In the middle of a brilliant keynote speech, a journalist once remarked, “I’ve never known the place I live the way I knew it when I worked for a city magazine.” It’s true: You’re soaking, daily, in superlatives—the coolest, the best, the best-hidden, the unmissable—and you’ve gathered all sorts of stray bits of information and opinion and researched them, compared and tested each experience. With summer travel in mind, we polled our colleagues and asked them to give us just a day’s worth of everything they know about their cities.
Below is an online supplement to SLM’s July travel feature, with tips on when to visit, what to download, where to stay, and more. For the full feature, click HERE.
PORTLAND
A cheat sheet from Karen Brooks, dining editor of Portland Monthly, with insights from the rest of the staff:
What to Download
The Portland Monthly Best Restaurants app. And before you come, check the blogs and guides at the magazine’s website (portlandmonthlymag.com) or sign up for the free newsletter.
When to Visit
The best time to visit Portland is between July and October, when drier, sunnier weather encourages exploring the city’s greatest asset: the outdoor life, found in sprawling urban parks, nature hikes, biking trails, and eye-popping gardens.
DENVER
Tips from 5280 magazine’s assistant editors Chris Outcalt and Daliah Singer and editorial assistant Lindsey R. McKissick:
Where to Sleep
Hotel Monaco (monaco-denver.com) is a boutique hotel downtown that offers a fresher and hipper vibe than The Brown Palace; 5280 especially likes the hosted evening wine hour: From 5 to 6 p.m. every day, guests can sample wines by the glass at no charge.
What to Download
Peaks (from Augmented Outdoors) identifies whatever mountain you point your phone at. It’s perfect for hikes and for driving around the Front Range. Plus, it works offline, so you don’t need to worry about cell service. MeNetwork (a Boulder, Colorado–based marketing startup) is a free app with simple, searchable databases of dining, shopping, lodging, and entertainment deals. For last-minute planning information, the 5280 website is 5280.com.
When to Visit
September. The weather is mild—warm days, cool nights—and the leaves are changing color. Plus, Denver Beer Week is in full swing (get tickets to the biggest beer festival around, the Great American Beer Festival), and, fingers crossed, the Colorado Rockies could be making a move toward the playoffs.
NEW ORLEANS
Advice from Errol Laborde, editor-in-chief of New Orleans Magazine:
Where to Sleep
In the French Quarter. And you don’t have to sleep. Laborde likes The Royal Senesta (sonesta.com/royalneworleans/), on Bourbon Street, and The Omni Royal Orleans (omnihotels.com/findahotel/neworleansroyalorleans.aspx), on St. Louis at Royal. Both have the kind of luxury that enfolds you, so you can close your eyes and imagine life’s easy—yet they’re in the heart of the Quarter, so there’s activity pulsing all around you.
For venerable tradition and famous ghosts, try the Hotel Monteleone (hotelmonteleone.com), established in 1886 at the foot of Royal Street. St. Louis’s Tennessee Williams stayed there, insisted on it; so did William Faulkner and Ernest Hemingway, and when Truman Capote outdid himself in the bar, he started bragging that he was born there.
What to Download
New Orleans’ official visitor’s guide exists as an iPhone/iPad app, as does Off Beat for music, and the Historic New Orleans app is stocked with old photographs so you can stand at a particular spot and see what it looked like in the 1920s, 1930s, 1940s. The New Orleans Magazine website is myneworleans.com.
When to Visit
“People hedge their bets a bit more in the summer, because it’s hurricane season, so coming in August is actually good, because it’s going to be less crowded,” Laborde says. “There’s not always a hurricane! And Labor Day Weekend there’s a big gay celebration, Southern Decadence. You will see things you won’t even see at Mardi Gras.”
INDIANAPOLIS
Recommendations from Megan Fernandez, executive editor of Indianapolis Monthly:
Where to Sleep
The city’s newest hotel, the JW Marriott (jwindy.com) is also the largest JW in the world. The design, 34 stories of shimmering blue glass, gives each room floor-to-ceiling windows. “Even the second-floor fitness room is wrapped in glass,” Fernandez says, “creating a sundrenched space with none of the afterthought feeling common to hotel gyms. The posh indoor pool and hot tub are the best in the city.”
Locals know The Columbia Club (columbia-club.org) as a distinguished private club started by supporters of President Benjamin Harrison in 1889—and it’s a best-kept secret that anyone can reserve a hotel room there. Located right on Monument Circle, the historic quarters accommodate visitors in elegant rooms with sunny yellow walls. Indy history fills the mahogany lobby, and the cabaret club attracts top local and regional crooners.
