National parks on expert mode

Plus: Shorts at work and disappearing anchovies ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌

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Welcome back to Pursuits Weekly, our look at the world’s biggest culture stories, as well as ideas and recommendations around travel, dining and art. Sign up here to get this newsletter every Saturday in your inbox. A quieter walk in the park Bryce Canyon trails aren’t always crowded. Just, you know, most of the time. Photographer: Michael Yanow/NurPhoto/Getty Images Pursuits senior editor Adam Thompson writes: What does Half Dome at Yosemite National Park have in common with a great slice of pizza? Both make life on this planet a little more inspiring. And both have the potential to be loved too well by too many people. It’s not just Yosemite. The most in-demand US national parks are wildly popular: The National Park Service reported 323 million recreation visits on its lands in 2025. And any recent visitor or beleaguered park ranger can tell you that park tourists tend to gather at the most (internet) famous spots. That the parks this year are putting on extra America 250 activities, removing entry limitations at some of its most popular parks and struggling with government cuts only complicates the experience further. With those crowds in mind, we created a national parks guide that digs deep into 16 of the most popular US parks, from Acadia to Zion. It offers several ways to avoid the choke points, analyzing four years’ worth of weather patterns and data from the hiking app AllTrails, and calculating how crowded the average trail is in each of the parks we looked at.  The lesson here is that even if Great Smoky Mountains National Park, on the Tennessee-North Carolina border, draws the most visitors, it offers more opportunities for people to spread out than many other parks on the list. Its average trail is far less crowded than the average trail at Joshua Tree in California or Glacier in Montana.  One caveat: Crowdedness is calculated as average annual visitors in each park divided by the number of trails, which means that it’s understated for a park like Acadia, where nearly all the hikers squeeze into a relatively short season. The most navigated US trail on AllTrails is the Navajo Loop and Queens Garden trail at Utah’s otherworldly Bryce Canyon National Park, but at least those visitors are spread out across most of the year. And if you consult our guide, you’ll find not only less-crowded-but-still-great alternative trails in the park, like the Bryce Canyon Rim Trail, but also the suggestion that you might head instead to Goblin Valley, 190 miles away. There, you can wander freely around its thousands of mushroom-shaped sandstone hoodoos. The dream is having the redwoods to yourself. Photographer: Carmen Martínez Torrón/Getty Images Flexibility, it turns out, is becoming just as valuable, if not more so, than money. People willing to go a little farther afield will still be able to have more of the gorgeous landscape to themselves. (As a former Colorado resident, I can vouch for Indian Peaks Wilderness, 40 miles south of Rocky Mountain National Park, on a quiet day.) Then there’s the time of year. If you can hit these magical places when school’s in session and the weather’s a little cooler, you’re less likely to be cheek to jowl with your fellow nature-lovers. Our guide offers sweet spots on the calendar for all 16 parks where the crowds are smaller but the temperatures are moderate and there’s not too much rain. Of course, there’s always the option of skipping the national parks entirely this year. But they hardly hold a monopoly on overcrowding, in the US or elsewhere. And who’s to say they won’t be more crowded next year? These are delicate places. Perhaps it makes sense to appreciate them as soon as possible, before climate change and staffing shortages conspire to make visiting them less magical.  By the numbers Some of the dinner options at Fearing’s. Source: The Ritz Carlton Dallas $33 The price of the Cobb salad at Fearing’s Restaurant in Dallas, one of our Five Top Tables in the city, reviewed by Joe Lovinger and Matthew G. Miller. This being Texas, the salad comes with chicken-fried lobster (yes, really) and a smoked goat cheese dressing. $150 The annual fee that Denver property owners have to pay to the local government, which keeps the city’s sidewalks in good shape. Michael Pollack, the author of Sidewalk Nation, tells Linda Poon that Denver comes very close to his vision of a Department of Sidewalks. $2,549 The smallest fine for unlicensed vending in Washington, DC. If that sum was meant to be a deterrent, it doesn’t seem to be working. Jessica Sidman’s investigation into the “Food Truck Mafia Wreaking Havoc Around the National Mall” included paying $16.50, including $1.50 in sales tax, for a “small, slightly lopsided” chocolate ice-cream cone. The $1.50 was never remitted to the DC Office of Tax and Revenue. 