22 Trips Before I Turn 22
Written by Bri LaMere. Graphic by Avery Melhado.
October is my birth month and the year of 22 is a couple weeks away. I’ve inherited my love for travel from my parents, and I have family in odd places, so I have a list of places I’ve been and want to go back to one day. I’ll continue to travel after my birthday, so I decided to reflect on my favorite places I’ve been before I turn 22.
- New Orleans, Louisiana
The Crescent City has an alluring vibe that had me hooked the second I smelled the air. It lives up to the fun in famous movies set there such as “The Princess and The Frog” and “Girls Trip.” The architecture is a dust-covered French style with a vibrant Creole overlay. I went in the off-season before Mardi Gras crowds took over. Experiencing it with locals around me and without the cliche Bourbon Street bar crawl was magic. If I went back for just one thing it would be their beignets.
- Congaree, South Carolina
I took a day trip from Savannah to hike in Congaree National Park. Not just to scratch it off my national park map, but because it’s an underdog. The ecosystem is a snapshot of southern nature with Spanish Moss and smooth, tall tree-trunks.
- Smoky Mountains, Tennessee
The national park is in the top twenty largest in the country. It spans three states, and has endless hikes with waterfalls and elevations. I stayed in a cabin on a steep, gravel hillside. It had windows everywhere, so I woke up to the sunrise over the peaks. There’s peace in the purple mountains looming in the distance in the Smokies.
- Hot Springs, Arkansas
Another national park that landed on my travels north last summer, Hot Springs. Hot Springs, Arkansas is a quaint town, one of the only in the country with a national park inside its limits. Downtown is famous for the historic ‘bathhouse row’ that lines Central Avenue. It’s a unique place and prompted me to spend time in greater Arkansas again. A few more days spent exploring the bathhouses would have been paradise, but I got a last-minute mediocre massage instead.
- Saint Louis, Missouri
The history in Saint Louis is perfect for someone like me who loves learning about where they travel. I stayed in a hotel that used to be a train station where they kept most of the original architecture. My room was down a hallway overlooking the train hall. The 630-foot tall Gateway Arch towers over the center of the city. I wanted to prove I’m over my fear of heights, but it was unbearably humid inside so I admired the jaw-dropping arch from the park outside.
- San Francisco, California
I went on every trip outside the South in my life with my parents, which meant every cool tourist destination was accounted for. I’ve never seen so many different cultures in one city. I had tea at the Japanese Tea Gardens and shopped in Chinatown under the colorful paper lanterns. Delis and shops had food from all corners of the world.
- Los Angeles
Everyone has a vision of what L.A. life is like until it becomes reality. Among the Hollywood studios, multi-million dollar gated communities, and expensive food that I dream of returning to one day, was an average city–the familiar kind of average that proves it’s not a fantasy.
- Monterey Bay, California
The coast of California’s wildlife is different from anywhere else with snails on windows and seals lounging by the ocean. The Monterey Bay Aquarium looks out over the bay and has a variety of Pacific-Coast-specific animals that I haven’t seen anywhere since.
- Redwood National Forest, California
Staying by Redwood National Forest was my first taste of a long family road trip. Although my parents’ music was unbearable at times, the (literal red) forests were worth it. The information plaques at the largest trees in the world said it would take five people’s armspans to reach around the trunk diameter.
- Seattle, Washington
The mix of art and architecture makes it hard to return to a plain hotel room at night in Seattle. The infamous Space Needle has Saturn-like rings around the top that make the elevator ride worth it. Spheres of tangled glass strings and shiny plant-like glass sculptures fill the Chihuly Gardens next door and fill the building spaces they occupied with artistic architecture.
- Coeur d’Alene, Idaho
I might’ve never seen Idaho if my Aunt and Uncle didn’t follow my cousin who went to college there. They settled down in the mountains with a small town and lake at the bottom called Coeur d’Alene, where free-range cows are legally protected and bears climb up their house. The peace of the dense woods was unmatched, especially after I rode in my uncle’s two-door yellow sports car as he zipped up the mountains to their home.
- Yellowstone, Montana
From a buffalo creeping up to walk next to the car to walking down a trail with rattles erupting from the brush, Yellowstone is a unique example of a Western landscape. My family and I stopped for a break on a road trip. I was scared the mini scorpions that roamed around would get in my hotel room.
- Badlands, South Dakota
Rock formations stack across the land as far as the eye can see as the road leads through the Badlands National Park. I was on a road trip passing through the state and paused for it. Some of the speed limits were 95 miles per hour, but it was impossible to miss the prairie dogs darting in and out of the ground in the fields surrounding the highway.
- Chicago
The home of deep dish pizza is all I needed to hear to fall in love. Chicago’s history is packed and one of the richest in the Midwest because of its economic importance in the past century and a half. There’s a four-level Macy’s store that my dad takes me to at Christmastime; it makes the frosty winter wind worth it.
- Madeline Island, Wisconsin
Islands that require a ferry to get to them feel untouched and community-driven. My best friend has a cabin with a tin-lined outdoor shower and floor-to-ceiling picture windows. We floated on tubes in Lake Superior and explored the downtown library’s continuous decades of town records upstairs.
- Grand Marais, Minnesota
As a city along one of the Great Lakes, Grand Marais has a chill in the wind year round. Rocky shores and crashing waves make it a Midwestern coastal town. An old trading company became a log-cabin store with outdoor and cabin equipment. Restaurants and hotels around town have bonfires every night, completing the Northern vibe.
- Prince Edward Island, Canada
The “Anne of Green Gables” House isn’t the only fantastical element of the smallest province in Canada, but it is what put it on the map. Luscious fields of grass lead to the main town. Three-story pastel-colored homes line the main street, and a hill leads to downtown. I dream of their fresh seafood and wood-fire pizza.
- Montreal, Quebec Canada
Quebec has shocking similarities to France with street signs in French and locals using the language by default in conversation. I was looking at McGill University when I hadn’t found myself yet and met with a friend of a friend who showed me her seventh floor dorm.
- New York City
New York is some girls’ dream city to visit and, as I’ve come to find in college, others’ weekend daytrip. I knew the Big Apple was different and something drew people to it, but I had never gone before college. When I visited a friend in Brooklyn, it felt like a storybook at each step. Even the train from Manhattan felt like a glimpse into the lives of those living in the apartments along the tracks.
- Portland, Maine
On a multi-day road trip up the East Coast to Canada, Maine was a place to stop and recharge. The town is distinctly coastal with lobster themes everywhere. Of all the closely tucked buildings, almost no two shared colors, making the New England town feel vibrant.
- Boston
I learned what “old money” meant the first time I visited Boston as a child. The seafood is made even better by some of the best chefs in New England. The clam chowder at a market vendor was the best I’ve had, coming from a clam chowder enthusiast who orders it in every coastal city.
- Salem, Massachusetts
The cobblestone witch-town of Salem lives up to its spooky reputation yearlong. I went at the beginning of summer and learned people flock there for Halloween. While learning about the history of witch trials and sea-trade, we went on a supposedly haunted night tour.
My treks around the country made me feel grateful to come from a small town in a farm-state. From the South around the Southwest and back around the North of the United States, I would do each trip again.
