It’s not quite a song, but I’ve compiled an audio guide of my summer for your listening pleasure. Let this playlist inspire some last-minute summer fun.

This is the sound of utter disbelief at a Game 4 watch party at a sleepy Brooklyn bar.

This is the last sound you want to hear after you’ve pitched a tent on your very first camping weekend.

This is exactly the sound you want to hear when you’re waiting for Bad Bunny to come back on stage for his encore.

This is the sound thirty strangers make when they meet up at Lake Michigan to scream their cares away.

This is the sound of a species really coming into their own during their peak season.

This is the sound of a warm welcome after showing up at a friend of a friend’s garden party in Amsterdam.

This is the sound of an ordinary Saturday drive: zero traffic, windows rolled down and the feeling that it really just might be more about the ride than the destination.

More summer reading from Gonzo Journalism ☀️

• You deserve a staycation

• The solstice round-up

• I found cheaper thrills

And did you know??? Having a good time need not break the bank! Yes, I did go on record about the lack of free fun in our expensive economy, but I really do believe that cheaper thrills are within reach. All it costs is a bit of intention and curiosity.

If you need a jumpstart on your quest for free fun, look no further. I’ve rounded up some friends and writers with ideas on how to entertain yourself during any season, but especially in the summertime. And tick tock! Only three Mondays until Labor Day.

Whatever you do, please have some fun.

Indulge your inner naturalist

With my first kid in utero right now, I’ve been thinking a lot about how I’d like to curate fun with my own kid in a way that doesn’t dissolve my adult brain.

As the kid of a university professor, I’ll always vouch for a public library as a place of great diversion, but I usually like to seek the outdoors. If you’re in San Francisco, bop over to the city’s botanical garden (free for residents) to stroll and picnic.

Patient observers can often witness small wonders like caterpillar crossings and corpse-flower blooms. Find a hike that takes you through berry bushes and leaves you with juice-stained fingertips by the end. Foster the snail you find in your farmers’ market produce (but be gentle with your critters and look up proper care and release, please!).

As a certified adult, I can attest these are all fun activities even in your 30s, and I can’t wait to share them with my mini me.

- Minshu, San Francisco’s snail conservationist and mama-to-be

Skip the restaurant, but bring snacks

If I had to go out for a meal every time I wanted to meet up with a friend, I would be very well fed and very broke. I love thinking of ways to spend quality time without ending the hang with a bill. This has meant… going to the public pool with a good book, going on a wildflower scavenger hunt in Chicago’s alleys, bringing a grill to the beach and having an outdoor party, and spending an afternoon learning how to play Mahjong at a friend’s house.

Ok yes, kind of obvious, but just get outside. I am always peddling the 60 hikes within 60 miles book series to anyone who’s interested in exploring the area around them more deeply.

My friend and I coined the phrase ‘Ms. Clancy Summer’ a few years ago, an ode to Aldi’s house brand, Clancy’s. Man, do they know how to make a good potato chip. Keeping my pantry stocked with good snacks makes it easy to join a summer picnic or pack a treat for my bike ride.

- Davin, fierce advocate of Chicago summers

Seek out historical institutions hiding in plain sight

One of my favorite ways to take in culture for free in New York is to seek out historic buildings that double as galleries or cultural institutions. A favorite is the Salmagundi Club, an artists’ club founded in 1871 and housed in a beautiful brownstone on Fifth Avenue.

The public galleries are completely free so you can wander in and see whatever exhibitions are currently up. It’s technically a private club which I think leads a lot of people to assume they can’t visit. That’s probably why it’s so peaceful. They also host lectures, receptions, and other public programming, much of it free.

- Alexa, who’ll keep you booked and busy in NYC with her City Happenings newsletter

Find newsletters to keep you in the loop (wink wink)

Moving back to New York City after years away, I have a newfound appreciation for all the free events people work so hard to put on for the community. I love the constant rotation of free music and movies throughout the summer like Summerstage, Celebrate Brooklyn, and Brooklyn Bridge Park’s Movies with a View, plus great parties like the Brooklyn Museum’s First Saturdays, Soul Summit, and St. James Joy Block Party.

There are endless events in the city; the problem is knowing which ones are worth your time. Subscribe to as many newsletters as you can manage. A few I like: Oh My Rockness for concerts, The Skint for free NYC happenings, and Field Notes NYC for curated events.

- Celina, NYC’s most active returning resident

Skip the store-bought route and hand-make your cards

Handmade cards are one of my favorite low-pressure, low-cost ways to get creative. Unlike a big DIY project, you (probably) have all the supplies you need and a guaranteed audience who’ll love it.

Fold any piece of paper in half and decorate your card with a pencil drawing, stickers, watercolor, magazine cut-outs, paint pens, rubber stamps, old photos, you name it. Finish it off with a handwritten note inside, which is so much more memorable than a “Happy birthday!” text or DM.

For even more fun, invite some friends over for a whole card-making night where everyone brings their favorite art supplies and snacks. Gab, craft, and finish the night with multiple cards for your favorite people.

- Sarah, New York’s DIY aficionado who writes the Craft Brain newsletter 👈🏻👈🏻

Stay indoors... but invite the group chat

Host a watch party! Especially in the winter months, a regular TV viewing appointment is such a great way to foster community on the cheap. We did Bachelor Mondays a few winters and roped in friends who never watch reality TV. We cooked a different themed meal every night, culminating in a Sicilian spaghetti finale.

- Isabel, who is hosting a literal watch party at BAM later this year 👈🏻👈🏻

Cook a fabulous meal, with your kid as your sous chef

Cooking is relatively cheap—it’s really just the cost of groceries, and the experience is right there in your kitchen. Most importantly, with the right recipe and tools, it’s something your kid can do mostly independently. Think of it as parallel play: maybe you sit nearby and read while they cook, stepping in when needed but otherwise letting them figure it out.

- Sophie, Brooklyn mama whose newsletter brings kids into the kitchen 👈🏻👈🏻

Visit new neighborhoods and secret rooftops

Hit up all the free summer concerts you can! From Los Angeles Grand Performances to shows at Durham’s Bright Leaf Square to bluegrass in the small New Hampshire town my youngest sister lives in, I’ve made these nights whatever I’ve wanted them to be.

I also love taking an afternoon to explore a new neighborhood in the city I live in. Learn about the history and explore the small everyday monuments that make it unique. Make it a legit adventure—pack a backpack, water and snacks. Maybe a map? Whatever. Just take your time.

A good rooftop jaunt never gets old. A friend’s apartment, a parking garage, a hotel. Bonus points if you have a cover story prepared in case the security guard on duty stops you. See how the world looks tiny below you. Maybe yell a little or toast with a cheap drink.

- Ellen, LA adventurer who snuck into many rooftops with me during our years in DC

Check out your local bus route (or splash pad)

Parents, hear me out: try taking public transportation with your kids. Not during the weekday rush hour, but on a chill Saturday morning when you don’t have to be anywhere. The kid gets so excited it’s hard not to start smiling yourself.

Look up your local libraries! We went to a show called “Rhythm Master Rusty’s Rock & Roll Circus” which involved an Australian dude cracking jokes that went way over the heads of all the kids there. But hey, we all had a good time.

It’s not for everyone, but having kids made me realize how much I’d forgotten to slow down. Kids force that pace, but it’s nice once you do it. You remember how much mystery there can be in small things, like watching ducks glide around a pond or the beauty of a really good stick.

And of course, if there’s a splash pad near you, get your ass over there because splash pads are the best.

- Also Ellen, who’d like to assure expectant mothers that parenting is quite fun!

Forget the gear—just find your people

My favorite hobbies— biking, film photography, and climbing—all started with people, not expensive gear. Friends can bring you to a climbing gym on a guest pass, lend you a spare film camera to try out, or invite you on a group ride in the city. The real catalyst for new hobbies is finding people interested in the same things and testing them out together. All these hobbies can either be dialed up or down depending on how much you want to invest once you’re hooked!

- Nate, OG prankster in Brooklyn whose appetite for hobbies outmatches my own

Might I also recommend…

Pranking your friends 🤡 (read more)

Buying a single piece of dark chocolate at a candy store

Planning a weeklong staycation 🏝️ (read more)

Dancing to Drake’s 2016-2018 discography while cooking

Recording your own song of the summer 🎶 (read more)

The ventanita represents all the good things I’d like Miami to hold onto. A cheap lunch consisting of pastelitos. The last-standing IRL forum for gossip and political chit chat in the age of the internet. A chance to bump into your friend from high school…or bump into her uncle, who happens to be a high- school friend of your mom.

My ventanita is at Casa Cuba in South Miami. Their white rice is the platonic ideal. Their croquetas used to be better, but they still hit the spot if you need a midday snack.

My mom likes to call herself the mayor of Casa Cuba. It’s been a daily staple of her morning routine for years. She has the cell-phone number of almost every lady who works the counter.

When I was hospitalized with a brain injury ten years ago, the ladies of Casa Cuba texted my mom every day for updates. One of our first stops after leaving the hospital was to the ventanita.

One of the ladies, Marcia, put aside the coffee she was brewing when she saw my mom that day. She stepped out in front of the counter to hug her as they both cried. I will never forget that moment.

I hold these ventanitas close to my heart as I think about what we stand to lose. I wonder, in this mass craze to accommodate the post-pandemic transplants to Miami, whether we’re creating spaces that invite this level of community and care.

For the billionaires bulldozing in and the rest of the transplants more interested in creating their own version of Miami than learning what came before it: you can have Indian Creek. You can even keep Brickell. But the ventanitas, they stay with us.

I’m ending this series with something I’m calling The Ventanita Project. It’s a collection of the beloved outdoor coffee counters across the city from the locals who love them.

If you’d like to contribute a memory of your ventanita of choice, give this essay a like and drop your story in the comments section!

Casa Cuba in South Miami

Casa Cuba is my happy place. I like to call it my Cheers, where everybody knows your name.  I love catching up with familiar faces there— to see what's going on in their lives, check in on their kids or grandkids, talk about current events and share silly little chisme y chistes.

I love spending time with the ladies who make coffee.  Even when they're super busy and all we get to do is exchange a few hellos, that's enough for me.  Not only do I get joy from talking to them, they’ve also been there for me in the hard times.

-Rosi Gonzalez

Tinta y Café in Coral Gables

A Miami ventanita is more than a coffee window—it’s a ritual. A place where culture, tradition, and community meet over a tiny cup of coffee. It’s the warmth of the woman behind the counter who somehow remembers your order, the smell of fresh cafecito, and the conversations that begin with strangers who end up like old friends.

