Travel Recommendations for Novelty-Seekers Like Me [Live Post]

   recs

I thought it would be cool to share some of the cool spots/hidden gems from all the countries I’ve visited. I try to select spots that are really unique, especially in their vibe, experience, or culture ‒ the farther it is from anything I’ve experienced before, the higher it’ll be on this list. I’ll also try to list the “best” versions of things I’ve tried, like food types or libraries. I usually care much less about historical significance or aesthetics, and there are plenty of lists for that already. The best adventures will always be the unplanned spontaneous outings you risk yourself, so definitely don’t lean too much on this list :)

These are surprisingly hard to surface ‒ Atlas Obscura is alright but seems more geared to places than experiences, and TikTok #hiddengems and Reddit are just alright, and unfortunately often prioritize instagrammable places (I assign very low weight to instagrammability in contrast). Personal recommendations seem to be the only way that really works for me – apps like Fever purport to systematize this (I haven’t tried it), but I think my brand of novelty is more open and idiosyncratic than most people’s tastes. For instance, I love bizarre rituals where you can participate, technical displays I have no idea how they pulled off, and counterculture that doesn’t exist anywhere else. There’s a useful repository of community living and transformational experiences at NuMundo that I reference before booking accommodation.

This alive document will be updated every time I travel.

Table of Contents

USA
—Seattle, WA
—Cambridge, MA
—New York City, NY
—California
- San Francisco Area
- Los Angeles Area
—Other USA

Asia
—Maldives
—Singapore
—Seoul, South Korea
—Thailand
—Japan
—Egypt

Europe
—London
—Berlin

Other International
Anywhere
No Longer Exist

  • USA

    • Seattle, WA

      • Food
        • U:Don: Chipotle for udon ‒ build your own udon bowl. Incredibly tasty, best low-price meal I had in Seattle. Possibly ties with Yume for best udon I’ve ever had.
      • To-do
        • Twice Sold Tales: This is a very tight space with cats, rare books, and a lot of really fun lore about all of the books and knicknacks.
        • The Gorge: Rave style experiences in a naturally-formed amphitheatre in the rock.
        • Impatient Optimist: Haven’t been yet. This Janet Echelman art piece is permanently on display in Microsoft’s campus, and I think her art is particularly interesting.

