Travel locally, where you are
ssp.shThis is great unless you live in an area of almost absolute geographic and social homogeny in a 100 mile / 160 km radius. "Yo friends, want to drive an hour and see if the fast food in a strip mall is the same as our fast food in a strip mall" just doesn't quite land or "Want to drive 45 minutes and walk in a park that was built in the early aughts and lacks proper shade and had all it's benches removed just like ours?"
You might want to take a look at Atlas Obscura Places map: https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/all-places-in-the-atla.... For the US at least, it shows a variety of interesting and quirky sights in most parts of the country.
Verified that Turkey Run State Park in Indiana is in there. Nice!
Yeah, not everybody lives in Switzerland or the San Francisco Bay Area.
I've been in many a road trip up, down, and across the Great Plains of the US, where I spend a full day driving only to arrive in a town and geography that looks the exact same as the one I woke up in that morning. Only the signs are different.
I love driving around the Midwest and in the plains in the States. If you get away from the large 4 lane highways, there's all kinds of stuff.
I found a strawberry festival and ate enough strawberry things to make myself sick. I found an artists commune and stayed with those weird old hippies for two days..I found a diner with a waitress who was in her 90's and had worked the same job for like 70 years.
We happily spend our vacations just driving around in the middle of the country with no plan.
Drive side roads.
I lived in Texas for ~20 years and am well-versed in the plains+midwest, I just don't agree here. If all you do is drive through highways in these states, yes those are truck stops. However I'm fully confident in saying everywhere has the places the author is talking about. Like he said, it's about creativity.
OP living in Switzerland is a comically poor messenger for this though. I follow a few accounts on Instagram of people that are good messengers in relatively boring places. A Japanese lady that lives in Texas and always has the nicest things to say about things I wouldn't usually even notice. And another lady from the Midwest that used to travel globally but cannot anymore because of her family and yet still seemingly enjoys her local sights.
I randomly picked Jamestown ND as an overnight stop on a recent trip. The next morning we went into the downtown and were pleasantly surprised. Even found a Seattle themed coffee shop with gluten-free options for my travel companion.
Completely unexpected.
Maybe try and get away from the strip malls. :)
I bet there is a river somewhere near you. Explored all of it? What about a hill? Is there a road you've never driven down? It might have some stuff down it you've not seen before. Have you explored all the flora and fauna around you? Obviously you need to stay off private land, but I would be amazed if there is absolutely zero variation in any topology, geology, animal/plant life, or other factor within a 100 mile radius of you.
If that is the case, can you tell us where that is? I want to visit exactly once and never go there again. It sounds both magical and terrifying in one instance, and reminds me of a friend who drove down Route 66 and found the expansive empty plains "the most claustrophobic thing I've ever experienced in my life".
Would you mind sharing the general region where you are? Based on your criticisms it sounds like the US, but my experience is quite different. I have only lived on the West coast though, and we're quite spoiled with amazing natural beauty around every corner here. I had a great time road tripping around small towns in the northeast around Vermont and Maine though.
The Midwest in particular is extremely homogeneous and flat, mostly plains and farmland for hundreds of miles. The West cost has more in 15 miles than the Midwest has in 100, on average. There are pockets here and there, but not enough to warrant the several hour drive it will take to get there.
Honestly, most of the US is like this. It's huge and very, very sparse.
"extremely homogenous and flat" is a common sentiment, but.. it's just not true.
Flat for example. The southern portion of the Midwest can be quite hilly (the northern portion not as much, due to glaciers).
But even there, the definition of "flat" gets confused with "not mountainous". If the topography varies a lot, but there aren't mountains, is it flat? (Max/min vs variance)
The driftless area certainly has some truly beautiful parts, but my statement is less about the homogeneity across the entire region and more about the distance between any notable landmarks. Hills alone aren't really that interesting either and I stand by my statement that most of the Midwest is boring and flat.
