Where I Go: The Playground That Helped Make Prague Feel Like Home

On the Plastic Benches of Výtoň’s Park, I Watched Our Sons Play and Let My Imagination Roam

In 2013, my wife and I rented an apartment in Výtoň, a classic urban neighborhood south of the tourist-packed city center of Prague. This wasn’t my first move to the capital of the Czech Republic. As a historian, I had been coming to Prague for short spells each summer for 10 years running. But, eager to explore, I always chose a different neighborhood to live in. My only fixed points were friends’ homes, a few locally admired pubs, and the archives that justified these trips to one of the world’s …

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Where I Go: The Candy Wrapper Museum

Your Trash Is My Treasure—And a Sweet Reminder of the Past

In 2019, an unassuming package arrived at my front door.

Inside was a sooty 2-by-4-foot scrapbook filled with candy wrappers over 70 years old. On the surface, a piece of trash—one …

Where I Go: Praying to the Pickleball Gods | Zocalo Public Square • Arizona State University • Smithsonian

Where I Go: Praying to the Pickleball Gods

Making the Pilgrimage to Bainbridge Island Connects Fans to the Sport’s Origins and to One Another

Pickleball—an addictive mashup of tennis, badminton, and ping pong—is seemingly everywhere these days, and played by seemingly everyone.

There are now a whopping 4.8 million players in the U.S. (a number …

Where I Go: Hunting Queer Ghosts in Chicago | Zocalo Public Square • Arizona State University • Smithsonian

Where I Go: Hunting Queer Ghosts in Chicago

Why Being Gay and Being Haunted Go Together in Fundamental Ways

We think the ghosts will come to us as we sit in Kaitlyn’s car, once our car, on top of the man-made hill that houses the only mausoleum in Woodlawn …

Where I Go: The Specter of the Cinema Cafe | Zocalo Public Square • Arizona State University • Smithsonian

Where I Go: The Specter of the Cinema Café

My Favorite Diner Became a Casualty—and a Warning—of Merced’s ‘City on the Rise’ Ethos

Merced is a place for dreams and new beginnings. At least that’s how it was advertised to me when I moved there from the Bay Area to attend college at …

Where I Go: A Big, Slow-Moving Boat

Aboard a Container Ship, I Found the Courage to Navigate Toward a New Future

May 2013: CMA CGM Dalila, offshore of Yokohama, Japan

The flat sea glimmers like a disco ball and it’s warm enough to sit outside without a puffy coat. All day long …