The town is Hesperia, California, and the producers wanted Chang to try an Indian restaurant near a windshield repair store. But Chang spots a Mexican cantina that looks promising.

He naturally chooses to eat at both, freaking out his camera crew.

“I just wanted to taste things. When I see something, I’m like, ‘Oh, that looks interesting. I would like to taste that,’” he says in an interview. “To the dismay of the producers and the team, they’re like, ‘No, no. We got to go here.’ I was like, ‘You don’t understand. I told you guys that if we’re going to do the show, everything’s on the table.'”

“Everything's On the Table” might be a good alternative title for the six-part “The Detour with David Chang,” where the famed founder of the Momofuku global restaurant chain pairs with a companion and hits the open road, eating his way through America. It begins airing Sunday.

What's the show about?

Chang chows down on Filipino food in South Las Vegas, bites into a traditional Czech puff pastry in Texas and tries Haitian food for the first time in Miami. The show's motto is: “All we’ve got is a destination. Everything else is a detour.”

He's paired by friends and strangers alike, from “American Fiction” director and writer Cord Jefferson to comedian, actor and writer Cristela Alonzo, who shows him her Texas. In Tennessee, he rides with Christina Tosi, the Milk Bar creator, who is almost a surrogate sister.

The show is about exploring and connecting with locals to find hidden gems, like the spot that serves killer Cuban fritas at a laundromat. Or the chefs who take barbecue and combine Asian flavors, creating oak-smoked pulled pork with Penang curry. Or the family serving Honduran food truck breakfast that helps heal Chang's terrible rum hangover.

“I love going out to eat, but as I get older, staying inside, not doing as much, is also nice. And I think that over the past few years, I’ve certainly been calcified,” says Chang. “Anytime you get out of your comfort zone or your little bubble, I think it’s a good reminder that there’s so much other stuff out there.”

Eating choices don't follow the algorithm

Chang joins a crowded field of celebrity travel hosts, which includes Daniel Dae Kim, Tony Shalhoub, Rainn Wilson, Eugene Levy, Stanley Tucci,Orlando Bloom, Zac Efron, José Andrés, Chris Hemsworth, Will Smith, Eva Longoria and Ewan McGregor. Awkwafina is on deck.

All owe a debt to Anthony Bourdain, who inspired millions to share his delight in food and the bonds it created. Bourdain died in 2018. Amy Entelis, executive vice president of talent, CNN Originals and creative development, notes that Chang is the first chef to host a CNN original series since Bourdain.

“Dave isn’t setting out to define American food or find the ‘best’ restaurant in every city. It’s almost the opposite,” she says. “He gets in the car, talks to people and follows recommendations that take him somewhere he didn’t expect to go. At a time when an algorithm can tell you where to eat, where to stay and what to see, there’s something really appealing about just getting a little lost and seeing what you find.”

The seed of the series was planted when Chang and executive producer Morgan Neville were chatting one day about what it was like to discover new indie rock bands back in the old days before the internet and influencers, and the joy when you found one.

“I felt like that was sort of how I felt about food as well,” says Chang. “Listen, it’s easier to eat than ever before. But, in some ways, it is harder to find something that is meaningful to you.”

He finds twists on brisket and Ethiopian food

One show highlight is the delightful way he ends up at an Ethiopian restaurant in Las Vegas after listening to the recommendation of a taxi driver. Eating slow-cooked chicken and injera — the sour, spongy flatbread — reminded Chang of how good that cuisine is.

“I will die on the hill that Ethiopian food is one of the world’s greatest cuisines. There’s nothing like it, and it’s a singular approach to texture, flavor, and the kind of food that everyone loves these days — communal dining, where everyone can eat the same thing but customize it themselves.”

He learns that in Texas the Holy Trinity is brisket, ribs and sausage, but some local chefs are also putting their own spins on classic dishes. Like pitmaster Chuck Charnichart at the eatery Barbs in Lockhart, who adds serrano glaze on her ribs and zests fresh limes over them. “It feels like I have a front-row seat to Dylan going electric,” Chang says in admiration.