    • Cambridge, MA

      • Food
        • Yume Wo Katare: This isn’t just a ramen shop ‒ they brand themselves as a shop of dreams. You say a dream you have for yourself before your meal with everyone else, in the intimate 15 person setting. Very affordable (maybe $15/person), but make sure to get there just before they open to avoid waiting in a long line.
        • Yume Ga Agakura: Sister shop, the best udon in MA. They shout a rating for your meal at the end, based on the amount of the Udon you were able to finish. Also affordable ($15/per).
        • Gene’s Flatbread Cafe: Incredible hand-pulled noodles in Boston. These are long, chewy, flavorful noodles with meat and vegetables, and probably my favorite food in all of Chinatown. This place is a hole in the wall.
        • Life Alive: The best vegetarian food I’ve eaten ‒ I hate vegetarian food and still enjoy this chain. Less novel in general, but was novel to me.
      • Experiences
        • Next Haunt at MIT: An interactive, horror escape room with actors, built by students inside a dorm. If you have a friend going here able to get you a ticket, it’s definitely one of the most unique experiences I’ve had.
        • Level99: This is my favorite arcade-style place in the world; only about a 30 minute drive from Boston. There are 40ish puzzle rooms, each with one minigame in it (walk the plank, the floor is lava, pvp games, etc) that rank you on completin from 0-3 stars. Your wristband tracks your total stars, and the place is super high tech. Everyone I’ve told about it has loved it. If you prefer a lower-tech version of this, I also love Boda Borg.
        • Hacking at MIT: This is a secret, orally-passed down tradition where students take each other to hidden spots on campus, like a dusty vent with a videogame lounge in it. Ask any MIT student (or me) and we’ll be able to take you!
        • Glass Flowers: The Harvard Museum of Natural History has an exhibit from a team of Czech glass artists who made incredibly detailed flower replicas that are indistinguishable from real ones, made entirely out of glass. The family died decades ago, and to this day no one knows how they made them.
        • The Viz Lab at Harvard: I haven’t been, but apparently this lab has a set of goggles and projectors that let you see any image as a “hologram” in a room on a massive curved screen. I’m not sure how this is different than a 3d theatre, but I’d love to make a trip over and check it out.
        • Mass MoCA: This museum is about a 3 hour drive from Boston, but it is absolutely worth it (and I wasn’t even that big a fan of museums in general). The light and space artist James Turrell has a massive collection of perception-breaking and mindbending installations that alone make this trip worth it, and I became obsessed with art and his style after going here (everyone else who went with me is obsessed too).
        • Beginner DnD Night at Pandemonium: Was a wonderful, ultra-affordable introduction to the world of dungeons and dragons, plus you get to support an indie game store. The intro level dungeon master is very good and patient – definitely start with a beginner class to avoid annoying the experienced players (unless you are one yourself!).
        • Contact Improv at the Central Square Church: This dance form is meant for people together without music, and in spontaneous improv-like fashion, you learn to yes-and movement with another. Feel beautiful and vulnerable and thrilled, and pay-what-you-want at this spot in Central Square. I’m sure contact improv exists in many places as well in different formats, but this was the one I personally tried as a beginner and liked. Thanks to Max for the rec.
        • Alexander Technique with Tommy: Alexander Technique is predominantly learning to notice and release body tension you never knew you had, and embracing effortless non-doing to break out of bad habits. If this sounds like nonsense, here is a concrete data point: when I went, Tommy lightly tugged my feet and I felt an overwhelming sense of heaviness immediately in my neck – it felt almost magical. I felt completely different walking out, and it almost felt weird to crane my neck down and look at my phone. Tommy is one of the experts in AT, and he has been practicing here for decades. Thanks to Max for the rec.
        • Garment District: On Saturday mornings, they restock; buy used clothes then the pound.
        • Lilypad Inman: Haven’t been yet, but my friends have recommended their Wed night open mic.
        • lxm.house: Our house hosted friends and blog readers for free during 2022 and 2023! If you’ve gotten this far in this post, we’d probably get along – dm me to schedule.

    • New York City, NY

      • Food
        • Genki Omakase: It’s the most affordable omakase I’ve ever eaten at, for the same quality – $70-100/person. There’s a fun challenge where 5 social media likes gets you a free sushi too.
        • Action Burger: I haven’t been here, but it looks interesting ‒- it has a sci-fi theme and a bunch of videogames setup for patrons.
        • Ichiran Ramen: I haven’t been here, but it seems interesting – there’s only one dish available, and you eat in solo booths.
        • Cafe Flor: A cozy cafe in Chelsea with tons of plants around the space.
      • Experiences
        • Sleep No More: My favorite play of all time, and the last showing is in April 2024! It’s a play where you move around a space and see different actors and scenes of your choosing – the characters act in real time in different nooks and crannies of a mansion. NYT article here. Alone worth a flight to New York.
        • Museum of Intrigue: 9,000 sq. ft. museum-like space with interactive games in Syracuse, 3+ hour drive from Manhattan. Haven’t been yet.
        • Wonderville NYC: I don’t usually like bars or clubs too much, but this club had a fantastic live-coded algorave performance on the night I went. The dance floor is lined with locally-created bespoke arcade machines, and the bar had a hacking CTF going on at the same time – I couldn’t get enough.
        • Book of Mormon: I wasn’t excited by the title, but then I heard it was made by the South Park creators. A good friend said this was one of the funniest Broadway shows they had ever watched – I thought it was funny, even though I think the humor was a lot more basic than I was hoping for.
        • Union Square Cyphers: On Friday nights 8pm-midnight, a group assembles to do spontaneous rap battles on the Southeast corner. Really fun energy, and definitely a goal to one day be good enough to join in :)
        • Nitehawk Cinema: This was a small indie theatre, where the fun part was that they served dinner to your seat and showed really quirky films. All theatres should have seat service like this, it was a lot of fun.
        • Subway shows: On the longer segments (i.e. across the bridges), performers often do a little speech or rap or dance bit, and it’s usually strange enough to be entertaining. Hard to plan, but you’ll inevitably run into a few if you take the long subway segments often.
        • Immersive Gamebox: Haven’t been, but this place claims full immersive tech-enabled rooms.
        • Hyprov: Haven’t been yet, but hypnosis with improv sounds pretty interesting.
        • Grand Central Terminal Whispering Gallery: Haven’t been yet. An oval room on the lower floor where standing on the foci of the room 30 ft apart means you can hear each other whispering to each other, even with multiple loud people in between.
        • ARTECHOUSE, SuperReal, ZeroSpace: Haven’t been yet, but these are all large cutting edge art tech exhibits.
        • Spyscape Museum: Haven’t been yet, but you pretend to be a spy?
        • Index NYC: Happenings and creative workshops.
        • Dia Art Museums: The organization that funded Turrell has a lot of open, free museums of pretty interesting artists.
        • There is additionally an excellently curated set of comments that list very interesting places here.

