Dream of hitting the road? Here’s what you should know about the overlanding trend
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By Rachel Schnalzer
Design and illustrations by Jade Cuevas
Good morning, fellow Escapists. A new L.A. museum, a not-so-new-but-finally-taking-off adventure trend and a summer super bloom — you’ll find all this and more in this edition of Escapes. I hope the ideas below inspire your fall travels.
Be sure to check fire precautions and COVID-19 restrictions before booking or taking a trip. And, as always, send me a note if you have recommendations or tips you’d like to share in Escapes.
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🎥 Be a tourist in your own city
The much-anticipated Academy Museum of Motion Pictures, a celebration of moviemaking, opens in L.A. at the end of September.
My Times colleagues created an ultimate film lover’s guide to the museum to provide the back story and inside information on this splashy addition to L.A.
They also suggest making a day of your trip to the museum by exploring a number of other gems in Mid-Wilshire. Here are a few of their recommended destinations to add to your visit:
Japan Foundation: Exhibitions at the Japan Foundation have ranged from contemporary architecture and design to vintage movie posters to photography of bento, writes Craig Nakano, deputy arts and entertainment editor. The gallery will reopen this fall after a temporary closure.
Little Ethiopia: “Only a half-mile from the Academy Museum, platters of long-stewed doro wot, butter-fried tibs and fragrant lentils arrive on springy sheets of fresh injera,” writes Times food writer Stephanie Breijo, “making for some of the best and most interactive dining in the city.” Breijo recommends dining at Rosalind’s, Lalibela and Meals by Genet.
6150 Wilshire Blvd.: This complex, originally a clothing store built in the 1930s, was transformed into gallery space in 1998, reports Times art critic Christopher Knight. Gallery hop at 1301PE, Praz-Delavallade and Anat Ebgi while you’re in the neighborhood.
🌼 A rare desert bloom
California adventurers are often on the lookout for super blooms in March and April, but here’s a quick heads-up from Times Assistant Travel Editor Mary Forgione: A major bloom recently occurred in the Mojave Desert.
Thanks to monsoonal rains, “yellow carpets of native chinchweed” began appearing in parts of the Mojave Desert in late August, Forgione reported.
The chinchweed is now past its peak, Joshua Tree National Park spokesperson Hannah Schwalbe told Forgione, but visitors should be on the lookout for other flora.
“I haven’t seen other blooms, but this time of year, I keep my eye out for bladderpod, fringed amaranth, and ocotillo blooms,” she wrote in an email.
Get the full scoop on the summer super bloom here.
🧚 A fairy-tale cottage in Carmel
This delightful, candy-pink cottage in Carmel is straight out of the Brothers Grimm — if the fairy-tale authors had lived along the Central California coast instead of in central Germany.
The Storybook Cottage sits just a block and a half from downtown Carmel, but its gardens, deck and views of Point Lobos may keep you from venturing off property.
The recently renovated home, created by local cottage builder Hugh Comstock, has earned a place on the Carmel Heritage House and Garden Tour and the Bach Festival Tour.
The home sleeps eight guests and rents for $600 a night. Reservations can be made on Vrbo.
BYO carriage and glass slippers, of course.
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🚐 The wild world of ‘overlanding’
What is “overlanding,” you ask?
Well, it’s “not quite #vanlife (which is more bohemian) or glamping (rooted in opulence; no car needed) or touring in an RV (cushier and confined to paved roads),” Times business reporter Andrea Chang explains.
Rather, “overlanding is loosely defined as a self-reliant way to explore rugged terrain and undeveloped areas in a specialized vehicle for a sustained amount of time.”
She spoke to overlanding industry leaders and enthusiasts, including Tom Standish, who along with his wife, toddler and newborn hit the road several months ago in a luxury overland adventure vehicle.
In their EarthCruiser FX, the Standish family has so far explored the Southwest and the Pacific Northwest before crossing into British Columbia in Canada. Their next stop?
“They plan to take the EarthCruiser down the Baja California Peninsula in December and then ship the 6-ton rig by boat to Belgium so they can use it to traverse Northern Europe next year,” Chang reports.
“At this point, we’re in the vehicle full time. We’re going all in,” Standish told Chang.
Interested in giving it a try? You can rent an overland vehicle on Pacific Overlander and Cypress Overland.
📰 What I’m reading
- Did you know that Hotel Figueroa was once a retreat for women traveling solo to Los Angeles? Freda Moon describes her experience staying at this historic accommodation in SFGATE.
- “It’s time to cancel campfires,” writes Heather Hansman in Outside. “We’re going to need to give up some of the things we love if we don’t want much more taken away.”
- The world’s recently discovered northernmost island was found by accident, reports Sarah Durn in Atlas Obscura.
- A new multisensory art exhibit from the minds behind Meow Wolf “will transport you to outer space,” Dobrina Zhekova writes in Travel + Leisure.
- Eleanor Goldman Lurensky learned to love RV travel in her 90s. She explains her transformation into “RV Grandma, Queen of the Road” in the Washington Post.
📸 Photo of the week
🎸 Road song
Song: “Keep Lookin’ Up” by Kacey Musgraves
Favorite lyric: “You never know what you may find, I’ve seen strange things happen all the time. Keep lookin’ up.”
Best place to listen: In a Joshua tree campground, during a meteor show.
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