major wrote: Tue Feb 18, 2025 10:43 am Looks like I am going to be in Milwaukee every other week for a minute. Shockingly I have never been. Recommendations, please!

Only been there once but liked it a lot.

Leon’s Frozen Custard is worth a visit. It’s cool how it’s truly one of those all-walks-of-life places. You see people from every income bracket, race, religion, and sexual and gender identity.

I don’t recall the names of any of the shops, but there are some excellent antique stores and antique malls.

If you’re into photography, it’s also great.

penningtron wrote: Tue Feb 18, 2025 11:01 am

major wrote: Tue Feb 18, 2025 10:43 am Looks like I am going to be in Milwaukee every other week for a minute. Shockingly I have never been. Recommendations, please!

Oh wow.. where to start: what kinda stuff do you like to do? Where are you staying? Can recommend cool parts of town to hang out in, venues by genre, record stores, good places to eat though honestly I do more home cooking than ever. And bars.. good god there are so many bars (though most have NA options and there are even a couple of primarily NA bars). We even have a Japanese-inspired vinyl listening lounge now, that can be fun depending on who's DJ-ing (tmidgett/eephus did a good set recently).

There's some nice outdoors stuff too but you'll need to be pretty cold tolerant 'til about mid-April, if we're lucky.

I like drinking, record stores, and food (in that order). I won't have a whole lot of free time but I'm pretty good about carving out some me time (work trip).

I can pretty much stay wherever I want. Working in West Milwaukee, but I will have a car.

Aaaand way less exciting than Milwaukee, looks like I will also be in Lafayette, IN every other week. Anything?

major wrote: Tue Feb 18, 2025 11:35 am I like drinking, record stores, and food (in that order). I won't have a whole lot of free time but I'm pretty good about carving out some me time (work trip).

I can pretty much stay wherever I want. Working in West Milwaukee, but I will have a car.

Good news there is that nothing around here takes more than 20 minutes to drive to and there are actually some really great dining options near your work (in West Allis, near west suburb). The generically named Schezuan Restaurant and Antigua (latin 'fusion') are two of my favorites. Lots of asian business over there in general.

The best neighborhoods to find stuff to do are Bay View, Riverwest, Walkers Point, and East Side roughly in that order. Acme is probably the best record store for this crowd (consult Instagram first for their somewhat erratic hours), but Rush Mor, Lilliput, and Bullseye are cool too. There's a place in Riverwest simply called We Buy Records that's fun if you have a couple hours to get your hands dirty (literally): the type of place where you can still find $5 records.

Drinking is just too hard to narrow down unless there's something specific. Tiki bar? (Foundation) Bio Wine? (Voyager or Non-Fiction) Japanese Whiskey? (the aforementioned Wiggle Room listening lounge). Truly fancy coctails? (Agency). Otherwise you can pretty much trip over places to get New Glarus or Lakefront stuff (including the massive Lakefront Brewery I suppose). You can buy beer in fuckin' book stores and cafes here.

Some more general stuff: the art museum is very good. The Mitchell Park Domes are good to kill an hour. I've heard very good things about the Public Museum but still haven't been. These are all good winter-y options.

Going to Cancún next month as a +1 for a few days. Fancy resort on the beach, but im not a fan of fancy resorts. Any recommendations off of the beaten path? I’m bringing my fly rod.

penningtron wrote: Tue Feb 18, 2025 12:26 pm

major wrote: Tue Feb 18, 2025 11:35 am I like drinking, record stores, and food (in that order). I won't have a whole lot of free time but I'm pretty good about carving out some me time (work trip).

I can pretty much stay wherever I want. Working in West Milwaukee, but I will have a car.

Drinking

Dive bars. I have shitty taste in beer.

Thanks for all the recs!

Dave N. wrote: Tue Feb 18, 2025 12:28 pm Going to Cancún next month as a +1 for a few days. Fancy resort on the beach, but im not a fan of fancy resorts. Any recommendations off of the beaten path? I’m bringing my fly rod.

I am going to be there Sun-Thursday I'll report back if I find anything. That said, I am literally going to try to shut my brain off for a few days and do as little as possible.

major wrote: Tue Feb 18, 2025 12:40 pm Dive bars. I have shitty taste in beer.

Ones I know well but am often tagging along with bigger drinkers than myself: Mothership, Blackbird Bar, Burnhearts, Clementines, Sugar Maple, Cactus Club bar (separate from venue if you don't want the show). But even if there are 'fancy' options you can order a Hamm's or High Life without judgement.

Dave N. wrote: Tue Feb 18, 2025 12:28 pm Going to Cancún next month as a +1 for a few days. Fancy resort on the beach, but im not a fan of fancy resorts. Any recommendations off of the beaten path? I’m bringing my fly rod.

About 5 minutes outside the strip, you will be met with urban blight and Walmart, and then the desert....lots and lots of desert. You can certainly do adventure travel (we drove to Chichen Itza), but it gets very country, very fast. Like Mad Max - only car on a 4 lane highway for hours, hard time finding a gas station, country. If I were to do it again, I would do that excursion with a tour group bus instead. See the cenotes...etc...

But I think the more popular excursions are instead down the coast to do scuba, fishing, etc...perhaps someone else can advise on that. But shit, if you don't just HAVE to do something, there are worse ways to spend a day than just laying on a beautiful beach with a margarita.

jfv wrote: Mon Feb 17, 2025 11:33 am

Gramsci wrote: Mon Feb 17, 2025 2:43 am

jfv wrote: Thu Feb 13, 2025 11:28 pm It's looking like I will be in...

Chiswick, London, England...

during the week of April 14th.

Will be busy with technical committee meetings during the day but may have some limited time to sightsee and/or say hello to any of you Londoners. The only thing I have planned now, aside from work, is a tour of the Fuller's/Griffin brewery.

Damn, I’ll be in Italy. Chiswick Is relatively central. There’s no where you can’t get to easily by public transport. Download Citymapper. You can pay all public transport with contactless payment and there’s a max amount per day. Look up Transport for London’s website.

PRF must sees.

https://www.cafeoto.co.uk/
The guitar shops on Denmark St near Oxford St
Southbank arts area. Check for concerts at the Royal Festival Hall. Same for the Barbican Centre.
Tate Modern is close to RFH.
The Bermondsey microbrewery district.

All public museums and art galleries are free. You only have to pay for special exhibits.

I’ll keep adding to this post, so check back.

thank you so much

Seconding all of Gramsci’s tips here