I've learned to dismiss these articles entirely. They're all about optimizing something that shouldn't be optimized and doesn't work for most people. It just serves to make people feel bad about packing an extra suitcase, just in case.

Just go on a trip, and do what you want to do. You don't need a philosophy behind every little detail - I find this takes away. People care more to brag about how they travelled with just 1 bag than tell you about the places they actually went...

I make a living telling people where I went.

This article is based on lots of request of those people asking me for an article like this.

how is that working out?

is your subscriberbase enough to cover your cost of living?

maybe this is stuff for another post :-)

Yeah. And. I liked Indianapolis. Great Mexican food. Nice Twin Peaks.

Dull people require interesting environments. Interesting people thrive in dull environments.

Gotta say I’ve met plenty of interesting people in NYC and plenty of dull people in Wilmington Delaware, so this doesn’t check out to me. Interesting people are interesting partially because they’re inspired

Interesting people tend to move to interesting environments because of the shortness of life

The author in fact did spend some time in Indianapolis[0]. I'm not really sure what your point is, besides that Indianapolis is a hinterland town with no public transit (the author was mainly on foot, anyway) and its height of cuisine being chain restaurants?

Have you been to Indianapolis?

[0]: https://walkingtheworld.substack.com/p/walking-america-part-...

Well, one of the points of that link seemed to be that there are nice little ethnic restaurants even in strip malls in Indianapolis. I know that many smaller cities are perfectly nice places to live in--especially for those who don't want either a bustling metropolis or a rural location. But it doesn't mean I'll visit there for no particular reason especially without a car to get around easily.

You might find yourself surprised at how many of these smaller cities are good to visit for no particular reason! Indianapolis does have more than just little ethnic restaurants in strip malls. Of course, you may run out of things to see and do there sooner than you would in NYC, but who really has time to travel that much, anyway? ;-)

You have a point about needing a car in any number of such smaller cities in America, but even in those places there is a central core that remains relatively walkable.

>You have a point about needing a car in any number of such smaller cities in America, but even in those places there is a central core that remains relatively walkable.

They're often pretty small though. There's one smaller city I visit semi-regularly for work. It has a nice (relatively gentrified) downtown but it's, to be generous, maybe 15 x 10 blocks. And beyond that you mostly need a car. I'll have a day to kill there in a month or so and I'll probably end up renting a car for the day.

I also worked downtown of a similar city about a decade ago. Same thing. (And both old mill towns.)

So a town with a population of 800k is considered small to you? Yikes don't come to Iowa then...

I honestly didn't realize it has that large a population. Although the city I was referring to in another comment with a small downtown core has half that metro population, so not a lot smaller. Cities can have large metro populations and still have a fairly small area that's what people consider a walkable downtown.

I guess your tastes are superior to Mr. Arnade’s, soared.