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script-a-world · 5 years ago

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I hope this isn't a silly question but can beaches be in downtown areas? I personally live in a downtown area full of high rises with the harbour right in front of it. So why can't harbour be replaced with beach. Also some beach pics I find actually have lots of high rises in the backdrop, aren't those downtown areas too? Anyway both my beta and a writing friend are saying that beach in downtown makes no sense.

Synth: Downtown beaches are absolutely a thing that exist, though depending on the level of urbanization, they may not be naturally occurring ones. Last year the city I live in built a permanent beach downtown. Replaced an old docking area with gently sloping concrete slabs and dumped a whole load of sand on them. It has been very popular. IIRC Paris does something similar, trucking in huge amounts of sand to build temporary beaches in a few spots along the Seine during summertime (IDK what happens with all the sand when summer is over). If your city was carefully planned by the original builders, it’s not far-fetched at all to think they would have worked around any already existing natural beaches to preserve them for its citizens’ use.

Tex: I need to orient myself a little bit on this question, so I’m going to pull out a few definitions here.

Downtown:

Downtown is a term primarily used in North America by English-speakers to refer to a city's commercial, cultural and often the historical, political and geographic heart, and is often synonymous with its central business district(CBD). In British English, the term "city centre" is most often used instead. The two terms are used interchangeably in Colombia.

The Oxford English Dictionary's first citation for "down town" or "downtown" dates to 1770, in reference to the center of Boston.[2] Some have posited that the term "downtown" was coined in New York City, where it was in use by the 1830s to refer to the original town at the southern tip of the island of Manhattan.[3] As the town of New York grew into a city, the only direction it could grow on the island was toward the north, proceeding upriver from the original settlement, the "up" and "down" terminology coming from the customary map design in which up was north and down was south.[3] Thus, anything north of the original town became known as "uptown" (Upper Manhattan), and was generally a residential area, while the original town – which was also New York's only major center of business at the time – became known as "downtown" (Lower Manhattan).[3]

Beach:

A beach is a landform alongside a body of water which consists of loose particles. The particles composing a beach are typically made from rock, such as sand, gravel, shingle, pebbles. The particles can also be biological in origin, such as mollusc shells or coralline algae.

Some beaches have man-made infrastructure, such as lifeguard posts, changing rooms, showers, shacks and bars. They may also have hospitality venues (such as resorts, camps, hotels, and restaurants) nearby. Wild beaches, also known as undeveloped or undiscovered beaches, are not developed in this manner. Wild beaches can be appreciated for their untouched beauty and preserved nature.

Beaches typically occur in areas along the coast where wave or current action deposits and reworks sediments.

Harbour:

A harbor or harbour (see spelling differences; synonyms: wharves, haven) is a sheltered body of water where ships, boats, and barges can be docked. The term harbor is often used interchangeably with port, which is a man-made facility built for loading and unloading vessels and dropping off and picking up passengers. Ports usually include one or more harbors. Alexandria Port in Egypt is an example of a port with two harbors.

Harbors may be natural or artificial. An artificial harbor can have deliberately constructed breakwaters, sea walls, or jettys or they can be constructed by dredging, which requires maintenance by further periodic dredging. An example of an artificial harbor is Long Beach Harbor, California, United States, which was an array of salt marshes and tidal flats too shallow for modern merchant ships before it was first dredged in the early 20th century.[1] In contrast, a natural harbor is surrounded on several sides by prominences of land. Examples of natural harbors include Sydney Harbour, Australia and Trincomalee Harbour in Sri Lanka.

Since “downtown” usually means a highly-developed area, there’s a 50/50 chance that they’ll even be near a body of water - and if they are, the coastal areas are possibly also developed into harbours/wharves because water transportation of goods is economically efficient. Under these constraints, a beach would be a stretch of un- or under-developed coastline that doesn’t generate as much revenue for the taxable area it’s connected to compared to a harbour.

Frequently, beaches generate revenue under the auspices of tourism, which means that the area would be cultivated accordingly - esplanades, or promenades, are a popular choice, and often grow near a harbor as a natural extension of a money-generating area. Seaside resorts are a closely-related cousin of esplanades, and sometimes have the focus of being a retreat.

Many of the beaches I’ve been to that have high-rises in the background are either those of hotels - who might own the beach property adjacent to their building(s) - or those of businesses. Idyllic beachfront properties that have a low overall skyline can be low-populated areas (which usually mean drawing a low-income from tourism), protected areas of varying degrees, unsafe for people to play in, or are owned by people in the immediate residential areas and thus private property.

Artificially-constructed beaches, as Synth mentioned, are possible but often costly because of the amount of effort and material that needs to be brought in. Those who build such things need to consider the possible costs and revenue of a beach compared to a harbor, and whether it would be financially beneficial for the area to convert it.

Highly-developed areas like city centers carry the risk of polluting the nearby environment, as evidenced by the history of:

The Nashua River in the US

The Ganges River of the Indian subcontinent

The Citarum River in Indonesia

The Yellow River in China

The Sarno River in Italy

The Matanza River of Argentina

The Gulf of Mexico “dead zone”

The Kamilo Beach of Hawai’i

Guanabara Bay in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Bajos de Haina in the Dominican Republic

Hann Bay in Senegal

Your beta and writing friend do, unfortunately, have a point - downtown beaches are rarely a thing, and if they are then they’re not likely to be very well-maintained or aesthetically-pleasing. It is possible to have one, if they follow the model that Synth mentioned, but it’s usually expensive, time-consuming, difficult to keep sufficiently clean, and their existence needs to be balanced against the current revenue-generating area that is probably a harbour.

If the society you’re worldbuilding settles a coastal area with the intent to preserve the coast and develop it into a beach, you have a good shot of putting one into your story, but harbours are disinclined in many ways to be replaced by a beach.

Constablewrites: Our idea of the beach as a pleasant leisure destination seems to have started with the English upper classes in the 1700s, and expanded as the growth of the middle class and advances in travel technology made tourism accessible to a larger population. And the business district of a city is built on commerce, which in our world heavily involves shipping. So if the city was developed before industrialization, its planners were far more likely to look at a beach and think “what a terrible place to unload a ship, we should fix that” than “oh, how pretty, people might come here to relax.” Plus, “downtown” generally refers to an area of only a few square miles at most where real estate is in high demand, so any stretch of open land is unlikely to remain open for long.

Now, because today we do value beaches as pleasant leisure destinations, it’s entirely possible that a city might create an artificial beach along its coast. River beaches are also a thing in several European cities, and many of them are temporary summer installations made with imported sand. And though they’re unlikely to be strictly in the downtown area, you can indeed find beaches in highly urbanized areas like in Miami, Vancouver, and frankly most of Southern California but let’s specifically say Santa Monica. But a city developing organically isn’t going to have a beach unless there’s significant incentive to designate and maintain one instead of using that land for something more lucrative. And unless the city was founded and built specifically around tourism, a beach is always going to be in addition to a city’s harbor, never in place of it. (Hell, even then. Cruise ships were one of the earliest and still an extremely popular method of tourism, and even if your tourists want to see the beach, they’re not getting to it without a harbor.)

Feral: Downtowns may be on waterfronts, but as previously pointed out, downtowns are generally not going to be developed on naturally occurring beaches, here being the sandy, ocean front stretches of land. Tex and Constable bring up great points about economic incentive, but also consider the physical constraints of what can be built on the beach - I think Jesus had something to say about building castles on sand, and as the son of a carpenter, I think he would know. In the States, Chicago and Charleston come to mind as being particularly relevant to your query.

Chicago is on Lake Michigan, which does have a sandy beach that is somewhat removed from downtown by various parks and smaller scale infrastructure. Downtown Charleston is a peninsula formed by the confluence of the Ashley and Cooper Rivers where they join to flow into the ocean, creating a small bay. The beaches associated with Charleston are actually on the nearby islands, not downtown Charleston, which has piers, wharfs, etc, as expected in a city founded by pirates.

A lot of the question of whether you can feasibly “build” a downtown on a beach is how built - literally - up you want it to be. The incredible innovation that went into building Chicago’s downtown, particularly its high rises and skyscrapers, is pretty well known in a general sense but you might want to look into how they were able to accomplish what they have given the very difficult topography. Charleston has no skyscrapers. In addition to the unstable, sandy soil, building in Charleston is made more unstable by being in an earthquake prone area. The big issues with downtowns being on traditional sandy beaches are the quality of the soil and bedrock and the question of erosion, which is a greater issue when dealing with ocean currents and tides.

Basically, it’s not impossible for a downtown area to have a beach, but given the issues that beaches present to building a downtown and the economic influences of why there would or would not be a beach, it’s unlikely without a lot of story behind it. And as you’re writing a story… that might be worthwhile to you. Or it might be a distraction from the story you really want to tell.

#pylons #beaches #Anonymous

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torontotravelblog · 4 years ago

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The Best Things To See and Do in Downtown Toronto

Heading to Toronto for the first time? Canada's a lot of culturally diverse city has something to offer every sort of tourist. Whether you remain in community for a week or a weekend break, below are the leading tasks to include in your Hogtown pail list.

As far as cities go, Toronto has a great deal to supply. The city's varied populace has produced unlimited foods to enjoy as well as social tasks to experience-- think about it as a means to see the world without leaving the city. What's more, as a result of its large population of artists and young specialists, Toronto has actually ended up being a hub for advanced art as well as design, hip neighborhoods as well as wonderful buying, all within the downtown core, an area that can quickly be discovered walking. Below's a guide to a few of the best things you can do in downtown Toronto, for the time-strapped traveler looking for to take advantage of their time in the city without leaving its Bloor Road borders.

Spend the day obtaining lost in Victorian commercial architecture at the Distillery District

The pedestrian-only Distillery Area is a terrific place to escape the bustle of the typical midtown destinations. Right here, you'll locate stylish restaurants, art galleries and boutiques good to go along a cobblestone street and housed in charming 19th-century buildings that once comprised a big bourbon distillery. The charming town resembles it's straight out of a Victorian story, yet the ambience, which straddles sophisticated and also bohemian, is a fantastic area to experience Toronto's up-and-coming art and also food scenes.

Deliberate art, background, style as well as scientific research at Toronto's best galleries

Toronto is residence to handfuls of wonderful museums-- from art galleries and also style centers to science and natural history landmarks. A lot of the city's museums have discount rates for families in addition to complimentary days on a weekly or monthly basis. The top institutions in the city consist of the Royal Ontario Gallery (ROM), the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO) and also the Bata Footwear Gallery-- which, yes, is a museum devoted to all points shoes.

Network your internal hippie at Kensington Market

Kensington Market is a long-standing modern area with an one-of-a-kind place in the textile of Toronto. In November 2006, it was assigned a National Historic Website of Canada-- and also for good factor. Right here, you'll find every little thing from homemade empanadas as well as third-wave vegan coffee shops to classic apparel boutiques and even marijuana cafés.

Go browsing on the Mink Mile

The Mink Mile is an upscale buying area along Bloor Street in the well-off Yorkville area, comparable to New york city's Fifth Opportunity or Chicago's Amazing Mile. Here you'll discover premium shops like Chanel, Louis Vuitton, Prada, Gucci and so on. Make certain to enter Holt Renfrew, a unique-to-Canada outlet store that rivals Bergdorf Goodman. While strolling through the upscale area, maintain your eyes peeled off for familiar faces-- many stars have actually been seen purchasing Mink Mile.

Drink noodles at one of the city's world-famous ramen bars

If you're in the mood for noodles, Toronto might simply be the very best Canadian city in which to tuck right into a steaming bowl. The city has recently experienced a ramen-noodle boom, providing some of the very best noodles outside Japan. Below you'll discover classics like David Chang's Momofuku and hard-to-find products like tsukemen noodles from Ramen Isshin.

Commute to Chinatown for low-cost beer and also decadent dumplings

Toronto's Chinatown may be little compared with those of other large cities, yet it's loaded with genuine treasures-- particularly if you get on a budget. Head to Mom's Dumplings, which continues to top checklists in Toronto for its scrumptious steamed and also pan-fried dumplings (regarding $11 for a loads). Dumpling House Dining establishment also does a mean pan-fried dumpling as well as will just run you regarding $6 for a plate of 12.

Shop 'til you go down at Yonge-Dundas Square

Yonge-Dundas Square can seem like entering a miniature Times Square thanks to the flashing advertisements, unscripted street performances as well as pedestrians milling about. After you have actually taken it all in, head south along Yonge Road to the CF Toronto Eaton Centre, where you'll discover countless stores and stores, from GAP to Canadian-made brands like Frank as well as Oak.

Catch a fly ball at the Rogers Centre

While Canadians far and wide have actually been celebrating the success of the Toronto Raptors, ask any Torontonian as well as they'll quickly profess an equal amount of love for the Toronto Blue Jays, the city's baseball group. Head to the Rogers Centre to catch a video game and take pleasure in a day in the sunlight. Tickets will only run you regarding $20 Canadian, which will leave you with adequate to guiltlessly delight in a classic ball park hotdog as well as beer.

Take pleasure in a real-time show at Horseshoe Tavern

Toronto is house to many wonderful music venues, but one of the best, and best-known, is undoubtedly the Horseshoe Tavern. The well-liked songs venue has been entertaining citizens since 1947, and while it stays wildly unpretentious, it has actually seen the similarity the Rolling Stones, Game Fire, The Strokes as well as more elegance its phase. The schedule at Horseshoe Pub is pretty loaded, with programs virtually every night of the week. Note that a lot of programs are ages 19 and over, as well as ID is required.

Purchase tasty foods at St Lawrence Market

The city's biggest market boasts over 120 food vendors, selling every cuisine you can want, from Montreal-style bagels and vegan tacos to handmade, small-batch mustard as well as fresh fish sandwiches. Keep in mind that the marketplace is closed on Sundays and also Mondays.

