About Stay48

I have a journalism degree I've barely used and a 25-year career in professional sports that had nothing to do with writing.

That's the short version.

The longer version is that I spent those years working in professional sports, traveling constantly, and developing what I now recognize as a compulsive habit: turning every spare hour in a new city into a scavenger hunt for the good stuff. The breakfast counter locals actually use. The bookstore that feels like someone's living room. The walk that shows you how a neighborhood actually breathes.

I'd research obsessively before every trip—not because I'm particularly organized (I'm not), but because I genuinely love it. Connecting the dots. Reading between the lines of a restaurant review. Figuring out if that "hidden gem" is actually hidden or just has good SEO.

Somewhere along the way, I realized the planning had become as satisfying as the travel itself. Which is either very zen or mildly concerning, depending on who you ask.

So why Stay48?

Because after decades of piecing together itineraries for myself, I wanted to actually write them. To craft something that feels less like a checklist and more like a conversation. To take all that research energy and put it toward something that scratches the creative itch I never quite satisfied filing press releases and corporate communications.

Stay48 is what happens when someone who cares too much about semicolons finally gets to build travel guides instead of talking points.

These 48-hour itineraries aren't meant to show you everything—they're meant to show you the right things. The details that make a place feel lived-in rather than toured through. The rhythm of a weekend that doesn't require a flowchart or a degree in logistics.

I want you to experience places the way people who actually live there do. Not the greatest hits, necessarily, but the genuine texture of a city or town or scenic highway that most visitors miss because they're too busy optimizing.

A note on methodology

I use Claude, ChatGPT, and Google Gemini the way I use Photoshop for photography or Canva for design work—they're tools in the kit. Part of the 2026 creative toolkit, if we're being honest about how most people work now. I'd be a fool not to use them.

But here's the thing: I'm still the editor. I know what good writing looks like, and I know when a sentence lands versus when it just fills space. The AI handles the heavy research lifting and helps me structure ideas, but the sensibility—the choices about what matters and what doesn't—that's all human. Mine, specifically.

What Stay48 is (and isn't)

These guides aren't meant to replace your own research—they're one arrow in your travel planning quiver. A starting point. A frame.

Because here's the thing: planning a trip is half the pleasure. Maybe more. The research, the rabbit holes, the moment you stumble across that perfect detail that makes you think "yes, that's exactly what I'm looking for"—that's all part of the experience. It's anticipation with purpose.

Stay48 gives you a foundation so you can spend your planning energy on the fun stuff: finding that one restaurant that speaks to you, swapping in a museum that matches your interests, adding the detour that makes the trip yours.

Use these itineraries as scaffolding, not scripture.

The goal

Do less. See more. Come away with a better sense of how your neighbors—whether a state over or a coast away—actually live.

That's it. That's the whole mission.

If you're the kind of traveler who'd rather have a thoughtful recommendation than an exhaustive list, who values narrative over optimization, and who thinks both the planning and the journey matter as much as the destination (but also wants to make the 6pm reservation), then welcome.

This is for you.

— Jim Taylor
Editor, Stay48