    • San Francisco, California

      • Food
        • Ginto Express: $15 udon/curry bowls north of Mission, that taste just like they do in Japan.
        • Dandelion Chocolate: My roommate recommends this place’s hot/drinking chocolate, and I thought the interior was pretty cute too.
        • Campton Place Bar and Bistro: This place had super unique Indian-inspired food, and lunch was actually surprisingly affordable ($25ish?/person) and easy to reserve – cheapest two Michelin stars I’ve ever eaten.
        • Trestle: At $60 for 3 course meal and $75 total for 4 courses (I think it’s worth it for the 4th very tasty pasta), it’s probably one of the more affordable fine dining places I’ve been to in SF. We booked our table that morning and it was the only one available.
        • Japantown SF: This mall really does feel like a Japanese mall, complete with the udon and ramen, the snack shops with samples, and the fake plastic food in front.
        • Restaurants I want to try: Georgian Cheese Boat (Kachipuri is super tasty), Jack & Remi are Michelin starred pastry chefs running an ice cream shop, Che Fico has a famous sourdough pineapple pizza and tasty looking pasta, Noodle in a Haystack is ramen-inspired tasting menus, Dalida has a Turkish tasting menu with pomegranate in their Manti sauce, mattina has chocolate bruschetta and balsamic ravioli, and Kiln was made by the people who made Sons and Daughters.
      • Experiences
        • The Interval at Long Now: Haven’t been yet, but it’s a café, bar, museum, and the home of The Long Now Foundation, which fosters long-term thinking.
        • Immersive Gamebox SF: Games enabled via projections – lower physicality than Level99, but seems good for player vs player games.
        • Noisebridge: Haven’t been yet, an open hackerspace that seems interesting.
        • SF Commons: A very cozy third space in San Francisco with beautiful decor, free weekly public hours, and individual work-focus vibe during the day.
        • The Center: A tea house in SF, staffed by people from the group house above it! Meditative, focused vibes for coworking and fun events focused on meditation and communication. My roommate also recommends this place’s hot chocolate.
        • Studio 45: Free daily coworking in the Mission in SF, the upstairs coworking area is littered with architecture drawings and has a maker/creative vibe.
        • Topos House: Haven’t been yet. Intellectual, life-long learning style group house with interesting events like the Antidisciplinarathon.
        • Monument/Dory: Haven’t been yet. A creative, art-tech group house out of a SoMa warehouse.
        • City Lights Bookstore: Haven’t been yet. A friend recommended it to me.
        • Black Box VR Gym: Haven’t been yet. A gym where you exercise in VR.
        • James Turrell Skyspace Near Exploratorium: There’s a skyspace around here!

    • Los Angeles Area, California

      • Food
        • B Sweeet: Haven’t been yet. In LA, a bread pudding shop with 40 flavors.
      • Experiences
        • Perrotin MSCHF Gallery: A massive MSCHF gallery with tons of pranks in LA.
        • Mars College: Haven’t been yet. One of my close friends’ favorite alternative communes.
        • Dream Catcher: Haven’t been yet. This Janet Echelman art piece is permanently on display in West Hollywood, and I think her art is particularly interesting.
        • Secret Cinema: Haven’t tried yet. Immersive theatre where you become an actor as well!