The article “ The Best Things To See and Do in Downtown Toronto “ was seen originally on The Culture Trip

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orbemnews · 4 years ago

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Remote Work Is Here to Stay. Manhattan May Never Be the Same. Spotify’s headquarters in the United States fills 16 floors of 4 World Trade Center, a towering office building in Lower Manhattan that was the first to rise on the site of the 2001 terror attacks. Its offices will probably never be full again: Spotify has told employees they can work anywhere, even in another state. A few floors down, MediaMath, an advertising tech company, is planning to abandon its space, a decision fueled by its new remote-work arrangements during the pandemic. In Midtown Manhattan, Salesforce, whose name adorns a 630-foot building overlooking Bryant Park, expects workers to be in the office just one to three days a week. A nearby law firm, Lowenstein Sandler, is weighing whether to renew its lease on its Avenue of the Americas office, where 140 lawyers used to work five days a week. “I could find few people, including myself, who think we are going to go back to the way it was,” said Joseph J. Palermo, the firm’s chief operating officer. A year after the coronavirus sparked an extraordinary exodus of workers from office buildings, what had seemed like a short-term inconvenience is now clearly becoming a permanent and tectonic shift in how and where people work. Employers and employees have both embraced the advantages of remote work, including lower office costs and greater flexibility for employees, especially those with families. Beyond New York, some of the country’s largest cities have yet to see a substantial return of employees, even where there have been less stringent government-imposed lockdowns, and some companies have announced that they are not going to have all workers come back all the time. In recent weeks, major corporations, including Ford in Michigan and Target in Minnesota, have said they are giving up significant office space because of their changing workplace practices, while Salesforce, whose headquarters occupies the tallest building in San Francisco, said only a small fraction of its employees will be in the office full time. But no city in the United States, and perhaps the world, must reckon with this transformation more than New York, and in particular Manhattan, an island whose economy has been sustained, from the corner hot dog vendor to Broadway theaters, by more than 1.6 million commuters every day. Commercial landlords in Manhattan entered 2020 with optimism, riding a steady demand for office space, record asking prices in some neighborhoods and the largest construction boom since the 1980s. But that collapsed overnight. Property owners suddenly found themselves chasing after unpaid rent, negotiating repayment plans with tenants and offering deep discounts to fill empty space. Mayor Bill de Blasio is requiring the city’s own roughly 80,000 municipal office employees to return in early May, in part as a signal to other employers that filling New York’s buildings is a key to its recovery. “This is an important step for the city, and it’s another important step on the way to the full recovery of New York City,” Mr. de Blasio said. Still, about 90 percent of Manhattan office workers are working remotely, a rate that has remained unchanged for months, according to a recent survey of major employers by the Partnership for New York City, an influential business group, which estimated that less than half of office workers would return by September. Across Midtown and Lower Manhattan, the country’s two largest central business districts, there has never been more office space — 16.4 percent — for lease, much higher than in past crises, including after the Sept. 11 terror attacks in 2001 and the Great Recession in 2008. As more companies push back dates for returning to offices and make at least some remote work a permanent policy, the consequences for New York could be far-reaching, not just for the city’s restaurants, coffee shops and other small businesses, but for municipal finances, which depend heavily on commercial real estate. Sarah Patellos, who is on Spotify’s music team, has been working from a dining room table in Truckee, Calif., a mountain town near Lake Tahoe where she has spent most of the past year after flying there for a weekend trip in March 2020 and getting stuck because of government-imposed lockdowns. “I love being in the city, but you think about your life, the life experiences you want or the different chapters you might want, it’s totally different now,” said Ms. Patellos, who had been living in Brooklyn. “It’s totally life-changing.” The towering office buildings that line Manhattan’s avenues have long made New York a global powerhouse and the capital of numerous industries, from advertising to finance. Now even some of the largest and most enduring companies, including JPMorgan Chase & Co., which has more than 20,000 office employees in the city, have told their work forces that the five-day office workweek is a relic. The bank, which declined to comment for this article, is considering a rotational work model, meaning employees would rotate between working remotely and in the office. “Going back to the office with 100 percent of the people 100 percent of the time, I think there is zero chance of that,” Daniel Pinto, JPMorgan’s co-president and chief operating officer, said in an interview in February on CNBC. “As for everyone working from home all the time, there is also zero chance of that.’’ Other large businesses, including the accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers, the marketing group Omnicom Group and the advertising giant WPP, have searched for subtenants to take over significant chunks of their Manhattan offices. The loss of workers has caused the market value of commercial properties that include office buildings to plunge nearly 16 percent during the pandemic, triggering a sharp decline in tax revenue that pays for essential city services, from schools to sanitation. Real estate and commercial buildings contribute almost half of the city’s property tax revenues. For the first time in more than two decades, New York expects property tax receipts to decline, by an estimated $2.5 billion in the next fiscal year. Still, New York is set to receive significant federal assistance from the $1.9 trillion federal stimulus package: $5.95 billion in direct aid and another $4 billion for schools, a City Hall spokeswoman said. While that addresses immediate needs, the city still faces an estimated $5 billion budget deficit next year and similar deficits in the following years, and a changing work culture could hobble New York’s recovery. The amount of office space in Manhattan on the market has risen in recent months to 101 million square feet, roughly 37 percent higher than a year ago and more than all the combined downtown office space in Los Angeles, Atlanta and Dallas. “This trend has shown little signs of slowing down,” said Victor Rodriguez, director of analytics at CoStar, a real estate company. At least one industry, however, is charging in the opposite direction. Led by some of the world’s largest companies, the technology sector has expanded its footprint in New York during the pandemic. Facebook has added 1 million square feet of Manhattan office space, and Apple added two floors in a Midtown Manhattan building. And the surge in available commercial real estate has actually been a boon for some new businesses that have been able to find spaces at rents that are lower than they were before the pandemic. “I’ve seen the obituary for New York City many times,” said Brian S. Waterman, the executive vice chairman of Newmark, a commercial real estate services firm. “The office reboarding will start to occur in May, June and July, and you are going to have a much fuller occupancy once we hit September.” But for now, few workers are at their desks. Only 15 percent of workers have returned to offices in New York City and the surrounding suburbs, up slightly from 10 percent last summer, according to Kastle Systems, a security company that analyzes employee access-card swipes in more than 2,500 office buildings nationwide. Only San Francisco has a lower rate. The lack of workers has pummeled some of the city’s biggest real estate companies. SL Green Realty and Vornado Realty Trust, two of New York’s largest owners of office space, and Empire State Realty Trust, which owns the Empire State Building, have lost a total of $6.5 billion in market value. The sharp declines have prompted developers to rally behind an idea that seemed unthinkable before the pandemic: converting distressed office buildings in Manhattan into low-income housing. The record vacancy rate has been driven by companies across almost all industries, from media to fashion, that have discovered the advantages of remote work. Beside the cost savings of operating a scaled-down office or no office at all, modern technology and communications have allowed workers to stay connected, collaborate from afar and be more productive without lengthy commutes. Parents are also clamoring for more flexibility to care for their children. “We believe that we’re on top of the next change, which is the Distributed Age, where people can be more valuable in how they work, which doesn’t really matter where you spend your time,” said Alexander Westerdahl, the vice president of human resources at Spotify, the Stockholm-based streaming music giant that has 6,500 employees worldwide. For now, Spotify does not plan to reduce its New York footprint, but as of February, the company told its United States employees — 2,100 of whom had worked at the Manhattan office — that they could work from pretty much anywhere. “The change is mainly driven by globalization and digitalization, and our tools are much, much better at allowing for people to work from anywhere,” Mr. Westerdahl said. Remote work, of course, is not without significant downsides. The blurry lines that already existed between work and personal life have been all but obliterated during the pandemic. Without the time spent commuting in the morning and at night, people are logging on to work earlier in the day and staying connected later into the night. And despite modern technology and video conferencing capabilities, companies are struggling to foster workplace cultures and make employees, especially new hires, feel welcome and part of a team. Those concerns have weighed heavily on executives at Kelley Drye, a law firm founded in 1836 in New York, which is moving from Park Avenue near Grand Central Terminal to 3 World Trade Center in Lower Manhattan. “Zoom and Teams are great,” said Andrea L. Calvaruso, a lawyer who is the chair of the firm’s trademark and copyright group, but she added that “there’s no substitute for sitting down in a beautiful new collaborative and working together without distractions.” But Ms. Patellos, despite being unprepared after being stuck in California — she had to buy a keyboard and monitor — soon found herself connecting with colleagues all over the world just as she had in her New York office. “I fell into a rhythm,” said Ms. Patellos, who is still deciding where to eventually move. “I maintained a bit of East Coast hours, starting my days a little earlier and ending a bit earlier. Before I knew it, it became the norm and a routine.” Source link Orbem News #Manhattan #Remote #Stay #Work

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s-o-n-de-r · 7 years ago

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Years in transit: Against the Current in Boston and a reflection on music, moods, and seasons

Note: Rarely, I opt to publish personal pieces in place of sonder’s traditional editorial content. With this, however, I wanted to revisit a show I already wrote about in an expansive retrospective that deals with music journalism and auto-biographical elements. Thanks for reading - Andrew

If you’re a regular sonder reader, you probably noticed something out-of-place last November when, out of the blue, I published features from a show in Boston that pop-rock band Against the Current played. Boston? Weird, considering sonder is based in south Florida, and that’s where the majority of the site’s content comes from. Right?

Actually, despite being sun-soaked for the past 17 years, I have northern blood running in me. Massachusetts is my home; roots I can’t ignore. I grew up in a small town called Grafton, toward the center of the state. Grafton is the epitome of small town, pacified New England: Quiet, wooded, outskirt suburbia rolls over a few creeks bridged by old stone masonry to our town center, a picturesque square with a gazebo, new stores in old buildings, and one of the local churches.

The Grafton part of my life feels like a long time ago. It mostly just exists as dust and cobwebs filling rarely-explored corners in my memories. Scattered in those cobwebs are pieces of small town New England in the 1990s, a decade that already feels hauntingly distant, lost in the blurry whirlwind of time. My childhood home was a two-story house on a massive corner lot with a hill in the backyard. All that space and gradient land meant I got to have fun as a kid. When it was autumn, I’d sprawl across a pile of crunchy brown and orange leaves I had assembled from the side yard. When it was winter, I’d get to rocket down the back slope on a sled or build up little forts with the huge snow banks that would accrue. During summer, the air was so clear and refreshing. The family would go to Swirls and Scoops, the local ice cream place, or Art Bradish Snack Bar, the local cheap and tasty dinner indulgence. They still make the crispiest chicken sandwich I’ve ever had.

Summer was always so pleasant and mild, with rich greens cascading across lawns. There was a huge tree at the corner of our property, surrounded by a half-circle of piled stones (who knew who put these here?), and that was prime territory for hanging out with my friends. All these little details kind of tumble around in my head when I think of Grafton. I relish them. Chances are, you have your own set of memories like these, and once in a while you might come upon them and bathe in their familiarity and warmth. Because that’s what nostalgia does – it comforts you, no matter if it’s accurate.

“It's been a minute

Everything's the same, but different”

Against the Current, “One More Weekend” / a song about re-visiting things and people in your past and tapping the well of nostalgia

After being transplanted from the north to the south in the middle of my childhood, I rolled with the punches (”the punches” being Florida). When you move from a place like Grafton – or, as I imagine, nearly any town defined by rich, varied culture – to the endless sprawl of southwest Florida, it’s a stark change of scenery. If Grafton was authenticity, then southwest Florida was shtick. In Grafton, we celebrate colonial history. In Fort Myers, we celebrate developing condos.

The mental weight of these differences on me never really showed up until my trips back to my home town in recent years when I realized, almost all at once, how much I missed it. Of course, that’s unsurprising. I was nine when we moved, and as a kid, you’re generally not acutely aware of how huge life changes like that can affect you on a deeper level. I was just sad that I had to leave my small number of friends.

But, I realized later the old cliché of “home is where the heart is” screamed in my face. Cliché, as it turns out, is overused for a reason. Who would have thought? I didn’t realize until my young adult years that, while I have many pleasant memories of New England, I had next to no similar memories in Fort Myers. In Fort Myers, no matter how hard I tried, nothing felt as close and tight-knit as things did in Grafton. Most of my good memories in Florida are, rightfully, from concerts I’ve been to or photographed.

Despite the build-up, there isn’t some overly dramatic point to be made here. Florida is where sonder has been built. It’s where I run into people at shows who recognize me and chat with me. It’s where I’ve met all my peers in concert photography. It’s where you, my readers, have said you like what we do. It’s where everything happens for this site. There’s a couple blocks in downtown Orlando, stretching from The Social to Backbooth, where sonder has basically been nurtured. I could recite half the restaurants and bars in that area and probably identify which brick goes where. It’s where I’ve photographed and interviewed bands for years.

That’s a general rule of thumb, anyway. Sometimes, when I get bad wanderlust, I end up far away. The most extreme example of this was when I was traipsing around the east coast for 13 total dates of Vans Warped Tour 2012. Going to many Warped Tour shows during the same year means you get to explore the detail in what that tour does, and it was in Connecticut when I met up with a young band named Against the Current. They weren’t playing. They were just hanging out. And it was during their early days: They were still a five-piece and only had one song (“Thinking”) and a cover out under their own name (both released the same day). I met them all, but spent most of my time talking to singer Chrissy Costanza before leaving, knowing that, at the very least, it would be a long while before I saw them again. The debut song was good. Good enough to get a footing, anyway, although in retrospect, you can really tell how the band has progressed. But this is the case for pretty much any new band, isn’t it?

Despite those glitches in the Matrix, Florida is mostly where sonder operates. But Florida could never come close to the feeling I feel from Grafton, or from Massachusetts in general. I have a love for the whole region. The northeast. New England. Etc. Amazingly, though, I had never really been to the seat of what makes New England, New England: Boston.

I wanted to change that last summer when I was spending a lengthy amount of time in Massachusetts on vacation (and, incidentally, feeling intimately re-connected to my home). So, being the day tripper I often am, I got a ride to the local MBTA station (our commuter rail, referred to as “The T”) and took a train to the coastal metropolis for the day. I watched my home roll by me in a blur as I explored Paramore’s self-titled album, and now, whenever I hear the positive chords of “Daydreaming,” I think of that trip. Cheerfully apt. And now, cherished.

It was one of those pleasant New England summer days, right in the dead of tourist season, so there was a lot going on. I ate, had a beer in the oldest tavern in America, visited the Holocaust memorial, and took lots of photos, as I often do. I didn’t seek much out. Instead, I let the atmosphere come to me instead – a mark of the fly-on-the-wall behavior in me that’s part nature, part journalistic nurture. My goal for that day was to get to know the place, even just a little. It was just a day, though, and I didn’t think I’d be returning for a long time.

I went back to Florida. Summer ended, but before I knew it, a family emergency had brought me back up in mid-November – the first time I was returning during fall since I was a little kid. The first shock I had was at 5:30 a.m. in the parking lot of a hotel in Delaware. It was 32 degrees outside, I had my tank top on from the previous day (because it was around 85 when we left Florida), and I was dying just to get into the car and hit the seat warmer button. Brr. I blame Florida for thinning my blood. I always blame Florida. Smooth.

See, part of the chaos in my head that Florida has nurtured is inability to cope with non-sunny weather. Even in Florida, I’m the type of person who will be in the dumps all day if I wake up and it’s raining. I’m embarrassingly sensitive to this stuff. And it’s because I’ve lived most of my life in a place that, for the most part, just shines.