I've hiked in the mountains and I've swam in the ocean, and I'm perfectly content to live amongst the hills and streams of the Midwest. I suppose it's relative. I live on the east end of the state, and I find the west end pretty flat and boring. :)
Yeah that makes sense, that's too bad. The coasts are the most interesting places for local travel, but the elites living there don't seem to have the time of day for it. More for me I guess.
Yep. My partner came with me to visit family in the midwest. It's flat and everything is spaced out and there are no sidewalks because no one walks because you have to drive to get anywhere. The best park is a little wooded area that you can loop in 15m. If you haven't lived is a place like that, it's probably difficult to imagine how much nothing is going on.
I live in Texas, which is probably very similar to where you’re thinking of, and I could list off at least 10 different places within a 1 hour radius that should be visited.
I grew up in Michigan farm country and have lived in the desert SW and Pacific NW as an adult.
The outdoor attractions out west are world class compared to the attractions closer to where I grew up. Still, there are plenty of places I enjoy when I get back to Michigan to see family and friends. Even the Plains states have some great outdoorsy places, you might have to work a little harder to find them.
If you’re an American, I highly, highly recommend the book American Ramble by Neil King, Jr. The one-sentence summary is “a guy walks from Washington to New York” but he connects with history (and the present) at a walking pace along the way, experiencing much more than the typical Washington->NYC traveler.
That can be true, but I think even in such areas there can often be something interesting if you have an openness to a certain kind of modern "anti-beauty". I mean stuff like liminal spaces, places that are interesting because they're so uninteresting, etc. Each random shopping mall can be banal and anodyne in its own unique way, each gas station at each dusty crossroads has its own individual whiling away the hours behind the counter.
You are generally correct, despite the rebuttals in the reply comments to yours.
But I think the challenge here is that we can have great places if we do the following:
1. Focus on transportation and ways of living that focus on walking or taking a tram.
2. Create and support medium-density, mixed-use neighborhoods
3. Require good, sound architectural principles. When you think of Paris and those narrow streets or the apartment complexes in the best neighborhoods, we need those. None of this modernist bullshit or 5-over-1s made with recycled concrete. Use bricks, stone, and more. Incorporate design elements requiring skilled craftsmen, and pay for it.
Those 3 alone should get you most of the way there.
My final comment would be, when you're thinking about spending $5,000 - $10,000 or whatever on a big international trip to go look at some nice stuff in some other country, consider spending that money instead on your own home, or garden, or donate to organizations that maintain those things for you. It also doesn't have to be all or none, you can still travel, and still invest locally. Make where you live the kind of place you would have wanted to travel to. Gardens in Great Britain, for example, can happen where you live too you just need to spend the money and build and maintain those things... like they do.
The transit and transportation stuff is much more difficult to fix. Most Americans want a Jeep and suburban house and to wait in line and beep their horn at the Costco gas station and that's a tough hill to climb, but the 3 items I highlighted above are guaranteed to increase quality of life and lower costs long-term.
I'd love to do all 3, and actively push my city council to prioritize rezoning for mixed use + medium density.. and eliminating parking minimums. I previously lived in NYC and it was true like the author said; I could have boundless weekend trips to a variety of places with Amtrak + Bus service.
I do as well here where I live. The one battle I will unfortunately always lose because of upfront cost and because people stopped caring about Western civilization is the quality architecture battle. I get it we should build build build, but I do wish we could build build build lasting, high-quality, architecturally sound buildings which would raise property values and lived experience wherever implemented.
somehow I think of pickleball.
What you're describing is really why the Backrooms is resonating with the kids today - the homogeneity of an environment and culture devoured by capitalism.
It isn't the same as travelling to truly remote cultures, of course, but odds are, your area has more stuff going on than you realize. My wife and I have taken to planning our occasional 2 week vacations with 2-4 days that we have plans for, and then plan to just use local resources to figure out what to do from there. And we always find things. Sometimes literally just driving down the road on the way to something else we found online and there's a little park on the side of the road or something dedicated to some interesting little thing. If you're just traveling as the wind takes you, it's not a problem that maybe that little park is only 10 minutes of "interesting". It's not a bad way to travel.