    • Other USA

      • McKamey Manor in Summertown, Tennessee: I haven’t been, and wouldn’t recommend it. It’s a real-life torture haunted house, where you say a 40 page waiver document out loud and then the guy running it tortures you. It’s definitely toeing the line of sadistic and illegal (though reportedly there is a safe word that works most of the time), but it is novel nevertheless and thus makes the cut here.
      • Invisible City in Denver, CO: I haven’t tried it yet, but they seem to be a very interesting group that manages to pull off extremely creative events.
      • Akron Ohio Haunted Schoolhouse: I haven’t been, but this looks interesting ‒ much more benign than a real-life torture chamber, but the online reviews rave about the quality of scares and actors.
      • Meow Wolf: Large scale immersive art and lighting experiences in Denver, Santa Fe, and Las Vegas. The art itself is very psychadelic and physically impressive, although I did feel the space didn’t do as much as it could have with the space, the story, and the interactivity.
      • TimeMission: A smaller-scale version of Level99 near Providence, Rhode Island.
      • Activate: Less artistic, less mysterious, more formulaic version of mini challenge rooms spread throughout the USA and Canada.
      • BRKTHROUGH: Challenge rooms like Level99 in Kansas.
      • District 57: A lower-tech version of Level99 (more like BodaBorg) in Charlotte, NC – unfortunately, the appeal is more flashing lights and less compelling technology.
      • Sofar Sounds and Donttell Comedy: Singers and comedians respectively perform in people’s living rooms (you can volunteer your living room too!).

Asia

  • Maldives

    • Experiences
      • Bodu Beru dancing: This is a traditional dance where the drum beat puts dancers into a psychadelic state. The hotels tone it down a decent bit - I recommend putting in the extra effort to find a spontaneous one on the smaller islands, and jump in yourself! Mentioned in Impro.
      • Undersea restaurant: Food isn’t worth the price, but being in a giant tube underwater while eating was pretty sick.

  • Singapore

    • Food
      • Labyrinth: This chef takes you through a Michelin-starred whirlwind story of his childhood – including street food, candles made of lard that you eat with the meal, and a custom printed cereal box. Felt very personal in a way that no other meal ever has.

  • Seoul, South Korea

    • Food
      • Shin Migyeong Hongdae Dakgalbi: Dakgalbi is incredible, and ths was the place I happened to stumble upon: the best chicken I’ve ever eaten.
    • Experiences
      • Meerkat and Friends: Play with meerkats, racoons, wallabies, and foxes ‒ the only place I know where you can really get up close to them. Alternatively, Zoo in the City seems new and equally as good.
      • Teacup Animals Store: A shop that breeds very miniscule pets, and ships them across the world. Absolutely adorable tiny cats and dogs that fit in your hand.
      • Perrotin Art Gallery: Has MSCHF’s exhibition on display till March 2024, which has a ton of cool pranks on display, including games you can’t play anywhere else.

  • Thailand

    • Food
      • 100 Mahaseth: Really incredible Thai-inspired meats, sauces, and dishes. Recommended by a local, only like $15/person.