So you can see potential problems about returning to Massachusetts during the tail end of fall. Which, don’t get me wrong, I was enthusiastic to see. It had been 17 years since I had seen a proper autumn, with leaves falling off of the trees and forests turning into splotches of brown and orange. We were going up toward the end of the season, so the vivid colors were less common, but some of it was still around. And just this change of pace and scenery allowed me to reconnect more with my New England nostalgia, something I desperately wanted. As of late, I feel like I’ve been floating through a perpetual identity crisis, so feeling connected to who I really am was cathartic. And there is some innate soul nourishment in New England autumns, from going to apple orchards to feeling the crisp, cool air to finding a cup of hot chocolate the most relaxing thing at the end of the day.

Rural Massachusetts under the cover of late autumn

Florida is a land of perpetual daytime and perpetual bloom. Even in December, our days are long, hot and super sunny. Now, me and my sensitive little self were heading straight into color-drabbed cold bookended by perpetually-encroaching darkness.

If you’re unfamiliar with the concept of seasonal affective disorder (the “S.A.D.” acronym is just life smiling down at us), here’s the crash course: It’s a psychological thing where the shorter, darker, colder days of winter basically hit the “on” switch for temporary depression. Now, remember those bits about how Florida doesn’t prepare you for different weather and how sensitive I am?

Yeah. Connect the dots.

The first day we got to Douglas (the rustic town where we were staying, not far from Grafton) after our drive up, I fell asleep at around 10 p.m., which is a record for a recovering night owl. I collapsed straight into a deep, blunt sleep, and when I woke up at around 9:30 a.m. the next day, I barely had any energy. H-E-L-L-O, S.A.D.

This is all a little gloomy and is partly exaggerated for the sake of narrative. But, you know, if I can deal with Florida for 17 years, I can deal with some blues for the week I was there. That week, by the way, happened to criss-cross with the touring schedule of Against the Current, who would play their very first show of their latest headlining tour in no place other than Boston. I didn’t even realize the coincidence until I was already up in Massachusetts, and if I wasn’t catatonic, it probably would have excited me more.

As you know, I first met them in 2012, and here I was four years and some months later, ready to see them headline a tour in support of their first album on a label. A lot happened in those four years – again, I knew I wouldn’t be seeing them for a while after my first meeting, but it was in late 2014 when they finally came down to the sunshine state.

I brought my camera to that show and have since managed to see them at every show in Florida they’ve played – sometimes on purpose, sometimes by accident. But always happily. There’s a decent amount of bands who receive repeat coverage on sonder, and generally it’s because I have a sense of admiration for those bands, but Against the Current are a little different. The combination of being there at the beginning (or nearly the beginning), having met and spoken to them enough times, genuinely enjoying their music and keeping up pace with photographing their shows, has instilled a sense of stewardship in me. And they were part of the inaugural class on sonder – sonder had existed in several different forms over the years prior to 2014, but 2014 is when it really coalesced and defined itself. At this point, having photographed them at nearly every Florida show (including a non-show – a standalone meet and greet), plus up in Boston, I feel the part of a documentarian, at least partially, and that compels me to follow them through to wherever they go. When I see the band playing to festival crowds in the U.K., or opening to 20,000 people on One OK Rock’s bill, or surrounded by thousands during a Q&A in the Philippines, I think back to that first meeting and bubble with pride.

With all this in mind, the opportunity to cover them in Boston, on opening night, was something I just didn’t want to miss.

So, on a dreary Thursday, I found myself once again on the T heading to Boston, again watching Massachusetts roll by.

Eastbound to the coast

Getting ready every day of that week was an effort. I woke up each morning in a gray catatonia, and that Thursday was no different. I let the hot water of the shower toast me because it was nice insulation against the encroaching cold outside. I slowly packed my bag because the blues were making me run at about 30 percent efficiency, and I had to zone in on every little thing I was doing to make sure I didn’t run out of energy halfway through. On the way to the Grafton T station, I got a Dunkin’ Donuts coffee, which is basically the state drink of Massachusetts. I sat there, relatively calm, and learned that the train was delayed, which didn’t cause as much anxiety as I thought it would.

Almost instinctively, I reached for Paramore when it arrived and enjoyed the tunes again. But this time, it was cold, bleak, and I had a lot on my mind. The weight of the seasonal depression acted as an emotion inhibitor, stripping away the intense anxiety I typically have before a concert and rendering everything neutral. A few ups. A few downs. But I felt way more level than I normally do. And level is a bizarre state of mind for me, as my mental states usually aren’t restrained; they usually catapult wildly from one spectrum to the other without apology. And feeling level is striking considering my struggle with anxiety and that I had no idea if I would even make the last train home – something that, in previous years, I wouldn’t be able to reconcile and would have shut the whole trip down.

Much of my mental workouts earlier in the week revolved around processing all the bleakness that was swirling around. There was one particular day that I stared out at a dark, rainy Worcester through a crying hospital window and saw all the naked trees and cars sloshing through puddles. I don’t think there was a single time that week that I felt a bounty of energy – even when I drank coffee, it was more like “whatever, this is caffeine.” I’m helplessly in tune with metaphors manifesting themselves in real life – I can probably partly blame all the literature courses I’ve taken in my life, but more likely it’s about the lens of extreme emotionality I experience life through, feelings that I’ve never really been able to properly convey or dial back. So, for example, summer in New England is a time of liveliness, vividness and in my recent case, adventure. But fall is about that life and vigor petering out, settling down. I think about stuff like that religiously, and it’s probably a contributing factor to why I’m susceptible to S.A.D.

Regardless, what eventually poked through that shell of the seasonal depression that day was realizing I was photographing a band I admired on their opening night, in my home state, surrounded by my personal nativity, during an actual change of season.

Everything was different from Florida.

And that is powerful. Even with the S.A.D., I felt things that hadn’t stirred within me for a long time or just not at all. Being in my mid-20s, the fervor of the late teens and early 20s has died, and it’s easy to fall into relative normalcy and consistency. Which is fine, but sometimes you don’t experience things raw as often. On this day, everything was basically flying at me raw: I overdrank on coffee (and could actually feel it), so my bones felt electrified, and when I spend enough time outside in cool weather, it naturally energizes me. I ended up walking all the way from the center of the city to the Cambridge area because I had just downloaded Uber, had no idea how to use it, and couldn’t get it to actually call a ride. So as I walked, my mind raced, and I thought a lot about things in my life that had led up to that moment. I was taking in a part of the city I didn’t make it to last time, so it was new to me, heightening the sense of discovery. And in the back of my head, I prepared for the tone of how I would write about Against the Current for the fifth time and reflected on their youthful exuberance and open pushback against systematic norms, a message preceded by a long line of punk ethos – even if Against the Current’s musical style was glossier than your traditional punk band.

Walking through the city during autumn was different – for one, the scores of tourists were far less pronounced, and it being a Thursday afternoon, it was much quieter than my last venture. During that week, I was on a mission to find at least some vestige of colorful autumn vibrancy, and it hit me out of nowhere. I rounded a corner into a plaza, and suddenly, what I was seeking leapt out at me. No holds barred, either – rich reds, browns and yellows. Even the park grass was vivid. I took in for a few minutes because, in all likeliness, it will probably be many years before I see it again.

And I got a really nice view when crossing the Charles River into Cambridge – these views invigorate me and make me feel like just a small cog in our beautiful world, a feeling I embrace. I like insignificance. It keeps me grounded and objective and nurtures the fly-on-the-wall instinct.

Pretty much every normal circumstance I knew whenever I photographed a concert was replaced with something new, with the slight exception of the band itself. But even then, it was different, as Against the Current were touring in support of their debut LP, In Our Bones, for the first domestic, non-festival headlining tour of the record cycle. I felt a rush of life on my walk there, ironically born underneath the thick shell of temporary depression. For the record, the melancholy really tried to bring me down, but little did it know that I’m too good at discovering meaning in misery.

One thing that helped this night is the whole “addicted to travel” thing – interestingly, I’m the happiest when I’m tired and at the end of a 13-hour drive. That was, by the way, part of my reality when I first met Against the Current those years ago, and it’s why I never balk at long-distance anything. Not that an hour-long train ride is harrowing road travel, but I was pretty far from home and on my own. If something went wrong, I would have been stuck in the city overnight by myself. For the record, going for a day trip on public transportation by myself is something that, years ago, would have stirred up such violent anxiety that I wouldn’t even dare. Anxiety is one of those things that you suffer through that either gets marginally better over time or just bowls you over. More likely, both, at different times, but that’s not really here.

Like I said, it was dreary all day, and the days were short, so it was dark before it made sense to be dark. One of the luxuries of going to shows at 24 is being over 21, so to kill time between sundown and doors opening, I had a few beers. An hour later, I was there in line freezing (because I underdressed and have thin blood, i.e. the “I Blame Florida” thing), but it was then that I realized, “Hey, I’m cold, depressed and a little tired, but I’m somehow still quite happy.” The irony is that a mixed tempo like that is not what culture generally props up. People like to talk about highs and lows, but as if they’re separate, not existing in the same space. Because it’s easier to qualify. But I’m obsessed with the gray that exists between black and white, and the tendency toward exploring subtlety is what drives my passion for this very site. It made sense for me to be both melancholic and happy in that moment – in fact, it made more sense than a lot of other things that go on in my head. By this point, cognizant of what was happening (again, I’m painfully self-aware), I let the feeling steep within me because I knew it would be helpful in a weird way.

The show was a textbook example of a good time. It took place in an almost literal den of comfort, a basement under a bar where the shared body heat of everyone kept the space toasty and insulated from the brisk autumn on the ground level. When I close my eyes and remember that night, I relish in the community of music and how comfortable I felt even though I was there by myself and far from home. I knew no one there except the performers, but I had been “there” before, absorbing the atmosphere and culture that comes with club shows. This is one thing you will never feel at an arena show, even if every single person in that basement room was there with you.

Even better, it was a photographer’s dream – never before have I experienced such helpful and bright front lighting. You could see people’s faces! Amazing!

I fly-on-the-wall’d myself pretty hard, keeping quiet and getting a sense for the venue and eventually just sticking toward the side of the stage for Against the Current’s set and taking photos for the entire hour or so. That photo above, by the way, is one of the very few I have framed to capture both the band and their fans. I like to look at photos like those and scan faces, try to get in the heads of people through their expressions. There’s admiration and excitement. And it’s a reminder of when I was that kid, right up in the front row – music journalism was always a natural segway from me, to transition from being in the crowd to trying to explain why it matters. Because that’s 100 percent something I believe in: That the alternative music and community matters, and that belief is pretty much the foundation for sonder.

More to the point (an interesting choice of phrasing considering we’re thousands of words in), as I discussed in the premiere feature on the night, this was one of the finest times to see Against the Current because In Our Bones really got to breathe. There was also this interesting moment when the band broke out into a cover of “Teenagers” by My Chemical Romance and reached backwards in music history to a song off an album that defined a generation. I found myself singing along to this one more than the band’s own songs, not because I’m a massive fan of MCR or not that familiar with Against the Current’s songs, but because the song is that catchy and significant.

Anyway, as the star of the night, they played most of In Our Bones, which is good pacing for the band. I’m a perennial hipster in this regard – in all the years I’ve been watching music, I often yearn for the earlier days of bands’ careers when they get to play most of their catalog. This is because it’s so more likely they’ll explore deep cuts, and anyone that’s a well-versed fan of a band knows the deep cuts are often what give you your sense of relation to the group. For Against the Current, deep cuts mean “Fireproof” (from Gravity), any of their older covers or a song such as “Something You Need” off of Infinity.

This would be one of my favorite live concert shots if the focus wasn’t off ever so slightly. That being said, it’s still a photo I enjoy a lot. I love catching performers lost in what they’re doing, when the true enjoyment really comes out. It’s a rare example of an on-stage shot that captures both the essence of the performance and a sense of intimacy.

Infinity, for the record, is the defining moment for my own experience with Against the Current. Infinity was the product of years of waiting. When the band released “Thinking,” I gave it some coverage and waited for what felt like forever for the band to get an actual record out. Then, oddly, I didn’t even pick it up at first. When I did, it hit me like a blockbuster. Infinity is one of my favorite collection of pop-rock songs in existence – it really shows the cohesion of Against the Current’s individual members. It goes for a big, booming, almost arena-ready sound and hits it out of the park. Will Ferri’s drums are explosive. Dan Gow’s guitar work is crisp, and he has a knack for delicious, spirited hooks and leads. Chrissy is youthful and owns the poppy nature of these songs. Vocoder effects and layered secondary instruments are drizzled into these songs and give them a shot of depth. These songs reek of penultimate youth and love; in my initial review of it, I said that they would be the perfect choice for a contemporary remake of Fast Times At Ridgemont High, and I still stand behind that. The classic and timeless nostalgia of things such as summer break and young love are embedded into Chrissy’s intonation and lyrics. And the duo of Dan and her aren’t just cohesive – they positively feed and flow from each other; the two detonate together, guitar leads blasting to uppity choruses that she soars into. I listen to and cover many bands for sonder, and it’s only once in a blue moon that you find debut records cut so skillfully, even rarer that they’re instant classics. Part of the magic was also the cooks in the kitchen: Zack Odom and Kenneth Mount, who are responsible for some of the most timeless pop-punk records ever (Mayday Parade’s A Lesson In Romantics, Cartel’s Chroma, All Time Low’s Put Up Or Shut Up), were the production brains for this record. Infinity was an awakening for me, a collection of songs that lit a fire in me, something not too common in my music consumption as of late.

Some years ago, I had a Nissan Altima (my first car) that my brother and I installed a sound system in. It had an amp and a sub that really kicked, and it was around the time when Infinity first came out. I would drive around town and crank it almost to the max, relishing in the explosive tones, bass, and energy in these songs. Just five songs, but I had the album nearly on repeat. It was a pleasant getaway to peter around town taking in these songs that felt eternally vibrant.

Back to the show: Even as it was happening, that nagging feeling of woe that had been wafting inside my head for the week kept at it, regardless of stubborn pockets of resisting happiness. In what’s perhaps a desired curse, such melancholy intensifies my fly-on-the-wall instinct. Sort of like this: Oh, wow. Look at everyone enjoying themselves. That would be nice. But I know I couldn’t fully immerse myself in that feeling, so I’ll just document it.

Actually, regardless of hilariously inept mental state, I generally purposely distance myself from being in the middle of fandom because it helps sharpen my editorial eye and maintain subject/journalist separation. But I love seeing others experience fandom. Of course I enjoy concerts. But I also flirt with classic objectivity, so I try to observe more than engage. At the same time, considering the long history I have of observing Against the Current, it’s hard to not feel some sort of wistfulness, to root for them. I find this to be a fundamental paradox in music journalism, kind of in the vein of the observer effect in science: By covering a band, you naturally draw closer to them. After all, when music comes across my desk to review or cover or take photos of, something about it needs to be an experience I enjoy or, at the very least, is something I can convince myself others will enjoy. But it’s so much easier to do good music journalism when you care about what you’re covering, least of all because the closer you get, the more intimately you know the music and will be able to talk about it better.

