My Top 10 Travel Surprises

What sorts of places are real travel surprises for you? Which ones make you sit up and start waving your hands excitedly as you tell someone why they HAVE to go there?

Even though I’ve had few opportunities to travel as much as I’d like in the last couple of years (and right now I’m in one of those “I don’t want to go anywhere or do anything” mental troughs thanks to the latest COVID variant) there are still locations that can get me out of my funk just by thinking about them.

Let’s go, y’all, in no particular order…

1. The C&O Canal Near Washington, DC, Especially Lockhouses You Can Rent

Flat as befits a former canal towpath, relatively smooth, and it goes for almost 185 scenic miles along the Potomac River from D.C. to Cumberland, Maryland – the C&O Canal (Chesapeake and Ohio Canal) National Historical Park is a lovely escape.

I spent part of an afternoon poking around on one beautiful section of the C&O after stumbling upon Lock Number 29 on the old canal, gazing at the house where the lock-keeper lived even decades after the canal officially closed in 1924, and then wandering down to the riverbank to enjoy expansive views of the nearby Potomac.

Learn more – Exploring a Stop on the C&O Canal Near Washington, DC.

Later I discovered that you can stay in many of those peaceful lockhouses, and now that’s definitely on my Travel To Do list.

2. Wandering the Fresh Powder Snow at Utah’s Solitude Mountain Resort

If you are not a skier or snowboarder, maybe you feel rather left out at winter snow resorts. I know I did, until I learned how to snowshoe from a cheery teacher who said, “If you can walk, you can snowshoe.”

Right outside of Salt Lake City is a wonderful place to be out in the snow: the aptly-named Solitude Mountain Resort. A few days of tromping the snowshoe trails, eating good food, and sleeping like a log will fix you right up.

I never expected to find a winter sport that my bum knee could handle, but now I’m plotting a return to the mountains.

3. A South African Restaurant in a Tiny Texas Town

Update July 2023 – unfortunately, Liefie has closed.

It was a big leap from being a bored preteen during sweltering summer visits to the East Texas town where my Mom grew up, to returning as an adult and finding delicious South African cuisine right in downtown Winnsboro.

What?!

Yeah, that was my reaction, too.

Finding this in small town America in the face of our current U.S. urban-rural divide puts a huge smile on my face. A lot of people have worked very hard over the years to make tiny Winnsboro a center for the arts, culture, and live music, so this is not some sort of overnight success story.

They did the work that it takes to turn a vision into reality.

4. The Terrific Silver Skate Festival in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada

This is Edmonton, Alberta’s longest-running winter festival, and that is saying a lot in a destination known as “Festival City.”

The Silver Skate Festival organizers and volunteers work hard to make it new and fresh every year, including an ice slide, “jam can curling,” and nighttime bonfires.

This event is where I learned about the power of imagination when it’s applied to a simple walk in the woods, and the wonder of celebrating life and winter no matter the temperature.

I also learned that I needed warmer shoes.

5. Ridiculous Las Vegas, On Its Own Terms

To my great surprise, that sprawling desert playground in Nevada has grown on me over the years. I think the trick is to accept that Las Vegas is a ridiculous town, and revel in the flashy absurdity.

I mean, a flamingo wildlife habitat at the Flamingo? Why not?

I got a great perspective on the fake Vegas resorts like New York, New York from Gary Arndt, the writer and photographer from Everything Everywhere. He said to look at them like a Beatles tribute band – not the real thing, but a nice version of it.

When I told my husband that I wouldn’t mind another trip to Vegas once it’s safe to do so, he about fell off his chair. He knows I detest fake, silly places. What had come over me? I don’t know, but I have learned that if you dig enough, there are things to enjoy and appreciate in even the most bizarre locations.

6. The Flint Hills of Kansas

The U.S. Midwest region is very tired of the moniker “Flyover Country” – our friends at the Midwest Travel Network have been hard at work in recent years to change that dismissive perception. I confess, I had it too. As a Navy veteran, I knew the coasts well because that’s where the ships are, but the center of the U.S. was “those square states” to me – Army and Air Force territory.

The first place that truly blew that away for me was traveling the Flint Hills National Scenic Byway in Kansas.