  • Japan

    • Food
      • Theres a number of extremely tasty Soba places, noodle spots, and curry restaurants that were tasty and cheap; most homemade noodles will probably be excellent, even if it’s a chain. My favorite chef/bartender from nokshita711 lists top tier bar, flea market, and set menu recs at en.nokishita.net/recommend.
      • nokishita711 Liquid Cuisine: This cocktail lab in Kyoto has only 4 seats, serves highly experimental food and cocktails in super quirky custom dishware and decor, and was my favorite meal so far in Japan.
      • Dipping Ramen: I find noodles in ordinary ramen a bit too thin, but dipping noodles are perfect. The noodles at Menya Ramen were thick and had body, and the black sauce was super tasty – this is pretty representative of most Tsukumen places.
      • Minatoya: This place in Ameyoko is known for its Takoyaki, but I actually preferred the $10 seafood bowls with small scallop, small shrimp, roe, echinoid (think lower quality Uni), and so on – it’s like $8 and very filling.
      • Akau: This udon place north of Ueno has the criss cross pillows to sit on, and the homemade noodles come with quail egg and ume. Order an extra large, the portions are small.
      • So Udon Shikokuya: Haven’t been yet. 85 year old grandma has a super tiny cluttered restaurant in Tokyo with tasty, homemade food.
      • RonRon/Dagashi Bar: All you can eat sweets + candy of all different varieties!
      • Capyba Cafe: Haven’t been yet. You eat food with capybaras.
      • Henry’s Burger Daikanyama: Friend says this is best burger he’s ever had. In Shibuya. Haven’t been yet.
      • Dolce Takubo: Has the best financier pastries apparently. Only sells 5 things. Haven’t been yet.
      • 2121designsight: Issey Miyake and Tadao Ando, the legendary Japanese fashion designer and architect respectively, made this very pretty mueseum in Tokyo. Haven’t been yet.
      • Pizza Marumo: Apparently the best pizza in the world, in Tokyo. Haven’t been yet.
    • Experiences
      • Echigo Tsumari seem to have a number of super solid recommendations for interesting houses and places as well.
      • Bar Nayuta: This bar in Osaka has a hidden entrance and no menu: you tell them what kinds of things you like and get a custom drink just for you. This is my favorite bar experience; the bartenders are really artists – even curveballs like ‘wasabi’, or ‘chocolate’, or ‘pad thai’ give incredible drinks.
      • Hollow Bar/Bar Call Me Tell Me: Similar bars to Bar Nayuta in Osaka, but with more modern vibes.
      • House of Light and Shadow: 3-5 hours from Tokyo is a James Turrell house with tons of built in skyspaces and insane lighting. It’s the only Turrell piece that offers public overnight stays reservation, with booking required 2-5 months in advance.
      • Ryokan/Akiya: Haven’t been yet, but staying in an Akiya is cheaper and more authentic. A friend runs akiya.world which offers creative residencies in Akiyas that seem fun.
      • Metal Gear Solid escape room: Haven’t been yet; there are physical guards you have to sneak around apparently, which sounds really cool.
      • Studio Ghibli Museum: Haven’t been yet. Is booked out a month in advance – make sure to book on the 9th of the month for seeing spots during the next month. Unfortunately, all 5 rooms of exhibits have no english captions, and you can’t just Google Lens everything because they discourage phones / pics.
      • Naoshima Art Island: An island filled with different kinds of art. Haven’t been yet.
      • Enoura Observatory: One artist/architect got all sorts of weird rocks and built a crazy concrete structure in the middle of nowhere with a very aesthetic overhang.
      • Kojima Studio tour: Haven’t been yet. The guy that made Death Stranding has a cool office.
      • Shimokitazawa: Haven’t been yet, reportedly good thrift shopping district in Tokyo.
      • Maid Cafe: Some of them (we went to maidreamin) have more gimmicks like dancing and singing too.
      • Womb Shibuya: Haven’t been yet. I’m not usually a club or party sort of guy, but a friend said that this spot has the most insane club lighting setup he’s ever seen.
      • Space Nekoana: This quirky izakaya is inside a chef’s messy home, and has mostly chatty regulars and two cats. Found via this video about Kyoto. I went once on a Saturday night, but the owner was too drunk to cook. There are no reservations but seems to be open most evenings. Even though the space is a bit dirty and I maybe wouldn’t recommend the hygiene, I think it’s still quite interesting to get a sense of the kind of person runs such a thing, and get to talk to Japanese folks who actually want to socialize.
      • TeamLabs: This immersive art display is incredibly pretty and bold – room-size mirrors, barefoot exhibits in water, and generally reactive and expansive art.
      • Replica Food Experience: I haven’t tried this yet, but I’m obsessed with how all the restaurants have realistic 3D plastic clones of their meals. Apparently you can make some of your own at places like this near Asakusa.
      • Nara Deer Park: Haven’t been yet, apparently you can hang out with hundreds of deer here that bow back to you. Thanks to this random video for the rec.
      • Zauo Fishing Restaurant: Haven’t been yet, apparently you fish your own fish and hand it to the server to cook.
      • Muraya: Haven’t been yet. A quirky Kyoto bar chaotically decorated with scraps, with lots of cool lighting all over. Found via this video. Seems to be permanently closed.
      • Ueno Cat Van: Haven’t been yet. Apparently in Tokyo at night, outside the Monument to Kushibuchi Nobumoto around 9-11pm, there is a van labeled “The Cat Van” (in Japanese) that parks there, and a ton of cats just wander around the temple grounds.
      • Henn Na Hotel: Haven’t been yet, apparently animatronic dinos and robots check you in. They have branches all over Japan and in NY too.
      • Sunshine City Mall: Mall with an amusement park, massive pokemon stores, and eel flavored ice cream.
      • Hiiragiya: This was Steve Jobs’ lodge of choice in Kyoto, hundreds of years old and steeped in traditional Japanese architecture and culture.
      • Moomin Cafe: Haven’t been yet; if there’s an empty seat at your cafe table, you fill it with a giant plushie. Honestly I don’t know why all cafes don’t do this.
      • Red Tokyo Tower: Haven’t been yet. A Level 99 reminiscent place with games where you have to use your whole body to play everything.
      • Yunessun Baths: Haven’t been yet. Red wine baths, sake baths, coffee baths, and dozens of others. Near Mt. Fuji.

