Traveling Like A Local in the Age of Instagram

How to tap into the authenticity of a place by talking to locals

This post is the first in a series of three essays produced through David Perell’s Write of Passage Bootcamp. I joined cohort 13 as one of ten O'Shaughnessy Venture Fellows and look forward to injecting ideas and innovations from the program into The Jaunt newsletter. Thank you so much for supporting my writing!

For centuries, Hanging Lake was a primordial place in the American West. 

A sweeping curtain of waterfalls and an elevated azure lake give the illusion that the lake is floating on the cliffs. 

Tucked away in a remote region east of Glenwood Canyon, sits the primordial place in the American West - Hanging Lake.

If you want to visit it, you need peak physical aptitude. The hike to this awe-inspiring place requires a mile-plus hike and 1,000 feet of elevation gain. 

You’ll also need a dash of good luck. Before anyone can visit, they must battle a gauntlet of rules, regulations, and schedules. 

Web sites. Calendars. Tiny print. Reservation systems. Blackout dates. Trail closures. Maintenance. Permits. 

Oh, and don’t forget the legions of hikers trying to do the same thing—access to prized places is becoming a race won by those with the fastest Internet speed. 

There are a bunch of these types of places that are fixtures of memorable experiences that the locals will say passersby must see. In Utah, it’s Escalante Staircase. In the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, it’s Kitch-iti-kipi, an impossibly clear spring. 

Kitch-iti-kipi shares many parallels with Hanging Lake. It’s forbidden to swim there, and the stunningly clear Caribbean-esque water has exponentially reached national levels of prominence, thanks in part to the rise of social media and influencers. 

See, I’d love to tell you how amazing my visit to Hanging Lake was. Since moving to Colorado four years ago, I’ve made many attempts to reach Hanging Lake and have been turned away at every pass. I’ve lost out on reservations and have been turned away by the pandemic and forest fires. At this very moment, the trail is closed because of trail maintenance. 

Instagram and TikTok have ruined travel. It used to take effort to find the local hidden gems—reading guidebooks, scouring message boards, and asking family and friends about where to venture. Now, social media has found a way to tap into the dopamine hits that feed our brains and stitch them into short reels that show a saccharine-infused view of the world. 

How We Used to Travel: From Postcards to Reels 

Early travelers through Colorado (and the nation) used to share their memories by scribbling their thoughts down in cursive on postcards. They’d slap one-cent postage on the postcards and ship them off to far-flung family and friends to share the delights and discoveries of their travels. Today, these memories are locked away in drawers, attics, and antique stores, requiring hardcore effort by those to uncover what was experienced decades ago. There’s no cheat code to unlock the history. 

It’s charming and nostalgic to imagine this almost impossible phase of travel discovery. Today, travelers cannot visit places without their appendages attached to smartphones capable of documenting their visit by snapping a photo, selecting a filter, and dispatching it to the globe in a nanosecond. Location geodata and hashtags further compound the challenge of keeping local gems local. 

I come from a time when surfacing travel research took work. When social media platforms like Instagram came along, there were new ways to find out-of-the-way places and meet unique folks. For a time, National Geographic used to feature long-form travel stories on their plat

But, good things come to an end. Now if you plug in “Hanging Lake Colorado” into Instagram search, you’ll find a sea of sepia-toned glamor shots and selfies. 

The ramifications have been devastating for these precious local places. 

Hanging Lake’s visitors skyrocketed from 99,000 in 2014 to 150,000 in 2016. The increase in visitors ushered in a wave of graffiti and a highly publicized incident in 2021 when an influencer and business owner used the lake as a backdrop for a promotional stunt to promote his brand. Despite posted signs, David Lesh tight-roped the lake’s practically enshrined log to market his brand. 

These intrusions have hindered local authorities' ability to control access. At its height of popularity, no doubt fueled by Instagram, TikTok, and other social platforms, the park was receiving 1,200 visitors a day. 

While Instagram used to be a clever tool to isolate interesting places to visit if you search for Hanging Lake, you’ll undoubtedly scroll through ne’er do wells who provocatively pose, feed wildlife, or walk the log – all in the name of that selfie and influencer moment. 

A newly installed permit and shuttle system now limit that to 600 visitors a day. To regulate and control those visitors, a reservation system opens up, and inevitably, time slots are gobbled up in minutes. 

Talking to Locals is the Key to Experiencing Places 

If influencers have ruined travel by bringing hordes of selfie-seekers to local gems, there must be an antidote. 

Speak to the locals. Seek authenticity through the people who call a place their home. 

The commoditization of local places has turned formerly treasured places into a checklist that must be conquered. 

When I scroll through Instagram, I wonder if these places have become a sea of checklists we must conquer. These photos do not share intricate details about a place—no backstory, no local lens, no authenticity. It’s just the same view with different people posing. 

These posts look beautiful, but it's essential to know they are sugar-coated and contorted pretzels of reality. There is no substance or meaning behind them. Rarely does that reel or snapshot you see in your feed offer authenticity—a story about why it's unique, an exploration of its history, or a local angle. 

Influencer’s reels have brought locust-like hordes of selfie-seekers. Travel has become more checklist, less discovery. Yet, the keys to traveling and exploring a place like a local can still be obtained if you look in the right places, research intelligently, and ask locals the right questions. This essay will help unlock those skills.

When you roll into a new town, there are a few people to track down who can help steer you to the best places. 

Generational Knowledge: Track down older residents with the keys to extensive local knowledge and stories passed down from generations. They’re likely to have seen what has faded and what remains. Their lived experiences and family stories are priceless vignettes that can be dictated to you in a way that opens up new ways of seeing how a place lives. 

Community Involvement: Many towns have close-knit church communities and civil organizations that work tirelessly on behalf of building a better place. Kiwanis, the Rotary, and Elks are examples of civic groups plugged into the pipeline of happenings in town and understand their needs. 

Business Owners: Small, family-owned businesses are a place's lifeblood. Every day, shop owners interact with a variety of community members and understand what is happening, who is involved, and where they should go next. Their recommendations can be as simple as where to get a good cup of coffee, where to get the best happy hour beverage, or who has the best Friday night dinner. 

Ready for the best person to find in a small town?

Behold – your local town barber. 

Old school journalists often reveal that the first stop to a new location for a reporting assignment was to stop at the barber. There, they could unwind and relax in a chair, spiff up, and blend into the surroundings by connecting to some of the best local intel. Barbers meet everyone in town. They know the ins and outs and can point you to the best coffee, a good sandwich, or a hidden gem.

If you choose this route and need a trim, shave, or touch-up – don’t forget to ask them one of the most important questions before laying down your tip: “Who else should I talk to while I am here.” 

While influencers have changed the game for travel, one thing will never change – the stories of locals will provide the most compelling and authentic way to see and experience a town. An Instagram post can effectively ruin a special place for generations, but a local's generational knowledge and stories will stay with you forever.