🟧 Contrarian summer travel recs
Destinations to escape the influencers, from OT writers & friends.
Today, OT writers and friends suggest summer travel plans that you should just book right now: Hong Kong hotels, Japanese coastal towns, Massachusetts beaches, and Greenland expeditions.
Kyle Chayka: Travel, like everything else these days, is subject to viral hype. Destinations go up and down in popularity annually like colors change in fashion. One can display taste in travel just like in any other cultural field: the French Riviera is so over, maxed out by TikTok hordes, but actually Tulum is cool again because it endured a period of uncoolness. Japan is cheap right now, but does that mean Kyoto will be too crowded? Is it too late to book a Fire Island rental, and will Ocean Beach be less fun than Davis Park? The various calculations are stressful and the summer is looming. To help out, we’ve collected unorthodox summer travel recommendations from worldly friends of the newsletter to get you off the beaten path and away from the influencers.
If I have a rec, it’s to head to a tiny island. Islands take more work to get to and are thus less crowded. Longtime readers might know that I’m obsessed with the chill French Riviera town of Hyères. But you could do even better by heading straight to the island of Porquerolles, where you can bike to hidden beaches and drink rosé made on the island, which, I was surprised to find out, happens to be the house rosé of the Monocle Café in London.
Colin Nagy: Hong Kong; Chamonix
A hotel that makes the entire trip: Upper House in Hong Kong. I love the city and used to frequent it, but the hotel is so good it stays in my mind. Interiors are by Andre Fu, the guest experience is fluid and intuitive, and the hotel feels like a cocoon in an otherwise hectic city. Plus, it is just the right size: service can be personalized but it is not too boutique. Everything about this hotel works for what I want, and I daydream about returning.
A contrarian summertime destination: I really like Chamonix in the summertime. It’s not hard to reach from Geneva, and is one of these so-called “thin spaces” that feel closer to the heavens. You’re nestled between really majestic peaks with Mont Blanc in full view, and summertime has enough going on that the town still feels alive. The wintertime intensity, think hardcore skiers and climbers with duct taped Arc’teryx parkas, carries over a bit to hardcore cyclists and ultra marathon runners. To stay, I love the Hotel Mont-Blanc Chamonix or one of the cozy family run spots.
Colin Nagy is an international man of marketing and strategy, writes a travel column for Skift, and co-runs the newsletter Why Is This Interesting.
Eliza Brooke: Marshfield, MA
Forget Cape Cod. Go to Marshfield, Massachusetts, a little beach town on the deltoid of the Cape's flexed arm. It's low-key and beautiful — my crushing anxiety disappears when I'm cruising around on my bike in the late afternoon, drinking in the sun and salty breeze — but it's also home to a window-service lunch spot that I think about constantly: the Green Harbor Lobster Pound. Cash-only, blazingly expensive, but the chicken tenders? I would die for them. These are the best tendies on earth. Crispy, salty, hot enough to singe your fingers. The ocean air definitely helps, as does an order of fries and a Diet Coke from the machine next to the window. If a Michelin three-star restaurant is defined as a place you'd make a special trip to visit, then the Green Harbor Lobster Pound should qualify.
Eliza Brooke is a freelance writer, runs a Substack called The Scumbler, and is a contributor to One Thing.
Foster Kamer: ???
Gotta do [REDACTED BEACH] on [REDACTED]. I know you said we need to keep it a secret, but the secret's gonna get out anyway, right? It's the beach Monocle wishes they wrote about, it's a beach Rick Steves hasn't even put his dick in yet, it's everything everyone wishes the beach they hit last summer in Western Europe was, but wasn't: Uncrowded, uncluttered, and unmolested by American and English accents and front-facing cameras but for one's own, which — like our push alerts — we both smothered instinctively out of reverence (a great moment). Why is it the best beach we've ever been to? Not because there are virtually no American tourists, crystal clear water, and an incredible shore-side shack selling phenomenal fish at prices we laughed at (though, let us recall, that for some reason, the chicken, too, is exceptional, as was the bursting-with-summer-sunshine freshly made [REDACTED] sauce), and not because it's a place nobody's heard of Substack. All great reasons, sure. But come on, let's be real: It was the walk that made it. Not very long, but with those winding switchbacks down medieval cliffs, covered in [REDACTED BECAUSE YOU COULD IDENTIFY IT BY THE TREES], before you walk through an abandoned [REDACTED] before finally coming down to the shoreline, that practically smirks at you, the way it shimmers, the way it announced to us that we were different; we were [t]here.
Foster Kamer is the content director at Futurism and runs a newsletter called Fostertalk, which will be reviving its Summer Fridays series this year. Fostertalk: Summer Fridays Lido Club requires an application to subscribe (email fosterletter@gmail.com) and is limited to 500 subscriptions at $100. It’s “media, trends, the moves, the intel, and everything everyone isn't saying on main. Remember, if you read them, they read this,” according to Foster. Ed.: IYKYK.
Agnes Crawford: The Rome DMV
Searching for the real Rome: Rome is home to immense and immeasurable treasures of umpteen centuries. Many both in and outside the city center are mostly deserted while others are unbearably busy. But to really live the city like a local, why not avoid them completely and head to a municipal office far outside the center of town for a truly Neorealist Roman Holiday? Much-maligned Roman bureaucratic inefficiency is, sadly for purists, not what it used to be and much more is online and works smoothly. But there are places where the authenticity of old-school Rome is still lurking beyond the facelessness of digital convenience. Why not see the “real Rome,” as I did while chasing some documentation last July?