This conundrum reflects part of the core experience of music – the fact that, at base level, it is an emotional experience, and the more you cover a particular band, the harder it is to divorce yourself from that emotion. Covering a press conference is fairly straightforward. Covering music is wading waist-deep in the emotion of the moment and trying to come out without feeling heartbroken, happy, enthused, motivated, or any of the very emotions the musicians are trying to convey. How is that a sensible process? I mean, I just spent a whole paragraph raving about the band’s debut album. How would I have reviewed that music without getting in the weeds and not getting grass shavings on my socks? I’m not saying it’s impossible or that it’s even hard to take a step back from an emotional experience with music in order to write objectively, but I think there’s room for thoughtful, impactful music journalism that is both informative and emotive.

If you haven’t realized it, the concept of internal conflict is wreaking havoc throughout this piece. Happy v. sad. Past v. present. Childhood v. adulthood. Objectivity v. emotion. But, like I said earlier, it isn’t actually stark, distinctively separate differences that define our experiences. It’s often the nuanced in-between that makes actual sense. We yearn for the distinct, so it is often hard to confront the gray area that’s actually behind most things. This is, at its core, one of the uplifting thing about music – it has this ability to override things and dunk you into environments, sort of like the memory triggers I talked about in the beginning of this piece. Theoretically, anyway. Have you ever had a really bad day, but masked the negativity by reminding yourself there’s a show you’re going to see soon? That thought is merely a root. Dig it up, and it leads to so much more. This is part of the magic of music. It’s a reverberation of some of the psychological phenomena that defines the human experience, and most of the time, this effect can be in full blast, and we don’t even realize it. Music reaches so deeply into the human experience in an animalistic way. It floods into you. Remember: I can listen to “Daydreaming” and somehow, in my mind, be transported back to that train to Boston, even though I’m physically in my room thousands of miles away. I’m sure you have a song like this. And chances are, if you listen to a song you heard a lot growing up, you’ll feel traces of a memory from your childhood. This is why it seems so difficult and nonsensical to strive after true objectivity in non-hard news music journalism, and this is also why people who make the effort to be actively negative about bands seem pretty dull.

Part of the mission of sonder has been to bring the inward reflection that has made this piece (and all of music) possible to your brains in a percolated way, to try to unravel the machinations of why bands make you feel certain ways. As far as Against the Current goes, despite writing about them half a dozen times, I still haven’t fully grasped what it means to hear them. I’m confident I can bring a piece of them to you every time I write about them, but I’m not sure if that piece is even a fraction as meaningful as what it’s like to be in the room. To be in that Boston basement where the sonic energy is floating around the room, rushing through everyone, making strangers into friends. It’s kind of like that blunt feeling you get after a good movie when the credits roll and you walk out awash in the emotion of what you just saw. It’s non-transferrable, but other people who were there get it.

Probably my best photo of the entire band all in the frame at once. Unfortunately, it’s tough to get everyone in focus when you’re dealing with long focal lengths and the wide apertures used for dark settings, but this is genuine Against the Current.

The discomforting thing about this is that writing about music is impossible. You know how the very notes and structure of instrumentals (let’s not even talk about vocals and lyrics) can make you feel something intense, something that, despite your best efforts, you just can’t relate to another human being? As in, “the tone of this guitar lead makes me remember the feeling of when I was 16 in Ohio in July falling in love” or “this keyboard riff puts me right back in downtown Orlando seeing a friend I haven’t seen in years and laughing at his joke” or whatever other combination of specific emotions you get from music that you can’t relate? Writing about music is like sticking your fingers in your ears and saying “la la la” to that; to boldly be stupid. But I try anyway because it’s so unifying, and because it means something to me, too. Again: Why fully divorce yourself from the emotion?

This story wouldn’t have been as cohesive if even one part of the situation was different – if it wasn’t Against the Current, if it wasn’t Massachusetts, if it wasn’t autumn. Which is a little weird because, on the surface, none of those things seem integral to the narrative, until you acknowledge that these things are all influenced by my emotional interpretation of them, and that this interpretation is part of the same human experience that makes music so intense. The seasonal fluctuation of New England, if you haven’t realized, is the absolute catalyst going on here, not because it has some sort of intellectual significance, but because it goes straight to the core of who I am as a person. It’s something I experienced in my youth, didn’t experience for 17 years, then was suddenly dunked back into. It sounds silly, but I was surrounded by who I am. And then the band was the topping to that because, damn it, I haven’t managed to maintain objectivity about them, and I personally care about them and their career. How couldn’t I? Has this ruined a sense of objectivity? Does this make my words here cheaper?

In March of 2015, the Nissan Altima, with its nice sound system, became a heap of twisted metal after a reckless driver pulled right out in front of me despite having a blind spot. I crawled out of the wreck with, luckily, nothing but a broken clavicle. Later that year, after I was healed up but still didn’t have another car to drive, I posted an article on sonder highlighting bands we wanted to see on Vans Warped Tour 2016. Chrissy randomly replied to it and asked if I was going to be at their upcoming Orlando show. When I responded and told her I had gotten in an accident and wasn’t sure if I could make it, she sent her well wishes and said she hoped to see me there. It was out of the blue, appreciated (during a time when my mood was in the gutter) and one of the things that cemented the bond I feel for the band.

Chances are, you have your own version of Boston or Against the Current, something that means something to you because it intertwines with your history in a meaningful way.

I did not manage to slow down very much for most of that day. The only way I made it back to South Station for the very last train back into Grafton was thanks to leaving the exact second Against the Current finished playing “Gravity” and getting into an Uber, since the app actually decided to cooperate. At that point, I got to see Boston float by at night, gleaming under the rain, and there was this tune that crept into my head – a tune I first became familiar with a few years ago, a tune that I have a deep emotional connection to. It’s a connection that I can’t explain very well, for the reasons I’ve outlined. No – it’s not Against the Current or Paramore or a band from years ago. It’s by a band named Transit (an apt name for this story).

It is “Young New England,” and it has become a part of how I filter and process my past. It’s managed to bring me closer to my home, even when I’m in Florida. It’s a folksy drinking song, but it’s not just that. A few lines repeat through the song:

Oh, Young New England.

Over and over again, Young New England.

New England, in a photo.

When I first got into this song, I played it on repeat like people often do when they find a song they like. But I didn’t get bored. I kept playing it. I was driving home once from a show in West Palm Beach. It was the dead of night, and I was taking the roads through the middle of the state, so I was basically alone on the roads, creeping through Florida’s desolate, sad sugar roadways. And I must have played “Young New England” 10 or 15 times in a row. I have heard those notes so many times, and over time, I attached part of myself to them, part of my youth and love of New England. So now, those feelings are inseparable. Go listen to it. You won’t feel those feelings. You might not even like it. And, that’s part of the struggle of what I do on sonder. I listen to the song when I want to feel at home. It’s a cradle. But you probably won’t get that.

I was exhausted by the time I got back home, but unlike earlier in the week, I had re-gained some motivation and mojo. I was wiped out, but it was underscored by being fueled by doing what I love to do. It helped that I got some of my best photos of the band that night.

I thought hard about how I wanted to end this piece, but there are so many moving parts and tangential discussions that it seems impossible to tie it up. And more to the point, a wishy-washy, up-beat “and here’s why all this matters!” ending would be a disservice to the grayness clouding most of this piece. In a short word, the psychology of nostalgia and memory is fascinating to me, and being as awkwardly self-aware as I am fueled this. This piece began as impulses in my mind maybe three months after the show, but it took me a while to get it down on the page and flesh it out. Even then, though, I had the feeling that that night in Boston had been important to me on a deeper level. Hell, I might have even known that the night of, and it just took a while to uncover it.

If there really is a bigger picture here, it has to do with how and why sonder operates the way it does. After all, Against the Current, the other bands we cover, our Orlando HQ, our home town – these are insignificant details to you, but they’re part of our identity. The theory behind sonder wouldn’t change if you swapped these elements out, but the character would. And that’s, of course, because emotional connection to everyday things affects everything. And I just hope that, even if you don’t identify with mine, you have your own and you never let anyone belittle that or take it away.

Because the things that define you aren’t just things out there in the world – they’re your things, pieces of the world that you turn into a home.

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Article, photos, and excessive self-reflection by sonder editor Andrew Friedgen. Like this? Sonder is an independent music, travel and photography publication at sonderlife.com. Give us a follow here or at our Twitter, Instagram or Facebook if you like this!

#against the current #chrissy costanza #dan gow #will ferri #travel #features #novel #long reads

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ladystylestores · 4 years ago

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The Ultimate Southwest USA Road Trip Itinerary • The Blonde Abroad

Jen Tenzer is sharing her road trip itinerary for the Southwestern region of the USA!

The American Southwest is an absolutely stunning setting for a road trip and offers an unparalleled mix of gorgeous red rock views, national park hiking, mysticism, delicious (sometimes spicy!) food, and a rich culture steeped in Mexican and Native American history.

The dry heat makes it an ideal place to visit in the fall and spring months when you’re looking for a break from colder climates. Don’t forget, temperatures reach well over 100 degrees in the summer and the desert can still get snow in February!

This 2-week itinerary captures some of the best of the Southwest, including adventurous activities, nature walks, opportunities to unwind, foodie destinations, and cultural attractions.

The trip begins in Arizona, travels through New Mexico, and ends in Utah. You could easily travel this itinerary in the reverse direction and/or modify it to include more of Utah’s “Mighty 5” National Parks. There are some optional side trips in case you have more travel time!

Here’s the ultimate Southwest USA road trip itinerary!

Southwest Road Trip Highlights

Day 1: Arrive in Tuscon or Phoenix

Day 2-3: Sedona, Arizona

Day 4-5: The Grand Canyon

Day 6-8: Santa Fe, New Mexico

Day 9-12: Moab, Utah

Day 13-14: Salt Lake City, Utah

Day 1: Arrive in Tucson or Phoenix

This trip starts in either Tucson or Phoenix depending on convenience and uses either major city as more of a launchpad than a destination.

That being said, I’d highly recommend checking out Saguaro National Park just outside Tucson and/or hiking Camelback Mountain in Scottsdale.

Either city is a fantastic introduction to the scenery and overall laid back attitude of the Southwestern U.S.

Also, if you’re looking to add a bit of luxury to your road trip, both of these cities have gorgeous resorts where you can indulge! Start your trip with some spa time at Miraval Resort outside Tucson or at the Phoenician in Scottsdale; it’s the perfect way to begin a digital detox during your travels.

After you’ve melted into those well-deserved wind-in-your-hair vibes, drive the ~2 hours from Phoenix or ~3.5 hours from Tucson north to Sedona.

Sedona, Arizona

Day 2-3: Explore Sedona

Sedona is an adorable and mystical town set in the middle of the Arizona desert. It truly suits all appetites!

There are 200+ hiking trails surrounding the Sedona area. Slide Rock State Park is a great place for hiking that can also double as your camping spot; just make sure to reserve a campsite in advance.

Vortexes of Sedona

Some of the town’s most famous hiking trails, like Cathedral Rock and Bell Rock, travel through Sedona’s famed spiritual vortexes.

While I’m no expert on vortexes, they are believed to be specific locations on Earth where there is a swirling condensed center of spiritual energy. The Native Americans recognized the power of these places and often used them for sacred ceremonies.

Aside from hiking to them, you can experience Sedona’s vortexes through guided yoga and meditation classes out on the red rocks or from above in a sunrise hot air balloon ride. Even their local airport is an energy vortex you can visit!

What to Do + See in Downtown Sedona

Don’t forget to carve out some time to wander around the strip of downtown stores, which reflect this same woo-woo theme. Cute shops display gorgeous crystals in the windows and there are many spiritual healers available for service from psychic mediums to reiki healers.

I even had my aura read while in Sedona! (In case you’re curious, my aura is bright yellow and green with white light at the crown of my head.)

If the spirituality thing isn’t your jam, I’d highly recommend popping into a hidden gem called Blackbird Vintage, right off the main drag in Sedona. The shop owners have curated a high-quality collection of vintage Levi jeans, rock and roll tees, and other unique accessories.

Personally, I couldn’t resist a 1984 AC/DC tour t-shirt! (Check out their Etsy shop to see if anything new has come in, too!)

Where to Eat in Sedona

When you need to break away from the heat, a cold-pressed juice from Local Juicery is just what the doctor ordered. They also have a variety of colorful smoothies, salads, and bowls – all yummy!

I also recommend The Hudson, Mariposa’s Latin Grill, or Picazzo’s Healthy Italian Kitchen as dinner options.

Day 4-5: Explore the Grand Canyon

Where to Stay at the Grand Canyon

The Grand Canyon’s South Rim is about 2 hours north of Sedona. You have quite a few options on where to set up base camp for your canyon explorations.

Within the park, there are numerous camping options on the rim, as well as hotels run by the park—like The Grand Hotel and El Tovar. If you’re looking to stay down in the canyon, there are additional camping sites you can reserve as well as another park run lodging option called Phantom Ranch.

Just be mindful that any Grand Canyon National Park lodging options often book up roughly a year in advance!

If you don’t have that kind of advanced notice, there are plenty of hotel options located outside the park in Tusayan (~10 minutes drive), Williams (~1 hour) and Flagstaff (~1.5 hours). Tusayan is closest to the Grand Canyon, but is a very small town without many other attractions or restaurants.

Flagstaff is a larger college town with lots of restaurants, breweries, shops, and other activities (like seeing petroglyphs at nearby Walnut Canyon), but is a further drive from the park. Williams is a small historic town on old Route 66 that falls somewhere in the middle of these two in terms of size and distance.

What to Do at the Grand Canyon

You will likely want 2 full days to explore the Grand Canyon itself. Do not underestimate the difficulty of the hikes, particularly if you visit during warm months!

Because the canyon hikes are out-and-back, it’s sort of a reverse mountain; you end up with a hard, uphill battle after you’ve already burned through half the trail. For that reason, the rangers strongly discourage hiking from the rim to the river and back in a single day.

Plan on either hiking down to the river and staying somewhere in the canyon overnight or hiking only a portion of the trail and back up to the rim. There are various stop-off vistas with water sources and bathrooms that make for excellent turnaround points.

I loved hiking both the popular South Kaibab Trail and Bright Angel Trails, but was very happy that I turned around after 2-3 miles to head back up to the rim!

If you have some extra time to kill before heading out of northern Arizona, definitely check out Havasu Falls, Antelope Canyon, and/or Monument Valley as additional side trips!

The crater is massive at 700 feet deep and 3/4 mile wide.