12,109 The number of lines in The Odyssey, the latest film adaptation of which is coming out on July 17. One of its translators, Daniel Mendelsohn, says the Iliad vs Odyssey debate reveals as much about us as it does about the poems themselves. Shorts at work? Ehhh ... Have you ever noticed that when fashion designers send shorts down the runway, they’re accompanied by multiple layers up top? Which does somewhat defeat the purpose of wearing shorts in hot weather in the first place. Photographer: Getty Images (2); Louis Vuitton Chris Rovzar has an essay this week whose headline is a classic of the QTWTAIN genre: “It’s a Sweltering Summer. Can We Finally Wear Shorts to Work?” (For those of you not in journalism, that stands for Question To Which The Answer Is No, although Rovzar might upgrade that to a Maybe.) When Bloomberg recently conducted a poll of its clients, asking whether it’s ever appropriate to wear shorts to work, one respondent answered simply: “AI is taking all our humanity, all we have left is pants.” Rovzar, in the 45% minority, says it’s time for a change — or, perhaps, a reversion to the mores of 300 years ago, when, fashion historian Chloe Chapin says, men “bared their legs in a show of manliness that befit a cultural glorification of warriors and elegant aristocrats appreciated for their muscular athleticism, regal poise and shapely figures.” That’s not the case today. “I have conducted showings in shorts and I have always regretted it,” says New York real estate broker Robert Khederian. Even Ken Ohashi, the CEO of Brooks Brothers, which offers dozens of well-tailored short options, gives a “hard no” to the idea of shorts at work. My suggestion: Men should skip the shorts-wearing phase entirely, and move directly to wearing skirts. Which are even more comfortable in hot weather. Problems with the world’s best fish Not endangered, but increasingly hard to find. Photo: Natasha Breen/REDA/Universal Images Group Editorial One of the biggest crises facing Peruvian president-elect Keiko Fujimori is the nation’s anchovy harvest. Thanks to El Niño, the 15-day ban on anchovy fishing first imposed in mid-May has now been extended indefinitely. Peru is “the Saudi Arabia of anchovies,” Bloomberg Opinion’s Javier Blas reports, and now the price of fishmeal — made primarily of anchovy — is spiking. (That’s in sharp contrast to the price of durian, which is plunging.) The Peru fisheries problem is terrible for anchovy lovers, but it’s also bad for all fish eaters. “The anchovy sits at the bottom of a crucial supply chain that sustains the $500-billion-a-year global aquaculture industry,” writes Blas. Without enough fishmeal, he says, “global production of salmon, seabass, shrimp, oysters and other seafood will suffer.” There might not be an R in the month, but I’m taking no chances: I’m off to the Oyster Bar before prices spike further. Photo of the week To guarantee an up-close view of this outfit, maybe buy a $500,000 Wimbledon debenture Photographer: Mike Egerton/PA Images via Getty Images Tennis star Naomi Osaka walked out for her first Wimbledon match this week in an all-white floor-length ruffled gown embroidered with cranes and cherry blossoms, created by Osaka with Japanese designer Hana Yagi, who made it out of vintage kimonos and a traditional shiromuku wedding dress. Osaka went on to defeat France’s Elsa Jacquemot in straight sets, 6-1, 7-5. One Very Specific Recommendation: Google Maps lists A snippet of Ap’s Hong Kong for visitors map Source: Google Maps Whenever someone recommends a restaurant, coffee shop or cool viewpoint, don’t just say “thanks” and invariably forget it. Instead, immediately drop it into a custom Google Maps list. I do this for dozens of cities, and it’s become one of my favorite low-effort systems. The payoff shows up in small moments: When you’ve got an awkward 30 minutes between meetings, you can open Maps and instantly navigate to the closest curated spot nearby, instead of racking your brain trying to remember that taco place your coworker mentioned three weeks ago. It saves you from settling for something aggressively mid when there was actually a great option close by. I also maintain a separate “For Visitors” list for certain cities, a trimmed, tailored version for out-of-town guests. (Thank me next time you’re in Hong Kong!) Instead of texting the same recommendations over and over, or trying to reconstruct them from memory, I just send the link. It takes a few minutes to set up and pays off indefinitely. — Tiffany Ap New for subscribers: Free article gifting. Bloomberg.com subscribers can now gift up to five free articles a month to anyone you want. Just look for the “Gift this article” button on stories. (Not a subscriber? Unlock unlimited access and sign up here.) We’re improving your newsletter experience and we’d love your feedback. If something looks off, help us fine-tune your experience by reporting it here. Follow Us You received this message because you are subscribed to Bloomberg’s Bloomberg Pursuits newsletter. If a friend forwarded you this message, sign up here to get it in your inbox. Unsubscribe Bloomberg.com Contact Us Bloomberg L.P. 731 Lexington Avenue New York, NY 10022 |