I find it also much more relaxing if you just go, with less planning, and more surprises. Travel as the wind takes you, that's it.
I usually prefer to make a detailed plan for my trip, but I allow myself to break free from it anytime I find something more interesting to do. This way I'm more sure that I won't waste too much time or money staying in wrong places, choosing wrong means of transport and falling for some tourist traps or common scams.
+1. failing to plan is planning to fail
I am a huge proponent of this. I find it shocking how many people I talk to in California have never even heard of so many amazing parts of the state outside of a few urban bubbles of SF/LA/San Diego and major attractions like Yosemite. Such a better experience in nature when you aren't surrounded by tourists in places like the Mendocino forest or the Inyo mountains. I also learn so much about our history and how regular people live in small rural towns, they often put effort into preserving it, and the locals love to talk about it. I also love seeing all of the huge mines, factories, infrastructure projects, etc. that support our cities, but people rarely think about.
all around me in the northeast are decaying little towns and attractions that used to be vacation getaways for the first half of the twentieth century.
they say that airtravel killed the catskills resorts (ala dirty dancing) because why spend a few hours in teh car when you could go someplace so much more exotic with a few hours on the plane? and now there's a second-wave killing it with social media travel photos. everybody feels like they need to travel to the same handful of farflung locales that have been deemed 'the best'. basically, people with the means to travel have decided that regional travel isn't cool enough to impress their friends, so they let it die.
i think that's a terrible mistake for everybody. people dont have a fun, affordable place to go on a little weekend jaunt. towns that could scrape by on their natrual beauty have been left to decay (and once there's no way to monetize the natural beauty, local development sees no reason to preserve it).
I recently found out about a tiny room in the local public library that resells books (most for $0.25-$1). I've lived here over a decade.
Overreliance on echo-chambering platforms like Reddit/IG/Google Maps limits one's ability to explore. There's still lots to discover. And re-discover as you grow up.
I read this 3 times to try to figure out why you were living in the library for 10 years. It sparked Roofman vibes.
I can’t find the exit.
I've done this wherever I lived.
In a large city, you can often just walk in one direction, (or take transport in one direction), find yourself in a new neighbourhood and discover loads of interesting things (culture, food, shops, parks, ...).
In London there are hundreds of walks/hikes around and beyond the green belt, all within an hour train from central London.
I do agree that there are some places where this is more challenging.
I used to explore central London just by walking around. I discovered all sorts of things: small museums, interesting architecture (London looks a lot more interesting when you look above the ground floor), canals and parks, odd little shops...).
Notably:
> here in SwitzerlandI admit I snorted when that was mentioned. It's frequently ranked as the most desirable place to live on earth.
Not to say the message of the article is completely without merit - there are things to see and do almost everywhere. But if I just get in the car and start driving I will 95% of the time find only strip malls and cornfields. Perhaps a suburban park with some trees.
Switzerland is not unique in that aspect.
Pick any mountainous, desert, or coastal part of the world and you are guaranteed scenery for ~95% of the drive.
Pick any historic part of the world and you are guaranteed nice-looking buildings anywhere you walk.
A sizeable fraction of the world fits into either of the above. Yeah, if you live in cornfields and strip malls, you aren't going to find much interesting. But in fact, most of the world isn't like that. Arguably the cornfields and strip malls are the minority.
Throw a dart anywhere on Kyrgyzstan, Japan, Indonesia, Norway, China, India, Turkey, Uzbekistan, Argentina, Namibia, the southwestern US, northwestern US, or Mexico. You'll find lots of interesting things wherever your dart landed. These aren't very cherry-picked countries, I just named a few off the top of my head that come to mind where the "dart anyhere is interesting" is true. My point is that the world is full of "Switzerlands".