  • Turkey

    • A local friend sent his recommendations blog post which looks really good.
    • Experiences
      • Curius to check out the street performers at Taksim Square/Galata Tower, the light show in the Cistern of Theodosius, or the roofs of the grand bazaar. There are small, hidden pockets of counterculture on the Asian side.

  • Egypt

    • Overall, my trip was pretty lacking: there wasn’t a ton of super fun or unique stuff beyond the Pyramids.
    • Food/Experiences
      • This Specific Luxor Airbnb: This Airbnb I stayed in had incredible homemade food, the best food I had in Egypt. The Airbnb was designed from sandstone by a French designer as well, and came with a cat! With plugin mosquito repellent, it was a great local stay.

  • Europe

    • London

      • Food
        • Formal Dinner at Trinity/Cambridge: If you’re lucky enough to have a friend at a university, chances are they have dress-up formals where they serve you an incredible 5 course meal for $13 in a Harry Potter-style dinner hall. An old man even rings a gong and mumbles 20 seconds of unintelligible Latin!
        • Camden Market: I love Smorgasburg markets like these – I ate here every day for like a week and never got sick of it.
      • Experiences
        • Crystal Maze Experience: The UK version of Level99, my favorite place in the USA – mini rooms where you collect crystals for challenges. Locations in London and Manchester.
        • Secret Cinema: Haven’t tried yet. Immersive theatre where you become an actor as well! They seem to do them only sporadically as announced to their mailing list.
        • Immersive Gatsby: I haven’t been, but it looks interesting. A real life great gatsby party, where you dress like it’s prohibition and actors act the play amongst you.
        • St. Pauls Whispering Gallery: Haven’t been yet. Paul’s cathedral is a dome where two people stand at the two foci of the oval room and can hear each other whisper.
        • Pagan Chaos Ceremony: Haven’t been yet. Every solstice (and on select holidays in between), a group of folks heads to an isolated park and participates in a structured yet spontaneous ritual. There is primal screaming, flower burning, and ritualistic drumming as a door opens and chaos breaks loose. Not sure if the invite should be public, so dm me or the organizer Gabriella for the invite!