My grandfather took me to ventanitas. My dad did too. Now I find myself doing the same. While Islas Canarias will always be home, Tinta y Café carries that same soul into a new generation, proving that the spirit of the ventanita never fades—it simply evolves.

-George Arango

Bello Ciao in Kendall

This is my favorite ventanita because it sits right next to my nail place, which is also my daughter's hair salon (and potentially my new hair salon too). I love nothing more than grabbing myself an empanada and a cafecito and texting my nail lady to ask whether she wants one too.

-Melissa Cubas Barker

Sergio’s on Coral Way

Sergio’s has a special place in my heart. When my girls were in elementary school, it was my second stop of the day, after the gym. I spent fourteen years grabbing a café before heading into the office. I got to know the guys who’d frequent Sergio’s and we formed a breakfast club of sorts. I’d regularly meet with my mentor and friend, Bernardo, and would call it my Wednesdays with Bernie. That old man taught me a lot.

-Luis Gonzalez

Las Dos Palmas in Coral Gables

The old Miami is only as dead as you let it be.  There’s a ventanita right by my studio. It’s not the cutest walk, but I’ll still to go there to grab my colada during work. One time, I left my credit card there by accident, and the coffee lady held it for me for a whole week until the next time I came. She was like an abuelita saying, “Mija, dejaste esto”. So yeah, that old-school mentality is still here. And it’s a beautiful thing.

-Suki Lopez

Islas Canarias in Southwest Dade

A ventanita is one of the few places where a $1.48 cafecito can buy you a conversation, a friendship, or a daily dose of Miami wisdom. At Islas Canarias, generations have gathered at our little window to share stories, celebrate milestones, and keep Cuban traditions alive one croqueta and cafecito at a time. In a city that never stops changing, the ventanita remains a reminder that the strongest communities are built one small cup and one familiar face at a time.

-Eileen Andrade

The Ventanita at Kings Creek Plaza in Glenvar Heights

You never know who you'll run into at the Kings Creek ventanita, and that's the whole point. Show up during the morning or afternoon rush and you'll find someone you know. It's been my meeting spot for work colleagues and the place I catch up with old friends.

The same crew of Miami old-timers posts up daily to solve the world's problems. A fairly common Saturday morning pickup run includes cortaditos, croquetas, and tostadas for the family. It's where the neighborhood comes to get its fix.

-Pete Cabrera

Versailles at MIA

My ultimate ventanita, it welcomes you with its coladas at the gate. Greets you in Spanish, with bags of mariquitas and transitions you back to your home planet: Mee-ah-mee (as my daughter calls it).

It also says goodbye. It’s the last cortadito out, reminding you to take a piece of home with you. In a city of exiles and refugees, one that has known too many goodbyes, this ventanita seems to capture all of it in its permanent transience.

-Vanessa Garcia

Historically, Miami’s economy has swung in two directions: it’s boomed when the snowbirds come in for an extended vacation, and it’s gone bust when those same birds fly the coop at the slightest change of weather (or the market).

This often leaves locals chasing unattainable economic highs, or patiently weathering the downturn until the next flock of vacationers arrives.

I wondered whether anything had the power to break this loop, so I asked Dr. George whether any historical moment stood outside this pattern.

“Well, I think Miami really got a lift with the influx of Cubans beginning in 1959,” Dr. George said.  “Until then, we had two seasons…but now it’s a year-round place.”

As the granddaughter of Cuban immigrants, I felt like Dr. George gave me a nice pat on the generational back. But I’ll be cautious not to self-aggrandize. There were many communities before us who made Miami their home, and invested in it accordingly.

I imagine what made Cuban settlement so unique— besides the generous US immigration policy—was the sheer volume of migrants within such a concentrated radius. Close to 500,000 Cubans moved here between the 1959 Revolution and the 1980 Mariel Boatlift.

While Cubans have left an indelible mark on Miami, we haven’t been able to override the economic influence of the vacationing class. We made this a year-round town, and we could have made this a sovereign city. Why didn’t we stop the snowbirds?

There are some obvious answers. I’m sure enough locals figured out how to profit off (and thus enable) the snowbird economy. But beyond those select few, there’s another cultural factor that stopped us from staving off the vacationers—namely, nostalgia.

While Cubans made Miami a year-round town, they kind of did that by accident. The Cuban community that came in the 60s didn’t have a vested interest in transforming their new city. And that’s because half of their heart was in…you guessed it…Havana.

I spoke with Vanessa Garcia, an artistic multi-hyphenate who created the local breakout hit, The Amparo Experience. A sold-out run of immersive theatre in 2019, The Amparo Experience was based on the Bacardi family’s exile and their decades-long struggle to reestablish their rum business outside of Cuba.

The play inspired things that hadn’t happened here before. For the first time ever, the hottest thing to do on a Saturday night in Miami was to (gasp!) attend the theatre. Also for the first time, family members were moved to share their own stories with their children, stories they had been too scared or hurt to previously discuss.

I knew that Vanessa was well versed in the secret language of Cuban nostalgia. But she reminded me that even up until the 90s, Cuba didn’t exist in the past—it remained a viable possibility for Cubans in the present.

“There was still this idea of next year in Cuba,” Vanessa said, “There was very much still the idea of this is all temporary…until it wasn’t. Miami was forced to be an extension of the island.”

That idea – “next year, in Havana” – isn’t just Vanessa’s shorthand. It was a hopeful catchphrase among early Cuban immigrants when they first moved to Miami. This city wasn’t meant to be their new home. It was simply a waiting room.

It was this mantra that helped immigrants stomach low-wage jobs, cramped duplexes in Westchester and the uncertainty that came with living in a new country. But it also kept them pining for an island that would never return to its pre-Revolution state.

I called up my uncle who, like my father, was born in Miami right after my grandparents came here. He quickly confirmed my suspicion that Miami has always been a sort of Cuban fever dream.

“I’ll always tie Miami to the nostalgia of Cuba because of my parents and what they would talk about,” he said. “But Lauren, I have no idea how Cuba was.”

It occurred to me that so much of what we’ve built in Miami is just a monument to a Cuba that most of us don’t even know. Our Catholic high schools have the same names of the ones in Havana. Domino Park could stand in for any former plaza on the island. We continue to build restaurants and bars that mimic what we think Cuba was like, without really having any clue.

Miami is well past peak- Cuban nostalgia; I don’t think anyone my age is scrolling through Zillow listings in Vedado. But I think we picked up an unintended side-effect of our grandparents’ homesickness: we adopted their ambivalence without ever knowing the true source of their yearning.

Our grandparents were never meant to be the stewards of Miami. That would have meant abandoning their desire of returning home. In a strange way, they shared something in common with Miami’s snowbirds: they had one foot in, and one foot out.

The second-gen grandchildren like me certainly have roots in Miami. It’s the only home we’ve known. But we’ve kept on with our grandparents’ practice of never fully taking ownership of our own city. We try to extract whatever we can from Miami without ever thinking what we can give the city in return.

In a 2023 survey released by AmeriCorps and the U.S. Census, Miami ranked as the least neighborly city in America. I read a similar study in 2011 ranking Miami as the least civically engaged city in the US. I remember thinking, Yeah, this tracks.

I know that my peers care deeply for our community and for our city, but I think we’ve taken Miami for granted. We don’t always extend a sense of generosity to our neighbors or dedicate real effort in making Miami more livable for everyone.

Here’s my bold proposal to the second-gen Cubans reading this: love Miami like your grandparents loved Cuba. Care deeply about our issues and actually spend time on them. We need to figure out how to invest in Miami before it’s no longer ours to give.

In case you missed it, the New York Knicks won the NBA Championship, winning the title after a fifty-three year drought. Whether you love the team or can’t stand the fans, I still think this is a moment we can all rally around.

There are many others more qualified to weigh in on this moment. I am admittedly a bandwagon fan who was not born and raised in New York. I haven’t even reached my ten-year mark here, a milestone that many use to claim New Yorker status (though JLo might take issue with that).

And yet, when I walked through Times Square earlier this week, I felt extra inspired by the streets of Manhattan. It’s almost embarrassing to be this cliche, to treat 42nd Street like the set of my very own early-aughts rom-com. But I know I wasn’t the only one with a pep in my step.

Sports have a unique ability to unite any city, but I think there’s a key reason we came alive for the Knicks— this team made New York feel like the underdog again.

The rest of the world probably doesn’t view New York this way, and for good reason. I recognize the smugness of a city with merch that says “New York or Nowhere”. That kind of attitude doesn’t give off the impression of a city with something to prove.

Before moving to New York, I remember visiting my friends’ tiny apartments in the East Village. I’d leave feeling validated with my choice not to move there. I told myself I wasn’t interested in a life that didn’t come with a washer and dryer in unit. Too much struggle without the promise of a payoff.

A few years later, I did in fact move into one of those tiny, East Village apartments—on the fifth floor of a walk-up, no less! The unit was also missing a dishwasher, and my room could only fit a daybed. It cost me half of my paycheck, but it was worth every penny.

I came to New York because I was ready to make something of myself. It’s that ambition that makes people want to move here. We bought into the narrative that New York was a city where great things happened, and maybe we could be great too.

In other words, New York has always been a city for underdogs.

Ever since the pandemic, that narrative has felt less true. The latest transplants turned it into yet another elite playground, making neighborhoods feel hollow and sanitized.

What’s left of the Dimes Square scene feels performative. Everyone in the West Village wears the same basic uniform and goes to the same frozen yogurt spot. Williamsburg is ostensibly a brand activation.

And all that has made the New York hustle less tenable. The odds of “making it” always felt unlikely. But lately, it’s felt impossible.

I think that’s part of the reason why Mamdani’s election felt electrifying for the city. Whether or not you agree with his politics, he’s a quintessential underdog who campaigned for the underdogs.

The Knicks’ victory feels like a natural extension of that vision, a prophecy fulfilled. Here’s a team that, having lost and struggled for decades, finally delivered us a championship.

New Yorkers have earned the right to celebrate, even if it’s in the form of wildly scaling the scaffolding or climbing on top of buses. We can finally stop holding our breath, revisiting the idea that New York—a city so mercurial, unrelenting and out of reach— just might make our own dreams come true, too.

It’s a bleak picture, but not all hope is lost. I’ve talked to ghosts of Miami’s present: locals who are keeping the old Miami alive. Some are business owners. Some moon-light as activists. Some wanted to remain anonymous. But they’re all ‘305-til-I-die.’

