Boulder, Colorado. Photo / Visit Boulder
While major United States cities are rightfully popular with travellers, Ash Jurberg reveals why one should always make a detour to a smaller American town.
By my third night in Cody, Wyoming, I already feel like a local. Seated on the front patio of Hotel Irma, the iconic bar named after the daughter of the town’s founder, I am surrounded by friends, old and new. Inside, mounted animal heads line the lobby walls, creating an unmistakable Western atmosphere.
“See that corner?” my friend Vanessa asks. “Every night, there is a recreation of a wild west shootout. Although it did stop for a few years after one actor accidentally fired real bullets, hitting a bystander. She might have been about where you are now.” She laughs as I look nervously around.
This perfectly captures what makes these overlooked destinations different from the America most New Zealanders experience. While tourists flock to Los Angeles, New York, and Las Vegas, Cody offers something different: locals strike up conversations the moment they hear my accent, curious why I’d chosen their town over the obvious destinations.
Founded by the legendary Buffalo Bill Cody, this Wyoming town showed that memorable American experiences don’t require Times Square crowds or Disneyland queues. Instead, they unfold in coffee shops, museums, and yes, at dramatised shootouts where the history might be questionable, but the hospitality is real.
My wife and I had spent time exploring Yellowstone National Park and added Cody to visit friends who’d moved there. Calling itself the Rodeo Capital of the World, the town attracts Americans but rarely international visitors. Fortunately, the novelty of being obvious outsiders works in our favour. Over beers, political differences dissolve as I find myself amicably chatting with teenagers in Trump shirts, professional cowboys, and local politicians. It’s the type of connection you don’t often get in major US cities. Compared with New York City’s 8.4 million people, Cody has just 10,000. Yet, it feels like a metropolis to many locals who moved here from even tinier towns in Wyoming, Iowa, and Montana.
The small-town dynamics become clear through simple interactions. When Vanessa arranges a babysitter so we can head out for dinner, we meet the same 16-year-old the next day serving drinks at a newly opened restaurant – something only possible in a small town where she could work both jobs, including serving alcohol. She greets us like old friends.
Vanessa takes us to the Cody Rodeo, a scene that looks like a stereotypical Western TV show. Big boots, bigger hair, and oversized beers filled the stands. Sporting a new Cody Rodeo T-shirt and holding a Budweiser, I settle on to my bench seat and make fast friends with the family next to me, who explain the events as they unfold. Soon, I’m scoring bucking broncos like an old timer. While there, I learn how cowboys make their living by travelling from rodeo to rodeo, and how fans drive hundreds of kilometres to watch. Even the state governor is in the crowd. The evening ends with fireworks that light up the Wyoming sky. My newfound expertise means I can finally use “this ain’t my first rodeo” authentically, though my wife suggests I already overuse the phrase.
The town’s other draw proves equally impressive. I knew little about Buffalo Bill beyond the name, but I learn he’d founded the town, created a travelling stage show, and essentially conjured up the whole Wild West image we still embrace. The cultural attractions celebrating his legacy are also more affordable than those in big tourist cities. The impressive Buffalo Bill Centre of the West houses five museums that occupied our entire afternoon for US$23 ($40).
The Whitney Western Art Museum alone ranked second in Newsweek’s Readers’ Choice Awards, ahead of the Art Institute of Chicago, National Gallery of Art, and the MET – all of which cost more for admission alone. With the Plains Indian, Cody Firearms, and Draper Natural History museums included, the full value becomes clear.
Cody isn’t unique in this. I’ve found the same curiosity and warmth in small towns across America.
Fredericksburg sits in Texas Hill Country, a town of 11,000 originally settled by German immigrants that’s become a popular escape for residents of nearby Austin and San Antonio. Here we spent afternoons doing something deemed illegal in most US cities, wandering Main St with glasses in hand, moving from wine tasting room to small brewery.
The streets are filled with couples on romantic getaways, groups of friends on girls’ weekends, and day trippers browsing the German-influenced shops and sampling local produce. There are dozens of types of jerky and hot sauces to try, though I did get embarrassed when my wife laughed at my intolerance to even the mildest Texan salsas.
Sedona sits three hours north of Phoenix, a desert town of 10,000 surrounded by red rock formations and famous for its vortex sites. I didn’t feel anything mystical, but locals I met swore by their healing powers. Staying at a small three-room B&B, we watched the sunset with margaritas in hand while the owner, a former Los Angeles businessman, explained how a vacation to the town convinced him to abandon city life.
We loved bouncing across the landscape in brightly coloured Pink Jeeps to reach viewpoints inaccessible to cars. Even sceptics like me found Sedona’s desert energy remarkably calming.
Boulder captures the American college town ideal. Just 30 minutes from Denver, it maintains a distinctly different vibe thanks to the University of Colorado. After a day of hiking near the Rocky Mountains, we explored local breweries, where college students attempted entry with questionable fake IDs.
We watched bikers in climbing gear thread through the same streets as students playing cornhole outside the breweries, a mix of mountain-town discipline and college-town revelry. During football season, the town transforms into one massive tailgate party, and the streets hum with energy, creating the college-town energy tourists miss in major cities. Despite its population of 100,000, it still feels like a small, tight-knit community.
The political headlines don’t match the people I’ve met in these places. They’re curious, welcoming, and treat an accent like you’re mildly famous. I can’t do a US trip without adding a small town any more. It’s become my favourite part of any American adventure.
The writer travelled at his own expense.