Decolonizing my Travel: What I learned when I stopped visiting mostly white neighbourhoods

U.S. travel has increasingly moved beyond downtown hotel districts, with the U.S. Travel Association stating in recent industry briefings that travelers are spending more on local food, neighborhood retail, and cultural experiences. In that broader shift, one traveler’s decision to stop centering mostly white neighborhoods reframed what urban trips in places like New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles actually looked like on the ground. The change was less about adding new cities and more about spending time, money, and attention in different parts of the same city.

A different neighborhood map changed the trip itself

The practical change was simple: instead of building itineraries around the same high-profile areas, the trips shifted toward neighborhoods with deeper Black, Latino, and Asian American histories, including Jackson Heights in Queens, Pilsen in Chicago, and Leimert Park in Los Angeles. That meant booking meals, walking tours, bookstores, and music stops in places tied to long-standing local communities rather than default visitor zones. The scale of the shift was measurable in time and spending, even if it started as a personal travel decision.

In New York City, for example, Queens welcomed a record 14.2 million visitors in 2023, according to NYC Tourism + Conventions, showing that outer-borough travel is no longer a niche pattern. In Chicago, Choose Chicago has promoted neighborhood tourism beyond the Loop, including cultural corridors on the South and West sides. In Los Angeles, community-based cultural districts have become regular stops in visitor guides produced by local tourism groups.

What became clear quickly was that the trip felt more specific. A meal in Jackson Heights connected directly to immigrant business corridors that city officials and local merchants have documented for years. A bookstore event in Leimert Park offered more local history than a standard attraction stop because the neighborhood itself was part of the subject.

The local impact was real, even when the visitor numbers were smaller

The biggest lesson was not abstract. Spending in neighborhood businesses reaches people differently than spending concentrated in major tourism cores, especially in corridors built around small, independent operators. In many cities, that can mean family-run restaurants, community arts spaces, and retailers that do not have the same marketing reach as businesses in heavily visited districts.

What is confirmed is that destination groups in several large U.S. cities now market neighborhoods as core travel assets, not side trips. NYC Tourism + Conventions, Choose Chicago, and Los Angeles Tourism all include neighborhood guides in official planning materials. What is not fully known is how much of that visitor spending remains in each corridor because city-by-city neighborhood-level tourism revenue data is often limited or not publicly released in a standardized format.

Even without perfect data, local examples are visible. In Chicago’s Pilsen, murals, Mexican restaurants, and independent shops are central to the visitor experience promoted by local guides. In Los Angeles, Destination Crenshaw, a 1.3-mile public art and infrastructure project, has been framed by its organizers as both a cultural investment and a tourism draw tied to Black Los Angeles.

The broader context is tied to culture, money, and who travel centers

This shift is happening alongside a wider conversation about representation in tourism. Research from MMGY Global and Black Travel Alliance in recent years has documented that many travelers, especially Black travelers, actively look for places where local culture is visible, welcomed, and accurately presented. That has pushed more attention toward neighborhoods that were long treated as secondary by mainstream travel coverage.

There is also a dollars-and-cents reason. The U.S. Small Business Administration has repeatedly noted the outsized role of small firms in local commercial corridors, and neighborhood travel spending often lands in those businesses first. When a trip includes a locally owned restaurant in Queens or a record shop in South Los Angeles, the spending pattern differs from one centered on chains clustered near major hotel districts.

For travelers, the practical takeaway is straightforward. Expect more city guides, hotel concierges, and tourism boards to highlight neighborhood itineraries that extend beyond the best-known districts, a trend already visible in 2024 and 2025 destination materials. The result is not a different country, but often a more complete version of the same city, reflected in whose stories, businesses, and public spaces make it onto the schedule.