Day 6: Drive to Santa Fe

The drive from the Grand Canyon to Santa Fe is lengthy at about ~7 hours, so you should assume this drive eats up a full day of travel. That being said, there are plenty of stops along I-40 to make the most of it!

For starters, about an hour east of Flagstaff is Meteor Crater where you can see the impact remains of a meteor that crashed to earth 50,000 years ago. The crater is massive at 700 feet deep and ¾ mile wide.

It was used as a training site for the Apollo missions because of its similarity to the moon’s surface. Pretty neat and something you probably won’t see again given it’s in the middle of the desert!

Make a Pit Stop in Winslow, Arizona

Another fun touristy pit stop to fill up on gas and food is Winslow, Arizona. This small town was made famous from the 1972 Eagles’ hit “Take it Easy” with the lyrics:

“Now I’m a-standin’ on the corner in Winslow, Arizona With such a fine sight to see It’s a girl, my Lord, in a flatbed Ford Slowin’ down to have a look at me”

Across the street from your flatbed Ford photo op is Relic Road Brewing where you can pair a solid beer and burger before continuing along I-40.

Painted Desert + Petrified Forest

Lastly, spend a couple of hours checking out the Painted Desert and Petrified Forest National Park where you can see ancient dinosaur-era crystallized logs and gradient-colored teepee mountains.

All of these stops remain en route to your next Southwestern destination!

Day 7-8: Explore Santa Fe

Welcome to New Mexico! From the moment you pull into Santa Fe and see its beautiful Pueblo-style architecture, you know you’ve reached somewhere special. The town is rich with Mexican and Native American culture.

An amazing way to start your day in Santa Fe is at the Sage Bakehouse where you can sample their delicious artisan bread loaves, pastries, sandwiches, and quiches with a giant cup of coffee. I absolutely loved their homemade peach preserves atop some crusty sourdough!

You could spend hours wandering the tiny streets and shops of Santa Fe picking up perfect gifts – I scored a truly unique Mexican blanket, local salsa, and a painted silk scarf which were all absolute hits with friends and family.

Santa Fe is also an art lover’s dream with several local galleries and museums, including the Museum of International Folk Art and the Georgia O’Keefe Museum.

Where to Eat + Drink in Santa Fe

After a long day of walking around, grab a cocktail and a seat with a view at The Bell Tower Bar, a rooftop bar inside La Fonda hotel near the main square.

Santa Fe’s delicious food scene carries through to dinner. I’d highly recommend La Choza Restaurant to try NM’s famed red and green chili tacos. If you’re in the mood for Indian food, Paper Dosa is outstanding – foodies truly can’t go wrong in this town.

Other popular spots include Modern General Feed and Seed, Paloma Restaurant, and The Pantry.

Newspaper Rock has one of the largest collections of prehistoric petroglyphs in the U.S.

Day 9: Drive to Moab

The drive from Santa Fe to Moab is another long day of road tripping at about 6 hours. You can help break up the drive by stopping at various ancient ruins along the way, such as the Pueblo settlements of Bandelier National Monument, the beautiful Puye Cliff Dwellings, and/or Mesa Verde National Park.

Closer to Moab, check out Newspaper Rock where you can see one of the largest collections of prehistoric petroglyphs in the U.S.

If you have some more time to extend this leg of the trip, consider adding on Great Sand Dunes National Park where you can sled down the sand dunes or the Four Corners Monument where you can place your feet in 4 states at the same time.

Day 10-12: Explore Moab

With a Mars-like red rock landscape, two national parks, and tons of adventurous off-roading activities, the town of Moab is a must.

Before heading out for the trails, you will definitely want to fuel up with a flat white or egg sandwich at Moab Garage Co.

I visited this cute café multiple times during my stay to try their salads, sandwiches, and their special Nitroccino (essentially, an espresso milkshake)!

You will want a full day to explore each of Arches and Canyonlands NP’s, but don’t forget to leave some extra time to explore the town and take in a Hummer or ATV tour!

This town is famous for its off-roading trails and you will see loads of ATV’s trolling down the main street alongside the cars.

I took an ATV excursion with High Point Hummer & ATV Tours and had the BEST time speeding around the bumpy terrain outside Canyonlands at the Merrimack and Monitor Buttes. Other super popular off-roading trails nearby include Hell’s Revenge and Fins & Things.

Where to Eat in Moab

An extremely popular (outdoor) lunch spot to check out is the Quesadilla Mobilla food truck where I devoured a cheesy spinach and sweet potato combination that I will never forget!

I’d also recommend Fiesta Mexicana, Miguel’s Baja Grill, Jailhouse Café, and the Moab Brewery (you’ll see their beers on sale throughout Utah)!

Where to Stay in Moab

There are plenty of different places to stay in and around Moab including Airbnb’s with desert vista backyards, camping in Dead Horse Point State Park, and hotels at various price points.

I loved the pool and restaurant at the Hilton’s Hoodoo Moab, but also enjoyed a couple of relaxing nights at an Airbnb just outside town – the stargazing is crystal clear!

Great Salt Lake Desert

Park City

Day 13-14: Explore Salt Lake City

This city has so much to offer! Depending on what time of year you visit, you can spend your days skiing in nearby Park City or dipping your toes into the cool waters of the Great Salt Lake.

The city is set alongside the mountains so you get the benefit of many hiking trails and nature activities plus a trendy and well-established food scene.

Ensign Peak Trail just north of Capitol Hill is a lovely way to get a lay of the land and see the entire city from above. I loved walking around the Sugar House neighborhood and enjoying al fresco beer flights at the Wasatch Brew Pub.

There is also scooter-sharing all over SLC and it’s a fun way to breeze through different neighborhoods!

Where to Eat in Salt Lake City

I did my fair share of dining in this town and would highly recommend The Rose Establishment for chrysanthemum lattes and sweet treats.

Head to Current Fish & Oyster for incredibly fresh and upscale seafood.

And don’t miss out on Crown Burger! This SLC fast-food spot is famous for its pastrami topped cheeseburgers…which are even more delicious than they sound!

And don’t forget the fry sauce – Utah has a longstanding obsession with this ketchup and mayo combo; you’ll see it on nearly all fried food menus!

Outside of Salt Lake City

A couple of must-do quick drives just outside the city include Antelope Island State Park where bison roam freely, as well as the Bonneville Salt Flats where you’ll feel like you’ve traveled all the way to Bolivia!

Access to these salt flats is free via a rest stop west on I-80. You can even drive on it! The Bonneville Speedway nearby holds numerous land speed records for 400+ mph on the salt surface.

Just make sure to give your car a thorough scrub afterward to scrape off the corrosive salt, as well as whatever other red dirt your car has collected on this ultimate Southwest itinerary!

And there you have it, folks! The ultimate Southwest USA road trip itinerary. Are there any hot spots you would add to this route?

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transstudiesarchive · 4 years ago

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A Conversation Between Helen & Brit Samar Abuya (they/them)

This is a conversation between me and local trans Filipinx artist, Brit Samar Abuya. We covered a lot of ground in our conversation about their identity, life story and art. Warning some parts of this are graphic because we legally need to swear to express ourselves. Before reading our convo, here’s a tough picture of Brit as well as two of their works of art to gain some context.

HS: Hey I’m Helen Soultanian and I’m being joined virtually by Brit Samar Abuya. We are both in Portland in our respective homes because we are in the middle of a global pandemic so we can’t meet face to face. Hello Brit!

BSA: Hi Helen, it’s really nice to see you.

HS: It’s so good to see you! It’s so good to see you. So I’m interviewing you for my Trans Studies class tumblr page…

BSA: Ay, tumblr coming back. I want to say what I think about tumblr in 2020 but we all know what is happening on tumblr in 2020.

HS: There’s no more porn.

BSA: Oh, well. I don’t know what’s happening on tumblr then.

HS: Yeah, because of SESTA/FOSTA they removed porn on tumblr.

BSA: That’s garbage.

HS: That was the only reason to go on tumblr was porn.

BSA: All the free porn, but honestly everyone needs to be paying for their porn.

HS: That’s real. That’s the only way to ethically consume porn.

BSA: Yes. And also looking out for porn that actually is ethical because there’s a lot of porn out there that is not cool at all.

HS: Nooo… That is true, that is true. So I’m going to ask some questions… What is the story behind your name? I think it’s important for trans people you know?

BSA: Yeah I totally get that, that’s cool. So the story behind my name is I wanted to change my dead name because that did not resonate with me and had stopped resonating with me or being okay with me for five years now. Even longer than that. I just didn’t really feel like that was the name for me. So I started to go by Brit which is a shortened version of my dead name but even then people don’t need to know that. Brit is just short for Brit. I used to say Brit is short for Brittle to give people a preface. One of the big things for me in feeling comfortable with myself and my trans identity included actually changing my name because that is a big part of my identity; like your name that is who you are. So you whether you want to give it that power or not, that’s the world that we live in. You’re going to be called by a name. So since we have the power to choose what name we want to go by, I decided to change my name to Brit. And my middle and last name… Middle name is also another name that did not resonate with me and my last name was just a name on my birth certificate of someone who isn’t even my biological parent. So definitely something had to be done because I as an artist didn’t feel like putting my dead name on something that didn’t really express who I am or clearly translate who I am as a trans artist of color. So my new middle name is Samar which is actually the indigenous name of the islands my grandma grew up on. I don’t know a whole lot of history behind that because there’s just not a lot of written documentation of indigenous lands in the Philippines. So that was as far as I could find. And then Abuya is another name for the indigenous lands in the Philippines where my grandma grew up. So I wanted to change it to those names because for me it was a way to honor my culture and honor where I come from even though I am a first generation American like it’s really important for me to honor those things about myself because it’s very much part of how I identify.

HS: That’s beautiful. What are other things that help you feel connected to your culture?

BSA: One of them is cooking. I don’t get to cook a lot of Filipino food. I’m going to say Filipino because I’m being a little lazy and I don’t feel like correcting my non gendered self in saying Filipinx. Filipino food is incredibly centered around a group of people so it’s hard to make it for one person. I want to go to the grocery store and find ingredients so I can start meal prepping big meals for like how you would cook a regular meal and portion it out for myself. That’s one of the big things for me is food. I recently also started reaching out to local Filipino people, there’s not a whole lot. There is like 3 or 4 others that I can maybe name but that’s in my immediate thought bubble right now. Something that I feel has been really important for me being in the whitest major city in America is connecting with people who do come from similar cultural backgrounds as me so that I could not feel so isolated and alone. That was a big thing for me moving here was recognizing that this was not as safe as a place as I thought it would be for me but I’m also thankful for that epiphany because it really helped me figure out and do the work I needed to do for myself to find those safe spaces for myself & my health.

HS: Has there ever been a time where you felt connected to your culture?

BSA: With my chosen family for sure. And my chosen family consists of all sorts of people, like I consider you to be part of my chosen family so it’s very clearly different. But it’s also the same because how I grew up, the family was very close knit and we were up each other’s ass in good & bad ways. And that’s how I feel about the people in my life that I have chosen to stick around with and who I am very fortunate to have people who still want to keep up with me. It’s hard because it’s been a really long time since I’ve been in my home with my family, with my immediate family, so I feel a little detached from my culture just because my mom never got around to teaching me & my siblings how to speak Tagalog, our native language, so we just knew English and we were also believing in what the American dream is for us. When I moved away I was feeling very resentful of how I grew up and I also didn’t have the same tools & resources to understand why I was feeling resentful so I pushed back on that. As soon as I moved away I wanted to be on my own and I didn’t cook any Filipino food. I really didn’t have any community people that I surrounded myself with for a very long time until I moved here & it was so weird.

HS: You grew up in Vegas right?

BSA: Yeah so I grew up in Vegas and I spent most of my life there. I was born in Long Beach, CA and I also lived on the East coast for a short amount of time. So my earliest memories are from living in a small town called Allentown in PA.

HS: Is that like an Amish town?

BSA: Yeah it’s a Quaker town, it’s super small & tight knit. My mom relocated out there to live with my sibling’s biological parent. After a few year, we decided to relocate to Las Vegas, where my grandparents were living at the time, right before I turned 5. I was in Vegas pretty much my entire life but I have memories of other places.

It’s weird because I’m at a place now where I do appreciate Las Vegas as my home because I grew up there even though it’s an absolute shit hole.

HS: *Laughs* Yeah, what was that like?

BSA: Dusty. And dry.

HS: Okay, like literally dust? Or because the people were dusty?

BSA: Both. Both. Attitudes, dusty. People, dusty. It was just hard to not be miserable and that was the general attitude. You would be kind of an asshole and it would be accepted. But it’s a different kind of an asshole because you have people from NYC and they are known to be assholes but they aren’t called assholes, that’s just what they are. But in Vegas, they are assholes in my opinion. I feel like I can say that because I grew up there and I have personal experience of growing up all over that fucking city.

HS: Imaging growing up there is so weird to me.

BSA: It’s weird because people don’t really think about Las Vegas as a place that someone would grow up in. Like I imagine most people would think of the casinos on the strip and I don’t even know what else people think of because what I grew up knowing was that it was an incredibly spread out city so it was hard to get anywhere very quickly. It was very separated by class thinking about it now and thinking about the different neighborhoods I got to live in & experience throughout my childhood. It is very separated by class and that is so interesting to think about now because I have had a taste of all those different bits & parts of Vegas. From living downtown for a little bit to living in the suburbs in a nice bougie ass house with a pool in the backyard. In general it’s suburban but it’s also a party city; it feels like a fever dream to be honest. Because there’s a lot of people in Vegas but they all work at the casinos or work in industries that support the economy of Las Vegas but there isn’t really very much things to do out there. And I’m sure there’s people who will argue with me about that which is fair because I haven’t been there in a long time but from what I remember it was a shit hole. It’s always going to be a shit hole. Even though I love Las Vegas, it’s got a special place in my heart for sure, but I can’t say a whole lot of amazing things about Las Vegas.

HS: What was it like navigating high school as a person of color… were you out in high school?