In the scrappily organic sprawl of a city office in the suburban hinterland, a veritable palimpsest of crumbling ad-hoc postwar concrete all adorned with fraying photocopied information and yellowing Scotch tape. For the true Roman experience, ideally — and gosh wasn’t I lucky to catch this glimpse of an archaic past in action? — the computer systems will be down, the most intransigent city employees will be in place, and it will be 40 degrees centigrade. The doors will be open to catch a nonexistent breeze as harassed locals perspire, children wail, and the elderly are fit to expire in a crowded waiting room. On that occasion three and half hours in the woeful torpor was just the right amount of time for a thorough anthropological study of romanitas, before being given a chit and told to come back and, possibly, pick up the certificate in a month or so. Or not.
Agnes Crawford is a tour guide in Rome, Italy, and runs the deeply informative tour service and newsletter Understanding Rome.
One Thing is a twice-weekly newsletter that focuses on taste, authenticity, and quality in culture. We’re for better cultural consumption. Subscribe here.
Ryan Murdock: Languedoc, Wales, Uzbekistan
A-list cities like Rome, Florence and Paris don’t have a shoulder season but you can immerse yourself in European culture by venturing a little further afield. In France, try wandering Cathar country. That little slice of the Languedoc nestled up against the Pyrenees is bristling with ruined castles on rocky crags, and every village has at least one place where you can find a memorable meal. Recommended reading: The Albigensian Crusade by Jonathan Sumption.
If the English-speaking world is more your thing, try Wales. Its misty landscapes inspired the earliest stories of King Arthur, and this tiny nation boasts more castles crammed into a small area than anywhere else. Recommended reading: The Long Field by Pamela Petro.
If you’re craving something a little further off track culturally, why not wander around Uzbekistan? It has an excellent high speed rail network, desert landscapes, welcoming people, and Central Asia’s most important Silk Road centers. Names like Khiva, Bukhara and Samarkand still resonate down the centuries, and if you go there you’ll understand why. Recommended reading: The Great Game by Peter Hopkirk and Tamerlane by Justin Marozzi.
Ryan Murdock is a longtime travel writer and author based in Berlin. His podcast and Substack is Personal Landscapes.
Jay Owens: Greenland
I was going to go to California this summer to climb Mount Whitney – but the Trump administration started throwing travellers in the for-profit gulag and that didn't sound so fun. Instead, this summer I'm going to go back to Greenland, before the Americans invade. (As of June, United will begin a twice-weekly service from Newark.) In 2016 I went to Ilulissat to spend some time with the ice fjord. The glacier, Sermeq Kujallek, is the most active in the northern hemisphere and calved the iceberg that sank the Titanic. Icebergs the size of city blocks glided slowly out to sea amid a rubble of smaller ‘bergy bits’ and ‘growlers’. The awe was silencing. I don’t know if it’s possible to revisit that. East coast this time, then, maybe.
Jay Owens is the head of audience at the London Review of Books and the author of Dust: The Modern World in a Trillion Particles.
Carolyn Zelikow: Community retreats
I want travel to give me something I can't get in my day to day. I dispute the attempt to manufacture objectivity around “best destinations.” Travel is a fleeting thing that we use to fill an idiosyncratic spiritual need. My need as a working parent right now is to enrich my solutions landscape, which is pretty compressed between work, care, and the "blightgeist." I can't retreat from all the terrible things happening in the world, so I crave being with people who are finding ways to see through and beyond it. I'm looking at conferences and events that embrace that future space while also offering recharge time. I love the format of EdgeCity for this, although their themes are not my thing. Camp Air in Woodstock, NY, and Rooral in Malaga, Spain, are awesome, but do not provide childcare. I'm hosting my own platform in this vein called Field Lab in Hvar, Croatia, which actually brings kids into the visioning to some degree. Our first topic will be "villaging": creating microcosms of a functioning society in bucolic European towns. The event itself will model that lifestyle with a lot of fun outings and cafe society vibes, while also creating a window for people to build something concrete in real time.
Carolyn Zelikow is the founder of Field School Hvar.
Nate Gallant: Bicoastal Japan
If you find yourself lucky enough to be able to make it to Japan this summer, let me recommend going somewhat off the beaten path and exploring the coasts around the Tokyo metropolis. Rather than giving you a treasure map in the hulking, oppressive monstrosity of the very hot heat of Tokyo in July, follow the well-trodden routes outside the city and visit Kamakura. This is hardly a “new” recommendation, as Kamakura was the political hub of the medieval archipelago kingdoms. However the ruins, the temples, and the architecture stand up to anything in Kyoto or Nara. Go even a little further down the East coast to Hakone, where your average ryokan (traditional inn) will run you quite a cheap bill if you book early enough, offer water views and the air of being pleasantly on the periphery. On the West coast, you can hardly do better than the hot spring towns in Niigata, but try to head a bit further up the West coast in Yamagata. The train ride will be picturesque and remind you that there are crystal blue waters elsewhere beside the Mediterranean and Caribbean. I’ll spare you the Ghibli comparisons, but the Ginzan Onsen’s idyllic splendor will not be lost on you even in the summer heat. Less traveled at this time of year, I promise an evening dip in a hot pool can be refreshing, especially when you’ve spent a day hiking and sweating.
Nate Gallant is the co-founder of One Thing and a scholar and translator.
Favignana island off of Sicily is a nice alternative to Pantelleria and a lot closer. 30 min from Trapani (also great).
These are some great recs! Shoulder season off the beaten track travel is where it's at. Went to Albania, Estonia, and Georgia in recent years all of which were lovely and very easy to be in.