A quick note to all my non-native readers following along: thank you for sticking with me! As a treat, all these Miamians shared some of their favorite hidden gems in the city. Pin them for your next trip here.

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Matt Kuscher, owner of Kush Hospitality

Serving burgers with a side of affordable housing

It’s rare to be both a local legend and an underdog, but Matt Kuscher constantly bucks expectations. At a time when Miami’s main option for burgers was Fuddruckers by the Falls, Matt opened LoKal, an award-winning burger restaurant in the Grove.

Matt wasn’t raised in Miami but he knows it well: “To be from Miami is to embrace our shady past. There’s a strange pride in living in a city with looser laws than the rest of the country.”

A lot of people worry about the lack of affordability in Miami, but Matt puts his money where his mouth is. After learning that Miami came in first place for the most expensive city for dining, he created a locals-only menu, offering discounts for anyone with a Dade County ID.

His latest project is even more ambitious: he’s opening a new restaurant in Wynwood with affordable housing units reserved for hospitality workers. The renovation is also a work of preservation; it used to be a midcentury brothel, and Whitey Bulger’s abode.

Opening Kush Wynwood has not been easy: “Financially, it makes more sense to knock down and build upward.” he said. “Because rehabbing older buildings doesn’t offer the same tax benefits, it is only done by those who are truly passionate.”

But Matt has passion in spades. Unlike our new transplants, he isn’t only motivated by money, but by his love for the city and by his desire to make it great for everyone here.

🍺Local tip: If you like dive bars, Matt recommends Mac’s Club Deuce in Miami Beach, Mike’s at Venetia in Downtown or Seven Seas on 57th Ave.

Monica Sorelle, filmmaker

Building the archive of Little Haiti

Monica Sorelle is a filmmaker who directed and co-wrote the 2023 film, Mountains. The film tells the story of a Haitian construction worker pursuing the American dream while watching the Little Haiti community rapidly gentrify.

When Monica thinks of the Miami of her childhood, she thinks of fruit trees: “Like avocados and mangoes.  Everything was Caribbean, colorful and bright.”

She started tuning into Miami’s cultural shifts well before the pandemic. The canary in the coal mine was Wynwood. In 2013, she attended a documentary screening that followed the developers who were puppeteering Wynwood’s dramatic transformation.

Later at another event in Little Haiti, she discovered that the developer responsible for much of Wynwood’s expansion had recently purchased buildings in the area.

“What I just learned happened to Wynwood is eventually exactly what’s going to happen to Little Haiti,” Monica said.

For Monica, Mountains is less a work of activism, more of a way to memorialize her community while it’s still around.

“That’s kind of how gentrification works…by the time you notice the sprouting, it’s too late,” she said. “And so I changed from, ‘We gotta save Little Haiti’ to using film as an archive.  Whatever ends up happening, the memory of this space will never die.”

Watch Mountains and help keep the memory of this community alive.

🇭🇹Local tip: Spend a day in Little Haiti! Monica recommends eating at Piman Bouk before walking down the 2nd Ave corridor. Pop into fabric stores, Churchill’s Pub and Sweat Records.

Recency Bias

Bringing back the Kendall getty

Of the many Miami-isms, the term ‘getty’ is my favorite. It describes the sweet spot between a house party and a casual hang, a high-school rite of passage eventually replaced by the nightlife scene.

But with cocktails currently priced around $18, many yearn for the return of the getty.

Enter Recency Bias. A local creative director and event producer who goes by that alias, he’s hosting warehouse parties in Kendall fostering the spirit of house parties.

The inspiration behind Recency Bias came out of necessity: “A night out here involves driving 45 minutes across the bridge, paying for parking, an entrance fee and a section. That’s an expensive night for your average worker.”

While Kendall has a reputation as a run-of-the-mill suburb, he views it as a neighborhood filled with creative potential, and wanted to offer the community a fun night out on their own turf.

“ We make the entire thing look like someone’s apartment,” he said. “We set up a physical fridge that you can go to grab your own drinks.There’s an old TV playing cartoons or El Chavo del Ocho…almost as if your grandma left it on.”

And of course, there’s a lot of reggaeton playing in the background. My kind of night.

🎶Local tip: If you’re looking for a dance bar that plays Latin music and Deftones, check out Las Rosas in Allapattah. If you want to throw down in Kendall, check out Tacos & Tattoos.

Patricia Garcia, activist

Making Miami more accessible, one sidewalk at a time

I stumbled upon Patricia Garcia’s Instagram; my algorithm is cued into all things local and nostalgic. While I came for her video on the history of Pollo Tropical, I stayed for her explainers on how to make Miami cleaner and more walkable.

Patricia grew up in Grapeland Heights, and didn’t think much of Miami’s problems until she traveled abroad on a Fulbright scholarship. Her eyes were opened to what a well-maintained city could look like: paved sidewalks, clean streets and functioning infrastructure.

If you follow her on social media, you’ll see the stark reality that many working-class communities face: shopping carts strewn around front yards and sidewalks that haphazardly start and stop, giving residents little incentive to walk around their block.

Patricia does more than document Miami’s civic pitfalls. After clocking out of her office job, she dedicates her evenings to emailing local leaders and her weekends to picking up trash in her community. She finds the motivation by remembering who she’s fighting for: her neighbors.

“They’re working two, three jobs to make ends meet,” she said. “They’re not going back and forth with the commissioner, and that’s why things stay the way they are. ”

Thanks to Patricia, they might not stay that way forever.

🀹 Local tip: If you want to experience a relic of Miami’s third spaces, Patricia spoke fondly of Little Havana’s Domino Park. Catch it while the long-time park goers are still around to play.

Julian Alicea, creative director

Highlighting eateries that have stood the test of time

“ Who’s to say that the Big Cheese isn’t a landmark, you know?”

I wasn’t surprised to hear Julian Alicea gushing over the spot that’s served the best lasagna in South Miami for four decades. Whether or not you think the Big Cheese has earned landmark status, there’s no denying Julian’s passion for local eateries.

Julian channelled this love into Test of Time, a multimedia project that shares the stories behind local institutions like Frankie’s Pizza and Arbetter’s. Julian has hosted a gallery exhibit, released a coffee table book and produced a video series.

You’ll get hints of Anthony Bourdain’s grittiness or Action Bronson’s irreverence in his video series, which is intentional. Julian’s trying to reach an audience of younger locals who aren’t immediately inclined to prioritize old haunts over the latest opening.

“I’m so conditioned as a Miamian to constantly think about the next new spot…especially when it comes to the food scene,” Julian said. “Test of Time is done in a palatable way that can make people respect and appreciate the past.”

Julian wants his generation to know that these restaurants aren’t as dusty as they might recall. It occurred to me that Julian and I share a similar concern, like we’re coming under the wire of saving the Miami that raised us.

I asked him if there’s a spirit of Miami he was attempting to preserve. Is there an essence of Miami he hopes will stand the test of time?

“ I hope that no matter what happens, Miami keeps its youthfulness and its fun,” Julian said. “And that our accessibility to fun is respected. ”

🤌Local tip: If you’d like to try a local delicacy, Julian recommends Fritanga Caña Brava near Little Havana.

I asked her for a list of local institutions gone too soon. I expected her to wax on about the shops and restaurants of a bygone era, places that would have closed down regardless of gentrification.

Places like Allen’s Drug Store, which would have fit in nicely on Disney World’s Main Street. Or Sunset Place, the mall of my teen-dom and now the eye sore of South Miami. Or Santa’s Enchanted Forest, the winter fair at Tropical Park which seemingly receded into the North Pole.

But Mel brought up a place that, by most accounts, is still very much alive and well.

“RIP to the old LIV,” Mel said. “Honestly, Lauren, RIP to the old LIV. Before it was this tiki-tiki- music-playing, commercialized bullshit only for the high rollers.”

I asked Mel to describe the old LIV for nerds like me who didn’t have fake IDs in high school.

“First of all, less lasers,” Mel said. “Less VIP booths…It [used to be] accessible. I was 21 or 22 years old, and I walked up to the VIP and asked, ‘May I enter?’ They just opened up the velvet rope for me. And Steve Aoki was DJ-ing and he threw a cake in someone’s face.”

Today’s Miami may be less of Steve Aoki’s cake-in-your-face, more of Marie Antoinette’s “let them eat cake”.

According to Forbes, four out of five of the world’s richest people have a house in Miami. The New York Times reports that Miami ranked #1 in most ultra-luxury homes sold in 2025.

While the post-pandemic presence of elite transplants feels inescapable, I wondered if any of this is all that new. We’ve been driving past the Venetian Island mansions on our way to South Beach for years. Is this a unique era of gentrification, or just the latest snowbird boom?

A tale of two booms

I called Dr. Paul S. George, resident historian at the Museum of Miami. A treasure trove of local history, I knew he’d contextualize my existential questions about Miami’s past (and future).

I asked him whether there’s any era of local history that parallels the current state of local affairs. He took me back to 1925, a period understood to be Miami’s first real-estate boom.

“It really took Miami from a frontier town with a lot of youth to an emerging metropolitan area,” Dr. George said.

The early 1920s birthed a prosperous middle class of Americans with newfound disposable income and access to automobiles. Dreaming of warmer winters and laxer tax policy, many Americans—to quote another famous Miami transplant— took their talents to South Beach.

Florida’s population grew over 30% between 1920 and 1925, leading to the development of neighborhoods like Coral Gables and Hialeah. All this growth gave way to a gold rush, where profiteers known as “binder boys” would put down a small payment on land (a binder) and flip it to a new seller before the next payment was due.

It’s a familiar story, so you can imagine what came next. By late 1925, fears of a real-estate bubble started to spread. Top it off with a railroad embargo that slowed down construction and a hurricane in 1926 that killed nearly 400 people, and you’ve got yourself a textbook bust.

“You can make an argument that we were in our own Great Depression three years before the stock market crash of 1929,” Dr. Paul George said.

Though every boom meets its bust, the economic growth of 1925 left Miami with institutions that have stood the test of time. It’s the reason why places like The University of Miami and the Freedom Tower celebrated their centennial last year.

Even after the rubble, the late 1920s left us with places like The Biltmore Hotel. What exactly are we building right now that’s meant to last us another century? Condos in Little River, I guess.

Is Miami’s latest boom…a mirage?

A hundred years of local history are bookended by the same tale, one where affluent snowbirds nest in a tropical haven in order to freely indulge and invest. But where many might see this moment as Miami’s latest boom, some view it as a mirage.

