After a happy year and a half here, I’ve got a personal and professional update on Buffalo for you. Sure, I’m a travel writer, so I’ve been trying to tell the world about this city everywhere from Afar to the New York Times. But these days it’s not just me spreading comeback rumors—they’re true, and the word is getting out.
Two weeks ago Buffalo topped Travel + Leisure‘s list of “America’s Favorite Cities.” And sure, that distinction was reader-voted, so maybe passionate locals spiked the results. But the latest win blew me away: Harper’s Bazaar named Buffalo the second-best summer-weekend getaway in the country (just below the Hamptons, mind you, and above both Cape Cod and Martha’s Vineyard).
I got a charge out of the explanation: “In choosing destinations for some much-needed R&R, our editors are as discerning as you’d expect, and are on the hunt for the best shopping, dining, and luxury stays one can find,” the glossy fashion mag explained. Ooh la la!
And the media interest keeps coming—to a degree that surprises even me sometimes. For instance, I met with an upscale food magazine editor in New York City last weekend and came with a list of story ideas. I’d mentioned where I’m based, and he said, “Hmm. Tell me about Buffalo.”
“Well, it’s fantastic!” I blurted. I rattled off the reasons waves of entrepreneurs and millennials like us have moved in: new breweries, restaurants, coffeehouses, cocktail bars, and start-ups of all kinds take up residence in the old daylight factories and other handsome brick-and-stone buildings that are everywhere here.
At the end of the conversation I asked which stories this editor was interested in. “Get me Buffalo,” he said.
From other eds I’ve heard interest recently in Buffalo’s hipster side, biking movement, culinary scene, and creatively reused architecture (like the world’s most impressive collection of grain silos along the waterfront here). I look forward to telling more of those stories in articles to come.
On a personal level, we honest-to-God love this city. I’ll confess, my husband and I will soon be moving out of Elmwood Village, the parkway-laced Victorian midtown that I raved about at first. We’ll miss its farmers’ market, many porches, and summer concerts.
Buuut we’re not skipping town. We’re moving just a couple miles north to another walkable neighborhood, to the up-and-coming Hertel Avenue area. It’s the city’s old Little Italy, a bakery-and-red-sauce-restaurant strip that’s now staging its own comeback with stylish new shops and restaurants. Of course, I’ll keep you posted!