Even though the bulk of the economy is built on and around it, the people of Asheville largely hate tourists. Some of it is warranted. However, in my ever so humble opinion, much of it isn’t, the disdain being an extension of the hipster ethos of disdain for disdain’s sake that defines large parts of the city.
It is funny how Asheville locals arbitrarily choose what tourist-centric attractions and locales are fine to patronize and which they’d never be caught dead on. The Greenman Mansion, for example, seems to attract a lot of ire, and Catawba is regularly shit on (not be me, I love Catawba), while Burial (which I like but go to infrequently because of the crowds) is much beloved by locals. Similarly, many Ashevillians would never deign to step foot into somewhere built for tourists (like Tupelo Honey), and yet, are constantly Instagramming themselves at #GoldenHour from the rooftop bar of the new Radical Hotel, which is obviously literally built for tourists.
Now, hipsters being hipsters, I’m sure you could find plenty of locals who think Burial has sold out and find everything about the Radical Hotel annoying—”I like the location of the rooftop bar, but hate everything about it’s branding and reason for existing,” I overheard a gentleman say at Sauna House recently, and dude, SAME—but it seems that almost everyone could agree that two downtown bachelor and bachelorette party mainstays are universally awful.
A) The piano bar I always forget exists until someone bitches about it, or I see its advertising truck drive through increasingly random neighborhoods.
Now, I can agree with the piano bar hate. I’ve had some great fun at piano bars, but they do attract a certain type of crowd, and now that I’m thinking about it, I don’t know that I’ve ever been to one not on vacation. Like, there is something sort of depressing to be a regular at your local one (is this being hipster of me?)?
However, I’m very much pro pubcycles. A pubcycle was one of the first “press” trips I went on with my last blog. I’ve had really fun bachelor party escapades on a pubcycle. AND, my uncle used to own one (and I helped him run the marketing for it). I always argued back whenever a local I’m friends with bitched about the ones that roam downtown. They are, I’d say, plain dumb fun.
Recently, my friend Dani, who, although living in Asheville for a long time, doesn’t have the same tourist disdain as many who’ve lived here far less than she, decided she wanted to do the Asheville Pubcycle for her birthday, getting together a group of locals, some of whom at least performed skepticism before the tour began.
You know who was skeptical while on the pubcycle? Nobody. Because dumb fun is dumb fun (I’d even go as far as to say that dumb fun is universal but that’s a whole essay I don’t have time for—nor do you want to read—here. The cycle takes you on a leisurely ride through downtown, stopping for a half hour on the South Slope for you to take a half-hour beer breather (shockingly, we went to Burial), and plays the kind of dumb music Asheville bars don’t play enough. I Want to Dance With Somebody! Man, I Feel LIke a Woman! Hot in Here! The official song of drunk white people: Mr Brightside!
Would I do the pubcycle again with a group of friends? Absolutely. Would I suggest others to it as well? Also, absolutely.
Will I roll my eyes and say, “there’s much more to Asheville than that,” when someone tells me they are just here to see the Biltmore?” Also, absolutely. Some tourist traps deserve disdain.
AshevilleExplorer 