That someone is my dad, who’s worked in Miami’s real-estate market for decades. While he sees similarities between the two eras, he points out a key difference: the binder boys, full of millionaire dreams, operated entirely out of middle-class pockets.

“Our current real estate boom, if you are to call it one, is focused exclusively on the billionaire market,” he said.

The transplants of today, as my cousin Danny put it, are in a completely different stratosphere.

Danny owns a wood-working company and often designs customized furniture for new restaurants in the area. Over the last few years, he’s finding clients from different zip codes and with bigger wallets.

“There was a multimillion-dollar restaurant I worked on,” Danny said. “It closed…and was immediately replaced by another multimillion-dollar restaurant with the same concept.”

Danny has seen restaurateurs delay openings to align with the start of snowbird season, sometimes paying months of overhead with zero revenue coming in.

“They have so much money they don’t know where to put it,” Danny said. “Other than in businesses which typically fail.”

Today’s out-of-state investors are much better positioned to absorb bad bets, which is bad news for any local business owner who can’t afford to tolerate that much risk.

I called up Billy Corben and Alfred Spellman, co-founders of Rakontur Media. They keep a watchful eye over local politics: the good, bad and the Florida. Even still, they could point to a time in the 2010s when locals were the drivers of their own economy.

“We had an indigenous tech community here for a lot of years,” Corben said. “Obviously, kids left Miami to get educated, but they came back because they were of the ‘305-‘til-I-die’ generation. People who wanted to build something…create good jobs and businesses here.”

Billy suggested that there was no meaningful partnership between the burgeoning tech scene and the local government until Silicon Valley showed up. Local leaders started serving the interests of our newest residents at the expense of year-round ones.

“It’s all a real-estate hustle,” Corben said. “Ultimately, we’re just trying to sell you your third, fourth, fifth home.”

In all my conversations about Miami’s post-pandemic shift, I heard a lot of apathetic responses from residents. They brush off the latest high-rises and the restaurants charging $18 for cocktails. That’s happening on the other side of the bridge, they say.

I don’t think the mainland can avoid their beachside neighbors forever. Companies like Citadel and Palantir have relocated, bringing a wave of out-of-state tech workers, turning Wynwood and the Grove into their playgrounds. Even Hialeah has a club now.

Miami now ranks dead last on rental affordability, according to WalletHub. It’s becoming impossible for everyday Miamians to live here, let alone enjoy it.

“They’re building these multimillion-dollar condos and insanely expensive restaurants, but it’s almost like a front,” my cousin Danny said. “Who’s going to go eat sushi and spend $300 a plate? Nobody that I know.”

I think my cousin Mel’s memories about the old LIV are more than just a wistful nostalgia. It’s a sense that there’s a part of this city we can no longer access. The old haunts can’t afford to stay open, and the hot spots are too pricey to entertain.

I’m not suggesting we measure affordability by the number of teens able to sneak into Miami’s hottest nightclub. But up until now, there was an unspoken code that transplants were welcome so long as locals could live, work and play alongside them.

At some point in the last five years, the billionaires broke that rule. And locals aren’t doing much beyond sighing out a half-hearted, what can you do about it?

History’s taught us we don’t put up much of a fight when others come for our beaches. But there will come a time when there will be no more room for us in the sand.

Next time, I’ll bring you stories of a few locals doing something about it.

Yes, we had been drinking. Yes, the women in our family have a knack for dramatic storytelling. But I kept listening.

“Everything’s different,” she said. “The Grove. The restaurants. Even the lizards have changed.”

She’s right about a few things. The lizards, for one, have changed. A team of biologists from the University of Miami found that the existence of non-native species increased by 33% over the last five years.

They’re not invasive lizards (per se), but there’s another species of inhabitants who’ve recently come to town, and they’ve got billions to blow. Miami Beach has always been a playground for wealthy snowbirds. But now, they’re staying for longer—and their influence is trickling into the mainland.

I was at a cousin’s wedding a few months ago chatting with a family friend. Until recently, he owned a few buildings in Hialeah, a working class neighborhood. According to him, some investors hungrily bought up his buildings for a pretty penny.

“I wondered if they knew exactly what they were buying,” he said. “But I just laughed and collected my check.”

It’s hard to imagine Hialeah, somewhat ironically known as La Ciudad del Progreso (The Prosperous City), as vulnerable to gentrification, but anything’s possible. Wynwood is basically Little Manhattan— you can dine at Joe’s Pizza, Pastis and (soon enough) H&H Bagels.

And like my cousin Mel said, Coconut Grove is virtually unrecognizable. The Grove came up as a hippie enclave nestled between the bay and banyan trees. The hippies left, but the neighborhood stayed quirky. We grew up riding rickshaws through Main Street and sneaking into Mr. Moe’s. Our parents grew up sneaking into The Mutiny.

Now, Coconut Grove is on track to become the next Indian Creek, the neighborhood known for ultra-wealthy residents like Bezos. According to the Wall Street Journal, the latest median sale price for a single-family home in the Grove is $2.35 million, double what it was in 2019.

Is Miami’s post-pandemic boom a unique story of American gentrification? It might not be, but it’s notable if only because the inflow of investment is so striking. Everyday Miamians have to think twice before buying a home or starting a business.

It’s harder to track the subtler, more intangible shifts Miami is currently experiencing. But as neighborhoods go the way of Brickell, many of us fear that we’re going to lose the ineffable qualities that made Miami into the city we’ve called home.

The first step to preserving anything is to define it for yourself. I called up my cousin Mel and asked her how she’d describe the Miami of her youth.

Mel’s Miami is best encapsulated by her neighborhood bakery on Coral Way and 137th Ave. Your typical Cuban joint, the bakery was anchored around a long counter, with plenty of barstool seats for patrons to drink their coladas and eat their pastelitos.

“I would just sit there and listen, observing my dad talk to the workers behind the counter,” she said. “I miss being able to sit at the bakery stools and shoot the shit.”

Giancarlo Sabogal shared a similar story. Miamians will remember Giancarlo for his viral video, Shit Miami Girls Say. I figured that if anyone could describe the essence of Miami, it’d be him.

“People used to come up to us and say, ‘You made us even more Miami,’” he said.

Giancarlo lives in LA now. When I asked him how he remembers Miami, he didn’t focus on Miami’s nightlife or on the quirks of the Miamian accent. Instead, he thought of the women who worked the deli of his local Publix.

“I’d try to leave, but they’d stop me with an ‘Oye’ and chat me up,” he said. “I don’t know how to put that energy into words, but whatever it is, I miss it.”

To be clear, Cuban bakeries and Publix stores aren’t going anywhere. But I think we’re all feeling a preemptive nostalgia, commiserating over what we stand to lose as our communities change. And it’s hard to stop communities from evolving, especially when we benefit from some of the shifts.

“I’m conflicted over how I feel,” Mel said. “I love the new restaurants. I love ordering myself an espresso martini for dessert. Like, I feed into this evolution.”

As with anyone and their hometown, I have my gripes with it. But there’s something about the spirit of Miami that’s undeniably vivacious, dynamic and fiercely communal. And a lot of us don’t want to see that be totally replaced by a copy-and-paste, millennial aesthetic.

I will out myself now as a slight poser. Despite yearlong stints in 2016 and 2020, I haven’t been a full-time resident of Miami since I left for college. But I still feel invested in preserving the fabric of our communities, or at least ensuring Miami doesn’t fully lose itself to the whims of Silicon Valley or influencers like Clavicular.

So to my cousin’s earlier point: no, Miami’s not dead. But let’s find ways to keep the things we love about it alive.

I’m trying something new— a monthlong series all about Miami. I’m talking to historians, journalists, business-owners and activists. They all have different points of view, but they all have a 305 area code. (Or 786, I don’t discriminate).

If you’re from Miami, this one’s for you. Consider it a communal love letter to our city. And if you’re not from Miami, I’ll share some recs for your next spring break trip that’ll be sure to take you off South Beach.

🫶🏻 305 til I die 🫶🏻

LG aka Lauren aka Lali Gonzali

Good news: I’m settling into a house in Lincoln Park with waaay more square footage. Even better news: my studio is staying in the family. My sister’s moving in this month.

Even though I’m not entirely cut off from my old digs, I’m still nursing a wistful appreciation for it. My apartment was a rare gem in a city of glorified walk-in closets.

If it were back on the market, my landlord would boast about its strategic layout, its proximity to almost every subway line and—most importantly—a washer/dryer in unit.

I dare you to find a more charming studio. A working fireplace to warm winter nights and daytime gatherings! Ceilings high enough to mount a vintage poster I scooped up from the sidewalk! A brick wall with a sneaky doodle left by a former tenant!

My studio wasn’t just a home— it was a point of pride. I started looking for my own place after turning thirty, a particularly vulnerable time that had me feeling like certain milestones (ie: marriage and motherhood) were still out of reach.

Finding my own place helped me regain a sense of agency. It reminded me that no matter what came (or hadn’t come) my way, I could still make a home for myself.

Living alone isn’t for everyone. It’s expensive and not exactly an antidote to the loneliness epidemic plaguing our society. But if you’re up to the task of creating your own sanctuary, it’s one of the most romantic things you can do for yourself.

To prove it, I’ve asked close friends and women I’ve admired from afar to welcome us into their humble abodes. Each woman shared their favorite corner of their current (or former) home, offering a reflection on what living alone has meant to them.

My apartment feels like being on vacation, in large part due to its intimate relationship with the sky. I love how the sunrise filters in through the skylights in the morning, tracking along the back wall like a sun dial. It is such a privilege to live in a densely populated city and still be able to see the moon from your couch.

-Ora, Mexico City

My mermaid couch made me feel like the woman of my dreams in the making. I will cherish that raw, delicious, devastating, exciting period of my life forever.

-Lexy, Cleveland

In a small studio, my balcony became a sacred spot for all good things: morning coffee and yoga with a fresh breeze, an afternoon desk with a view, and an evening space for whatever the night called for, from intimate gatherings to solo wine and writing.

-Kiran, Boston

My first apartment in NYC was magic, with skylights in every room. It had a balcony in the back overlooking a church that played raucous music every Sunday. My neighbors would bring up my packages and drop sweets off at the door. It was filled with flowers and white linen, distinctly feminine and distinctly mine.