I was looking for this comment. I share a similar experience. Everywhere I lived (Croatia, Poland, Switzerland, ...) it felt like there was infinite magical locations within 1-2h drive with a lot of natural variety (ocean, lakes, ridges, forests, islands).
I'm not so confident that would be true all over the world. Some places I've spent 3-4 weeks in the nature I got bored from the lack of diversity. Can only stare into dirt and sand for so long.
might as well be in Skyrim
Switzerland is probably the most densely interesting and scenic place in the entire world. Try telling this to someone in Iowa.
We live in the Pacific North West, and have travelled in a similar fashion. Visit Vancouver BC, then out to Squamish, Whistler. On different trips we then venture out further to Prince George, Edmonton, Jasper, Banff. We've then expanded to different provinces and states, staying in each town or city for one or more days. At first we did this by car, staying in hotels at night. But then we bought a large van, outfitted with a simple mattress and kitchen and toilet, and traveled more into the mountains and forests to enjoy nature. From there we crossed Canada from the extreme west coast to the east coast of Newfoundland in our van. We did the same in the northern States and the entire west coast down to southern California. It's a good way to travel and explore our own backyard before venturing out to other countries. Currently doing similar in South East Asia. We have a home base, travel slowly from our home, outwards. Then to different countries nearby. A good life!
Traveled the world in my youth and regretfully did not visit several notable locations when I lived close-by. Now I'm partially retired I am making up for it big time - though it helps having a great starting point.
Last week I hiked the Paparoa trail (West coast NZ) for 4 days through old mining trails with one of my friends who was a local historian and gold prospector, the whole experience was fascinating, and great inspiration for my next novel.
Funnily enough, the country where I'm from is so touristic that if you're a local (with a typical local salary i.e. miserable) you get much more value for your money by going abroad.
This is great advice, and I appreciate the opening sentence to frame it as a "yes, and" sort of situation. We took our teenagers to London and Paris last year (we're from the upper midwest in the states) and it was a joy to see them experience a) a different culture and b) art and architecture they never would have experienced otherwise.
But visiting local destinations is also such a joy. I'm a mile from one of the best BBQ joints in Michigan, in a "blink and you miss it" village. I try and make sure I don't take it for granted.
I like the name that Alastair Humphreys uses, it's not 100% the same but the same direction: Microadventures
amazing, thanks for sharing. I was curious if there's already a name for this local travel. Micro-travel or planless-travel are close. Mini retirements are another term I like to use. I heard from the Pathless Path book (I think), which is traveling for up to 4 weeks - it's not 100% related, but it is what came to mind when I heard Microadventures.
I like that about Europe - you really don’t need to go far to experience something very different. Not quite as local as OP has in mind but 50 bucks can still take you to Italy or Sweden
“because we found it randomly” reveals the importance of mindset. So much of the travel experience (hell, life itself!) is influenced by a positive attitude and openness to really see what is around us.
I get the point and I’m thankful for the article. I just find “middle of nowhere” and Switzerland a bit hard to reconcile.
Birding is also a great way to discover interesting environments in your home locale.
I ended up with an interest, since I was a toddler my parents tell me, that I cannot stay local for- wild cats. Unfortunately, I have to travel the entire globe to be able to see them in their natural habitats. But no matter where I go, there are always local birders, and locally to me there are tons of different birds. The only wild cats here are bobcats, which are very cool, but I've seen and photographed them a lot already. I wish I was interested in the birds.
Potentially geocaching too
Photography also works, or hell you can even photograph birds.
The Merlin bird ID app is eye-opening
> Fraser calls it “staycation”, which is a more accurate term and hasn’t been heard before.
Hasn't been heard before? Major newspapers use the phrase "staycation" nearly every year when talking about travel habits. It's in about as much regular use as "vacation" is.
I agree. In Europe we're particularly lucky that, after only a few hours in a train, we can be in a totally different culture, speaking a different language.
