Cleveland notes
Brief thoughts on staying here for a week
You need to visit Cleveland. It's one of the most underrated places that I've ever visited. As many of you know, Annie and I are on the road for our Nomad Year (you can see our map here). We ended up staying in Cleveland for a week on our way to New York from Montana.
Cleveland didn’t feel overbearingly large which was nice. We stayed in the artsy Tremont neighborhood that reminded me of neighborhoods in Portland, Oregon. We went in October so the fall foliage was just lovely.
Cleveland is much more diverse than Montana—we were the minority as it's 60% black. It’s known for being industrial as it’s part of the “Rust Belt” but we didn’t see much air pollution, so they must’ve curbed the smog like many other cities have since the 1970s. The city was quite clean.
One cool thing is that there aren’t many tourists. The locals aren’t trying to impress anyone else, and I got a distinct sense that everyone is trying to have a really good time. Drinks on Tuesdays? Yep. There may be some slight apprehension from people but as soon as you get to chatting, their guards go down completely and they converse with open arms and big smiles.
The food was spectacular. The standout meal was at a restaurant called Amba, a modern take on Indian that was highly recommended to us by the locals, that had a super sexy ambiance and mouth-wateringly good food. Also, the drinks in this city were superb. Everywhere you look you see another grown-up bar that’d trick you into thinking you were in Chicago or NYC.
One highlight was visiting Annie’s grandfather’s childhood home located in Cleveland Heights, a gorgeous neighborhood littered with super nice old brick homes. We looked up the prices for some of them and they were significantly less than if we had been on a coast. There’s even a beach on Lake Erie… this was shocking to us for some reason. We had a beach day with some charcuterie and homemade bread as we sunbathed in a sweltering 70F, bizarrely warm for October.
As a tech guy I thought about the prospect of Cleveland being a startup hub. I think the city would be conducive for a thriving tech ecosystem given the weather, young population, good restaurants and bar scene for meetups, and low costs of living. Cleveland will probably continue to see growth with an influx of people who want to stretch their dollar for a better quality of life. I’m bullish on this entire region in fact (especially Detroit) given the cultural significance and proximity to so many other places.
We didn’t spend much time here and could easily live here for a month. If you're looking to spend a long weekend somewhere new, I recommend that you give Cleveland a shot—you won’t be disappointed.
This is such a cool and interesting summary of the area. Safe travels.