-Maddie, Brooklyn

This was my favorite corner of my solo apartment, which I just moved out of. All the curves and colors were very intentional, and it took me years to put together. It may look nice, but most people who came over found it crowded and uncomfortable. The beauty of living alone, though, is that my opinion was the only one that mattered. Everything was me-sized, and that was fine! I’m small enough that I could curl up in a ball on my cute little loveseat and be totally happy.

-Emilia, Manhattan (she wrote a great piece about her place on her Substack, Shop Rat)

This particular area always makes me happy to look at. The table was often filled with friends, but it’s also where I would paint alone and listen to podcasts. The staircase sometimes had romantic guests who would descend from it like gossip.

-Steph, Chicago

In the foreground is my new dining table made of mango wood, which has inspired me to host more often. In contrast is the hammock on my balcony. It’s old and falling apart and I will likely replace it soon, but it’s my favorite solitary space. I love being cocooned in it while falling sleep to the distant chatter from the community pool.

-Michelle, Miami

If my apartment was on fire I’d grab this piece my best friend, Bridget, painted and shipped to me for my birthday from Seattle. It completes my little cafe area and makes me think of her, her talents and our mutual love of art and cozy spaces.

-Laura, Brooklyn

My studio is a small but mighty place that provides safety and comfort, whether I’m cooking, dancing along to bachata music, or silently admiring how far I’ve come. I’m able to put on display all the multitudes I contain without judgement or care.

-Patricia, Manhattan

My living room wall features a recess that I always thought would be a perfect place for a “built-in” bookshelf. When my dad visited a few years ago, he helped make it a reality! It’s a bit slant-y and overall precarious, but I love seeing my favorite books, trinkets (mostly cat-related), and memorials to loved ones all in one place.

-Madeline, Chicago

My favorite corner of my apartment is my bathroom. It’s spare and calm and I have a big window with tempered glass that makes whatever is happening outside look like a dreamy watercolor. Even at night it seems to glow.

When I moved into this apartment, I had recently gone through a big breakup, and I didn’t have much furniture. It was truly a fresh start. On good days, the blankness of the space felt freeing.

Over time, the rest of the apartment filled in with furniture and decoration. But I resisted putting much else in the bathroom, and the result is that the space is a relic of the “fresh start” days. It’s free and undefined and the window is always changing.

-Jenelle, Brooklyn

It involved… multiple group chats with code names! Breaking into each others’ apartments! Filling toy guns with milk and spray painting the streets of Gowanus! It was a good reminder that life is better with a dash of spectacle and a touch of whimsy.

You know what else is kind of like a prank? A proposal. It involves… your boyfriend and your loved ones1 plotting a multilevel surprise over an entire month! A barrage of mischievous little misdirects to throw you off the scent! A grand reveal that completely catches you off guard but seems inevitable in hindsight!

I’ll quit burying the lead: Tim and I got engaged over the weekend in Battery Park. It was sentimental and silly, personal and convivial. In short, everything I’ve ever wanted.

The surprise could have been foiled at multiple turns, but thankfully I am a gullible girl. If I had caught on at all, I definitely wouldn’t have worn an outfit to match his.

I’ve always been a sucker for spectacle, so the idea of a proposal captivated my imagination at an early age. (Shout out to TLC’s Perfect Proposal for providing me with so much inspo in the early aughts).

In my mid- twenties, I lost my appetite for proposal stories. Chalk it up to my apathy (read: fear) around finding love, but the pomp and circumstance surrounding an engagement started feeling a tad gauche.

I feel differently about things now that I’ve found my partner. I have often described Tim as my velveteen rabbit— he turned the idea of love into something real.

If you’re unfamiliar with the children’s story, here’s how the velveteen rabbit’s trusted companion describes the true nature of love:

By the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.

The work of relationships is deeply meaningful. It also requires your effort and attention in ways I didn’t expect. It involves sacrifice, something that isn’t particularly glamorous in our culture. We got a jump-start on that work on Day One.

Many of you know Tim and I were based in different cities when we got together. We both felt a deep commitment to the communities we’d built in our respective homes. It took a lot of work to bring our lives together in a way that felt good for both of us.

We didn’t always get it right. (What we did get: a ton of frequent- flier miles). But eventually, we learned to give with grace. And we are better for it.

Becoming “Real” takes time and effort. It’s worthy work. And if you get it right, it deserves to be celebrated. Preferably, with a dash of spectacle and a touch of whimsy.

Hope you get up to something whimsical this April Fools’ Day.

🫶🏻

LG aka Lauren aka Lali Gonzali

I think we can all agree that there are ages that feel random, vibes-wise. And 34 is one of them. Keep watching that reel and you’ll hear that comedian describe it as the adolescence of adulthood: “You’re young…and old in all the worst ways.” As in, you still use your parents’ Netflix account but now you also need Botox.

This recent European study from Social Indicators Research paints a different picture, claiming that subjective well-being crests between 30-34 years of age and tapers off after that. If the data bears out, then congrats to many of you. You’ve reached the tippy top, now down you go!

I’m turning 34 today. I’m not particularly interested in peaking, or in experiencing puberty for a second time. And so I’m turning to my tried-and-true birthday prompt for a helpful reframe.

If I’ve ever texted you on your birthday, I’ve probably asked you to share your word for the year. Most people play along, but some balk at the idea of distilling a whole year into a tidy mantra. And I get it. I’ve been doing this since my pandemic birthday, and frankly I’m running out of words.

I’ve come to recognize what drew me to this prompt in the first place. Every word was a wish powered by a worry— a craving for a thing I wanted but wasn’t entirely getting. I’m trying to cling to these words a little less each year, reaching for them only when I need a small reminder of a feeling I’d like to return to time and again.

On that list of gentle reminders: I’d like to return to a feeling of grace whenever I’m being hard on myself. And I’d like to return to a feeling of gratitude whenever I start to nitpick the present or fixate on what comes next.

In trying to find this year’s word, I keep thinking about a moment from a few weeks back. I was at evening Mass and noticed this brooding, young man who anxiously paced the side corridor. My mind jumped to the worst possible outcome, and I started monitoring this guy’s every move while scoping out emergency exits.

During the peace offering, he made a beeline towards me, which sent me into a panic. But instead of confirming my deepest fears, he sheepishly offered me the sign of peace in the form of a fist bump.

There are many lessons in this moment…some might even call it a parable! But it made me think that sometimes the things you grow to fear aren’t all that scary. Sometimes, they can even bring you peace.

And it’s a helpful reminder for my 34th year on Earth— to fear less.

🫶🏻

LG aka Lauren aka Lali Gonzali

P.S. I asked the group chat for other random ages. I felt validated and started drama…a true bday treat! 💅🏻

We’ve all been living in a state of sticker shock since 2022, but every now and then you get a bill that really makes you do a double-take. For me, that was the $100 bill that came for us over breakfast. $15 for an Americano, or as Cubans call it, agua sucia?

I’m not breaking any news by pointing out the rising costs in Vegas. Hotels have certainly upped the ante: hiking up rates, tilting the advantage further to the house and cheapening the standard experience to incentivize premium tiers. (Slate’s Luke Winkie dives into all of this with his requiem for the Sin City of the early aughts).

There’s something similar happening at Disney World. Last month, a family of four would have spent a little over $2,000 to visit the parks with a three-day pass. That doesn’t include lodging or food (or fast passes), and those rates are specific to January, the cheapest month to visit. It’s enough to make Walt Disney melt in his cryo chamber.

I’ll admit that part of the appeal of going to Vegas was to do it big and go luxe. But walking down the Strip made me wonder what happened to all our middle-class, vacation destinations. Do they still exist, or did Big Leisure™ flip every affordable destination into a luxury experience?

I hate to be a fun-sucker, but Hannah Horvath’s economic predictions seem to confirm my suspicions. Moreover, she wagers that fun-flation will continue to creep into all aspects of modern entertainment, like youth sports or adult concerts.

We are but peons with minimal sway on macro-economic forces, but we all play a small role in enabling fun-flation. We account our splurges as one-time costs, allowing industries to sustain the business without catering to the masses. Prices stay high and average Joes pinch pennies to afford the vacations of their youths.

I’m not here to deny anyone a little R+R, including myself. I just want to believe there’s a market for a middle-class vacation, if only for the sake of our kids.

A happy childhood isn’t contingent on multiple trips to the Magic Kingdom, but there seem to be fewer third spaces and affordable alternatives for kid-sized fun. Are we simply relegating childhood imagination and play to their iPads? That’s bleak!

I’m optimistic that consumers can apply some pressure and bring back the vacations of our past. Nate Silver reported that tourist arrivals to Vegas are already on a downward trend. These hotels can resist market forces for now, but they’ll pay later.

Whether or not we can tip the financial scales, I think we should still try to seek out cheaper thrills. If we can curate more low-thrills fun in our daily lives, it becomes less necessary to chase more expensive diversions.

After getting back from Vegas, I put my money where my mouth is, and I went in pursuit of free fun. After discovering that admission to Chicago’s MCA is free on Tuesday evenings, I checked out a special exhibit of Yoko Ono’s artistic works.

And because I love a quirky quest, I plan on finding more free things to do over the next few months, and sharing a progress report later in the spring. Fun does not have to be premium. Any kid can tell you that.

Whatever you do this weekend, please have some fun.

🫶🏻

LG aka Lauren aka Lali Gonzali

Now of course, corny love songs and heart-wrenching ballads are as old as do re mi, but musical tropes will always mirror the politics of their time. And so over the last few generations, music has dipped in and out of its independent-female era.

I’d wager this current iteration of female-empowerment pop started with Beyonce’s Run the World (Girls) and peaked at Lizzo’s Good as Hell. And while these songs now feel tinged in millennial cringe, they made us feel good at the time, delivering a three-minute confidence boost on days we needed it.

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Of course, there’s a shadow side to everything, even to the empowered woman. And there are plenty of anthems celebrating women who antagonize men through sexual manipulation, cool indifference or outright rejection.

Channel your femme fatale with Tate McRae’s Sports Car. Cue up Sabrina Carpenter’s Manchild and ghost that guy who gave you the ick. Be the bad guy, just like Billie Eilish.

To be clear, a cheeky banger that makes the Billboard Top 100 ranks low on my list of antagonist behaviors. But the charts convey where pop culture has stood on its view of men. And the vibes have been hetero-pessimistic, a term that’s launched a thousand think pieces (including this one).

But do the trending songs at the tail end of 2025 echo that sentiment? It feels like today’s pop music is marked by a more honest longing.