Throughout the series is Chang's gentle humor and willingness to try and do anything, dropping references to the painter Rothko, musician John Coltrane and director Terrence Malick along the way. And, of course, always popping corn nuts.

“When you think about it, I’m getting paid to go eat and hang out with friends,” he says, laughing. “I have nothing to complain about. And it’s a nice reminder that this is literally a dream job.”

But travel scams have become more sophisticated, and scammers using new artificial intelligence tools have become better at creating fake websites and using stolen data to their advantage, said Florent Silve, an executive at Engine, a corporate travel management platform.

“What used to look like a fake website now becomes much harder to spot by consumers,” Silve said.

According to a Federal Trade Commission report published in June, Americans last year reported losing $3.5 billion to scams in which impostors contacted them through text, email, phone, social media and search engines, though those weren't all travel scams. Nearly 1 in 3 fraud reports were about impostor scams, making it the most reported fraud category.

Travel scams can happen before you even hop on a plane, with scammers posing as your hotel or airline to take advantage of the fact that you're expecting to receive communications from those companies.

“In the past, people were like ‘Oh if I receive a scam that is completely out of place, that's how I know it’s a scam.’ But now, the most dangerous scams don’t look suspicious; they look expected,” said Iskander Sanchez-Rola, a scam expert for Norton, a cybersecurity company.

If you’re planning a trip soon, here are some expert recommendations to stay safe from travel scams:

Beware of reservation hijacking

A new common travel scam is reservation hijacking, Sanchez-Rola said. In this scam, imposters send you an email or text, pretending to be your hotel. They pretend that something went wrong, such as a failed payment, and say you need to take immediate action.

What makes these scams particularly difficult to spot is that scammers often use real information to make you believe they are legit, Sanchez-Rola said. Scammers target hotel systems by phishing hotel staff to get login credentials and then accessing legitimate information from hotels or booking services. Using this information, scammers send you an email with your actual reservation dates or the exact cost of your hotel stay, hoping to convince you they're with the company you used to make the reservation.

“The main thing is that this isn’t a fake booking confirmation, it’s a real reservation that is weaponized against you," Sanchez-Rola said.

If you encounter this type of scam, Sanchez-Rola recommends that you don’t rush to make a payment through the provided link and instead call your hotel directly. Don’t call the number attached to the email or text you received because it might have come from the scammer. Instead, go to the official hotel website and call the number listed there.

Be wary of flight cancellation notifications

Another popular scam involves flight cancellations, Sanchez-Rola said. Scammers contact you with an urgent message saying your flight has been canceled or delayed, then pretend to help you rebook your flight for an additional cost.

“You're going to a place, and one day before that happens, they tell you that the flight was canceled," Sanchez-Rola said. “So in that moment, there is an inherent urgency.”

If you receive a text saying that your flight has been canceled, don’t panic. First, go directly to your airline’s portal and verify the information. If you need to rebook your flight, do so directly with the airline or third-party booking system you originally used. Above all, don’t click on any links sent to you through a text message, Sanchez-Rola said.

To help keep yourself safe from being scammed in the first place, don't post photos of your plane tickets and other travel documents on social media. Even if you cover your flight number with emojis, the ticket can reveal more than you think.

“The QR codes or the barcodes that are there include a lot of information," Sanchez-Rola said. “Sometimes they even include information about returning flights.”

Beware of QR codes

In recent years, QR codes have become a popular way to pay your bill at your restaurant table. This may be convenient, but it can also make you a target for scams, said Alissa Abdullah, Mastercard’s deputy chief security officer. Scammers paste a new code overlapping the restaurant’s code and direct customers to a fraudulent payment system.

“You may be sitting at a coffee shop and have a real QR code with a fake one that’s a sticker laid right on top,” Abdullah said.

If you’re suspicious of the payment page or notice a sticker laid on top of another at a restaurant, Abdullah recommends that you speak with a staff member and find a different way to pay, such as cash or a credit card.

