We were a bit apprehensive to go to a state so deeply shaped by religion and tradition. It seemed far, almost too different from the world we know in Berkeley. But travel is about learning new perspectives, especially if they challenge our own and who we are. It is that very dissonance that made Salt Lake City the perfect destination for this issue’s road trip. 

A city’s outsider anticipates the moment everything feels different; when the landscape, the people, the belief systems, and the subtle ways a place moves through the world shift out of sync with your own. We started our journey as insiders, here, we ended it as outsiders, there.

Here, protest is a language.

There, faith is a language. 

Here, change is assumed. 

There, change is questioned. 

Here, the untraditional thrives. 

There, tradition runs deep as roots. 

As Editor-in-Chiefs, our job is to allow our members to see the world through new perspectives. The moment we decide a place is too “different,” we begin to reinforce the same divide we assumed only the other side creates. Travel asks us to resist that instinct, and instead to step forward into the unfamiliar. So, we gathered in four cars, driving through hours of the Nevada desert, trusting that the unfamiliar would meet us halfway.

We invite you to step into Salt Lake City with us, setting aside whatever assumptions you bring, or don’t bring, to make room for something new. Our members welcome you into a suburban pyramid sanctuary flanking the I-15, onto salt-crusted plains born from ancient lakes, to a famed artist mecca turned 500-a-night resort, and into the layered histories carried by this land long before we arrived.

Here, something shifts.

There, something surprises.

Safe Travels,

Jess and Andrew