Press play on chart toppers from Raye and Olivia Dean, and you’ll hear melodies of yearning. Raye’s melodramatic style differs from Dean’s soft playfulness, but they both offer candid questions: Where the hell is my husband? Can you be the man I need?

Sue me is another new track related to this motif. Audrey Hobert’s manic-pixie anthem relays her need to be desired. It’s more self-indulgent than what Olivia Dean sings about, but at least Hobert is forthright about what she wants.

Whether these artists have more nuanced takes on their lyrics, it’s clear that the mainstream audience is taking their messages at face value. You can tell by the number of social-media bridal reveals set to Raye’s song alone.

This musical trend bucks against certain truisms parroted in casual conversation among women—namely, that men are trash, having a boyfriend is embarrassing and we’re finally (if just for a moment) free enough to admit that.

I’ve always rolled my eyes at hetero-pessimism, that all of us women are resigned to dating men but none of us actually want to. Certainly that’s true for some women.

But what if hetero-pessimism is mainly just romantic self- defense? Acknowledging a desire for love is a vulnerable thing for anyone to admit to. It’s easier to shield yourself from rejection by rejecting desire itself.

It’s natural to want to run away from the things you want. It gets complicated when you try to build a political worldview around that. Our repressed feelings will eventually come out, even if it’s through the side door.

Maybe that’s why we’ve started singing a different tune. When I listen to Raye, Dean and Hobert, I hear themes of vulnerability. And nothing’s more powerful than that.

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If you’re looking to groove after this read, I made you a playlist.🕺🏻💃🏻 If you have songs you’d like to add, write to me or drop them in the comments section!

Shout-out to my sister and my friend Derek, two impeccable vibe curators who contributed to this mix. 😘

🫶🏻

LG aka Lauren aka Lali Gonzali

It’s humbling when a seven-word text with a fire emoji sums up an essay of yours that went through multiple drafts. But it’s true that while I can provide you with a menu of options on how to start your year, it’s really just a matter of hunkering down and choosing to begin.

But how do you start when you’re feeling stuck?

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I’ve been finding myself a bit stuck at work— lacking momentum, stewing over petty frustrations yet shying away from changing my predicament in any meaningful way.

It’s a rut that feels not so dissimilar to when I was single and confused about the lack of romantic possibility in my life. I could only focus on the gap between my desire for partnership and my dread around dating, and that gap soon became all I could see.

I’m not a prophet and I’m also not here to peddle get-rich-quick schemes on escaping your rut. If anything, I’ve learned the hard way that periods of stagnancy tend to see their way out without any of your help. But here’s some advice I’ve picked up from strangers, friends and Father Time that has— no pun intended— stuck with me.

The George Constanza method

A friend once told me how she met her partner. They formed an unexpected friendship while playing in the same Dungeons and Dragons league. After torturous relationships with drawn-out endings, she had grown tired of dipping back into the pattern of the same unavailable guys.

“You know that episode of Seinfeld when George Constanza takes the opposite approach of what he normally does for a full day?” my friend asked.

I didn’t, and if you’re not a Seinfeld head either, here’s the clip for your viewing pleasure.

“That’s how I chose my partner,” my friend said. “I pulled a George Constanza.”

It’s not a silver bullet, but if you find yourself stuck in a pattern, the most obvious way to break it is by taking one small but radically different step.

The audition trick

I was once chatting with a freelancer at a previous job, an aspiring actor who moonlit as a teacher in the Bronx. When I asked him how things were going, he admitted to a pretty barren summer—very few auditions and even fewer call-backs. He decided to devote himself entirely to teaching that fall, only to have his agent blow up his phone with opportunities once the semester started.

I asked if that made him angry, whether it felt unfair that opportunity came knocking right at the point he had contentedly given up on acting. He said I was thinking about it the wrong way.

“I think that when you want something so badly in life, you’re signaling to something out there in the universe that deep down inside you don’t think you deserve it.”

Now this reeks of shadow work, a concept I’m suspicious about because it implicitly blames you for getting in your own way. Sometimes there are legitimate external obstacles that have nothing to do with your internal mixed messages.

And yet I’ve come back to that conversation from time to time. Maybe there really are scared little monsters inside our heads who puppeteer us out of fear, holding us back from exploring a better possibility.

The equal and opposite truths

I came up a grand little theory while making vision boards two Januarys ago, and it’s this: people get stuck when they face two equal and opposite truths about themselves and try to cancel out their contradiction instead of live with it.

An example: I devoted a lot of mental energy trying to figure out what I was supposed to feel when I met my partner. I was kind of obsessed with this, maybe as a way to protect myself from the vulnerability of putting myself out there.

I landed on a set of equal and opposite truths that helped reframe my thinking (though putting it into practice was entirely another matter). When it comes to dating, 1) you can know what you want, and 2) you can let life surprise you.

I’m still figuring out what my equal and opposite truths are at work, hence the rut. When I land on them, you’ll be the first to know.

All to say, the idea here is not to disprove one truth or the other. It’s actually quite impossible. The goal is to figure out how to make these truths live in harmony.

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If you find yourself stuck, hope these mini-meditations provide a nice reframe. Just remember— whatever you do, JUST START dammit. 🔥

🫶🏻

LG aka Lauren aka Lali Gonzali

You might be thinking: but LG, New Year’s Eve is overrated! New Year’s resolutions are overwhelming! And while I’ve had my fair share of NYE snooze-fests and discarded action plans, I’m a sucker for a holiday that celebrates possibility. Forget Valentine’s Day, New Year’s Day is for the real romantics.

If you’re belatedly looking for inspiration, here are twelve ways to kick off your year. Most are LG- tested™️. Some are approaches I’m experimenting with in real-time.

1. Start with a word

   I recently wrote about my tradition of picking a word to center my year. I’ll keep it short and just share my pick for 2026— savor. 🤌🤌🤌

2. Start with a question

   I got this idea from a podcast episode: instead of starting off January with a (re)solution, identify an unanswered question in your life— and linger on it for a while. When we rush towards an answer, we often settle on suboptimal fixes, or worse, turn time into the enemy. There’s beauty in living out the questions, too.

   Recommended listening: Krista Tippett on TED Radio Hour

3. Start a chain…and don’t break it!

   I once read about a self-improvement hack attributed to Jerry Seinfeld (which he’s since denied as his idea). The secret to building long-lasting habits all boils down to three easy steps. First, buy a calendar. Next, mark an x on the first day you accomplish your goal. And finally, don’t break the chain. Wish me luck… ⤵️

   

4. Start with the fun stuff

   I too build my life around the wisdom of Instagram gurus. This content creator offers a few frameworks for goals-setting, but she shared one idea that often gets overlooked in January: resolving to have more fun. Plan six mini-adventures across a year so there’s always some treat coming down the pike.

5. Start with twelve goals

   You may remember I gave myself one goal per month last year. I’m proud to report I accomplished—drum-roll please— 7 out of 12 goals. I dove into a pool! I finished The Sopranos! I produced an event! I was pretty hard on myself for not meeting every goal, but I wouldn’t have been as ambitious if I hadn’t listed all of them out…or publicly shared them. Put your money where your newsletter’s at.

6. Start with your misogi

   This Japanese concept hyped on social media is simple: focus your year on one life- defining goal. A marathon. A monthlong-sabbatical. A million dollars. It’s a Marie-Kondo strategy to pare down your resolutions and keep your eye on the prize.

   My misogi: growing my newsletter! If you like what you’re reading, help me grow this thang. 🫶🏻

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7. Start with some whimsy

   Take your sister to Dr. Honeybrew’s Turkish coffee-room and get your coffee grounds read. Grab your gals and get your aura photographed at Magic Jewelry. Go to (Dance) Church. These are all NYC-centric recs, but I’m sure you can find a local whimsy provider near you.

8. Start again

   Seven years ago, I signed up for an amateur hip hop performance at Alvin Ailey. The operative word here is amateur. I’d hung up my slippers many years before, mainly due to my pre-teen insecurity and my perpetual fear of failure. I left that stage in 2019 with zero video-evidence, a motley crew of friends and a new outlook on dancing. May this be the year you pick back up where you left off.

9. Start in the spring

   Two years ago, I read Katherine May’s essays on wintertime. Turns out the season of hibernation isn’t all that optimal for putting big plans into action. If you’re seeking a cozier January, I give you permission to revisit this list in the spring.

   Recommended reading: Wintering by Katherine May

10. Start with a Gantt

    Last year, my dear friend shared her Gantt chart that helps her map out her entire year. It was an absolute game-changer. It helped Tim and me split our year across two cities and helped us keep track of all other travel. If you’re a visual person with a busy schedule, try this on for size.

11. Start with a gathering

    This year, I hosted a brunch on New Year’s Day that wrapped around 7pm. My studio was way too toasty and I made way too many roasted potatoes. It was perfect. Let 2026 be the year we stop canceling plans at the last minute, and start inviting people over for no reason in particular.

    Recommended listening: Priya Parker on Life Kit

12. Start where you are

    I once kicked off my year with a morning mindfulness challenge, which inevitably turned into an extra ten minutes of sleep. One year, I trekked out to the Rockaways for a daylong silent meditation retreat. For those looking for simpler ways to find zen, Pema Chodron’s books are a great place to start.

    Recommended reading: Start Where You Are by Pema Chodron

If you decide to roll up your sleeves and try one of these on for size, write to me about it some time.

🫶🏻

LG aka Lauren aka Lali Gonzali

Last Saturday, I took my love of annual reflection and intention-setting to the next level. I hosted a whimsical, little pop-up event: The Museum of 2025.

Around forty people— mostly friends, but some strangers who bought tickets on Eventbrite (!!) — passed by a little studio in Park Slope to make art that represented their year of 2025. We had canvases, supplies and crafting stations. We wrapped the event by displaying all the pieces on the wall of mirrors.

For many of our artists, 2025 was the year of…moving to New York! Adopting a pet! Navigating uncertainty! Going backwards, forward or in circle! But most people seemed to arrive where they’re supposed to be.

I’m sharing some of the pieces that stuck out to me. Thank you so much to friends (old and new) who rolled up their sleeves and used a hot glue gun on a cold Saturday morning. It was really special.

🫶🏻

LG aka Lauren aka Lali Gonzali

It’s easy to be thankful for the obvious blessings — the ones we’ve grown accustomed to having in our lives, the ones that leave a mark on your year. Family, friends, love. Wedding, new job, baby. Good things like that.

It’s harder to count your blessings in disguise. The ordinary moments that leave no trace behind. The minor inconveniences to major shake-ups that don’t immediately appear to be a good thing.

