This is not fascinating in the off-the-beaten path exotic trip sense but I covered the reopening of the Las Vegas Strip in June 2020 (it was closed for several weeks at the beginning of the pandemic) . I arrived a day early to an empty airport the likes of which I'd never seen, even during the travel aftermath of 9/11, and watched a major tourist destination reopen in real time. More recently, I spent the night in a Bass Pro Shop in Memphis for a story. -- Dawn

I started on this beat during the pandemic, so my experiences are more limited than Dawn's. But I did get to spend three days with a hotel manager in Maine. The hotel was in an old building that was an observation headquarters for the Navy in WWII. There were many hidden hallways (and rooms!) A lot of what made the trip so fascinating was how much the manager had to navigate issues that came up with employees who lived in shared housing. He told me: "It's like The Bachelor." https://www.wsj.com/articles/running-a-maine-resort-this-summer-was-no-vacation-11662177616?st=s03azmdghitixxf - Allison