Be careful when using public Wi-Fi

It’s very common to connect to a public Wi-Fi network to find your way around a new city or download your plane tickets at the airport. While free Wi-Fi can help during travel, it also carries some cybersecurity risks.

“Sometimes cyber criminals will create a network that looks close to the name of a legit network to dupe you into logging onto their network,” said Brian Cute, chief executive officer and director of the capacity and resilience program at Global Cyber Alliance, a nonprofit focused on reducing cyber risk.

If you access a scammer’s network, they can steal personal information, damage your system, or gain remote access to your devices. If you need to use public Wi-Fi, Cute recommends that you stick to basic searches, like how to get to your hotel, rather than accessing websites such as your bank or email.

The installation — specially created for an exhibition of the work of Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama, who died Aug. 14 at age 97 — is titled “Infinity Mirrored Room — The Hope Of The Polka Dots Buried In Infinity Will Eternally Cover The Universe.”

The room is at the heart of the exhibition at the Stedelijk that opens this week, just two weeks after her death. What was to have been a retrospective has turned into a posthumous celebration of one of the globe's best known contemporary artists, who depicted her world splashed with polka dots and other repetitive motifs.

“We heard about her passing,” exhibition curator Leontine Coelewij told The Associated Press. “We decided to make it really a tribute. A tribute to her life. Tribute to her work, so that everybody can see what she is ... to us. So many wonderful works.”

Kusama's signature dots greet visitors before they even get into the museum in Amsterdam — they are plastered across its facade and even on red fabric wrapped around trees on the adjacent Museum Square.

Coelewij said that painting the dots was a way for the artist to process hallucinations she had from a young age. Among the works on display is a huge pumpkin made of fiber-reinforced plastic and polyurethane paint, its yellow skin covered in lines of black dots of varying sizes.

“So a lot of her work comes from these mental issues that she had,” Coelewij said. “And I think she made something beautiful out of it for her. It was also a way to explore ideas about infinity, for instance, like, how do we relate to the universe, to the cosmos, to the world around us?”

Kusama had long-standing links to the Netherlands and the Stedelijk. She was active in Amsterdam and other Dutch cities in the freewheeling 1960s, and her work was closely aligned to the ZERO movement established in the late 1950s by German artists, Heinz Mack and Otto Piene.

She was part of a landmark exhibition by the movement, also at the Stedelijk, in 1965. A photo from that Amsterdam exhibition shows Kusama, wearing a white kimono, standing among artists from the movement — mostly men in suits and ties.

In a famous “happening” in 1967, Kusama covered the naked body of Dutch artist Jan Schoonhoven with painted dots in the chapel of the Stedelijk Museum Schiedam near Rotterdam.

“She really liked the whole atmosphere in the Netherlands, which was rather open and tolerant, liberal,” Coelewij said. “She was also part of the counterculture of that moment, the hippie culture. You know, Amsterdam was the magical center, and she felt very much at home here.”

The new exhibition spans through several rooms before going up an escalator lined with mirrors to reach the infinity room installation one floor up.

It's Coelewij's favorite part of the show, created for the exhibition that was previously staged at Museum Ludwig in the German city of Cologne.

“There’s a lot of mirrors, there’s tentacles, there’s a lot of color, and it’s a ... you can say hallucinating world. You really step into her mind,” Coelewij said.

It's a fitting tribute to the artist who said 10 years ago that she felt her life was nearing its end but she was “still fighting to the death for my art.”

“I am giving all I have so that many people will continue to be interested in my art, even after I am dead,” Kusama had said.

The exhibition at Amsterdam’s Stedelijk opens on Friday and runs through Jan. 17.

Mayor Roberto Gualtieri presented the recently restored “Painted City” fresco and “Great Mosaic” that were discovered in an underground gallery during excavations in the 1990s of the Baths of Trajan on the Oppio hill near the Colosseum.

The works are opening to the public for the first time, initially in small groups of 15 and during a trial period of weekend access starting this month. The aim is to determine how the delicate works respond to increased humidity and climactic impacts before allowing more general access.