But maybe we should all treat gratitude as a practice rather than a symptom of happiness. Practicing gratitude seems to have an alchemizing effect on your life, especially on the ordinary or difficult bits of it.

And of course, there might be a terrible thing that happened this year that feels devoid of any blessing whatsoever. But maybe you’re better able to make peace with it by starting with the little things you can reframe, and working your way up.

I was thinking about the moments I’ve glossed over or the things I fretted about this year. I wonder how different life would have felt if I had received them as blessings. So here’s a Thanksgiving re-frame, and a list of things I’m grateful for:

• I’m grateful that an off-handed conversation led to a monthlong prank-fest.

• I’m grateful for the streak of gray in my hair that’s making itself more prominent this year: it reminds me of the age in my bones and the wisdom that comes with it.

• I’m grateful for the 30 flights (and counting!) I’ve taken this year—and for the chance to pack so much life into so many corners of this country.

• I’m grateful for sticking with our lease in Lincoln Park even after a few house troubles, and seeing how time and (mostly Tim’s) effort turned a fixer-upper into a home.

• I’m grateful for every pilot I made at work that didn’t find its way to a green-light. It gave me a chance to flex my creative muscles and come up with another good idea.

• I’m grateful for the life I’ve made in Chicago, and for the way it’s renewed my energy in New York whenever I come back.

Happy Thanksgiving, my friends! 🫶🏻 I’m grateful for you. too.

LG aka Lauren aka Lali Gonzali

PS: If you’re in New York next Saturday, come say hi.

My mother, a good Catholic who was nonetheless gunning for grandkids, told a white lie to protect her interests. She casually mentioned that nuns couldn’t dance on stage, and could I imagine giving that up for good? A budding ballerina girl with BIG ambitions, I dropped my vocational pursuits right then and there.

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My faith practice has ebbed and flowed over time, and the reasons are unremarkable: existential doubts, political and cultural misalignments, new habits and rituals that have kept me spiritually sated.

Even still, I can’t resist sneaking into an empty Church for some quiet contemplation. I go there to pray alone, hoping to unload my mortal burdens and rest in the care of a greater, unknowable force. It will always be a holy space for me.

I’ve been at peace with my patchwork spirituality until now, mainly because I’m thinking more about kids. I’d planned on passing along my faith even if I had evolved my own thinking on it, but I’m wondering more and more how I do that honestly.

My boyfriend did not grow up with any religion, which also complicates the question of spiritual inheritance. Is there a way to offer kids a cohesive blueprint if both parents come at it in different ways? Is there a way to complicate the narrative alongside a Catholic education or CCD classes?

I called up a friend, someone who has outwardly grappled with faith more than anyone I know. He’s also a relatively new parent. And while he may not have it all figured out when it comes to his kid, he’s working through his own questions, which is a good place to start.

He mentioned that learning about Buddhism helped him see his spiritual upbringing in a new light. If he could come to appreciate the Buddhist teachings without the weight of an institution, could he do the same with Jesus?

I like the idea of distilling a religious tradition down to its most essential parts, the bits and pieces that ring truest to you. I just wonder how you translate that to a child who doesn’t deal in nuance and will have to decipher mixed messages coming from all sorts of directions.

My friend shared another piece of wisdom— no kid gets the same spiritual upbringing even if they’re part of the same religious community. He learned his mother’s Mormonism, which was different from the Mormonism his friends learned.

You can’t control what your kids pick up or what they will end up believing. All you get to choose is their starting point. So you should probably start with where you are and what you believe.

And whatever you believe is (probably?) fine, so long as you take an active approach. You can outsource your kids’ religious questions to a priest (or rabbi or imam) or offer vague platitudes you don’t even believe, but then you’ll forgo the task of nourishing the spiritual needs of your children. And that feels like a missed opportunity.

I’m generally glad I don’t have to answer these questions right away, but it’s been interesting to take something that’s been on the back-burner of my life and explore it with more intention. I’m thinking more about the beliefs and values I’d like to pass along, and whether there’s a community that can help us practice those ideals.

Regardless of where I am in my faith journey, I’ve always credited my sense of wonder and awe to my religious upbringing. And that’s a gift I’d like to pay forward somehow.

Okay, stepping off my virtual pulpit to share podcasts on modern spirituality that are worth your time:

🌊 What does it feel like to believe in God? | Search Engine

Zvika Krieger is the platonic ideal of millennial spirituality— he’s an ecstatic-dancing, Silicon Valley-fied rabbi who interprets the Torah in accordance with his modern-day values. Krieger defines religion as the practice of meaning-making. His spirituality helps him connect to the heartbeat of the earth, a feeling he also gets when surfing. I hope we all can tap into a resonance with the world that feels just as nourishing.

🏞️ The inner landscape of beauty | On Being

I come back to this podcast from time to time, and this conversation with John O’Donohue is one of the best. A former priest, he remained a spiritual thinker until his death. O’Donohue found that the question of God had been “framed in such repetitive, dead language” that it “ceased to be an exciting question.” He believed spirituality is about coming home to oneself, a journey we should all want to traverse.

🍃 The ecstatic faith of Rumi | On Being

I used to have a poem of Rumi hanging in my bedroom, and this episode (another from On Being) reminded me of how much I appreciate his writings. The Sufi mystic always conveyed an ease in (and even delight with) a God that is ambiguous and unreachable. As the scholar in this episode shares, he valued perplexity: “the fact that not knowing is a source of learning, and something that propels us forward.”

🍞 Sabbath and the art of rest | The Ezra Klein Show

I love a traditional ritual that gets a 21st Century upgrade. In this conversation, culture critic Judith Shulevitz explores how a secular observation of the Sabbath can serve us all. I’ve been dreaming of a time when I can host regular community gatherings at my place, where family and friends can put away their phones, break bread and reflect on the week ahead.

🌈 Born again | Code Switch

I had the pleasure of working on this episode with Jess Alvarenga, who was on similar sort of quest. After leaving the Pentecostal Church, Jess was seeking to recover what she lost outside of her faith. Where else could she find a sense of fellowship, transcendence and surrender? Turns out, a lot of unexpected places.

🙏 Mysticism for everyone | The Spiritual Life Podcast

A New Age hippie and a priest walk into a bar…and realize they have more in common than they think. I discovered Father Jim on Wild Card, and enjoyed this conversation with Mirabai Starr. She’s a spiritual omnivore who preaches the gospel of ordinary mysticism, which she defines as a “momentary experience of rising above the illusion of our separation with God.” Sounds like she could hang ten with Zvika.

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I hope you find a moment of ordinary mysticism this weekend.

🫶🏻

LG aka Lauren aka Lali Gonzali

I found myself in Chicago this summer with a looot of time on my hands. It’s where my boyfriend lives, and this summer marked my first long stretch in The Second City.

When I told people where I’d be this summer, the usual response was that Chicago is “wonderful in the summer”. They’re not wrong, but a city is only so wonderful as the community you’ve built there. And I didn’t really have anyone besides my boyfriend.

Building community makes you feel like the new kid at school, which is the last thing you want as a middling millennial. My cousin recently left New York City for the suburbs and has described making friends as an adult as— her words—“torture”.

I’m one of the few freaks who enjoys meeting new people, so I don’t exactly agree with her on this. But I haven’t had to make friends out of necessity in a while, which raises the stakes. The stakes being, my personal pride and fear of rejection, of course.

Making friends can cost you time and effort. And it does feel extra effortful these days. We decide not to invest in new friends because we doubt it’ll pay off. But is that true?

I decided to offer up my social-butterfly skills to science and run a little experiment. How many friends could I make in a month, and what’s the best way to go about it?

The results are in: I have friends in Chicago now! And each technique I tried was worth the effort. It just required me to be a little more curious, and a tad bit bolder.

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I tried the cold- call method

Sliding into people’s DMs is risky business, and not an obvious strategy for friendship. But it works quite nicely if you have an authentic motivation to connect.

I wasn’t just looking for friends this summer; I needed help brainstorming a few creative projects. I combined these two pursuits by skimming through the local chapter of Creative Mornings to try to find the right collaborator.

I messaged a former speaker at Creative Mornings and we hung out IRL! I didn’t necessarily leave with any creative plans, but I did leave with a new friend.

Friends made: 1

Try this method…if you have a genuine reason to reach out to a stranger. But odds are, you already do. Are you a new mom? Starting a business? Changing your diet? There are plenty of people who’d be flattered to meet over coffee and share advice.

I asked my friends to set me up

In the weeks leading up to the summer, I asked my friends for help with hook-ups— the friendly kind, of course. Almost everyone had a connection in Chicago and fired off an intro text within the week.

Chicago is a big city so the odds were in my favor. But I really do believe that if you ask enough of your people, you’ll end up with new leads. Plus, they’re co-signed connections, which’ll help mitigate the awkwardness that comes with a blind date.

I went out for coffee chats and lake hangs, and even went to the theatre with a new friend. We both agreed it was a terrible play. A match made in heaven.

Friends made: 4

Try this method…even if you just moved to a tiny town. It costs you nothing, and you can be confident that your people will match you with someone cool. Unless you don’t like your current friends, in which case you have bigger fish to fry…

I went to free meet-ups

I found two free events on Pie, a new app that’s basically like if Partiful and Meet-up had a baby. I went to the Sunday Club and started off my morning with free yoga, salsa dancing and a rainbow parachute.

I have to say, even I was intimidated by the Sunday Club. So many people had seemed to have grouped off by the time I got there. I started feeling like a loner in lotus pose.

I did talk to Sam, founder of Let's Do Fun Things Chicago who helps organize meet-ups like these. He encouraged me to look at these “cliques” a little differently.

“People will automatically assume they’re all friends when there’s actually a 90% chance that none of them know each other,” he said. “You can walk into that circle and everyone’s going to greet you warmly.”

So even if you’re feeling like a wallflower at one of these things, trust Sam. Walk into that circle of strangers. Or run straight into that rainbow parachute.

Friends made: 2

Try this method…if you miss college, when your life was packed with quirky and youthful activities. But also, there are meet-ups for all ages. You have no excuse!

I went to Church!

I’ve always put off the idea of getting involved in the Church, despite my mom’s every wish for me to do so. My reason is, admittedly, shallow: the kids at youth groups weren’t exactly the coolest back in the day. Imagine running into them all grown up.

