I want to visit the Cleveland of Every Country

3 min 6 sec read

I was walking through Bern, Switzerland on a Sunday morning. No itinerary. No reservations. Just wandering.

I turned a corner and stumbled onto a pickup soccer game in a park. Dads in mismatched jerseys. Kids chasing a ball that kept rolling into the bushes. An older guy on the sideline drinking coffee from a thermos, yelling instructions nobody was following.

Nobody looked at me. Nobody cared that I was there. I just stood and watched for twenty minutes.

It was the best moment of that entire trip.

Here's what I've figured out about travel: the best parts are almost never the things you planned.

They're the farmers market in a town you can't pronounce. The coffee shop where you're the only person not speaking the local language. The grocery store where you realize they sell eight kinds of yogurt you've never seen before and the checkout lady is somehow both annoyed and charmed that you can't figure out the self-checkout.

That stuff is the whole point.

But most people don't travel this way. They fly to Paris, wait in line at the Eiffel Tower, take a photo, and go home. They visit Hollywood, realize the Walk of Fame is sticky and the Hollywood Sign is a fence you can't get near, and wonder why they didn't just stay at the beach.

I get it. When you only have 10 vacation days, you feel like you need to hit the highlights. But the highlights are the most crowded, most expensive, and often the least interesting parts of any country.

So here's my philosophy, and I know it sounds weird:

I want to visit the Cleveland of every country.

Not the capital. Not the postcard. The place where locals actually live and tourists don't bother going. Every country has one. And that's where the magic is.

Skip Hollywood. Go to Claremont, California.

Thirty miles east of LA. A walkable village with tree-lined streets, a food hall inside an old packing house, a Sunday farmers market, craft breweries, and a botanical garden. Seven colleges tucked into the neighborhood. No traffic. No influencers. Just a town that feels like what California was supposed to be.

Skip Milan. Go to Bergamo.

Forty-five minutes by train. A medieval hilltop town with cobblestone streets, a funicular that carries you up to the old city, and handmade casoncelli pasta for under $25 with wine. UNESCO-listed Venetian walls you can walk at sunset. Milan has fashion week. Bergamo has real life.

Skip Lauterbrunnen. Go to the Emmental.

Yeah, like the cheese. The Emmental Valley is 30 minutes from Bern and it's one of the least visited regions in Switzerland. Rolling green hills, wooden farmhouses that are centuries old, local cheese dairies you can walk into, a cookie factory (Kambly, look it up), and hiking trails where the only sound is cowbells. The village of Trub was voted the most typical Swiss village in the country. Nobody goes there. That's the point.

Skip Sydney. Go to the Mornington Peninsula.

An hour south of Melbourne. Coastal wine country with pinot noir tastings, hot springs, fish and chips on the beach, and local coffee shops where you're the only tourist. It's what Napa would be if Napa didn't know it was Napa.

Skip Paris. Go to Lyon.

The actual food capital of France (ask any French person). Half the price. No lines. Walkable neighborhoods where you'll find yourself sitting in a bouchon at lunch eating something incredible, surrounded entirely by locals who do this every Tuesday.

This isn't about being a travel snob. It's the opposite, actually.

It's about seeing how people really live. Watching a pickup soccer game in Bern instead of taking a selfie at the Matterhorn. Walking through a market in Lyon instead of waiting 90 minutes to go up the Eiffel Tower.

The tourist stuff will always be there. But the everyday stuff? That's the thing you'll actually remember.

Go find the Cleveland.

From the archives:

Why Albania belongs on your list -- My friend flew from Cleveland to one of Europe's best hidden gems. Seriously.

5 cheaper alternatives to Mexico resorts -- Same budget. Way better trip.

Stuck between PTO and a plane ticket? -- Limited vacation days are exactly why destination choice matters so much.

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Until next Thursday,

Jeff