Gualtieri said the fresco, which features images of a walled port city from a birds-eye view perspective, was the largest wall fresco of its kind from ancient Rome and as such needs to be open to the public. After being hidden undergound for centuries, its blues and terra cotta colors are still clear but faded.

“They are truly unique in the world, both from the point of view of artistic beauty and the historic and documental importance,” he said at the unveiling.

Rome’s cultural superintendent, Claudio Parisi Presicce, said the grandeur of the port city as depicted in the fresco, with buildings, a theater and temple, public piazzas and towers, was particularly well conserved. The restoration work included techniques to preserve and improve visibility, remove surface deposits and consolidate the grouting to keep the decorated surfaces intact.

“We don’t know what city it refers to, but it must have been a particularly well-known one,” he said

The mosaic, for its part, measures some 15 meters (yards) high and features intricately decorated columns and architectural elements and figures over four different levels. The top levels are up-close images with people that are almost like theatrical scenes, while at the bottom are views of the port city’s layout from above.

The Baths of Trajan, which were dedicated by Emperor Trajan in 109 AD, extended over six hectares (15 acres) and were at the time the largest bath complex in the world. They incorporated an earlier baths complex, the Domus Aurea, and were designed on a different trajectory to take better advantage of the water temperatures to optimize the thermal experience for users.

The complex now open to the public includes a grand semicircular upper-level “library” which archaeologists believe was part of the baths complex and allowed users not only to practice sport and bathe but also to participate in cultural activities.

The two companies said they're starting with a small rollout of Ford Mustang Mach-E electric vehicles outfitted with Wayve's autonomous vehicle technology.

Compared with the U.S. and China — countries where robotaxis operate autonomously in several cities, with no human driver — Europe has been taking a more cautious approach on self-driving cabs.

In London, there will still be a person behind the wheel overseeing the trip who can grab the wheel or tap the brakes if there’s a problem.

Under the U.K. government's pilot framework, self-driving taxi operators like Uber and Wayve still need approval to operate without a human safety driver. “That process is still playing out,” and it’s not clear how long it will take, said Sarfraz Maredia, Uber’s head of autonomous mobility.

Robotaxi companies have been testing their vehicles on London streets as Britain moves to adopt national regulations. Waymo and Chinese tech company Baidu are also gearing up to offer commercial passenger service in London, which poses unique challenges to robotaxis because its narrow and famously convoluted roads are frequently congested with cars, buses, bicycles and electric rental bikes.

Pedestrians also pose a bigger challenge in London because jaywalking is not against the law.

Many countries in Europe are still in the testing phase. Uber said last month it launched its first European commercial robotaxi service in Zagreb, Croatia, in partnership with a local operator and China's Pony.ai, but human safety drivers are still required.

Meanwhile in the United States, Waymo, owned by Google parent Alphabet, now operates fully autonomous taxi service in 14 cities, while Amazon's Zoox and Tesla are catching up.

In China, Baidu, WeRide and Pony.AI operate robotaxi services in multiple cities. They've also been expanding into the Middle East in partnerships with Uber or local fleet operators in Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Saudi Arabia.

The deployment in London will start with under 20 vehicles and expand from there, Maredia said.

Uber customers won’t be able to specifically request a robotaxi, but they could be matched with a Wayve vehicle when they hail a ride on the app, which they can accept or reject. Prices won’t be any different from a regular Uber ride. Passengers won’t be prompted to tip at the end of a robotaxi trip, the company said.

The food hall used to be a stop on the way to dinner. Now it is dinner. A seat at a chef's counter, a glass of something poured by the person who imported it, a plate carrying a Michelin star a few minutes from where guests are sleeping: these used to mean a special trip across town. Now they're a short walk from the room. That pairing is showing up in cities from San Antonio to Newcastle, each one a luxury hotel within walking distance of a food hall.

A market that grew nearly 25% in 2 years

There's a number behind the trend: the U.S. now counts 458 operating food halls, up 24.89% since 2023. That's exactly why hotel groups on two continents are chasing a five-minute walk instead of a rooftop bar or a spa menu. The food hall isn't a niche amenity anymore; it's infrastructure.

