About Small Town Stops
Authentic Travel Experiences
Wander off the well-beaten path with authentic travel experiences that inspire.
Bigger isn’t always better! Small Town Stops is an independent online travel publication, a monthly newsletter, and a community of travelers sharing authentic travel stories about small-town travel. Penned with a purpose to inspire travel that’s led by curiosity, not algorithms, we share experiences from locals and discerning travelers with good taste and no hidden agenda—re-routing you toward unexpected departures. We go beyond the well-beaten path to find the places and people that inspire us to travel.
Our why
There’s a certain kind of magic when you stumble upon a place on your own. The thrill of letting your curiosity lead the way, not a top-10 list from TripAdvisor. The joy in finding a place that somehow still feels undiscovered.
Small Town Stops exists to help you find those places.
We believe travel doesn’t have to go far, be big, or be expensive to be meaningful. Here, we let our own curiosity lead the way. Where wayfinding by map rather than algorithm or an influencer can send you down crooked street corners, through small towns and villages, and traipsing off trail.
Instead, we focus on authentic travel experiences. We tell story-led, inspirational, experience-focused stories, guides, and places designed to make travel feel accessible and meaningful. We believe travel should feel personal. Slower. Intentional. Safe enough to go solo, bold enough to feel like an adventure. We’re less concerned about trends and more interested in supporting local, finding art galleries tucked into historic buildings, hotels with history, scenic drives without traffic, and conversations with the people who call these places home.
There’s a big adventure waiting, even hidden in the smallest places.
You just need curiosity — and the courage to start small.
Let’s find it together.
Meet our founder and curator of Small Town Stops
Jessica Hughes
Hello, I’m Jessica, the owner and founder of Small Town Stops — your cutshort to the unexpected. When I was little, I used to say the word “cutshort” instead of shortcut. I guess you could say I’ve always had an itch to do things differently. Small Town Stops was born out of that desire to offer an alternative to mainstream media and to create an independent travel publication that brings back the love of travel before influencers and algorithms.
Travel changed my life and built my confidence—albeit much later in life. Up until the age of 35, I hadn’t traveled much except for family vacations to Florida, summers at Beaver Lake in Arkansas, and my first international trip to Brazil for graduate school. I was always interested in exploring faraway places and traveling to foreign countries, but I never felt I had the means to do so. But that all changed a few years after receiving my M.B.A., when I moved from Florida to Colorado to be closer to my family and finally put to rest my never-ending debate: mountains or the beach.
Living in Colorado changed my perspective on travel. It reminded me that travel didn’t have to mean only expensive flights to Japan or multi-day treks across the Sahara—it could be as simple as a weekend getaway to my favorite Colorado mountain town. I was lucky to find myself in a naturally beautiful place that evokes curiosity, always leaving me wondering, “What’s on the other side of that mountain?”
Soon, I found myself traveling solo on weekends to small towns like Westcliffe, Colorado, backpacking in the backcountry, and taking long drives across the state’s Eastern Plains. It felt like such freedom. Embarking on these small solo trips helped build my confidence, not only as a traveler but as a person. I had the freedom to choose for myself where to go. I could let my curiosity guide me, and because I wasn’t worried about navigating the streets of Paris on my own (although I plan to do that one day), I was less intimidated by the idea of travel, let alone solo travel.
My newfound travel confidence and love for authentic travel experiences led me toward travel writing. Over the years, I’ve been fortunate enough to work with multiple publications to share my favorite travel stories, but I’ve found many stories that weren’t being told that I thought should be.
And so, Small Town Stops was born from a need to tell untold stories and highlight places I thought deserved a spotlight, not from press releases but from curious travelers themselves. I think we can all agree that, now more than ever, we want to connect with something real, something authentic — not a travel itinerary generated by AI or an algorithm.
I hope our ‘small’ discoveries spark your curiosity and inspire you to take that small step toward big adventures.
If you want to share your travel stories or join our community of curious travelers, please fill out the contact form below to work with us or learn more about getting involved.