It’s a never-ending sea of grasses and plants with names like Big Bluestem and Butterfly milkweed. Prairie chickens fluff and boom looking for mates, ornate box turtles creep along, a few bison herds are still left, and below is another entire world of 10-foot-plus root systems, nematodes, burrowing small animals, and limestone aquifers.

One of the penultimate experiences there is the annual Symphony in the Flint Hills, when the Kansas City Symphony performs live outdoors somewhere in the Hills (the location changes each year.)

If you have a chance, grab tickets and go.

7. Chasing Cannon Balls in Upstate New York

While exploring four different heritage trails in northern New York State, I was surprised to learn that famous abolitionist “John Brown’s body lies a-mouldering in the grave, his soul is marching on… ” is buried in Lake Placid NY. The melody to that morbid popular song became the Union’s “Battle Hymn of the Republic.”

This was also the trip when I became somewhat obsessed with another trail, this one involving the American Revolutionary War.

In Glens Falls, New York, was Marker Number 9 on the Henry Knox Trail (sometimes known as the Knox Cannon Trail.)

The Trail was created in the 1920s, with thirty bronze historic markers that commemorate the story of the route taken by a “noble train of artillery” – 43 heavy brass and iron cannons, six cohorns, eight mortars, and two howitzers, all captured when the Americans defeated the British at Fort Ticonderoga.

Even though the largest of the cannons weighed 1,800 pounds, Continental Army artillery officer Henry Knox somehow removed them from the fort in the middle of winter. Using boats plus oxen and sleds, his team managed to transport all of the pieces across an icy lake, and then across 300 miles of New York and Massachusetts wilderness to deliver them to General George Washington in Boston to be used against the British.

Pretty ironic, since of course they had been taken from the British.

I’d never heard of this trail, and enjoyed spending a good deal of History Nerd time in a Glens Falls NY municipal park, tracking down Marker Number 9 in the snow to see it for myself.

8. Incredible Hotel Experiences in Small Towns

Two unique places stand out in my mind – the Gage Hotel in Marathon in west Texas – population 386 – and the Hotel Pattee in Perry, Iowa.

They are not “luxury” experiences necessarily, and I’m not really into that anyway. These hotels are so far above what one might expect in a tiny town, though. This ain’t the Motel 6, that’s for sure.

I could feel my overactive brain relaxing in each of them during my stay, and that takes some doing.

SO much verve and personality in each one; you have to visit.

9. You’re a Jagoff if You Don’t Like Pittsburgh

Whenever someone asks me to suggest a place to visit that they wouldn’t expect, I start with Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Guaranteed, if they have not been there recently, I get the side-eye, like, “You aren’t really serious, are you? Isn’t that a rather grimy steel town?”

Yes, I’m serious.

Modern Pittsburgh is a green, clean, walkable place with spectacular architecture, excellent transportation options, and plenty of places to find great food. The Warhol Museum is world-class. The riverbanks and pedestrian-friendly bridges beg for a stroll or bike outing.

Even the driving entrance via the Fort Pitt Tunnel is appropriately dramatic…

The Burgh is one of my very favorite travel surprises.

10. Seeing My High School Town With a Traveler’s Eyes

When I left the southeast corner of Texas where I went to high school, I often joke that the screen door couldn’t hit my butt fast enough getting out of there.

The distance of a few years, er, decades, changed my attitude.

When I went back and explored that town I didn’t like through a traveler’s eyes, I found much to appreciate.

It didn’t hurt that they opened a nice craft beer place there, either – the Neches Brewing Company. I went with their Avenue Amber, but their Screen Door Jesus Belgian Wheat was tempting.

11. OK, Fine, Some Honorable Mentions in Travel Surprises

*  The vibrant downtown and beautiful waterfront in Kenosha, Wisconsin (photo at the top of this blog post.)

*  The Jewish family that lived in a Frank Lloyd Wright house in Florence, Alabama.

*  The food hall, riverfront Scioto Mile, coffee and beer trails, Short North Arts District, and charming German Village, all in Columbus, Ohio.

*  The Rembrandt etchings displayed in a bank, good food at the local airport, and a classic summer jukebox dance – all in Uvalde, Texas.

It was very hard to pick which travel surprises speak to me the most, but even the process of selecting these few is a spirit-lifting exercise. We all need more of those.

In your travels, which destination surprised you and gets you all excited to tell others about it? Let us know in the comments.

All photos by the author.

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