Hey there! You are listening to the Lazy Genius Podcast. I'm Kendra Adachi and I'm here to help you be a genius about the things that matter and lazy about the things that don't.

Today is episode 269, how to be a tourist in your hometown. It's summer, we're traveling, and far away places seem lovely and often are. But so is home.

Today, let's Lazy Genius how to visit where you live, like you've never been there before. I will mention this at the end of the episode as well, but I want to make sure that you know about my favorite lazy genius travel guru, Courtney Cleveland from all the best days.

I've had Courtney on the show before, where we actually talk about stay-cations, which we're kind of going to do now.

So we will put that link in the show notes so you can hear Courtney actually say words and be fabulous. But if you are interested in travel, Courtney has some fantastic resources for packing and other universal travel things, but she specifically has travel guides for a handful of cities, and they are so good, so rich, so detailed, full of so much permission.

She has city guides on New York City, Colorado Springs, Maui, the great Smoky Mountains, and the one that I will personally be using next week, Washington, DC.

She covers touristy things, food, drink, ways to get moving, places to get inspired, and she holds hands of scaredy cats like me by having information on things like public transportation.

And those little details that you're afraid you're going to miss or mess up, these guides are an absolute winner. So if you're thinking about taking a trip soon and are looking for a location, you could be inspired by the travel guide that you most want to get and just like go where she tells you.

She has new cities all the time though, so I bet we'll have some new ones soon. Plus you can follow her on Instagram at Best Day Court.

The best day is because she wants to help you find your best day in every city. It would simply not be a complete travel episode without mentioning Courtney.

So I wanted to make sure I do that. All right, so let's lazy genius being a tourist in your home town. I'm going to take you down a path to help you figure out your own day or weekend, give me a weekend in your hometown.

Our first stop on this hometown tourist path and frankly any trip really is what matters, of course. What matters most to you about this day in your hometown?

Is it a feeling? Are you wanting to feel something specific, no matter what you're doing? Okay. Is it a location? Like is there a place in your town that you've always wanted to go to but haven't?

When I was in New York a couple of months ago, I was on a food tour and I met a couple of women who grew up on Long Island and had never been to a ton of touristy New York city places.

Like they'd never been to the Statue of Liberty, the Empire State Building, Rockefeller Center. It was like it was just where they lived, right?

And they didn't see any of those places with the same freshness as tourists. So is there a place in your city that everyone visits, but you've never gone to?

Now what else could matter? Maybe it is a specific experience. Maybe you want to spend a day in your town on foot. Maybe you want to visit every park or every bakery or every pizza place.

Maybe you grew up where you currently live and you want to take your family or your friends to all your favorite places from when you were young. Maybe the experience matters.

And remember that if you're doing this hometown tourist thing with other people, what matters to them also matters. It's not just you, so be sure you ask them.

Our next stop is asking what's keeping you from that thing? What's keeping you from having that feeling going to that place, experiencing that kind of day? What is in the way?

Now it could be an expectation that things have to be a certain way in order to count for a trip. It could be an assumption that your city just doesn't have enough fun things to do.

It could be that you don't have enough time to spend in your city the way you'd like because of jobs or commitments or health restrictions.

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