Critically-acclaimed musician Moses Sumney is our issue 12 cover star. Plus, we’re focusing on stories that take things slow with long road trips, returns to nature, and art and music scenes that took time to bloom.
The stories in this issue were commissioned well before the global coronavirus pandemic struck New York. In the weeks leading up to our publish date, the schools, restaurants, bars, and local businesses in the city we call home shut down—as have businesses in every corner of our world.
The earth is still rotating but it feels like everything on its surface has come to a slow stop. Planes are grounded, restaurants sit empty, museums and galleries have shut their doors. What happens to a travel magazine when we can’t move through the world? How do we stay open when the entire globe wears a “closed” sign?
What happens to a travel magazine when we can’t move through the world?
Yet in these pages, the sound of hip hop reverberates through Tokyo, art emerges in Addis Ababa, and Dallas restaurants sling onion rings and Nitrogen Margaritas. We get to know musician Moses Sumney, who is an advocate for solitude as a means to stoke creativity. Plus, we meet the indigenous people of Tasmania, see America through a truck driver’s window, and capture symbols of luck from a handful of different countries—at a time when we could really use some.
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Allow these stories to bring the world closer to you—as inspiration and entertainment, yes, but also as a reminder that this is what’s at stake. Now more than ever we must resist and condemn xenophobia, racism, and biases—now more than ever we must work together to support our elderly, our immunocompromised populations, our healthcare professionals, our service workers, our low-income families, our undocumented people, our small businesses, and all those in need.
There is a lot to learn during this time, if we allow ourselves to be taught.
When the media is full of scary public-health projections and devastating economic news, this is what gives me hope: the people of France who applaud for their healthcare workers every night at 8 p.m., the Italian opera singer who serenades his neighbors, the doctors in China who are traveling to other countries to keep fighting the virus, the Americans delivering groceries to their at-risk neighbors.
There is a lot to learn during this time, if we allow ourselves to be taught: how to protect those who need it most, how to be flexible under pressure, how little we really need, and how much we take for granted.
So this is how we’ll remain open: open-minded to a new, better way of existing ahead.
Get Here in print.
We'll be publishing more issue 12 stories over the coming weeks. See below for what’s online now, or get a copy of your very own.
How the diverse restaurateurs of Dallas redefined the Texan palate turned the very definition of “fine dining” on its head.
While most know Ethiopia for its rich history and tradition, Addis Ababa’s creative entrepreneurs are manifesting a future just as compelling as its past.
Photographer-turned-long haul trucker Ry Shorosky captures a Great American Road Trip unlike any other.
On a long-distance hike with the Aboriginal Land Council of Tasmania, Australia, one writer finds the beauty in slowing down.
Writer Amy Jo Burns thought meeting her future husband’s family would be easy—three years of road trips proved otherwise.
Artist Clarissa Liu brings international symbols of luck to life through illustration at a time when we could all probably use some.
In this issue, our editors check in to a hotel that hosted a generation of artists in Taos, New Mexico, visit an unexpected art haven just outside Los Angeles, and dig into the community-first restaurant scene of Tucson, Arizona.
The stories for Here Magazine issue 12 were commissioned well before the World Health Organization declared the COVID-19 crisis a global pandemic. We hope these stories bring the world a little closer to you—and offer some reflection on the world we want to return to once it’s safe to travel again. To learn how you can help affected communities around the world, visit GlobalGiving’s Coronavirus Relief Fund.