FILE – This October 2012 photo shows a view from the Acoma Pueblo in New Mexico. The ancient pueblo has been inhabited for centuries by the Acoma people. The location is featured in a collection of mini-essays by American writers published online by the Frommer’s guidebook company about places they believe helped shape and define America. (AP Photo/Beth J. Harpaz, File)
NATIONAL (AP) – Sixteen notable writers have created a combined list of places that they believe helped shape and define America, from coastal Oregon and Solvang, California, to Ellis Island and New Hampshire’s Black Heritage Trail.
The resulting collection of mini-essays, including contributions from memoirist Cheryl Strayed, novelist Jodi Picoult, humorist David Sedaris and activist Gloria Steinem, was organized by Frommer’s, the travel guidebook company. The collection can be read for free online.
The compilation is designed to be food for thought rather than an invitation to hit the road. With COVID-19 cases surging in many parts of the country, “we don’t want people to use these essays as the basis for travel until doing so is safe once again,” Pauline Frommer, who heads the guidebook company, told the AP. “We hope this list will be a spur to future travel, but we also just wanted it to be great reading right now.”
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FILE – People walk on the beach at Tierra del Mar, Ore., on, Aug. 17, 2020. The Oregon Coast is featured in a collection of mini-essays by American writers published online by the Frommer’s guidebook company about places they believe helped shape and define America. (AP Photo/Andrew Selsky, File) -
FILE – The South Church in Portsmouth, N.H., where Ona Judge, a George Washington family slave who escaped to New Hampshire, was married in 1797 to Jack Staines, appears on Oct. 4, 2017. Judge was never caught and would spend the remainder of her life in New Hampshire. The location is featured in a collection of mini-essays by American writers published online by the Frommer’s guidebook company about places they believe helped shape and define America. (AP Photo/Michael Casey) -
FILE – National Park Service rangers walk through the Great Hall at Ellis Island, on April 29, 2015, in New York. The location is featured in a collection of mini-essays by American writers published online by the Frommer’s guidebook company about places they believe helped shape and define America. (AP Photo/Julie Jacobson, File) -
FILE – A man walks through a cemetery on the site of the Manzanar Japanese internment camp near Independence, Calif., on July 24, 1997. The World War II internment camp is featured in a collection of mini-essays by American writers published online by the Frommer’s guidebook company about places they believe helped shape and define America. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes, File) -
FILE – The exterior of Independence Hall appears in Philadelphia, on April 26, 2019. The location is featured in a collection of mini-essays by American writers published online by the Frommer’s guidebook company about places they believe helped shape and define America. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke, File) -
FILE – This October 2012 photo shows a view from the Acoma Pueblo in New Mexico. The ancient pueblo has been inhabited for centuries by the Acoma people. The location is featured in a collection of mini-essays by American writers published online by the Frommer’s guidebook company about places they believe helped shape and define America. (AP Photo/Beth J. Harpaz, File) -
FILE- The interior of the Islamic-style dome that forms part of the Arab American National Museum appears in Dearborn, Mich. on April 15, 2005. The location is featured in a collection of mini-essays by American writers published online by the Frommer’s guidebook company about places they believe helped shape and define America. (AP Photo/Carlos Osorio, File) -
FILE – This Sept. 30, 2014 photo shows the Danish flag flying on Alisal Road in Solvang, Calif., on Sept. 30, 2014. Founded in 1911 by Danish immigrants, Solvang is a touristy enclave with Danish bakeries, Danish-themed hotels and even a Hans Christian Andersen Museum. The location is featured in a collection of mini-essays by American writers published online by the Frommer’s guidebook company about places they believe helped shape and define America. (AP Photo/Solvej Schou, File) -