BSA: Okay so I was out in high school but I was not out to my family until after I moved away and graduated. Being a brown person was not something I thought about, period. A positive side of Las Vegas is that it’s a melting pot of diversity even though there are a lot of redneck white people out there, I grew up and didn’t think about that because I had so many different types of people across different ethnic & cultural backgrounds in my life that it never occurred to me that I had to think differently about myself. I was just someone who grew up in Las Vegas like everyone else there. In highschool I was fortunate enough to go to an arts school so I was low key, high key, very sheltered. It was cool and okay and accepted to be out & open as a queer person. There was a big support club, the Gay Straight Alliance, that was 200 members deep. It was an arts school, it made sense, there were no sports there; it was all theatre kids, art kids, kids who played instruments, jazz kids. It was all of those weirdos put in one school. It was really cool being in that environment and feeling safe, like I did feel safe in my high school when I was there which is really weird to say. I’m sure if I were to nitpick there were moments I wasn’t safe. My school was located in a seedier area of downtown Las Vegas and there would be, for a couple years straight, there would be 2 lockdowns at least because of active shooters. Because we had an open campus closer to a lot of things in seedier areas downtown it was kind of normal & common to experience getting locked down until 3 hours after the school bell gets let out just because that was how things were in town. It was normal for me, I’m sure it was kind of shocking for people who had not experienced that or for the kids who didn’t grow up in neighborhoods like I grew up in where it was a lot more active with police presence or people who didn’t come from affluent communities. Most of my background is not affluent at all but I have experience of being in affluent communities and being in those communities made me understand that people didn’t understand how other people live or how to respond to that. That was very striking to grow up understanding coming from a lower income poor background but I’m also grateful for that because I don’t feel like a ding dong now not having empathy or compassion for people. It would suck to be that person and get called out because that’s embarrassing.

HS: That is embarrassing. So you went to an arts high school, when did visual arts become part of your life?

BSA: It’s been part of my life for as long as I can remember. Growing up I remember my mom loving to make art, be creative and do things artistic in & around our home whenever she could. Even when we didn’t have many things she still figured out ways to create things. That inspired me at a very young age. Me and my sibling started making art in elementary school and entered art contests that made us feel good about ourselves. It was something really wholesome and special growing up at a very young age that I started to figure out what I wanted to do with my life. I was approached in middle school by an art teacher who told me about this art high school. They were like, “You can audition for this high school if you want to. It can prime you if this is what you want to do in life.” And that got me feeling really excited, like I didn’t know there was an art school you can go to. That blew 12 year old Brit’s mind. I told myself I was going to work really hard for those years in middle school because you had to audition with a portfolio to get in.

HS: How has your art, because I know your art as it is now, changed from 12 year old Brit?

BSA: It has changed so much because I realized now that a lot of my, like most people’s art in school or in a structured environment, doesn’t have 100% artistic freedom. Like in school you’re given prompts or different ideas to bounce off of or assignments that can only be so much of you and then there’s the grading/critique aspect. On an academic level, it’s kind of sterile. I recognize the art I created in high school and before I started getting more serious about my art & creating art for a living it was just school art. Technically I’m proud of the skill I got and learned in school but a lot of the art I look at now it’s like oh I did have some creative freedom and I did express myself but I also see that there’s academic constraints on it. Towards the end of highschool I started exploring more with expressing, like expressionism and expressing myself with artwork and what that means to me. I had a conversation with a friend and she was like, “Oh you artwork is like a journal like a live diary.” This was a few years ago and that was exactly what I was doing in highschool, writing deep dark secrets in the background of my artwork not really knowing I was processing stuff for myself or starting to figure out what I really like to do for myself & my art work and how I wanted to create that. That’s sort of what I’m doing now with my art work, it has evolved into the purest form of self expression for self and how I can present that to other people. When I first started making art work more seriously in the past few years, it was mostly just for myself to process stuff. I didn’t have a therapist at the time, I was going through a lot of weird mental turmoil and that was the best way I could find to help process and unpack those things even though I really didn’t know that was what was happening in the moment. I was just feeling all sorts of things, you know any type of creative when they’re in a weird emotional state they want to do something about it. So creating is the way to do it, it has been the way to do it for me. Even if I haven’t been creating as much work as I would like to be, I’ve come to understand that doesn’t matter. The amount of work I put out, if I put out one or two pieces in a year that is enough. Even if I don’t put out any pieces at all in 2020 that is going to be fine and that doesn’t determine my success as an artist because at the end of the day I’m creating my artwork for myself. If people want to consume my artwork and experience my artwork that is a benefit in itself.

HS: Is there anyone that particularly inspires you in terms of your artwork?

BSA: I used to feel like I had a lot of inspiration from artists who were classical artists like Van Gogh, Matisse and Picasso. All of those classically trained artists that people recognize and know & love, I have absolutely pulled inspiration from. Now its very different because I recognize that they are all cis men. They are all white cis men who play upon heteronormative hiearchies in our world. That really fucked me up as a trans person, as a person who was born as female and someone who wants to be an artist (I do consider myself to be an artist), that started to be conflicting to me. So I stopped pulling so much inspiration from them because it didn’t feel right and it felt like I was honoring false ideologies. Now I would say my inspiration comes from contemporary young artists who are on instagram who don’t have their shit together and don’t come from classical or technical backgrounds because they are out here expressing themselves in the way they know how. You can feel the passion and the power behind it, it’s just as good as a masterwork. There isn’t anyone specific because there are so many contemporary artists out there but I love to go on the search for artists from contemporary museums- I mean contemporary galleries because fuck museums. They are out here looting countries, not giving their shit back and saying we are out here rioting; that’s garbage. That is a whole other conversation to be had, I’m very happy to not be hyped up about museums anymore.

But I have been trying to keep up with contemporary gallery spaces, specifically spaces that are curated and owned by black & brown people. It’s important for me to uplift those voices and also feel empowered in uplifting my voice as well by finding people who create artwork in the same way that I create artwork or feel the same way. That makes me feel inspired. There’s a few people in town, there’s one artist particularly: their name is Laura Medina. I’ve been a big fan of their work for a really long time. It’s so multidisciplinary and across the board an experience in itself, it reminds me of my work even though it’s very different. It makes me feel good to know someone in real life and see their work grow & evolve over time is really awesome.

HS: You touched on “fuck museums” which I agree with…

BSA: Fuck museums.

HS: Yeah. We are at a huge shift culturally in the US right now, what is your hope for the future in terms of the art world as a trans brown person?

BSA: I think there’s a few different outcomes I have thought about regarding our art world and how we consume art and what values we place on the art we consume in the world today especially that is considered to be a contemporary artist. I think in the case of museums there is the option of returning the looted artwork from all of the countries it was stolen from and leaving it at that. Maybe even apologizing for stealing that because the only reason why it is in a museum and why the museum is up in the first place is because they went & looted someone’s country. Typically a black or brown country. The other option would be, if for some reason they can’t do that, for all of the proceeds from the museums that have looted artifacts to go back to the countries they originally came from. That’s the very bare minimum they could do if they are not going to return these treasures, these artworks which are pieces of people’s identity which is huge. Artwork is very much part of a person’s identity and how they are able to express themselves so it is wild for these European countries to fight back and be defensive when it comes to black & brown people wanting to reclaim their identity essentially. “We actually figured out you guys fucked us over and we want our stuff back, period.

So that’s my hope for museums. Another hope would be ideally a museum that would have collections of artwork from people that didn’t get their shit stolen or collections from people who are alive today. There’s so much amazing, beautiful, powerful, emotional artwork that is being produced by artists who are alive today that should get the same recognition as cis het white artists who are in museums and applauded for their hard work and creativity. Even though they stole all of those ideas from black and brown people. I went to this really amazing exhibit in San Francisco about how eastern culture influenced western art in the 19th century. A lot of our favorite classically trained artists took inspiration from Asian, Southeast Asian countries when they opened their door to colonizers. It was really wild to see all of these artworks that people love and know that people don’t know the background behind why they love it or the historical context behind it.

HS: I think about Gaugin, I think his work is beautiful.

BSA: I think his work is beautiful… For a while I was a little torn because his work uplifts and honors big black and brown bodies. Curvy black and brown bodies, indigenous black and brown bodies which were not seen in European contemporary art at the time. At the same time he fetishized the shit out of those people. He was also an abuser and high key pedophile.

HS: I didn’t know that.

BSA: There are very famous paintings or portraits that are of very young Tahitian women, Tahitian girls and in diary entries he wrote very explicit and kind of gross entries about these young girls. This was a well into his middle age white man from France. He wanted to disconnect himself from his society, was probably feeling some type of white guilt, wanted to be on some white savior “I’m going to uplift black & brown voices even though I’m going to benefit from you forever after this.” It’s really wild because I grew up looking at those paintings thinking wow those are beautiful! Like I never saw paintings that depicted these bodies in this way. As an adult I’m analyzing them and looking at the way they are depicted and they are young girls laying across beds as sex workers. That’s what they were, they were sexworkers and they were being exploited by this white man. It’s wild because of course. At the end of it, it’s just of course. Now I know better and I feel differently thinking about Gaugin as an artist. As someone who appreciated his artwork, I can still appreciate it, but it’s important to understand the context behind the artwork. You have to look at it out of context and not just look at it as an artistic achievement.

HS: I’m going to shift gears a bit and talk about trans identity… You just experienced a… Can I disclose this?

BSA: Yeah, that’s fine!

HS: You just experienced a really huge landmark in your life which is getting gender affirming surgery. How are you feeling right now?

BSA: I feel really good, I feel really amazing. I feel more comfortable and at home in my own body and the vessel that is my body. I feel very fortunate to be in a place in my life where I had the opportunity to have this procedure done. It’s amazing because I know I deserve it and it also makes me think about & reflect on what it means to be trans. Literally being trans means anything and everything at the same time. So having this surgery, even if I didn’t get to have this surgery it doesn’t make me any less trans. I feel like I have been trans as long as I can remember, I just only recently got the vocabulary and the resources to understand fully and be able to express myself in the ways that I felt comfortable and the ways that I wanted to. It’s really amazing, it feels really good for me to be able to have that feeling for myself but I also again even if I didn’t have this surgery I would still love myself as much as I love myself now. It’s really important to understand that having surgery is a very new thing and trans people have existed forever. That doesn’t make them any less trans. We’ve only had surgeries for the last 50 years or so. In my opinion, it’s just a bonus. If you have the opportunity and the means to do it, that’s awesome.

HS: You mention that you feel like you’ve always known that you were trans, can you describe a childhood instance of when you felt that you didn’t align with how people perceived you?

BSA: Yes, when I was very young like maybe around 5 years old is when I can vividly remember having these internal shifts in my brain, in my mind about how I was being perceived and it was very different from how I felt. I had a lot of gay feelings as a small child.

HS: Love.

BSA: But it felt very normal to me so I never thought anything of it. I was raised in a Roman Catholic household so there is an iron fist of shame & guilt behind that but deep down inside I felt happy the way that I was. But also, I learned later in my life that who you are attracted to does not determine the way you identify. It can and it can absolutely add to it but it doesn’t have to determine your gender or the way you identify. Growing up when I started to understand my queer identity, I was like“Oh yeah, I’m a lesbian woman.” Going into middle school is when I started to meet more people who felt the same way, I don’t know where they are at now, but it helped me start asking questions about my sexuality and my identity. For a while I felt very comfortable identifying as a cis lesbian woman and that’s where I was comfortable. But as I got older I started to question things a little more because I started to feel things a little differently. I started noticing changes in my brain and in my heart. So it made me feel very weird. I found myself being, I don’t know if it’s being attracted to cis men or masculine people, but I started feeling some types of ways. It wasn’t necessarily sexual attraction but it was some type of way about masculine presenting people that I was like “Whoa, what am I? Because I don’t feel like a cis lesbian woman, I don’t feel like that anymore.” I think that’s the beauty of being queer and trans because again it’s anything and everything. I was having this conversation with my roommate this morning that I had these weird crushes that I couldn’t understand on cis men but I just wanted to be them. I didn’t really want to have anything to do with them other than I just want to look like you.

HS: That’s so real.

BSA: That was a funny thing for me to recognize because for a while I was very not into cis men. And I’m still not very into cis men like the classic cis het man, I don’t have to go into that. I recognize that a lot of it comes from my own personal experiences and traumas from cis men that ruined my life and wrecked my perception of other people who can identify as cis men and are actually decent. That really fucked me up because I was harboring a lot of negative energy and pulling that energy into my platonic & romantic relationships and not understanding why I felt these ways. Then things again started to change in my mind. When I discovered the word trans, being transgender, that blew my mind. Like that’s out there? That’s cool! Then I started reading different research and histories of trans people throughout time. That really blew my mind because holy shit white supremacy has literally ruined essential human kind and expression at its core. With that it started to make me break down things I felt weird about like how I express myself. Even growing up I would dress more masculine. I would be called a tomboy and I still called myself a girl at the time and that was fine but I understand now I was doing what I felt comfortable in. I didn’t understand what nonbinary terms were, what androgynous terms were, what trans terms were. I was just trying to be comfortable in how I felt and that’s how I expressed myself was dressing in masculine clothing. It hid me, once I started to feel uncomfortable in my female body that’s when I really started dressing more masculine because in my eyes it hid me as a female. But it also made me feel comfortable and affirmed in the shifting changes in my brain where I was like I’m not a female, but I’m not a male either so I guess I’m just comfortable.

HS: What do you feel about the intersections between your trans identity and being Filipino? How do you navigate that?

BSA: That is something I’m still learning to navigate personally. I have had a really hard time coming out as trans to my family that I grew up with. I understand now that because of the ways we’ve been conditioned in our culture and the ways that we’ve been conditioned in society living in America has a really big part to play in how they are really unable to receive me expressing myself or wanting to be open and wanting to have conversation and communication where were are able to respectful and understanding of one another. I have so many hopes for where I would like my life to be with my family and being a trans Filipino person. A big thing I learned about Filipino culture, history and indigenous Filipino people for a long time before colonization there weren’t gender norms. Obviously they had male and female traditional roles but there wasn’t a gender hierarchy. For the queer people and trans people who did exist in those times, they were not fucking treated horribly because they were just people. Just people trying to live their lives and get by like anybody else. That really resonated with and made me feel very strongly about who I am as a Filipino person and a trans Filipino person. Like wow I feel like I tapped into some ancestral shit that was hidden and swept under the rug and buried deep under white supremacy, I feel even more empowered learning about that and understanding my identity as a trans Filipino person. Knowing that my ancestors felt these ways and were able to thrive for a long time before colonization and live their lives peacefully and full of love and light because they weren’t getting harassed because however they were wasn’t accepted. That is something that I hold onto very deeply and it is something I want to bring up in conversation with my family members but again because they have been so conditioned by white supremacy it’s really difficult for me to get through and to show them the facts. To show them that we have been brainwashed and we have been made to believe that anything that can benefit from white supremacy is the way we need to go. I’m currently trying to find a cohort or a support group of local Filipino people to talk about these things. I know there’s a lot of people who haven’t talked about these things with their family or don’t get the room or space to talk all about these things because their families just shut it down. And that sucks because Filipino people are so family centered and so full of love and community that it blows my mind that Filipino trans people are not supported. I don’t really feel supported by the majority nor do I feel safe coming out to them or really want to be myself with them because they meet me with aggression and defense in something I don’t even really want to be talking about with them in the first place. They can’t even do a simple “Can you just call me by name?” Navigating my trans Filipino identity has been a whole journey but it has been amazing at the same time because I do have people in my life who do see me as that and do respect me as that and give me that space to express myself when I’m feeling especially anxious or when I don’t have community. It’s been hard and it’s still an ongoing thing but I know I’m not the only one who’s feeling this type of way and these feelings. For a long time I thought I was the only one who feels this way. It’s hard

HS: If you could say something to your younger self what would you say?

