For years, I treated domestic travel like a placeholder, the trip you take between the trips that count. I had perfected my personal travels: saving and planning for a massive 14-day trip abroad one year, exploring a country as a whole, then taking a few shorter vacations the next, trying to check off major U.S. cities, local restaurants, and excursions on my ever-growing bucket list.
Now, after making my way around many of the major U.S. cities, I’ve begun to notice a great sameness, and somewhere along the way, my trips within the U.S. started outnumbering my trips out of it. I should be elated, but what began as an obligation to “see the country” turned into something else entirely: I wasn’t just visiting these cities anymore; I was comparing them.
Now, the farther we move away from lockdown, I have noticed the growing similarity of the familiar: a QR code covered with peeling tape where a menu used to lie, an after-dinner escape room experience, or the trending coffee shop with a 45-minute line out the door. Suddenly, I was in a city I had been looking forward to experiencing for the first time, and within the hour, felt as though I had already been there.
Is this what our grandparents thought when they first experienced the expansion into mid-century modern and craftsman-style homes? Or when those traveling west on the Oregon Trail saw the rise of “Main Street” vernacular architecture? It must have looked generic at some point. That’s when it hit me: when every major city offers the same version of “cool,” what remains truly local?
The Great Assimilation: Resistance Is Futile
While gentrification isn’t anything new, the neighborhoods that draw gentrifying investment are frequently the same neighborhoods whose cultural cachet gets erased by the investment that follows. Displacement overall is real but uneven; homeowners often benefit, renters rarely do, and those who can’t keep up are forced to move to underdeveloped areas that will see the same process in the next seven to 10 years.
It’s “luxury casual”; it’s not a mistake. That glossy, upscale vibe, so heavily curated to make everything look photogenic.
Now, private equity-backed groups and national restaurant concepts have begun a silent takeover in urban areas. At the same time, so many of these local places are fighting a losing battle against rising rents, particularly in neighborhoods experiencing rapid gentrification. Some manage to survive by expanding, only to become something different in the process. A small business that started as a neighborhood joint gets bought out, multiplied across town, and stretched across several locations. The food may still be good, but some of the independence and the care that made the original place special can get diluted along the way.
It’s “luxury casual”; it’s not a mistake. That glossy, upscale vibe, so heavily curated to make everything look photogenic. By the time word gets out about what is suddenly popular, other businesses stop, catch wind of what is going viral, and start to assimilate it, because we’ve seen the playbook that’s working. With the rise of social media, the overall travel experience has been engineered to feel “discoverable” rather than actually be discovered.
Recently, during a visit to my hometown of Sioux Falls, South Dakota, I met with friends for dinner in the new Steel District. While the development had politely worked its way into my beloved Falls Park, the longer I stayed, the more I saw how it was changing what makes Sioux Falls distinct in the first place. Sleek artisan plates, floor-to-ceiling windows, and the ever-classic “we do things a little differently here.” While the food was fantastic, even the prices were on the verge of what a meal in Los Angeles costs. I left hoping Sioux Falls can grow without losing the qualities that made it home in the first place.
Where the Locals Still Win
Authenticity doesn’t just disappear; it shifts to where the algorithm of private equity can’t reach.
Earlier this year, I found myself enchanted by Estes Park, Colorado. Without tipping into caricature, this charming town has resisted getting swallowed by large-scale luxury hotels and chain restaurants that have been slithering into every other mountain town. Situated at the entrance to Rocky Mountain National Park, real trailheads can enjoy quality local joints like Bird + Jim or Rock Inn Mountain Tavern after a day in the great outdoors, finding solace in a place that pulls you off your phone and into the present moment.
One reason I found my stay in Estes Park so real was the moments that felt distinctly personal and genuinely local. One of the best was amazing coffee and conversation with a lovely barista at Coffee on the Rocks; he was born and raised in Estes Park and was selling his own hand-molded clay duck pins. As I wandered from store to store, acquiring moonshine and saltwater taffy, each interaction showcased the real people who live, gather, and work there. While none of my experiences were particularly complicated, together they made Estes Park feel truly alive.
In Nashville, Tennessee, 12South is a shopping haven that manages something more difficult than avoiding chains altogether: making room for them alongside the local and distinctive. Sure, you’ll find familiar names like Madewell and Lululemon, which may feel less novel to travelers coming from larger cities. But there’s something to be said for a neighborhood that can offer both the comfort of the familiar and the character of the local, all within the span of a half mile.
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A couple of blocks over is White’s Mercantile, a Tennessee general store stocked with unique clothes and home goods. Additional stops include Frothy Monkey, a coffee shop with fun flavors and great lunches, and Molly Green, a women’s clothing shop showing the latest in Southern fashions. Each location is set within the area’s traditional architecture and homes, creating a walkable shopping promenade that remains unmistakably Nashville.
While it may not have the national name recognition of 12South, Magnolia Boulevard in Burbank, California, throws down hard. Boasting the best window decor in the city, Audrey K, a women-run fashion boutique that’s been dressing the neighborhood since 2006, continues to make up most of my personal wardrobe. Just across the street is Romancing the Bean, with their seasonal Nutella-and-basil sandwich, which shouldn’t work but proves it knows sandwich game with the best of them. Close out the classic Cali Vibes with Porto’s, a SoCal institution where every pastry is worth the line that wraps around the block, rain or shine, on a near-daily basis, and you’re well on your way to becoming an Angeleno.
Travel Like You Live There
Maybe that’s the real souvenir of traveling this way: not a snapshot of the same restaurant group in a different skyline, but the knowledge of exactly where to look past it. The center of American cities might be standardizing. However, that feeling of stepping off the beaten path and seeing what still holds the uniqueness and wonderfulness of “local” is what makes travel personal.
Now I’ve shifted my mindset about how I travel, and yes, I still find myself exploring the neighborhood everyone says is new and trending. But I’ve stopped stopping there. I’ve found a slower pace of connective travel; that might not always pay off, but when it does, it’s the closest dividend I’ve found to the feeling I used to think only a passport could give me.
