Is America’s Largest City A lso Its Most Misunderstood?

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Hello all—

I’m back in the U.S. after two glorious weeks hopping around Australia. It’s a haul to get there and back, but the variety of activites you can do once there is remarkable. And, you’ll often be able to do them with fewer fellow tourists around.

Places without overtourism are a key component of our series, It’s Still a Big World and this week’s spotlight is on Jacksonville, Florida. By land, it’s the largest city in the continental U.S., and by population the largest in the state. But it is often forgotten—or sneered at—and it’s about time it got another look.

It’s summer in America, which means families will be flocking to Disney. Hannah Seligson dreaded such a trip, so she wrote about her “hack” for making the whole thing less miserable. For you outdoorsy types, I want to highlight this feature from Adrienne Jordan on outdoors adventures in Mississippi —or if you’re looking to chill out on your next trip instead, check out Loic Cardinal’s latest on a new Four Seasons in Mexico. He thinks it’s their most relaxing yet.

Enjoy.

— William O’Connor, Travel Editor

Is America’s Largest City Also Its Most Misunderstood?

Florida’s northernmost metropolis is also one of its most southern cities, which sounds contradictory. But then, Jacksonville abounds in delightful contradictions.

How I Hacked—and Survived—Disney World

There had to be some other Disney hack, or work around, for parents like me who didn’t want to go to their parks but were already ponying up thousands of dollars for a trip.

From Bayou to Beach to the Blues, Mississippi’s Got Your Jam

You can travel the Mississippi River in a dugout canoe, explore the home of the blues around Clarksdale, or walk the Natchez Trace as Native Americans did for thousands of years.

The Newest Four Seasons May Be Their Most Relaxing Yet

Even if you do absolutely nothing while there you’ll fill your friends with envy and recharge your batteries.

“The hotel is housed in a fanciful Belle Epoque edifice originally designed by the king of grand hotels in the south of France, Charles Dalmas. The mustard-yellow facade stretching more than a hundred meters has been restored to its frothy grandeur. Inside, though, is sharp and meticulous modern luxury. The arched hallway with mosaic floors and textured iridescent walls leads guests to the hotel’s reception.”

–While in Nice, I got to visit the stunning reset done at the Anantara Plaza, and was impressed with the addition of some modern luxury to the storied city by the sea.

This Amazingly Compact Carry-On Packs a Bunch!

Aside from being compact and remarkably cute, Calpak’s Mini Hue Carry-on is engineered with all of the same premium specs you expect from the trusted luggage brand, including a TSA-accepted lock, zippered dividers and pockets, upright and compression straps, and spinner wheels. It’s also super light, weighing in at just slightly over six pounds, so it’s great for tight connections when you’re literally sprinting to the next gate to make your flight.

—Scouted by Mia Maguire

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Travel Back to Hamburg's Gritty Red-Light Days

A central part of travel is romanticizing the places we went and the things we experienced. We want, maybe need, places to be shorn of their ugliness, their annoyances, the disappointment, to go back to our lives when we return home. But our latest selection for Just Booked, Anders Peterson: Café Lehmitz, captures better than anything we’ve seen of late just how enthralling a place can be when its highs, lows, and the middling parts are all shown.

The Café Lehmitz was a gathering place for the vagabonds of Hamburg’s red light district, the Reeperbahn. There were sex workers (young and old), criminals, laborers, and from the late 1960s through the 1970s, the Swedish photographer Anders Peterson. The book, which was originally published in 1978, is being reprinted by Prestel with a new foreword from Tom Waits, who used one of the images on his album Rain Dogs. “They are revealing something,” Waits writes about the photographs, “something tragically and comically human.”

Today, the Reeperbahn has little of the grit and danger that made it famous. It’s more a tourist trap than anything. But flipping through Anders Peterson: Café Lehmitz, you’re allowed to travel to a time and place that no longer exists. You might even imagine, if only for one night, that you’re the kind of person who could let loose in a joint like this.

Don’t miss our other selections for our series on gorgeous travel-related coffee table books, Just Booked.

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