There's something I've never been able to fully explain about walking into a CrossFit box for the first time. It doesn't matter if it's Miami, Denver, or some industrial park in a city I've never been to before—within about thirty seconds, it feels familiar. The layout, the chalk dust, the equipment, the particular kind of person who shows up at 6am or noon and actually wants to be there. It's like visiting a relative you've never met. You don't know them, but you already know them. The handshake turns into a conversation turns into a workout turns into, somehow, a friend. I've never figured out if CrossFit built that culture on purpose or if it just attracts the same kind of people everywhere. Either way, I'll take it.

Every travel snob will tell you to skip the tourist sites and find the real Florence. I get it. But stand in front of the Palazzo Medici and try to feel nothing. This is where the family that essentially invented the Renaissance lived, worked, and plotted. The building that housed the people who funded Botticelli, backed Michelangelo, and bankrolled an entire era of human achievement is still just sitting there on a street corner in Florence, open to the public. Yes, there are tour groups and you can hit up Hermes or Sephora. Yes, someone near you is definitely taking a selfie. None of that changes what you're looking at. Some things are touristy because they're worth seeing, and no amount of crowds can dilute five hundred years of history.

Mesa Verde National Park is in southwest Colorado and features well-preserved Ancestral Puebloan cliff dwellings, notably the huge Cliff Palace. The Mesa Top Loop Road winds past archaeological sites and overlooks, including Sun Point Overlook with panoramic canyon views. Petroglyph Point Trail has several rock carvings. I’ve always been impressed with our nation’s national parks and this one is no exception.