But even without this, traveling in the country side, getting to learn the history of those places, with the "small history", not the big battles, but the local inventions, the local specialties, etc, is so enriching and rewarding
I'd argue that that diversity you claim for Europe has declined greatly in the last couple of decades. Wherever you go, local young people have been following the same global social media for long years now, which has had a leveling effect. Even among the language diversity, what people are saying in their own languages is often calqued on English.
In the 1990s and early millennium, opposing globalization (especially Anglo-American influence) and advocating for local culture was a common position on the European Left. Today that has disappeared almost completely, so much that people are likely to perceive it as a stance of the far-right.
Its not so much Anglo-American as American. it is extremely harmful in the UK. It ranges from the adoption of American vocabulary even when it does not fit with British usage (so causes confusion) or where its a bad fit because systems are different (e.g. education or policing). A lot of people (especially a lot of people who really should know better) understand British culture, politics and history as essentially the same as American which is entirely wrong.
The switch in which side opposes globalisation is an interesting one. That said the same seems to be true in the US and other countries too. IMO the left's abandonment of its opposition to globalisation is a factor in the rise of the far right.
That's a global problem everywhere. But when you're traveling locally, you go there for the landscapes / buildings / history / cuisine. Not necessarily to hang out with people on TikTok
People travel for different reasons, including to interact with local people. For the last decade-plus, I have spent about six months a year traveling the world in a way (bicycle, off popular routes) that involves a lot of conversations with locals and practicing the local languages. So, I have seen firsthand how those conversations with local people across Europe and the world have increasingly involved the same global phenomena from social media as anywhere else – and, disturbingly, a lot of young men want to talk about Andrew Tate or other English-language manosphere stuff.
I mean, it is quite literally a conservative position (a refusal of change), and the right is typically conservative.
I think right equals conservative has not been true for a long time. It is the right that promoted globalisation. In many countries it was the right that privatised formally state owned industries. In the UK in the 70s the right wanted to join the EEC (and Conservative Party governments supported greater integration for decades afterwards), and the left opposed it. All big changes. The current US government seems to want to change a lot of things.
Right = "let me do this thing for myself to get ahead, and then forbid everyone else to do the same"
Examples? Preferably European given the context of the thread. Ideally UK. Anywhere OK if you are struggling for European examples though.
Depends at how you look at it. You can also see cultural diversity as sticking up for the little guy against corporate behemoths and as decentralized bottom-up organizing, i.e. things the left has often claimed to pursue.
Peoples being encouraged to maintain their own language in a purist state and develop culture from their own internal resources, was a notable feature of first-generation Communism in the USSR (before it reverted to Russian supremacism under Stalin) and in the PRC (before it evolved into Han nationalism).
The right/left distinction is less meaningful in authoritarian single-party regimes. The Soviet Union and Maoist China were obviously economically leftist, but politically, authoritarian regimes often align in similar ways, regardless of their economical policies. Pro-nationalist policies are favored by them because they're useful to their purposes; you wouldn't want your influence being diluted by outside cultural and economic forces.
That’s an overly cynical view in the context I mentioned above. Lenin was advocating for more language rights and cultural self-development opportunities for the non-Russian peoples of the Russian Empire years before he had any glimmer of hope of seizing power. At that time, the “authoritarian single-party regime” that leftism in Russia opposed was the tsarist rule, which didn’t permit any local autonomy until after the 1905 Revolution, and even then only grudgingly.
Sounds like it's just something he personally believed in, then. Using a communist rationale I could argue that actually no, the proletariat of Russia and of Patagonia are one and the same, and should speak some common tongue (even if one besides their native one) to foster cooperation and solidarity.
I couldn't help reading this article in the voice of Ted Flanders. It's such an insipid point and the writing is so bad. Not the writers fault, but when you find out he lives in Switzerland it's kinda hilarious.
What's the next place in your list?
This, but take a bike ride or a bus instead of driving.
So, summarising the OP. Switzerland is awesome. News at 11.