Quick travel guides for nomads
One of America’s favorite small towns…cute, charmy, artsy, nature, peaceful.
Ashland is a common midway stop between San Francisco and Portland. If you’re not staying Mount Shasta, Ashland makes a great pitstop if even for only a couple hours. That’s the limit of how I’ve ever known it.
Couple hours is enough. Couple days if you absolutely love it.
Huge country somewhat similar to America (with English-speaking and lots of nature)…but friendlier people, cheaper costs, many things to do, French culture on the east coast, and its own unique vibe!
Canada may not seem high on your tourism list, and many see it as America’s less cool little brother…it does have several places worth visiting and offers its own cool vibe. A highly desirable country to live and visit. I did both…visiting there as a tourist but also living there for 3 months.
What stands out to me about Canada is that it seems very similar to America. But with friendlier people, slight differences on their English (on the east coast), much colder winters, and the French province of Quebec. The French part alone is super cool. If you’re in America, Montreal will feel like a super fast trip to Europe. Also Canada’s main sport is hockey, unlike America with football and basketball. Sports is a big thing in North America and seems like the only culture those countries have (hahaha)…since they aren’t old enough to have their own culture, and also since those countries were taken from the original native Americans (indigenous people) who actually came from there.
You can do a short tour on the east coast covering 2 nearby powerhouses, Montreal and Toronto within 1 week. Can add 1-2 extra days for Quebec City (which is more than just “tiny Montreal”). And another 3-4 days for Vancouver if you want to venture into the west coast. Then add more days to that if you want to visit national parks and nature stuff.
The Niagara Falls is the biggest tourist trap ever. Don’t ever go here.
The only thing you’ll be amazed by is how incredible their marketing was to make this place such a recognizable name in pop culture, movies, and travel references.
It’s just a tiny border town with casinos, and a man-made waterfall to entice Americans into crossing the border to spend their money. That’s it.
And how’s the waterfall, you ask? It is literally one of the least impressive waterfalls you’ve ever seen. While it may have size, it looks fake (and manufactured) as heck. You’re standing on the sidewalk behind a metal railing looking at a big flat waterfall with lights. Not much picturesque rocks or greenery. It’s like taking a picture of a waterfall at Disneyland theme park or some resort hotel. It’s not the same as a huge natural one you saw on an epic hike.
Biggest tourist trap ever! It is not a worthy stop in east coast Canada whatsoever!
Portland was and still is one America’s most (authentically) hipster, hip, trendy, coolest towns to live in.
For many years since 2010, it was one of the fastest growing cities and taking in the millennial exodus from burned-out over-priced cities like Los Angeles, San Francisco, and New York. The original Portlanders were all “F**K YOU, CALIFORNIANS! GO BACK TO WHERE YOU CAME FROM AND DON’T CALIFORNICATE OUR BELOVED PORTLAND!”
And rightly so…because all the outsiders were bringing in their money, buying up property, raising property values and rent beyond what local Portlanders could pay, clogging up streets with traffic, and just ruining the organic hippie ambiance with their pseudo-spirituality.
Let’s find out why I (and everyone thinks Portland is so cool).
Get real LA travel tips from a true (and proud) Los Angeles native.
I’m from here, I lived here for most of my life and in many different neighborhoods. Will happily give you the most biased (and unbiased) breakdown as best as I can. The kind of info you can only get from a true LA native.
This info is absolutely necessary because I consider Los Angeles to be the absolute most difficult tourist city in the world. You may think it’s fun, you might even come here and find fun things. But most of you won’t, as most people complain it’s not pretty, not fun, and too much driving, or impossible to get in there. It’s all true.
But indeed, many people do live here happily and for a reason…because they KNOW how to visit and get around LA. So let me teach you how to explore it properly (and not like a fucken tourist).