BSA: Okay this is something that I think about quite a lot especially after going to therapy. This is a scenario that I role play in therapy where I talk to my younger self. Can I do multiple things?

HS: Sure, definitely!

BSA: One thing I would tell my younger self is to continue to completely love myself. I think if my younger self were taught to love myself in the ways that I know how to love myself now I would have way better of a time trying to figure out conflict and tension in my brain. Being a fat kid, being a bigger bodied little baby, it was really hard to love myself because not only did I have society telling me that my body wasn’t the right body but I also had people in my family fortifying those really gross attitudes and behaviors towards fat people and fat bodies. There are so many places around the world, outside of Western culture that uplifts fat bodies and cherishes and loves them. Even if they don’t, that’s just cis het garbage. I don’t know it just blows my mind that self love and empowerment is not taught at a younger age. That’s something I would tell my younger self is try to love yourself as much as you can at the fullest extent that you can. And even if you aren’t feeling it, other people feel that way about you even more. That’s something I’ve learned recently, even on days where I feel like fucking garbage there are people I know in my life who can say so many amazing things about myself that I know are true but I just can’t find it in me to say to myself or about myself. Another thing I would want to tell my younger self would be to be gay and do crime. Because apparently being gay is a crime so.

Another thing I would want my younger self to is to take it easy. Try to not worry so much. I have a sensitive heart that I have to take care of, but that’s also everybody. Everybody should be taking care of their hearts and their minds as much as they do their bodies because they are different systems that hold our vessels together. I think that’s it for what I would say to my younger self.

HS: Those are all very beautiful, is there anything else you would like to add about anything we talked about today?

BSA: I think the one thing I would say about myself and I continue to say the more I am able to reflect on who I am is I am very thankful to be living my truest and most authentic self and to be able to feel that feels really amazing and really good. I’m just going to keep trying to do that because everybody deserves to feel comfortable and everyone deserves to feel good about themselves. So I just want to give myself that pat on the back to keep doing that. I recognize that.

HS: Fuck yeah. Thank you for talking with me Brit. We spend a lot of time together but it has been really cool getting to know you in this way.

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mastcomm · 5 years ago

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36 Hours in Niseko – The New York Times

Niseko — where the powder is voluminous, après ski happens in onsens (hot springs), and culinary adventures abound — is a popular destination for international travelers. Japow, the nickname for the average 600 inches of powder that arrives from Siberia each winter, is what puts the resort so firmly on the map with skiers and snowboarders. On the north island of Hokkaido, Niseko includes four main separate, but linked, resorts (collectively called Niseko United). Beyond the slopes, the island is renowned for world-class seafood, produce and beef as well as beer, whiskey and even some sake. Its excellent restaurants, from simple noodle bars and laid-back izakayas (Japanese pubs) to fine dining at the Michelin-starred Kamimura, spotlight the island’s bounty. Though often called the Aspen of Asia — and, indeed, Niseko is undergoing a similar luxury building boom — this Japanese resort is forging its own identity, from design to food to culture and wellness scenes.

Friday

1) 1:30 p.m. Artful dining

Perched on the side of a cliff in the Hanazono area, Somoza, a serene gallery and artful restaurant, is housed in a renovated wood kominka (historic farmhouse). A typical thatched roof has been replaced with steel, but its traditional shape still evokes a samurai helmet. Head downstairs to its main gallery where an ongoing exhibition, “Hokkaido Through the Ages,” presents a history lesson while showcasing artifacts from the founder and designer Shouya Grigg’s personal collection. There’s pottery from the island’s ancient Jomon period (from about 10,000 B.C. to 300 B.C.); and a carved kabuto sword stand with deer antlers and other works by the Ainu, people only recently recognized by the government as Japan’s indigenous inhabitants. On the main level are handmade ceramics from Japanese artisans and Mr. Grigg’s minimalist black-and-white photographs of snow, trees, mountains and abstract patterns inspired by nature. (Somoza will open an additional adjacent art gallery this spring.)

Somoza serves some of the most creatively delicious food — inspired takes on Japanese cuisine with Italian influences — in Niseko. Its changing seasonal menus focus on local ingredients, such as duck breast with Kutchan potato, crab and sea urchin consommé, or salmon smoked on-site, all served on beautiful ceramics. Lunch is about 5,000 yen, or about $46. (Also, ask about the restaurant’s matcha tea ceremony.) Sit by its glass windows and gaze onto silver birch, oak and ezo red pine trees. The restaurant offers free transportation from Hanazono for lunch.

2) 5 p.m. Snow-surfing

West of downtown Hirafu village is Gentemstick, the groovy shop of the local legend Taro Tamai, the father of Japanese “snow-surfing.” This Zen-like approach brings snowboarding back to its roots, with the rider using body movements and techniques from surfing to follow the terrain of the mountain. Lining the walls like sculptures are colorful surf boards from Mr. Tamai’s personal collection, and handcrafted snowboards made with bamboo and other woods (88,000 to 162,000 yen). With good surf breaks a short drive away, some locals even ski in the morning, then surf in the afternoon. Purchase a beanie or T-shirt, then head upstairs to the shop’s cozy cafe, art gallery and yoga studio.

3) 6 p.m. Strolling through Hirafu

Hirafu village is Niseko’s cultural heartbeat, brimming with bars and restaurants, food trucks, coffee spots like the Mountain Kiosk Coffee stand, ski shops, condos, boutique hotels and luxury chalets. Drop into Powder Art Gallery for contemporary works by emerging artists from Tokyo, Europe and New York. Stop at Niseko Taproom for local craft beers like Obihiro Kurouto or fruity Onuma Snowdrop I.P.A. Enjoy Hirafu’s organic funkiness before a new massive town center development, called Aruku-zaka Street, comes in the next few years.

4) 7:30 p.m. Dinner on a stick

Yakitori — meat, seafood or vegetables on skewers — is popular throughout Japan, and Bang Bang is a Niseko institution. Reserve bar seats and watch chefs grill over a special charcoal called binchotan, made from oak and valued for its high, clean heat that enhances textures and flavors. From gizzards and heart to neck and feet, almost every part of the chicken’s here, with crispy skin a standout. So are Hokkaido Wagyu beef skewers, Hokkaido crabs and Akkeshi Kakiemon oysters (about 10,000 yen). If you can’t get a reservation, Bang 2 — next door, its more casual eatery — now offers the same menu.

5) 9:30 p.m. Whiskey nights

Down a dimly lit Hirafu side street, people stand in line to pass through an old-fashioned red refrigerator door (an Instagram favorite) plastered with stickers. Dubbed The Fridge, Bar Gyu+, with its cozy speakeasy ambience and candlelit wooden tables, is famous for its old and rare Japanese single-malts, a selection that changes every season. Ask what’s behind the bar for off-the-menu pourings of sought-after whiskeys like Karuizawa or Hanyu, and expect to pay almost 22,000 yen ($201) for some shots. Sip as a D.J. spins vinyl, mostly jazz tunes. Still want to dance? A short walk away is the fun new Powder Room, an upscale club with quality wines and cocktails that feels more Hong Kong than Niseko.

Saturday

6) 8 a.m. Fuel up

In central Hirafu, Green Farm Deli & Cafe roasts its own coffee beans. Fuel up for the slopes over hearty pork hash with poached eggs, or an egg wrap, all from local ingredients, alongside your latte or cappuccino. Breakfast, about 2,000 yen.

7) 9 a.m. Four mountains

One pass offers access to Annupuri, Niseko Village, Grand Hirafu and Hanazono; one day costs 8,000 yen if bought online. (Niseko also participates in the global Mountain Collective and Ikon Pass, season-long lift passes to top worldwide resorts, including Niseko United.) Venture out with an instructor to guide you around the mountains for an overview, or to get tips for powder. Niseko’s slopes offer lots of variety, from beginners to advanced, with the highest elevation only 3,937 feet. Intrepid skiers can go from one resort to the next, beginning at Hanazono and ending at Annupuri. (A free bus can also take you to each base.) At the top of the Niseko gondola, ski to the sleek wooden Lookout Cafe and tuck into a bowl of simple seafood ramen (about 2,000 yen). Trekking up and skiing down the crater of Mount Yotei — a volcano, resembling a smaller Mount Fuji, that looms over Niseko — belongs on your adrenaline bucket list (guide required; contact Rising Sun Guides).

8) 2:30 p.m. Après ski ritual

With Japan’s volcanic landscape, there are ample onsens (geothermal hot springs) in Niseko; taking to the waters at a public bathhouse is both an essential ritual of Japanese culture and part of the ski experience. Join the locals at Yugokorotei, in a ryokan (traditional Japanese inn) in Annupuri. Know the Japanese etiquette, such as bringing your own little “modesty towel” and soap to cleanse thoroughly before dipping, naked (no bathing suits allowed), into a communal outdoor pool. Like most onsen, this one is separated by gender. The outdoor pool, under a wood pergola and surrounded by snow and boulders, features mineral water pumped from the base of Mount Annupuri. It may be cold outside, but you’re relaxing your body and soul in about 130 degree Fahrenheit, mineral-rich bubbling water. Folding and placing the towel on your head is a custom. Cost: 1,000 yen.

9) 6 p.m. The art of noodles

Begin at Karabina, an izakaya occupying a small wooden hut at Annupuri’s base (note: this is the last season the restaurant will be open at this location). Shoes off, walk up a few steps to a cozy alcove, sit around a wood-burning stove and sip a local sake. Then walk a stone’s throw away down a pathway to another rustic wood dwelling, Rakuichi. Helmed by Tatsuru Rai, known for his artisan, local buckwheat noodles, this soba master was celebrated on Anthony Bourdain’s “No Reservations,” and ever since it’s been a hard reservation to get. His wife, Midori, greets diners as they don slippers and sit at a no-frills, 12-seat wooden counter with views of the master at work on a ball of dough. Dinner comes kaiseki-style, a Japanese haute cuisine tasting menu that changes with the seasons. Nine simple dishes with bright flavors are presented on pretty Japanese ceramic plates and lacquer bowls. Order a Hokkaido sake to accompany, for instance, sashimi of sea urchin, toro tuna, smoked scallop and Mr. Rai’s hand-cut soba noodles. Select either cold with tempura vegetables, or hot with duck (an additional 800 yen). Finish with dessert. (Dinner is about 12,000 yen.)

10) 9:30 p.m. Niseko noir

Stop at Toshiro’s for a cocktail created by its bespectacled namesake proprietor and mixologist, celebrated for concoctions like Penicillin, a mix of whiskey, ginger and citrus, with a smoky spin (1,600 yen). Or try a ginger gimlet and a smoked old fashioned with local whiskey. More than 400 bottles sit behind the bar; select a tasting flight, from 3,600 to 45,000 yen.

Sunday

11) 10 a.m. Shrines and temples

Grab a coffee at the Mountain Kiosk Coffee stand or one of the trucks in Hirafu and head to the non-touristy town of Kutchan (about six miles from Hirafu and 20 minutes by cab) where you’ll find the Daibutsuji Buddhist temple, featuring a prayer room with a gold-painted ceiling depicting a dragon shielding a Buddhist elder from a tiger (no charge, book in advance). Be mindful that temples and shrines are places of worship for local residents, as well as places to protect sacred objects. Other area shrines: Kutchan-jinja, where red, green and yellow flags line the simple wood interior; and in Niseko Town stands the small Kaributo-jinja.

12) 1 p.m. Swirl and other milk treats

Hokkaido, Japan’s top dairy-producing region, is recognized for offering the best milk in the country. Milk Kobo, next to the Takahashi working dairy farm in Niseko Village, is noted for hand-milking its cows, and its popular cafe and shop makes desserts and cheeses from the milk. Knock back a banana yogurt drink, which is packaged in a cute little bottle with cows on its label. Don’t miss the cheese tarts and cream puffs.

Lodging

At the nine-room boutique Kimamaya in Hirafu, European alpine design meets Japanese aesthetics. Feel at home sitting around the living-room fireplace, sipping a glass of Burgundy from the owner’s private vineyard. An adjacent restaurant, The Barn, inspired by Hokkaido farm architecture, serves Western and Japanese breakfasts, and for dinner, French-Japanese food using local ingredients; it’s worth eating here even if staying elsewhere. There’s a small spa and two stone soaking tubs. Rates: 22,400 to 55,440 yen for doubles; lofts are 41,440 to 94,080 yen.

Nestled in a picturesque forest, the stunning 15-room Zaborin fuses a traditional ryokan experience with contemporary luxury. Guests relax in Japanese house pajamas, and dinner is an 11-course kaiseki meal of beautifully presented plates, with many foraged local ingredients. Rooms feature indoor and outdoor onsens. Rates start at 75,000 yen.

If you chose the Airbnb route, try to find a property in the vibrant Hirafu area. Here you can easily walk to restaurants and shops, and are near public transportation. Expect to pay around $155 and up for a one bedroom.

52 PLACES AND MUCH, MUCH MORE Discover the best places to go in 2020, and find more Travel coverage by following us on Twitter and Facebook. And sign up for our Travel Dispatch newsletter: Each week you’ll receive tips on traveling smarter, stories on hot destinations and access to photos from all over the world.

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5 Amazing Week-Long Mexico Beach Vacations for $1,500 or Less — Including Flights

Puerto Escondido and the Coast of Oaxaca

View of the Zicatela from Puerto Escondido/Oyster

It’s no secret: Here at Oyster.com we love Oaxaca. That goes for the whole state, from the mountain towns to culturally rich Oaxaca City and especially its stunning beaches. For now, the majority of Oaxaca’s coastline is blissfully free of major resort developments. Instead, you can expect towns that have maintained their bohemian beach vibes and surfer history, and offer plenty of bargains for sun-seekers. What’s more? Oaxacan food is some of the best local cuisine in Mexico, and you’ll be able to tuck into everything from whipped Oaxacan chocolate drinks to tlayudas and tamales for far less than what it costs to feed yourself elsewhere.

If you want to really get in touch with Oaxaca’s surf scene — and still want to tap into that cool Mexican beach vibe — Puerto Escondido should be your home base. The city itself is one of our favorite underrated destinations in all of Mexico, and you’ll find a more authentic local vibe here than in other well-known beach destinations in Mexico. Given Puerto Escondido’s hidden-gem status — and laid-back surfer vibe — it’s no surprise that some of Mexico’s young cultural scene has made its way here in recent years — an edition of Comunite Music Festival came to town in 2020, featuring Mexican and international underground DJs.

