Go ahead and talk to that person who looks like they were built when the city was. 

Connect with the couple who comes into the bar and is greeted by name. 

Reach out to the guy or gal who’s sitting at the hole in the wall restaurant that you’ve walked past day after day. 

Sit next to the patron in the coffee shop or walk next to the person on the street who looks like they know something. I promise, nine times out of ten, they do. 

They know where the best places to eat, drink, swim and explore are. They know the bartender of a place who knows the owner of a place who knows the secret to another place. Most likely they’re the ones who know all the stories, the adventures and the sights that you can’t find on Google or Instagram. 

Go to all those places, but also go to the tourist spots. Don’t let the fact that everyone has done something or seen something stop you from seeing it too. Those places don’t become the wonders of the world for nothing. But don’t let seeing those stop you from seeing the small wonders too. Everything matters. 

I have driven cross-country several times now. In each state we’ve done something you’re supposed to do. We went to The Cadillac Ranch and The White Sand Dunes, but we also drove 12 hours from Arizona to Colorado just to camp on the side of a mountain and play in a river and never actually went to any national forest or monument. We drank coffee from a place that looked like it was someone's living room and we played glow in the dark bocce ball on that random side of a mountain. We ended up cleaning off in a river just to find out it had leeches in it. Some things are a risk worth taking I suppose. 

I spent a summer in Wisconsin split between a town so far north it’s basically Canada and one of the biggest tourist cities in the country. I kayaked one of the great lakes and saw the sea caves. I didn’t even know there could be a sea in Wisconsin. Turns out that Lake Superior is so big it has its own weather system and that technically makes it a sea. Lake Superior may be huge, but the town is so small they didn’t allow any chain stores within town limits. We had to drive out of town thirty minutes for a Walmart and the closest Dunkin was across state lines. Instead we drank coffee at the only coffee shop in town and we went to the dive bar that only served two beers, Spotted Cow and Spotted Cow on draft. If you’ve never heard of Spotted Cow that’s because you have never been to Wisconsin and it is only available in Wisconsin. I also lived in The Dells where we had summer passes for every water park you could think of. In case you didn’t know, The Dells is the waterpark capital of the world. But we also lived on a ranch and spent most of our nights at the bar the ranch owned, talking with all of the ranchers and cowboys about what they did all day and what they’ve seen come and go for the past 30 years. 

We have tried hot dogs in too many states to count. You can’t tell me a good chili dog isn’t the best judge of a town. We drove to West Virginia and found the local treasure that is a small store with hot dogs and milk shakes and donkeys out back. We’ve had gooch dogs at 3 a.m. in upstate New York and hot dogs on the side of the road in North Carolina. Along with the hot dog searching, we’ve found breweries off the beaten path and more coffee shops than you can count. Go by yourself or go with people who also love adventures like you do. It’s the little secrets that make the best memories. It’s also being able to share those little secrets when someone asks where they should go when they visit somewhere you’ve been. Getting to share those little secret places is one of the most fun things about adventuring. 

When you travel, don’t ever take for granted that you may be visiting but you’re visiting a place where some people have lived their entire lives. That means they hold all the secrets. Talk to the townies, make friends with the local bartenders and remember that you don’t know everything, so take time to learn from the locals and listen to their stories. You might find a perspective you didn’t have before. You might get the experience of a lifetime that you couldn't find online or in a guidebook and you might fall in love with a small town when you thought you were destined for the big city.