San Antonio: A former glass factory holding 2 Michelin-starred restaurants

Pullman Market sits inside a former glass factory in San Antonio's Pearl District, and two separate Michelin-starred restaurants share the building: Isidore, which also holds a Michelin Green Star, and Nicosi. There's also a specialty market, a wine shop, a bread baker and a chef's corner.

The property's own description: "Michelin-star restaurants and nose-to-tail butchers share the same space." Fair enough. Hotel Emma, a 19th-century brewery turned hotel, is two minutes away. San Antonio is one of two American cities with a UNESCO Creative City of Gastronomy designation.

London: An Italian marketplace with 2 ways to stay

More than 6,000 products fill Eataly London 's 40,000 square feet at 135 Bishopsgate: cured meats and cheeses, handmade bread and focaccia, air-dried pasta and rice. The property also offers what it calls the U.K.'s largest selection of boutique, single-estate extra-virgin olive oil, plus an on-site cooking school, La Scuola, that runs public classes.

Andaz London Liverpool Street is one minute away. Pan Pacific London, a five-star, 237-room hotel, is three minutes the other direction. Either address puts guests inside the same marketplace.

San Francisco: Oysters, caviar and a century-old bread company

Inside a restored terminal on the Embarcadero, nearly 50 artisan food merchants make up the Ferry Building Marketplace, among them the oyster bar at Hog Island Oyster Company, the charcuterie counter at Fatted Calf, organic loaves from Acme Bread Company and hand-crafted American caviar from Tsar Nicoulai, which has been at it since 1984. The walk from the Palace Hotel runs about 15 minutes.

London, again: Selfridges Food Hall on Oxford Street

Selfridges Food Hall, on Oxford Street, is the store's answer to the Harrods food halls a few miles away in Knightsbridge: Veuve Clicquot, Dom Pérignon and Moët & Chandon on the shelves, Charbonnel et Walker and Venchi at the chocolate counter, a full sit-down meal at Brasserie of Light inside the hall itself.

Hyatt Regency London - The Churchill is five minutes away on Portman Square. It's close enough that the hotel calls itself one of the closest luxury stays to a food hall in London, with the added draw of the square's private garden.

Edinburgh: A National Chef of Scotland runs the kitchen lineup

Scotland's National Chef, Gary Maclean, was part of the opening kitchen lineup at Bonnie & Wild Scottish Marketplace, a room of kitchens and street food stalls with Scottish cheese counters, artisan bakers and seafood stalls stacked with West Coast oysters and langoustines. So were El Perro Negro, a two-time winner of the UK Burger Awards, and Kochchi, a Scottish street food award winner. The Glasshouse, Autograph Collection, a five-star hotel built into a 19th-century church with views over Calton Hill, is five to 10 minutes away.

Newcastle: A department store food hall stocking the same labels as London's

On Northumberland Street, Fenwick Food Hall carries the same names found in London's grandest halls: Dom Pérignon, Charbonnel et Walker, Moët & Chandon, Lanson, Dalmore whisky. There are artisan cheese counters too, fresh pastries, premium seafood, a proper delicatessen. Hotel Gotham, an Art Deco building, is a five-minute walk down Pilgrim Street.

More food halls are coming, not fewer

At least 114 more food halls are in the U.S. pipeline: 18 opening within six months, 96 more slated for 2026, led by Florida, California, New York, Texas and Georgia. The report counts them as pipeline projects, not operating food halls. San Antonio, London, San Francisco, Edinburgh and Newcastle already have theirs.

What's changing is not yet how hotels book but what counts as a destination. A Michelin-starred kitchen inside a former glass factory, a National Chef of Scotland running a street-food lineup, a department store's champagne counter: these used to be a side note in a hotel's marketing copy. As more food halls open, that side note is getting harder to leave out.