FILE – In this Aug. 14, 2019 photo, the Columbia River flows under the Vernita Bridge and past the Hanford Reach National Monument, left, and the Hanford Nuclear Reservation, right beyond the bridge, near Richland, Wash. The location is featured in a collection of mini-essays by American writers published online by the Frommer’s guidebook company about places they believe helped shape and define America. (AP Photo/Elaine Thompson, File) -
FILE – Tourists walk around the grounds at Ellis Island, on April 29, 2015, in New York. The location is featured in a collection of mini-essays by American writers published online by the Frommer’s guidebook company about places they believe helped shape and define America. (AP Photo/Julie Jacobson, File) -
FILE – This March 23, 1942 photo shows the first arrivals at the Japanese evacuee community established in Owens Valley in Manzanar, Calif. Roughly 120,000 Japanese immigrants and Japanese-Americans were sent to camps that dotted the West because the government claimed they might plot against the U.S. The location is featured in a collection of mini-essays by American writers published online by the Frommer’s guidebook company about places they believe helped shape and define America. (AP Photo/File) -
FILE – The wake from a ferry is seen trailing the boat as it leaves Ellis Island for Manhattan, on April 29, 2015, in New York. The location is featured in a collection of mini-essays by American writers published online by the Frommer’s guidebook company about places they believe helped shape and define America. (AP Photo/Julie Jacobson, File) -
FILE – In this Aug. 14, 2019 photo, buildings on the Hanford Nuclear Reservation along the Columbia River are seen from the Hanford Reach National Monument near Richland, Wash. The location is featured in a collection of mini-essays by American writers published online by the Frommer’s guidebook company about places they believe helped shape and define America. (AP Photo/Elaine Thompson, File) -
FILE – This Oct. 1, 2012 photo shows tour guide Robert Francis gesturing toward an outdoor oven outside an adobe dwelling on a tour of the Acoma Pueblo at the Sky City Cultural Center west of Albuquerque in New Mexico. Tours of the pueblo tell the story of the Acoma people, who have lived on a mesa 370 feet above the desert floor for nearly 1,000 years, surviving centuries of challenges from the Spanish conquistadors to modern times. The location is featured in a collection of mini-essays by American writers published online by the Frommer’s guidebook company about places they believe helped shape and define America. (AP Photo/Beth Harpaz, File)
If 2020 had been a normal year, Frommer and other travel experts would be offering year-end lists of great vacation spots for 2021 right now. But “with the virus surging, we felt it was irresponsible for us to put together a story that pushes travel,” she said.
So instead, the company decided “to bring to light our shared history and culture” by inviting celebrated storytellers to write about “places they thought Americans should know about to better understand who we are as a people and/or what we need right now to heal our divisions.”
Steinem wrote about Serpent Mound Historical Site in Ohio. Picoult picked the Black Heritage Trail in New Hampshire. Sedaris recommended the Little America Hotel in Salt Lake City. Strayed wrote about the Oregon coast.
The other contributors and their destinations are:
- Daniel Okrent, Ellis Island, New York City
- Lydia Millet, Avra Valley, Arizona
- Sarah Mustafah, Arab American National Museum in Dearborn, Michigan
- Susan Choi, Manzanar National Historic Site, California
- Timothy Egan, Acoma Sky City, New Mexico
- Kim Johnson, National Memorial for Peace and Justice, Montgomery, Alabama
- Rick Atkinson, Washington, D.C.
- Margaret Verble, Fort Gibson, Oklahoma
- Fannie Flagg, Solvang, California
- Dar Williams, Detroit
- TaraShea Nesbit, Hanford Reach National Monument, Washington (state)
- Cathleen Schine, the Kinney-Tabor House, Venice, California
A 17th entry comes from Frommer herself, writing in collaboration with her father, Arthur, who founded the guidebook company that bears their name. They picked Independence Hall in Philadelphia, saluting the park rangers who tell visitors about the site.
These “gifted storytellers … don’t pull their punches when discussing the mistakes the founders made, (the acceptance of slavery foremost among them) or the tumultuous nature of the debates that rang off these walls,” the Frommers wrote. “The human, messy, sometimes maddening nature of democracy comes alive, as does the power of compromise.”