The majority of the city’s beach scene centers on the Zicatela, where you’ll find a number of cool bars and restaurants. The Zicatela is one of Mexico’s most famous surf destinations, and draws legions of surfers from around the world (and travelers seeking surfing lessons, like those offered by Surf Travel & Friends). The waves can be punishing, but it’s still beautiful, and there are calmer waters to be found around Puerto Escondido (the calmest is Playa Carrizalillo — which is the best swimmable beach).

If you’d like to sample some of the region’s other cool towns, head to Mazunte, one of Mexico’s Pueblos Magicos (Magic Towns). There, a postcard-pretty beach is backed by a former hippie colony turned hipster escape. If you’re in Mazunte, make sure you do the short hike to Punta Cometa, which has amazing sunset views along the rugged Oaxacan coast from Mexico’s southernmost point.

You can score hotels in Puerto Escondido for as low as $45 a night, though if you up it to $65 a night you’ll get more for your pesos. That generally holds true whether you’re visiting in high season or not. Of course higher-end hotels — like Hotel Escondido — are available, though you can expect to pay far more. Food and drink is reasonable in Puerto Escondido, especially when compared to other major Mexican beach destinations. You can keep your costs low by crafting lunch from the many food vendors that prowl the sand all day long, slinging everything from tacos to tamales and Oaxacan roasted peanuts. Even if you opt for more traditional dining, you shouldn’t expect to spend more than $30 a day on food. Airfare to Puerto Escondido from most major U.S. cities is incredibly reasonable. You’ll need to connect through Mexico City, but reaching Puerto Escondido’s airport will rarely cost you more than $550 round-trip (and that’s on the high side). There’s really no need to rent a car — even a taxi to Mazunte for a night or two won’t cost you more than $60 round-trip (an hour-long drive, each way), and local taxis within Puerto Escondido are incredibly cheap. All in — including three surf lessons — you’ll still have over $400 left for food.

Our Budget Hotel Pick in Puerto Escondido: Hotel Santa Fe

The pool and kids’ pool at Hotel Santa Fe in Puerto Escondido/Oyster

With its colonial charm and amazing location at the north end of the Zicatela, it’s hard to complain about anything at the budget-friendly Hotel Santa Fe in Puerto Escondido. It’s not the absolute cheapest in town, but all rooms are huge and include their own private terraces or balconies. There are also two pools, and the restaurant serves delicious vegan-friendly fare.

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Playa del Carmen in the Riviera Maya

The buzzing beach in Playa del Carmen/Oyster

You don’t have to go off-the-beaten-path to have an awesome beach vacation in Mexico. Playa del Carmen has long been a favorite among travelers. Its combination of pretty beaches, a lively downtown area, and nonstop things to do have all solidified its place on must-visit lists. It’s also a solid destination for LGBTQ travelers, at least among the Riviera Maya cities and towns.

If you’re on a tight budget, you’re going to be staying in or near Playa’s busy city center. Since that’s the case, a Playa del Carmen vacation is best for travelers who like a nice dose of partying with their beach vacations. The downtown area is anything but quiet — you’ll find tons of packed bars and restaurants throughout the city center’s streets. Quinta Avenida, or Fifth Ave, is the touristy nerve center of these goings on. It’s literally lined with restaurants, bars, street performers, malls, and shops, and is packed with people day and night. The area around 12th Street is particularly wild at night, and is where you’ll find the majority of nightclubs and bars. Tequila shots are practically a requirement for entry.

However, you should note that you’ll be paying more for your meals, and likely won’t get the best tasting food, along Quinta Avenida. The dining scene is comparable to the touristy marina area in Cabo San Lucas or the Hotel Zone in Cancun. If you head inland just a tiny bit, you’ll find far better local fare (plus international options like Italian and sushi) as well as lower prices. Popular spots that aren’t on Fifth Avenue include Los Aguachiles and Cueva del Chango, though street food and low-key cantinas also sling excellent Yucatecan fare at bargain prices. Search out Doña Paula’s pozoles (on 6th Street between 10th and 15th Avenues) and Taqueria El Fogon.

Playa del Carmen is 45 minutes to an hour south of Cancun and the Cancun Airport. You can get to Playa del Carmen by taxi or airport shuttle — budget around $50 each way. Flights into Cancun are cheap from most major U.S. cities, including New York, Newark, Chicago, Atlanta, Dallas, and Miami. It’s a rare occasion that you’ll spend more than $400 round-trip if you time it right. You can find some real bargains on hotels in Playa del Carmen if you are willing to stay off-beach and steer clear of the pricey resorts at developments like Playacar and Maykoba. Around $80 a night should get you some simple, but sufficient, digs, in or near the city center. That leaves you with over $500 to spend on food and drink over a week, which is more than enough, especially if you stick to taco spots and cantinas for one or two meals a day.

Our Playa del Carmen Budget Hotel Pick: Casa Ticul Hotel by Koox Luxury Collection

One of the Pools at Casa Ticul in Playa del Carmen/Oyster

If you want to be near Quinta Avenida and within a 10-minute walk of the beach, Casa Ticul is your spot. Why? Well, it’s a cute boutique hotel that’s a really nice step up from the crash pads that are found at similar price points in Playa. In fact, it’s one of the more charming boutique hotels in town, and features a couple of small pools in case you want to cool off in peace during the day.

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Isla Holbox

The pristine shoreline of Isla Holbox/Oyster

Head south from Cancun into the Riviera Maya and it’s unlikely that you’ll find a cheap hotel on the beach. However, if you head north from Cancun into the less developed part of Quintana Roo, you’ll find an island paradise that has — for now — resisted development. Welcome to Isla Holbox.

Holbox has been getting a lot of buzz in recent years, so you shouldn’t expect it to be quite as cheap as some of the other beach destinations on this list. However, it’s still far more reasonably priced than other Quintana Roo beach destinations. And it’s special for a unique reason. You see, this island has resisted the kind of commercialization you’ll find in places like Tulum by isolating itself as much as possible. There are no cars on Isla Holbox, and you need to take a ferry to reach it from the mainland. That should be a clue as to the kind of beach vacation you can expect in Holbox, though in case you needed more of a hint, the island is part of the Yum Balam Nature Reserve.

Isla Holbox is celebrated for its pristine tropical setting and the incredible diversity of animal and sea life you can find. The lagoon to the south of the island is a major birding area, and is home to flamingos and pelicans. To the north, the Caribbean Sea holds amazing coral reefs and whale sharks. Snorkeling and diving are both incredibly popular activities, with good reason. Whale shark season runs from May through November, if you’re hoping to catch these gentle behemoths in their habitat. You should definitely book one of the many reasonably priced whale shark tours that can put you in the water with them.

Most of the action on dry land centers on Holbox Village, though the pace is sleepy (that’s a good thing — trust us). Like we said, there are no cars, and traffic limited to pedestrians, bikes, and golf carts. The handful of colorful single-story buildings has just enough options when it comes to drinking and dining, and you’ll find zero of the eye-wateringly expensive foodie attitude of Tulum here. You also won’t find any nightclubs, jungle parties, or beach clubs, all contributing to the low-key atmosphere meant for unwinding.

If you’re willing to go the budget or mid-range route and look for bargains well enough in advance of your trip, you can expect to pay around $80 per night on Holbox Island. While you won’t need a rental car on the island, for obvious reasons, you will need to get to the ferry departure point. If you’re only planning on exploring Isla Holbox, you can opt for a taxi from Cancun International Airport or the Holbox Shuttle, which will only run you about $40 each way. Keep in mind that the drive or ride from Cancun Airport to the Holbox Ferry takes nearly two hours. Round-trip flights from most major U.S. cities to Cancun are often incredibly reasonable and can be had without layovers for under $400 per person. If you add in a whale shark tour at around $120 per person, that leaves you around $500 to feed yourself and keep cold Coronas close at hand. While Holbox has its pricier restaurants and fancy coffee shops, you can also find no-frills hole-in-the-wall cantinas that will keep you more than happily fed for a week.

Our Isla Holbox Budget Hotel Pick: Casa BlatHa

Casa BlatHa from the sandy street outside/Oyster

A traveler favorite for more than just its incredibly low nightly rates, this quaint little property gives you easy access to Isla Holbox’s beauty without the cost of the more polished hotels on the island. Casa BlatHa is just west of the main town area, and only a 15-minute walk from Punta Cocos (or under five minutes by bike). There’s a beach nearby, and rooms are simple and quaint, with ceiling fans and — in some — hammocks on terraces.

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Sayulita in the Riviera Nayarit

The Bay of Banderas in Sayulita, Riviera Nayarit/Oyster

Perhaps you’ve heard more than a few whispers about the Riviera Nayarit in recent years. The coast of Nayarit state to the north of Puerto Vallarta has enjoyed the moniker of “Mexico’s Next Big Thing” by major media outlets since 2018. And while we’re glad that this beautiful beach region is finally getting the attention it deserves, the truth is that the towns of the Riviera Nayarit have been trending among in-the-know travelers for years. Among those, Sayulita is perhaps the most famous — and with reason.

Like almost all of our favorite Mexico beach spots, Sayulita started its tourist days as a fishing village and surfer decampment, primed for those who wanted to quote-unquote get away from it all. While today it’s very squarely on the tourist radar — and is hardly the no-frills escape it once was — it still draws on that bohemian ethos. Like Puerto Escondido that we told you about up above, surfing still figures largely in the modern-day story of Sayulita, and certainly informs the village vibe. You’ll find plenty of surf shops and surf schools in the region, should you feel adventurous. In fact, some of Mexico’s most famous surfers hail directly from the area.

The town itself flanks the hillsides of the Sierra Madre as they crash into the Bay of Banderas below. This creates a rugged, boulder-strewn coast that’s incredibly pretty. Low-slung houses peek out of the green jungle all around, and the town itself has plenty of cute little bars, cantinas, raw-bowl-and-juice joints, and cafes. One of the most popular spots in town is La Rustica — a Sayulita staple that’s one of the current must-try restaurants in town. You’ll also find a concentration of souvenir shops, all with an artsier side (think: Mexican-chic home decor rather than beer-logo tank tops). Eye-catching Huichol art— made by the Huichol indigenous group from the Nayarit region — is a must-buy when you’re here. The Bay of Banderas and the Pacific Ocean beyond are an incredible place for encounters with underwater life, and humpback whales are numerous in this region during the winter months. You can also head offshore on boat excursions to the Marieta Islands, which are exceptionally photogenic in their own right, but are also home to amazing wildlife of all kinds.

You reach Sayulita by flying into Puerto Vallarta International Airport. Round-trip flights from most major U.S. cities are rarely above $500, though fares are generally far cheaper from western U.S. cities like Los Angeles and Phoenix. Once you’re on the ground, shuttles like those offered by Jose Ramos Transportation from Puerto Vallarta’s Airport to Sayulita are around $140 round-trip, though you can also find cabs for around $50 one-way, if you walk across the pedestrian bridge outside of the airport. The cheapest hotels in Sayulita come in around $100 a night, and you won’t be skimping on style or charm in most spots. You’ll need to be a little more diligent about your budget on food here, though — you have about $260 to spare. But if you stick to making your own breakfast in your kitchen at the hotel pick below and opt for taco lunches, you shouldn’t have to bust out an emergency credit card.

Our Sayulita Budget Hotel Pick: Amor Boutique Hotel

Villa Los Arboles at Amor Boutique Hotel in Sayulita, Riviera Nayarit/Oyster

While Amor Boutique Hotel is a 10-minute walk from the heart of Sayulita, that little bit of distance pays off big time when it comes to charm. The entire hotel has a beautiful local style, and rooms are packed with personality. Even better? The property sits along the Bay of Banderas, has its own pool, and all units feature their own kitchens so you can save money on food costs.

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Ixtapa and Zihuatanejo

The beach in Zihuantanejo/Oyster

We’re going to start with some advice: If you’re after a sanitized resort experience, head straight to Ixtapa. You can find plenty of budget and mid-range properties for really reasonable rates within striking distance of the beach. However, you’ll be short on Mexico vibes in Ixtapa, as it’s a purpose-built resort town that’s best for people uninterested in experiencing local culture. But, if you opt for a stay in Ixtapa’s beachy and charming next door neighbor — Zihuatanejo — your Mexico beach vacation dreams can come true.

Come to Zihuatanejo to get away from mega-resorts and experience a charming little town that overflows with artsy atmosphere. Zihutanejo manages to be tourist-friendly yet more authentically Mexican than Ixtapa. The charming town center has cobblestone streets lined with art galleries, cafes, restaurants, and casual bars. It’s the kind of place where you can vibe with the local pace of life, rather than wall yourself off in a resort that caters to your every whim. And if you ask us, there’s no better way to experience a beach vacation in Mexico.

The main beach in town is Playa Principal, but you should head to Playa la Ropa, which is lined with palm trees and backed by amazing beach bars and restaurants. Zihuatanejo offers a nice mix of low-key holes in the wall and more hipster-friendly juice-and-coffee spots. You can also opt for excursions to other nearby beaches. Playa las Gatas is an easy hike via footpath from Playa la Ropa, while other travelers opt for horseback rides on Playa Blanca. If you’re after a day trip, Barra de Potosi is a resort-free little village at the end of Playa Larga; it’s an ideal place to visit if you’re after something even more locals-only. We recommend posting up on its beach for a day and getting a feel for the town’s vibe.

The airport is only a 15-minute cab ride from the center of Zihuatanejo, and you’ll likely be able to put together a flight here through Mexico City from most U.S. East Coast destinations for under $500. You can fly direct to Ixtapa-Zihuatanejo International Airport from West Coast cities like L.A. Taxis from the airport shouldn’t be more than $5 each way. While you can pay a pretty penny for some hotels in Zihuatanejo (and you’ll be handsomely rewarded for doing so at utterly charming spots like La Casa Que Canta), there are nice budget-friendly options that can be had for $70 to $90 a night. That leaves you around $500 to feed yourself for a week, which is more than doable by mixing meals at local taquerias, beach vendors, and even a few nice dinners by the beach.

Our Zihuatanejo Budget Hotel Pick: Catalina Beach Resort

The pool and bay view at Catalina Beach Resort in Zihuatanejo/Oyster

This hillside property sits next to Playa la Ropa, making it prime real estate for the perfect Mexico beach getaway. We love the pool with views of the bay and hills all around, and the spacious rooms are pleasant enough for travelers who won’t spend all of their time outdoors. There are chairs on the beach for hotel guests.

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The post 5 Amazing Week-Long Mexico Beach Vacations for $1,500 or Less — Including Flights appeared first on Oyster.com.

from Oyster.com https://www.oyster.com/articles/mexico-beach-vacations-for-1500-or-less-including-flights/ Publish First on IFTTT

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