A quarter of fall travelers are choosing small towns

A recent survey found that nearly half of U.S. adults plan to travel this fall, with driving significantly more popular than domestic flying and 25% choosing small towns as their preferred destination type. Millennials, in particular, are renting cars for the trip at nearly four times the rate of baby boomers.

Door County is almost a textbook example of the trend. Its 66-mile Coastal Byway connects small waterfront communities, orchards, parks and historic sites, making it particularly well suited to the kind of driving-heavy fall trip the Hertz survey describes.

Ephraim sets the tone for the whole peninsula

As the air cools, the village of Ephraim trades its summer bustle for a cozy, unhurried mood: cooler mornings, quieter docks and decorations that transform the historic district into something out of a postcard. A walk along the waterfront takes visitors past Anderson Dock and onto the newer North Side path, both busy in July and nearly empty by October.

Even the shops slow down. Browse the resale racks at The Simple Solution, grab a coffee at Leroy's Water Street Coffee or play a round at Red Putter Mini Golf before letting the day come to a stop.

Pick apples instead of cherries

Sister Bay and Fish Creek turn the harvest into the main event. At Seaquist Orchards, a multi-generational family farm with 30 acres of apple trees, pick-your-own weekends run through October, and the Farm Market sells the ciders, jams and pie fillings made from what comes off the trees.

A few miles south in Fish Creek, Lautenbach's Orchard Country has been family-run since 1955, growing 10 apple varieties across 100 acres of orchards and vineyards. Its estate wine and hard cider are made on-site, and the bakery's cherry pie draws a line even after the cherry crowds are gone. Both properties stay open well into fall, giving visitors weeks, not days, to time a visit around.

The color show comes with its own lighthouses

Door County's fall foliage runs along scenic highways and through village centers, but the best of it is on foot. Peninsula State Park, established in 1910, has sugar maple and white birch trails threading past bluffs more than 150 feet above the water, plus the Eagle Bluff Lighthouse, built in 1868.

In Baileys Harbor, the Ridges Sanctuary, a nonprofit nature preserve founded in 1937, runs naturalist-led foliage walks along 5 miles of trail to the Baileys Harbor Range Lights. A causeway leads out to Cana Island & Lighthouse, where 97 steps climb to a gallery deck with views back across the peninsula. None of it is tied to a single festival weekend. The lighthouses and trails stay open for self-guided touring throughout the season.

Sturgeon Bay keeps working through the season

Not every stop on the peninsula runs at resort speed. Sturgeon Bay is the county seat, with an active shipbuilding waterfront that keeps the town running year-round rather than shutting down after summer.

The Door County Maritime Museum, which draws about 95,000 visitors annually across three sites, including its Sturgeon Bay campus and the Cana Island Lighthouse grounds in Baileys Harbor, runs boat tours aboard the Schooner Utopia and the Tug John Purves alongside wooden boatbuilding classes. It's a working-town counterpoint to the postcard villages up the peninsula, and fall is when it's easiest to see both sides of Door County in the same trip.

Fall mood spreads well past any one village

By October, the mood spreads beyond any single village. Storefronts in Fish Creek and Sister Bay lean into the season with pumpkins and string lights, kids trick-or-treat down Main Street and Egg Harbor's wineries and art galleries fill up as the foliage along Whitecliff Road turns. None of it is scheduled around one weekend on a calendar. It's simply what the peninsula looks like once summer traffic clears out and the people who live here get their villages back for a few months.

Washington Island is how far some travelers go for quiet

For those who want to go further, a 5-mile ferry ride across the strait known as Death's Door leads to Washington Island, which has a year-round population of around 600. It has more than 40 miles of quiet backroads for biking, running and paddling. Each fall, islanders press their own cider from apples grown right there. It's the peninsula's clearest answer to a simple question: How far are you willing to go to actually get away?

And it is because of that deep devotion that Parton's death has been profoundly personal to rural Sevier County. To the world, Parton was one of the world's best-known country music stars. To her neighbors, she was Tennessee's favorite daughter.

“It hit me hard. It hit me really hard,” said James Gambrell, a former chef at Dollywood, the signature theme park that Parton opened decades ago after seeing families like hers unable to afford to go to Disneyland.

