👋🏻 Welcome to the latest issues of The Jaunt—the newsletter that hopes to give you the best-curated content about the state of local travel in America.
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It’s clear that Americans wanted to hit the road. Hit the road they did, to the tune of 37.1 million Americans who drove or flew to destinations around the country over Memorial Day weekend.
Compare that to the previous 2020 Memorial Day when 23.1 million folks ventured out more than 50 miles from their homes.
Overwhelmingly, Americans took to the highways—33.4 million traveled somewhere by car, up from an astounding 22.6 million in 2020.
This comes as more than 50 percent of Americans have been given the COVID-19 vaccine. Look for these numbers to creep up for the July Fourth holiday.
If you’re looking for holiday bookings, well we wish you good luck. Most campsites and hotels have been booked up. Dedicated Facebook groups like Wisconsin Resorts, Cottages, and Cabin Rentals have seen an uptick of posts for people searching for available rentals in the northern woods for their summer getaways.
Here is a list of our favorite articles we’re reading about travel this week:
At the Foot of the Golden Gate Lies the British Pub of Your Dreams | Pacific West | Via: SFGate
The walk is magical, from the cliff tops down to Pirate’s Cove beach and back up, bathed in the moonlight shining off the waters under the Golden Gate Bridge. And while it’s foggy and muddy, it’s worth it for the reward — a pint of Old Speckled Hen and a Guinness beef stew at the Pelican. There you’ll find a Tudor-style storybook inn complete with a bar out of the English countryside, Old Speckled Hen and all.
The Best Bars in America | Nationwide | Via: Esquire
We’ve been yearning for a drink amongst others. This year’s Best Bars are a reflection of the desire to experience wonder once more—in being introduced to mind-expanding wines and whiskeys, downing pints in old churches, or hunkering in jazzy spaces again—and to be grateful for places that managed to remain intrinsic to the fabric of drinking culture in America. A pioneering cocktail den in Harlem, one of the oldest sake bars in America, a converted church in the ‘Natti, and a quintessential Mission District dive are all part of this year’s list, our fifteenth.
Postcards Nearly Lost of California Desert Scenes | Desert Southwest | Via: Atlas Obscura
Earlier that day, a colleague had dropped by dragging a heavy plastic sack filled with black photo albums that appeared to be quite old. Though May was an environmental management specialist who reviewed history and archeology reports for the County of San Diego, sometimes workers at the Office of the Public Administrator would ask May to assess the historic value of items from unclaimed estates of the deceased, so this visit was not unusual. But when his colleague told him she’d recovered the photo albums after they were trashed by someone from the Public Administrator’s—and that there were more photos still inside the Dumpster—May’s curiosity was officially piqued. “I recognized this is stuff that should not have been thrown away,” May says.
Which is how he wound up among stacks of rotten food and smeared newspapers, urgently rescuing what turned out to be an extraordinary collection of black and white photographs taken by Susie Keef Smith, who died in 1988. Smith’s images, as well as pictures taken by her younger cousin Lula Mae Graves, are featured in the new book Postcards from Mecca, The California Desert Photographs of Susie Keef Smith and Lula Mae Graves, 1916-1936.
Did You Know A Ferry Shuttles Cars Across Lake Michigan? | Upper Midwest | Via: Shoreline Media
The SS Badger set on its maiden voyage for the season on Thursday morning. Locals welcomed the Badger with cool winds and cloudy skies. Passengers began lining up outside around 7:30 a.m. to get on the ship.
The Badger was originally launched in 1953 and is the last operating coal ship in the United States. Today, she is a national historic landmark.
“We’re really excited to get the 2021 sailing season underway. There’s been a lot of pent up demand from passengers and locals ready to get on board,” Shelby Soberalski, the director of marketing and sales for Lake Michigan Carferry said, “It’s been really awesome coming into work every day and just seeing the excitement of people wanting to sail.”
America’s 15 Best Small Towns to Visit | Nationwide | Via: Smithsonian
Perhaps more than ever now is a time to appreciate America's small towns. As we begin to see the other side of a pandemic that kept so many of us isolated, it is easier to understand the value in those things we've missed. Whether it's by enjoying an outdoor summer concert with neighbors or by catching up with friends at the local brewpub, a sense of community has been hard to find for many; Zoom and FaceTime made for adequate, virtual stand-ins, but they don't compare to the real thing. It's those in-person interactions with familiar faces that make small towns so alluring. That is, along with the independent shops, hidden gem parklands, historic sites and architecture, unique restaurant finds, and, of course, a slower pace of life and relative affordability that numerous city dwellers are finding more and more appealing.
Fortunately, many of America's small towns are emerging from the effects of Covid-19 resilient and ready to welcome visitors. Some, like Dyersville, Iowa, are finally hosting long-anticipated sporting events that the pandemic placed on hold. Others, such as Council Grove, Kansas, are celebrating historic anniversaries. Whatever the case, the 15 places we've chosen as the best small towns to visit in 2021 are prime examples of perseverance and preservation, and reminders of all that we love about small towns in the first place.
Pop-Up Magazine Creates Neighborhood Scavenger Hunt in San Francisco | Pacific West | San Francisco Chronicle
Pop-Up Magazine’s usual shtick is to convert a high-quality magazine into a stage show. Audiences consume a bunch of articles — some bite-size, some probing, all sharp and surprising — that are performed as readings and film and music and multimedia. The result often feels something like the love child of an intellectual salon and a vaudeville road show.
In the late pandemic, with indoor theaters still mostly closed, the 12-year-old company has fashioned a new venue out of a few blocks of Hayes Valley. “The Sidewalk Issue,” available through June 20, marks yet another adaptation in the form: From magazine to performance to scavenger hunt.
Riding the Zephyr Across Colorado | Mountain West | Via: Colorado Public Radio
Amtrak’s California Zephyr glides nearly 2,500 miles between Chicago and the San Francisco Bay Area. Colorado is right in the middle, with train stations nestled in mountains, deserts and plains.
Train ridership plunged earlier in the pandemic, prompting Amtrak to cut schedules on long-haul routes to just three days a week.
But now, Amtrak is phasing daily long-haul service back in across the country, which seemed like the perfect excuse (ahem, I mean news hook) to take the California Zephyr all the way across Colorado. The truth is, I just love riding the train.
Find of the Week
In our last issue, we told you about a great follow on Instagram: The Great Texas Road Story. This week, they shared one of their favorite follows–Dylan Wade, a photographer who captures “the Northern Michigan vernacular.”
His Instagram is full of lovely shots of life as it unfolds in small Michigan towns like town squares, storefronts, tavern signs, and homes. Give him a follow and tell him we sent you.
This follows an interesting trend of photographers and local documentarians who are capturing life in the place they call home.