A production of NSPR
Produced by Matt Fidler
About Up the Road
If you travel mostly to escape the daily drudge, Up The Road host Kim Weir suggests you think again. Travel matters, every bit as much as other choices you make every day. Which is why Up the Road encourages everyone to travel responsibly. Here in California as elsewhere around the world, responsible travel means appreciating nature, valuing natural resources, respecting and preserving culture and history, and supporting local economies in healthy ways.
Up the Road is dedicated to responsible California travel—to sustaining the California story by deepening your connection to this unusual and surprising place. Each week Up the Road shares stories about the land, its natural history, and its people, the lives they have lived, the stories they have told over the centuries, and the stories they are creating right now. The stories that keep us all here, that create California’s unique ecology of home.
Host Kim Weir is editor and founder of Up the Road, a nonprofit public-interest journalism project dedicated to sustaining the California story. She is also a member of the Society of American Travel Writers, and author of all of the original California “handbooks” put out by Moon Publications, now Avalon Travel. Weir lives in Paradise, California.
Up the Road is a joint production of Up the Road and North State Public Radio, initially produced by Sarah Bohannon. The show is now produced by Matt Fidler and distributed by PRX. Up the Road’s theme song was written and produced by Kirk Williams.
-
There’s so much to see and do in Sacramento, California’s capital city, we’ll never move on unless I speed-walk through the basics, what else is downtown and around—at least major museums and sites. But then you’re on your own for Big Tomato parks and recreation, water sports, and all the rest. Join us for more, just up the road. -
Sacramento feels something like other valley towns, but bigger. And it has big surprises. An exciting food scene, for one thing, at least before COVID. (The Big Tomato was always farm-to-fork.) Cool evening breezes in summer, outdoor a/c, thanks to the nearby Delta. And a spectacular State Capitol. Join us for more, just up the road. -
The original gold rush boomtown of Sacramento boomed first as a tent city along the river’s mudflats, an area more or less defined these days by Front and J Streets, west of I-5—Old Sacramento. Then came California’s Great Flood, which inundated the entire valley for 45 days straight. Join us for more, just up the road. -
The dream of the nation’s first transcontinental railroad—a cross-country rail line to connect the West with the rest of the nation—was first dreamed in… -
People love to poke fun at Sacramento. Mark Twain was among the first. In Sacramento, he observed, “It is a fiery summer always, and you can gather roses,… -
Sitting around the pool doing nothing is no sin in Palm Springs. Countless swimming pools here, reportedly one for every six residents—all kinds of water… -
Greater Palm Springs is another good place to travel with, and among, people again.In the beginning was the desert—the Colorado Desert, and its wide,… -
We’ve been getting ready for crowds of people again, now that the COVID tide is turning—maybe even traveling for the purpose of being with people. We… -
Montecito, just south of Santa Barbara, boasts surreal Lotusland, 37 acres of exotic gardens created by Madame Ganna Walska, thwarted opera singer and… -
We’re trying out the idea of urban travel again, after long social isolation. Almost a year, now. Just thinking about groups of people—at crowded…
