decided the side of a mountain looked like an excellent place to build a town.
We’re not sorry.
Understanding what happened somewhere can completely change the experience of standing there.
A pile of rocks becomes an archaeological site.
An old building becomes somebody’s life’s work.
A forgotten mining town becomes evidence of thousands of people chasing wealth into a place where winter clearly wanted them dead.
History gives scenery a story.
And stories make places worth remembering.
When Should You Go?
This is one of those questions travel sites occasionally answer with:
“There’s never a bad time to visit!”
Bullshit.
There is absolutely a bad time to visit virtually everywhere.
Sometimes it’s January.
Sometimes it’s July.
Sometimes it’s Saturday at 2 p.m. when every other human being with access to Instagram has arrived at exactly the same scenic overlook.
The best time depends on what you’re trying to do.
Fall colors?
Snow?
Hiking?
Wildflowers?
Avoiding crowds?
Avoiding children?
Avoiding temperatures capable of cooking a forgotten Snickers bar on the dashboard?
We’ll try to explain the tradeoffs rather than declaring one magical month in which the heavens open and affordable hotel rooms descend upon mankind.
Getting There Is Sometimes Half the Problem
There’s an old saying:
Getting there is half the fun.
This saying was clearly invented before interstate traffic.
Still, how you arrive matters.
Some trips involve beautiful scenic highways.
Others involve winding mountain roads.
Some attractions have plenty of parking.
Others appear to believe parking is a moral weakness.
And certain destinations become dramatically less enjoyable if you arrive at precisely the same time as ten thousand other people who read the same “hidden gem” article you did.
We’ll cover that stuff when it matters.
Because knowing about a beautiful destination isn’t terribly useful if nobody tells you the road getting there turns into a migrating herd of Subarus every weekend.
The Detour Might Be Better Than the Destination
This is where travel gets interesting.
Sometimes the famous attraction is fantastic.
Sometimes the little town twenty minutes away is better.
Maybe there’s an old mining museum.
A weird roadside attraction.
A family business that’s been making something the old-fashioned way for generations.
An archaeological site you hadn’t heard about.
A historic district nobody bothers mentioning.
Or simply a road where you pull over and think:
Well, shit. Look at that.
Those discoveries frequently become our favorite parts of a trip.
So our guides aren’t necessarily confined to the giant attraction printed across the tourism brochure.
If there’s interesting crap nearby, we’re probably going to tell you about it.
We’re Not Trying to Give You the Perfect Vacation
Because there isn’t one.
Weather changes.
Restaurants close.
Road construction appears overnight like mushrooms.
Hotels screw things up.
Flights get delayed.
Kids melt down.
Adults melt down.
Somebody forgets the charger sitting approximately six inches from the suitcase.
Travel is fundamentally unpredictable.
The purpose of a good travel guide isn’t to eliminate uncertainty.
It’s to eliminate some of the avoidable stupidity.
If reading one of these guides saves you from driving thirty miles in the wrong direction, arriving after something closes, missing an incredible historical site, or spending forty-five minutes circling a parking lot while quietly considering divorce, we’ve accomplished something.
Pick Somewhere and Go
Below you’ll find our growing collection of travel guides covering cities, small towns, national parks, historic sites, scenic drives, hotels, attractions, and whatever other interesting crap we stumble across.
Some trips require serious planning.
Others require a tank of gas and an irresponsible willingness to take the scenic route.
Both can turn into great adventures.
And both can turn into complete disasters.
We’re here to improve the odds.
So pick somewhere.
Pack some snacks.
Fill the tank.
Download the map before you lose cell service.
And for God’s sake, use the bathroom before we leave.
Apparently we’re not stopping again until New Mexico.