    • Berlin

      • Trust/Moving Castles: Coordination-based gaming collective who ran the game that we ran a cult in. Has some of the coolest games of all time in my opinion, like half earth.
      • Moos: This collective near Treptower park has beautiful, cheap co-living for renegade anarchist types and artists – I stayed here for a month and loved it. There were always interesting things happening (climate cooperative negotiation board games, indie documentary screening about an alternative community, handpan soundbath sauna nights, etc).
      • Kitkatclub: Famous kink club – we went on a psytrace night so it was less kinky (I hear foreplay night is also focused on vibes over kink). The place itself is this insane labyrinth with tons of little hidden rooms, and it is definitely worth going to at least once.
      • Chaos Computer Club: Berlin’s anarchist computer meetup every Thursday night is open to the public, and c:base has frequent talks etc.
      • Sisyphus: Famous 6 story themed club. I thought this was curious to explore for an hour and then got boring.
      • Dark Matter: This a place with a number of light-tech installations. My favorite was this massive outdoors structure with hundreds of light bars just above you that lit up synced to music at night, just outside Sisyphus.
      • About:Blank: Haven’t been. Well reputed club.
      • Berghain: Most famous club, higher chance of getting in at odd midday times on non-Saturdays. Tried to dress all black to get past Sven and go at 4pm on a Sunday, but was immediately rejected.

  • Other International

    • Experiences
      • Mexico: Luis Barragan’s House: This architect known for colorblock houses and buildings has an insane house open to the public, and many super-unique buildings around Mexico.
      • Phillipines: International Pyromusical Competition: Every year, there’s a massive series of musically choreographed fireworks shows here, where all the big companies come and show off.
      • France: French Red Wine Slides: Somewhere in Paris they claim to have humans ride down these mid-party…
      • Portugal: Waking Life: Burning Man style music festival in Portugal. No cameras, psychadelic vibe, near a lake.
      • Portugal: The Garden: A billionaire’s pet project to create a vibey, coliving and coworking residency space with intentional artistic and multidisciplinary community.
      • India: Bunkd Hostel Anjuna: Hippie hostel recommended to me by a friend.
      • United Arab Emirates: Has a permanent installation of the rain room, in which water parts as you walk.
      • New Zealand: C1 Espresso: This cafe sends you food and drink through pneumatic tubes.
      • Australia: MONA: This comedian-turned-rich-gambler David Walsh opened an extremely troll sex and death museum with an app called the O where an art critic says a fancy thing about the piece, then he comes in and is like “oh I thought the hat looked funny” to explain why he bought the art. Apparently he takes an $8 million dollar loss per year on running the place, and it’ll be underwater in a few decades.

  • Anywhere

    • Experiences
      • Sensory Deprivation Tanks: Haven’t tried one yet, but looks fun as long as you have constant oversight/some type of safe word/short hair or very well tied long hair.
      • Scuba Diving Certification: Make sure to bring your own GoPro (I use this $70 budget one with this $8 chest strap, charged batteries, and a microSD). You can get a provisional 90 day, 12 meter deep license by finishing 2 dives and 3 modules of the Open Water e-course on PADI. If you do the introductory Discover Scuba course that everyone offers instead, make sure to still buy the open water course, so you can get credit for your first dive.
      • Homestay.com: Stay with a host family for a short time for a similar price to an Airbnb. Get a more authentic, hosted experience.
      • James Turrell’s Art: This light and space pioneer was the inspiration for the Hotline Bling video – his exhibitions at Mass MoCA had one of the most personally artistic and technically awe-inspiring impacts on me, and there is an incomplete map of his exhibitions here.
      • Janet Echelman’s Art: A past visiting artist at MIT, she has massive colored string installations in various cities including “Porto (Portugal), Gwanggyo (South Korea), Vancouver, San Francisco, West Hollywood, Phoenix, Eugene, Greensboro, Philadelphia, Seattle, and St. Petersburg (FL).”
      • Terpeca Escape Rooms: The top escape room project lists the top 50 in the world as evaluated by thousands of enthusiasts, and I check this list whenever I go anywhere.

  • No Longer Exist

    • A good reminder of why you should go to these places soon – nothing is promised forever.
    • Jules’ Jamaican Pop Up: This secret tent used to appear on weekend afternoons in Central, and served huge and tasty portions of jerk chicken. May move to a larger location soon?
    • Carpe Diem Finger Food: This fine dining-vibe place in Salzburg, serves each meal in a set of tiny cones. Was my trip highlight but is now closed.


Aayush Gupta :)