But I was on a mission for friends and knew I couldn’t be picky. Plus, the Church in Lincoln Park has a ~director of growth~ who is doing the Lord’s work of getting the gospel out there via social media. She’s hosting pizza parties with actual red wine, and not the kind you’ll find at Mass on Sunday. I decided to pass by after work one evening.

This was everything like the Columbus High School youth group I used to frequent as a teenager, back when I was using God to find a boyfriend (sorry Jesus!). But truly, it was a meat market. If you’re a lapsed Catholic in Chicago who’s sick of dating apps, you will find your man at St. Clement’s.

But whether or not you’re looking for love, you’ll definitely find someone who will chat you up. Chalk it up to Midwestern friendliness or the fact that everyone shares some common ground, but people seemed very interested in connecting with others.

After dinner, the priest sermonized about burnout, social media and finding your passion. Though he was trying a bit too hard to reach across the intergenerational aisle, I really enjoyed the event. It created a space for adults to regain a bit more meaning and ritual into their daily routine. That’s a hard thing to come by these days.

Friends made: 2

Try this method…if you grew up with religion and you miss the community that came with it. Or if you’re just curious. Not all faith communities are created equal, but there are some out there that are trying to keep up with the times.

I leaned on my hobbies

If you know me, you know that I am swimming in hobbies. Dance and writing classes are my go-to’s, but I’ve been known to dabble in anything from trapeze- flying to meditating with horses.

I’m a sucker for an extracurricular activity, but I’ve found that people can get so consumed with the hobby at hand that they forget to make time for friendship.

I’ve found more success making friends when I sign up for a series than when I sign up for a drop-in class. The trouble was I didn’t have that kind of time this summer.

But I’m delighted to report I bonded with a fellow dancer after taking one of the most bizarro classes of my life. The teacher choreographed a hip-hop routine to a song from…The Last Showman, a film he admitted to never seeing (!!) at the end of class.

Friends made: 1

Try this method…if you can commit to a series. And you should probably be at least slightly interested in the hobby, in case you run out of luck on the friendship front.

If you’re new to a city or just looking to branch out, I hope you try one of these things and write to me some time.

🫶🏻

LG aka Lauren aka Lali Gonzali

P.S. if you’re one of my new Chi-friends reading this, hi! :-) I hope this doesn’t make you feel like a lab rat, and I hope we can hang when I’m back in October!

I didn’t deliberately plan to stay stateside this year. It just kinda happened. Because I had some free time this summer, I decided to read a book about (or based on) a city I’d recently visited.

I combined my love of reading and with my passion for trip-planning to bring you a series of ~alternative travel guides~. I’m featuring five cities, sharing a book rec for each place— PLUS a 24-hr itinerary, curated by someone in my life who’s lived there.

And sure, summer’s basically over. Is now the time to dream of travel? All I can say is… I hope you kept an extra day of PTO in your back pocket. If you manage to sneak in a long weekend of stateside travel, send me your hand-picked itinerary some time.

Miami by Joan Didion

Miami, Florida

If you’re from here, you won’t like this book. Didion observes the Cuban community as they adjust to their unending exile. She picks up on cross-racial tensions, a patriotic ethos that leads to conspiracy thinking (and action) and a local underworld underpinning an inter-continental economy. It’s all true, but it also misses so much. When you tell the story of any city at a distance, you often miss the heart of it, too.

Handpicked recs from my cousin, Stephen:

☕ Start your morning at Tinta y Cafe for cafecito at la ventanita and some primo people- watching.

🌴Opt for Key Biscayne over touristy SoBe. Grab Sir Pizza to go and take it to the beach. Don’t forget to order a side of ranch.

🍹Gramps Getaway is a bar on the Key Biscayne marina that is perfect for anything from happy hour to last call. The food’s great there too.

🍴If you want the bougie restaurant experience, try: Sunny’s, Tam Tam or Osaka.

Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil by John Berendt

Savannah, Georgia

While Didion’s detachment borders on smugness, Berendt takes the opposite approach. The New York expat mingles with swindlers, rich racists and even murderers, yet he writes about Savannah with reverence. It’s an insular city, but one that allows for community (and its cast of eccentrics) to openly thrive. Berendt comes to find that there’s nothing wrong with a garden city blossoming at its own pace.

Handpicked recs from my friend (and brand director!!), Malu:

☕ Start your morning at Foxy Loxy. Enjoy their horchata latte and a kolache in the cute garden backyard!

🌳 Head up to Forsyth Park and check out their farmers’ market on Saturdays. Walk up Bull St and explore the city’s many squares. Grab a sandwich at Zunzi’s.

🚶Take a history tour of the town. Highly recommend our friend Chris from Live Oak Tours who is a Savannah native and has a natural knack for storytelling!

🍻 Take advantage of open container laws! Get a drink at Savoy (trendy), Pinkie Masters (divey), or Service (brewery). Grab one to- go, and stroll through River Street.

🍴Choose your own dining adventure. If you can drive, try The Wyld, where the fish tacos are delicious and the sunset is lovely. A closer option: Brochu’s, famous for its fried chicken.

🍸Still up? Grab a drink at Starland Yard for a family friendly outdoor hangout or neighboring Moodrights and Lone Wolf for a young, artsy scene.

Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser

Chicago, Illinois

Okay I’m going to be honest: I’m still working on this novel because it’s long. And a slog. The story of Sister Carrie is now all too familiar: a small-town girl arrives with big dreams and leaves with an even bigger wake-up call. That said, it’s nice to read about Chicago as it came into its own in the late 1800s. Though today’s Chicago is a perfect blend of suburb and city, Dreiser’s Chicago sounds a lot like New York— a city of grandeur that promises endless possibility.

Handpicked recs from my boyfriend, Tim:

🍳 Start the morning at Spinning J in East Humboldt Park with the Lax breakfast sandwich and a cinnamon roll. Great vibes for reading a book or a New Yorker.

🌸 Head to Garfield Park Conservatory—one of the best indoor gardens I've ever seen — which is completely free (though you do need to make a reservation now).

🍟 Stop for lunch at the Small Cheval in the West Loop for burgers. Not quite the same experience as Au Cheval but still very good and a Chicago staple.

🖼️ Go to the Art Institute in the Loop in the afternoon. Pretend you are Ferris Bueller.

📽️ Head to Hyde Park and catch a screening of a movie you've never heard of at Doc Films, U Chicago's film society (the oldest in the country!).

🍴Eat at Virtue, Erick Williams's Southern- focused restaurant in Hyde Park.

🍸 Still up? Grab a nightcap at the patio bar at Maria's in Bridgeport, owned by the Korean-Polish family that also owns Chicago's Marz brewery.

Bless Me, Ultima by Rudolfo Anaya

Albuquerque, New Mexico

This enchanting novel centers around a curandera named Ultima. In a town of restless vaqueros, steadfast Catholics and wanton witches, Ultima tunes into a different frequency, tapping into the noble yet mysterious forces of the natural world. This book is a love letter to the New Mexican way of life, one that honors mysticism and the wide- open plain.

Handpicked recs from my bff, Kiran:

🚲 Bike along the Bosque Trail, beginning at the Rio Grande Nature Center. Loop onto Rio Grande Road.

🍳 Brunch at Los Poblanos, a beautiful lavender farm. Stroll through local shops like Bookworks and Sarabande Home.

⛪ Explore Old Town and visit the San Felipe de Neri Church. Wander through local shops and art galleries—our favorites include Above Snakes, Luna & Luz, and the Lapis Room.

☕️ Recharge at Slow Burn and grab a latte and pastry. If you’re feeling ambitious, swing by the Albuquerque Art Museum.

🚠 Take the Sandia Peak Tramway up to the crest of the Sandia Mountains. Catch the sunset at Kiwanis Cabin and ride the tram back down while taking in the city lights.

🍸 End your night at Nob Hill with dinner at Mesa Provisions or M’Tucci’s, followed by a cocktail at one of the neighborhood’s hidden speakeasies—Fat Frank’s or Teddy Roe’s.

🌶️ Still up? Grab late-night New Mexican food smothered in chile at the Frontier Diner.

St. Mark’s Is Dead by Ada Calhoun

New York, NY

I read this book five years ago when I was still living on St. Mark’s Place, a street dotted by rowdy NYU students, normie young professionals and wannabe punks who sulk outside Search & Destroy. Reading this book teaches you that New York’s constant regeneration is what makes the city feel so alive. You might lose your version of New York, but you’ll hold onto the feeling that those who follow you will never know just how good it was.

Handpicked recs from my sister, Al:

⏰ Wake up, bitch! We’ve got a lot of ground to cover and not a lot of time!

🥯 Start your day at Bagel Pub in Park Slope. (My favorite is actually Tompkins Sq Bagel in the East Village, but for the sake of this itinerary we’re staying in BK).

🌷Stroll through the Brooklyn Botanic Garden to marvel at a different flower, depending on the season (May for bluebells, June for roses). Take the subway to Battery Park.

👠 Bike the West Side Highway up to the West Village. Lean into your basic bitch energy and wander around the West Village to Carrie Bradshaw’s apartment on Perry Street – but DO NOT stand on the steps of that iconic brownstone!

🛝 Park your booty at Central Park’s Sheep Meadow for some tanning and top- tier people watching. Catch a half dozen drum circles or a free concert near Bethesda Fountain.

🍴 Head to the East Village, and eat at Cafe Mogador, known for French Moroccan cuisine.

🍸 Thirsty? There's no shortage of downtown bars: BUA for people- watching, Lovers of Today for chill vibes, Miss Lilly’s for hip hop, Ding-a-Ling for Top 40’s hits and hot dogs.

💃 Still up? Dance at Wiggle Room or Home Sweet Home in the Lower East Side. Steering clear of early 20-somethings in finance? Head to Friends & Lovers in Crown Heights! Keeping it chill? Catch a comedy show at Union Hall or enjoy jazz at Barbes.

Honorable Reco-Mentions

• I recommend you skip the National Mall in favor of Mitchell Park if you find yourself in Washington, DC. (Okay, don’t skip. Just make time for quieter parks).

• I watched The Departed after visiting Boston this summer, mainly because I’m making my way through The New York Times’ 100 Best Films of the 21th Century.

• I ate at Diane’s Place in Minneapolis last weekend, which recently received a glowing review from NYT.

• I have DTMF on repeat to prep for Sunday’s concert in San Juan to see BAD BUNNY IN THE FLESH!!!

P.S. You caught me. I only read five books when I could have read nine. More on what kept me booked and busy next time.

🫶🏻

LG aka Lauren aka Lali Gonzali