“If it don’t affect you, then something’s wrong,” Gambrell said of Parton's death, adding that he became so close to her family that they adopted him as a kind of nephew.

Mourners flocked to a bronze statue of Dolly in the center of her hometown of Sevierville Tuesday night, exchanging stories and shedding tears. The town is set in the hills of the Smoky Mountains just minutes from Dollywood. Many brought flowers and drawings and other tributes to the late singer.

By Wednesday morning at Dollywood, the scent of cinnamon bread filled the air and long lines formed at a theater featuring biographical stories narrated by Parton. The park is closed Tuesdays, so Wednesday was the first chance for many to visit, including Carla Potts, who flew in from Seattle a few days earlier.

“She just consistently spread joy and hope and light, really” Potts said after entering the park on her first visit.

One of 12 children, Parton grew up in a two-room cabin with no electricity and no running water. In her music, she described life in East Tennessee as “peaceful as a baby’s sigh,” a place where “crickets sing in the fields nearby.” She moved to Nashville shortly after finishing high school, but she once joked to the Knoxville News Sentinel that she may be the “only person that ever left the Smoky Mountains and took them with her.”

It started largely with Dollywood

While the Smoky Mountains had long attracted outdoor enthusiasts to the region, Parton made a strategic decision to become co-owner of the amusement park in Pigeon Forge in 1986 and name it Dollywood. The park quickly became Tennessee’s most visited tourist attraction, with Parton often opening each new season with a performance and a parade. State officials say Dollywood generates $1.8 billion each year and is the county's largest employer.

“We had Great Smoky Mountains National Park since the '30s, and Gatlinburg was a huge destination for years, but Dollywood helped the county take that next step,” said Amanda Marr, a member of the Sevierville Chamber of Commerce. “Having that business has made such an impact because it’s drawn even more people to the area.”

Parton didn't stop with Dollywood

By the early 1990s, Parton created The Dollywood Foundation with the goal of decreasing the high school drop out rate in Sevier County, which was hovering around 30%.

David Wear, former mayor of Pigeon Forge, said he was in 8th grade when the Buddy Program launched with the promise that students and the buddies they were matched with would receive $500 to help cover college expenses for completing the program.

“If you and your buddy made it through high school, The Dollywood Foundation would give money to those high school graduates,” he said. “I personally got the experience of her charitable giving.”

According to the foundation, dropout rates eventually plummeted to 6% in Sevier County after the program was in place.

Separately, the international phenomenon that is her Imagination Library started as a local initiative to get more children to start reading. To date, kids across the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Ireland and Australia have received more than 330 million books since the program began.

Still, many folks get choked up the most over her response to a deadly 2016 wildfire. The fire, which began in Great Smoky Mountains National Park before invading nearby Gatlinburg, killed 14 people and caused an estimated $2 billion in losses, including to about 2,500 buildings that were damaged or destroyed.

Parton directed her foundation to distribute funds to displaced families and provided scholarships to students impacted by the fire.

“She single-handedly, through her generosity and raising of money, changed the trajectory of our recovery,” Wear said. “Her star power brought us back.”

Through her work, Parton also helped shatter stereotypes often associated with Appalachian communities, said Ted Olson, a professor of Appalachian studies at Eastern Tennessee State University.

“She understood how people viewed the region, but she defied them to hold on to those negative images after talking to her and after encouraging them to travel to the region,” Olson said. “And she did so graciously.”

The event is a specific sign of Taiwan’s attempt to present queer-friendly travel as part of ordinary tourism infrastructure rather than as a standalone nightlife product. Taiwan Tourism Administration officials said the LGBTQ+ itinerary was intended to be reflected in accommodation and travel services, not limited to promotional imagery. A report on the event said more than 300 people attended the interactive program.

That positioning matters for travelers interested in Tainan, Taiwan’s historic southern city. Tainan was Taiwan’s former imperial capital and remains known for temple culture, traditional food, compact historic districts and a strong local arts identity. Its queer scene is smaller and less visibly concentrated than Taipei’s, but that can be part of its appeal for visitors who prefer community-oriented spaces to a heavily branded LGBTQ+ tourism district.