Nestled in the historic Old Northside, a healthy stroll from Monument Circle, The Villa Inn (thevillainn.com) occupies a turn-of-the-century mansion designed like a Florentine villa. One of Indy’s better spas is on-site, and the ambience is a little nicer than The Columbia Club, but you can’t beat the Columbia’s location.
What to Download
“The official app, Visit Indy, is pretty good, and you can get the Walk Indianapolis audio tour through it,” Fernandez says. “Parkmobile lets you feed our new and confusing and hardly-ever-free downtown parking-meter kiosks from your phone.” The magazine’s website: indianapolismonthly.com.
When to Visit
Race weekends at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway (late July for Nascar’s Brickyard 400, and late August for the Red Bull Moto GP) may raise hotel rates, but there’s extra excitement in the air. The Red Bull Moto GP includes ancillary events downtown, like Motorcycles on Meridian, when the street is closed off and lined with flashy bikes at night. If you don’t like crowds, avoid race weekends.
The Dig-IN food festival, August 26, is amazing. Premier chefs team up with an Indiana farm to create a dish, and the set-up, outdoors in White River State Park downtown, is like a Top Chef episode where you visit each station. More than enough food, great wine and beer, terrific setting. Tickets are $20 in advance, $30 at the entrance.
VANCOUVER
Vancouver Magazine’s senior editor, Rebecca Philps, sent her picks:
Where to Sleep
“The Shangri-La has the best service I’ve ever experienced,” Philps says (Shangri-la.com/Vancouver/shangrila). Its staff are famous for accommodating any request. And outside the glass doors, on Alberni Street, are Gucci, Louis Vuitton, Burberry, Tiffany, Hermès. After you shop, drop into a chair at Shangri-La’s Market by Jean-Georges restaurant, then melt in the city's most luxurious spa, Chi. “Dreamy floral scent wafts through the lobby,” Philps adds. “I bought their signature candles to try and replicate at home! A true escape.”
Downtown, in the Coal Harbour neighborhood, most rooms at the Fairmont Pacific Rim (Fairmont.com/pacificrim) have a beautiful view of the waterfront and the North Shore mountains. There’s a piano bar in the grand lobby live music—and sometimes impromptu concerts—at night, and the Fairmont has the best hotel pool in the city. Not to mention a Bella Gelateria in the lobby.
If your budget’s tight, Philps suggests The St. Regis Hotel (stregishotel.com). It’s a historic (but downmarket) hotel in the heart of downtown. “It underwent serious reno in last couple of years,” she says, “and the rooms are fairly small but have nice period details.”
What to Download
The Eat St. app pinpoints the exact location, at any point in time, of Vancouver’s roaming food carts.
When to Visit
Vancouver’s big summer festivals are Jazz Fest, June 22–July 1 (coastaljazz.ca); Celebration of Light, July 28–August 4 (vancouverfireworks.ca); and Pride Week, which has become a city-wide party, August 5 (vancouverpride.ca). Take your pick, or if you’re feeling quiet, plan around them.
THE OTHER PORTLAND
Down East Magazine’s assistant editor, Will Bleakley, fell in love with Portland, Maine, after college and lived there until recently; he and senior writer Ginny Wright compared notes.
Where to Sleep
The Portland Regency Hotel & Spa (theregency.com) is a boutique hotel in Old Port. Its neoclassical building was constructed in 1895, on the waterfront, as a home for Maine’s National Guard. Today’s guests enjoy a softer stay.
Also on the historic waterfront, The Danforth (danforthmaine.com) is a luxury inn as intimate, charming, and unpredictable as a European mistress.
Eastland Park Hotel (eastlandparkhotel.com): “It’s not the fanciest hotel,” Wright says, “and it’s a little dated, but for those on a budget who want to be in town, it’s great. You can park your car and forget about it and walk everywhere. Also, the view from the Top of the East is hard to beat.”
Pomegranate Inn (pomegranateinn.com) is lovely, if you want to go the B&B route. The innkeeper, Dana Moos, wrote The Art of Breakfast, a cookbook so gorgeous, Down East published it.
What to Download
Chimani has a very good app for Acadia National Park.
When to Visit
Portland’s at its best in September, when the summer crowds have died down. But whenever you come, try to overlap with the first Friday of the month. All the galleries stay open for the Art Walk, there’s free admission to the Portland Museum of Art, bands perform outside, and galleries along Congress Street offer food and drink.
Edited by Jeannette Cooperman
