You can add Asheville and Buncombe County in post-Helene North Carolina to a growing number of places that people love to visit because each talks upfront about how climate action adds to their vacation appeal.
The other four places I’ve short-listed for a project I’m advancing are Denver, Vancouver, destinations of The Nature Conservancy, and hold on to your hat, Orlando. Yes, Orlando but not necessarily surrounding Orange County.
I find places that talk about “experiences” and “wellness” and about trails and multimodal transportation, heritage, DEI (diversity, equity, inclusion), and farm-to-table dining. A lot of this fits into climate action.
But without specific mention of climate action, the message conveyed by its inattention is to brush it away. It’s not what people want to be bothered about when their priorities are still even borderline self-indulgence.
Asheville and Buncombe County
I feel sure about Asheville and Buncombe because Tropical Storm Helene irreversibly changed their stories.
Before Helene, their stories had always been about their arts and crafts synonymous with locally imagined shops that made their neighborhoods fun to walk around or bicycle to. They repurposed historic buildings and didn’t chase after chain hokum.
That and more including its seasonal green canopy and fall colors devastated by flooding and landslides will most likely reappear.
However, the encompassing story everyone will want to hear is about resilience.
What’s still being learned and how’s that improving lives or not?
By the time regeneration takes hold — it’s said this will take years — places like the other four I’ve sorted through will have grown to hundreds if not thousands because climate change is at least as unrelenting as the spirit of human renewal.
“So many people have their emergency home or their climate refuge here,” said a New Orleans transplant, who Yale Climate Connections cited in a recent posting. “So what happens when this is gone?” he asked.
What creative new works will be produced for local stages? What combination of live acting and movie clips at the North Carolina Stage Company? Ironically, the first play canceled after Helene was The Last Wide Open, about three alternate realities unfolding in the mystical ways the universe conspires to bring us all together.
What new fiction that captures the heroism and disinformation that also overflowed, and big picture books will appear in the windows of Battery Park’s Book Exchange & Champagne Bar?(built into a vacated federal office building from 1929)?
Context for my choices
Many places have been left out of my shortlist that you should also visit because even while they acknowledge at other sites of governmental information that tourism is included in their climate action plans, you won’t find this information if you don’t search beyond their official tourism sites. At least I couldn’t find what I was looking for.
On point, Door County, Michigan, and Greenville, South Carolina. I want you to have this context so that in my next posting when I describe my shortlist, you will see how quickly I believe tourism is turning its corner into legitimate climate action.
Door County
What follows is signed by Julie Gilbert, President & CEO of Destination Door County.
“At the outset of this long-term tourism planning process, we began by referring to this as a Destination Master Plan. After consideration of the community’s input, research, and recommendations from our consulting partner, MMGY NextFactor, we chose to change the name . . . to a Destination Stewardship Plan.
“This is reflective of the values and input expressed by our community members, as well as our commitment to serve as responsible stewards of the place that we call home. Our organization’s intention with this plan is to guide and advocate for responsible tourism management that balances quality of life and economic prosperity with the stewardship of our natural environment and community values.
“As one of Wisconsin’s most popular travel destinations, increased visitation to Door County has brought a new set of tourism challenges and opportunities for our region. In our role as influential stewards of Door County as a tourism destination, it is incumbent upon us to evaluate our region’s tourism strategy and determine a responsible path forward that considers environmental sustainability of our precious natural resources and prioritizes the needs of our residents. . .
“This plan is a living document that serves as a roadmap for the entire Door County community as we collectively move forward to implement the strategies and initiatives that have been identified as priorities by our community. . .”
My call to the Door County communications director about no mention of climate action has gone unanswered.
Greenville, South Carolina
Only at its website that solicits business groups to meet in Greenville does this city of almost 75,000 between Atlanta and Charlotte have a section headlined Sustainability. It’s about the Shi Institute for Sustainable Communities at Furman University, agritourism, voluntourism, and trails and cycling otherwise largely covered at the city’s consumer site.
The city has committed to preserve more than a third of its remaining undeveloped lands.
But like Door County, Greenville doesn’t address climate action directly. Am I being picky?
Its preservation plan would “reduce greenhouse gas and other air emissions while offering convenient, efficient, comfortable and safe transportation choices for anyone who lives, works or visits the city.” It incentivizes electric vehicle charging including at hotels. Regional rail centers around an existing Amtrak station.
Apart from direct sustainability initiatives, Greensville is a place that should satisfy anyone heeding my call for Travel To the Deep Nearby. It’s cosmopolitan and richly interpretive.
Its celebrities are born local, make their mark elsewhere before they return or hear about Greenville’s beauty, public spaces, and lifestyle, visit and come to stay. A lot of credentials capture national and international attention: James Beard, Michelin, the Tour de France.
One of two stellar B&Bs in the vicinity includes the bijou Hotel Domestique of former pro cyclist and co-owner George Hincapie. Its 13 rooms, suites, and well-gardened grounds resemble the hub of a rural French village.
Serious cyclists met during George’s 17 Tours de France and attracted by word of mouth and George’s appearances around the country for his Gran Fondo Hincapie cycling events, keep the inn busy for long-stay visitors, who come for challenging training routes in the hilly terrain and others who want to work out on the 28-mile Swamp Rabbit Trail that connects downtown with Travelers Rest to the north in Greenville County, that the inn sits alongside.