A city where history is part of the itinerary

Tainan’s cultural character is not an accessory to a queer trip; it is the setting. Visitors can move from narrow lanes lined with low-rise buildings to centuries-old temples, food stalls and renovated creative spaces within a relatively compact urban area. The city’s identity is especially evident in its food culture, where snack shops and family-run restaurants are integrated into everyday neighborhoods rather than separated into a single visitor zone.

For LGBTQ+ travelers, this creates a different rhythm from a destination built around large Pride events or a concentrated bar district. A day might begin with temple architecture and local breakfast, continue through independent shops and galleries, and end at a queer-friendly café or cocktail bar. The appeal is less about a single “gay area” than about finding welcoming spaces within the city’s broader social fabric.

That quieter profile also explains why Tainan is not typically the first place named in international LGBTQ+ travel coverage. Existing travel guides describe the city as having a small network of gay-owned or gay-friendly cafés, bars and other venues, rather than a dedicated queer district.

The absence of a large district should not be confused with the absence of queer life. It means that visitors may need to plan more carefully, check current opening information and approach local venues respectfully. Because smaller community businesses can change hours or close without extensive international notice, travelers should confirm details directly through official venue pages or current local listings.

Why Taiwan provides an important regional context

Tainan’s welcome exists within Taiwan’s wider legal and social environment. Taiwan became the first jurisdiction in Asia to legalize same-sex marriage, with marriage equality taking effect in 2019. The International LGBTQ+ Travel Association describes Taiwan as one of Asia’s more progressive destinations for LGBTQ+ travelers, citing both its legal framework and public acceptance.

That national context does not mean every traveler will have the same experience, nor does it erase the differences between Taipei, Tainan and smaller communities. It does, however, provide a foundation for couples and friends who want to travel openly while engaging with local culture. The legal recognition of same-sex relationships is particularly relevant to visitors considering weddings, honeymoons or travel with a partner whose identity may make safety and recognition important planning considerations.

Travelers should still use ordinary precautions: confirm accommodation policies, protect personal information, monitor local weather and transportation conditions, and avoid assuming that legal protections eliminate the possibility of discrimination. The available sources support Taiwan’s comparatively welcoming national environment, but they do not establish that every business in Tainan is LGBTQ+-friendly.

From promotional campaign to hidden gem

The Bangkok event was paired with a wider commercial campaign. Taiwan Tourism Administration’s Bangkok office and Krungthai Card Public Company Limited launched the 2026 “Unseen Taiwan” campaign, running from 2026-08-01 through 2026-11-30. The campaign offers participating Thai cardholders travel-related discounts, including airline promotions, reductions on activities booked through Traveloka and Klook, and restaurant cashback subject to the campaign’s terms.

“Unseen Taiwan” is not exclusively an LGBTQ+ initiative, but its timing alongside the Bangkok LGBTQ+-friendly travel promotion illustrates how inclusion is being incorporated into broader destination marketing. The strategy presents queer travelers as part of the ordinary international visitor market while also encouraging tourists to explore places beyond the most familiar routes.

For queer travelers, Tainan’s promise is therefore measured rather than theatrical. It offers a chance to experience Taiwanese history, food and neighborhood life in a city whose LGBTQ+ venues are present but not overwhelmingly commercialized. The city’s emerging appeal is supported by Taiwan’s national legal protections, local queer-friendly businesses and a tourism industry increasingly willing to name LGBTQ+ travelers directly.

The caveat is equally important: Tainan should not be marketed as a risk-free or fully documented queer enclave. Information about individual venues and community experiences remains uneven, and several details commonly repeated in travel content require direct confirmation. Still, the August promotion provides a verifiable recent development: Taiwan is actively building LGBTQ+-friendly travel into its regional outreach, and Tainan is a credible candidate for travelers looking for a less expected, culturally substantial base from which to encounter Taiwan.