Greece’s Dodecanese Islands.
Alberta, Canada.
Laos.
Ghana.
Milwaukee.
These are the five places in the world that National Geographic celebrates this year in a new category of its annual “Best of the World” travel destinations, "25 Breathtaking Places and Experiences for 2023."
Typically Nat Geo has focused on Family, Adventure, Culture and Nature, but this year it has added Community, which, it says, is, “designed to be inclusive of healing and heritage journeys, community-led conservation efforts, ways for travelers to give back and locations doing groundbreaking work in eco-tourism, sustainability and inclusive travel.
“The goal is to spotlight destinations where people make places better for locals, the environment and visitors, and to showcase homegrown, rooted, locally relevant and engaged places to visit.”
Of five categories, Milwaukee is placed into the "community" category, highlighting Milwaukee's "close-knit creative communities" like Bronzeville. Read more about how Milwaukee supports our communities. https://t.co/GADVTbIqhp? — VISIT Milwaukee (@visitmilwaukee) October 26, 2022
And, yes, Brew City is on that list. It’s where you should, according to Nat Geo, “Spend a long weekend in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, a vibrant Great Lakes city that celebrates its cultural community as much as its breweries.”
In a related article, the magazine adds, “Wisconsin’s biggest and liveliest city combines a blue-collar, back-thumping energy with a close-knit creative community that’s turning heads beyond the Great Lakes. (Having a winning NBA team, the Bucks, doesn’t hurt either.)
“Follow the locals and kayak down one of the rivers before disembarking to explore the Historic Third Ward, a former industrial neighborhood laced with bike lanes. At the Milwaukee Public Market, you can score a bag of cheese curds, as beloved as the local bratwursts; then follow the shore of Lake Michigan to the Milwaukee Art Museum’s sculptural pavilion designed by Santiago Calatrava.”
You can read the full story on the 2023 “Best of the World” here.
Born in Brooklyn, N.Y., where he lived until he was 17, Bobby received his BA-Mass Communications from UWM in 1989 and has lived in Walker's Point, Bay View, Enderis Park, South Milwaukee and on the East Side.
He has published three non-fiction books in Italy – including one about an event in Milwaukee history, which was published in the U.S. in autumn 2010. Four more books, all about Milwaukee, have been published by The History Press.
With his most recent band, The Yell Leaders, Bobby released four LPs and had a songs featured in episodes of TV's "Party of Five" and "Dawson's Creek," and films in Japan, South America and the U.S. The Yell Leaders were named the best unsigned band in their region by VH-1 as part of its Rock Across America 1998 Tour. Most recently, the band contributed tracks to a UK vinyl/CD tribute to the Redskins and collaborated on a track with Italian novelist Enrico Remmert.
He's produced three installments of the "OMCD" series of local music compilations for OnMilwaukee.com and in 2007 produced a CD of Italian music and poetry.
In 2005, he was awarded the City of Asti's (Italy) Journalism Prize for his work focusing on that area. He has also won awards from the Milwaukee Press Club.
He can be heard weekly on 88Nine Radio Milwaukee talking about his "Urban Spelunking" series of stories.
