Over the course of the summer season, several volunteers manned the Greater Newburyport Chamber of Commerce’s information booth on the Newburyport waterfront. Each week, the booth was open for approximately 15 hours; totaling 180 hours through the summer months.
Within that very small sample size, it was uplifting to encounter the diversity of the people passing through Newburyport. The data collected through the modest sample of visitors accounted for just under 1,000 tourists representing six of the seven continents (Antarctica didn’t show), 18 countries and 30 states representing all regions, time zones, and political persuasions.
It would be fair to estimate a larger representation of countries, territories and states passed through the city given the time the information booth is closed.
The entry points for visits ranged from the typical touristy information given out by area lodgings, guides, business generated information and word of mouth ranging from the Portsmouth, New Hampshire, area to Boston; arriving by car, train and bicycle.
They included a combination of day-trippers checking out the region or some returning for their annual summer trip to the Newburyport area to shop, dine out, go on a whale watch, etc. One couple from Milford, New Hampshire, makes a short annual summer trip to take in a stage performance at the Firehouse and were in for the weekend to see “School of Rock.”
The city also shouldn’t discount the impact of the commuter line, Clipper City Rail Trail, or international and national events taking place in the region. Newburyport became a day trip for some with free time between World Cup matches or people using Boston as a home base for vacation.
To that end, the most solicited information beyond good places to eat or areas to shop were trips out on the water or historical spots to check out. Access to recreation is also a draw. Some Boston residents brought their bikes on the train wanting to take advantage of the rail trail heading north through Salisbury, Amesbury and beyond or a venture out to Plum Island. Others took advantage of access to rental bikes for local exploration.
AI is influencing decisions to seek Newburyport along with their dispositions upon arrival. A woman was on her way home to Virginia from Bar Harbor and used ChatGPT to determine a nice stop for lunch that had water access after driving five hours.
She said Newburyport was an option and wanted to confirm some restaurant choices her search also provided. A group arriving by train with little command of the language wanted directions to City Hall, which was the top choice from their search.
No disrespect to City Hall, which was closed that Friday afternoon; but I wondered what query moved it ahead Market Square, the Custom House Maritime Museum or waterfront points of interest, for example.
Alas, after checking out many search options to see where City Hall might show up, it made an appearance on Tripadvisor. Finally, a group of eight sisters from New York, Connecticut and Florida chose Newburyport for their annual trip after it topped their query prompt asking for a good spot on the New England coast for dining, shopping and charm.
I think we miss a lot these days putting data into an organizing system like a spreadsheet that ultimately leads to data-driven decision-making, falling short of the stories behind the numbers.
Instead, looking through the lens of a writer in the “Show, don’t tell” mantra, can produce some interesting stories, brief as they might be, from some of the visitors who choose Newburyport as a destination. Our waterfront and downtown serve as sort of a Venn diagram allowing for commonalities to emerge that might not show up without the conversations tending to connect rather than divide us. Examples from a few of mine include:
A retired couple from Shreveport, Louisiana, pausing for a lunch stop, were retired educators from a city I once visited to see my uncle’s family while in elementary school. We compared notes on our grandchildren.
A woman and her son visiting from Heidelberg, Germany both seemed a bit unsure of themselves as they navigated the vernaculars of the English language.
When I complimented them on the Heidelberg Castle and Heidelberg University during a visit I made there when traveling through Europe, they relaxed a bit more as they processed the possibilities for how they might spend their day. As a sidenote, they both knew of the Forrest Gump bench in front of a bakery in the old town area of the city.
Perhaps, the most common stateside traveler outside of New England was from Florida. A common denominator for a good conversation that can be revealing is baseball. There are many Red Sox fans with a Fort Myers connection, but there are a wide range of people coming from spring training locations, including New York Yankees fans. Needless to say, the nature of the conversations took dramatic swings over the lows, highs and lows again of the past Red Sox season.
The experience kept reminding of John Holmes’ poem, “Map of My Country”, where he observes both the “impartial rivers” like the Mississippi that Huck Finn traveled along with what maps don’t show like “where winter whitens” or the changing colors of maples and oaks. He differentiates between those key spots we identify on maps in schools like national monuments or historical battlefields from the “known world” of the paths we walk or “towns famous for nothing except I (we) have been happy in them.”
Of course, maps and their relation to technology have changed since Holmes wrote his poem in the mid 20th century. But the individual stories inherent to our spot on the map intersecting with the stories tourists bring from all over the world (especially outside of the political rhetoric) makes life interesting, and offers a glimpse and a hope for keeping our perspectives healthy.
Gary Tirone is a lifelong educator, writer and researcher living in Newburyport. He can be reached at tirone.write@gmail.com or his website, literacygateway.com.