Ex-New Yorkers visited 30 countries, 40 states before choosing new home

Which big city could possibly live up to the Big Apple?

For travel writers and former NYC residents Ashlea Halpern and Andrew Parks, it was not a place they thought they’d land.

“Andrew and I both work in media, so we used to feel like we had to be in New York,” says Halpern, who met Parks at Syracuse University’s stu­dent news­paper in 2001. “But as the print industry crumbled and magazine jobs evolved digitally, we realized we could work freelance from anywhere in the world.”

In 2014, that realization, plus a yearning to see the world, led Halpern (an editor at large for Afar magazine and former staffer of Time Out, Condé Nast Traveler and New York) and Parks (a contributor to publications including Food and Wine) to explore the world for 3½ years, with the original intent of settling in Los Angeles. Southern California was a place, Halpern says, they’d been “pining after for years.”

The cost of moving there, however, proved too prohibitive and thus began their epic search for a new hometown. The couple toured the United States in a 16-month, 40-state, 229-city road trip, trying out new digs along the way. (There was also an eight-month pit stop in Bangkok.)

Halpern (who’s been to some 60 countries) and Parks (about 30) courted stateside cities like San Antonio, Denver, Portland, Birmingham, Richmond, Louisville, Tulsa and Columbus — but eventually settled last year on the one that, for them, had it all: Minneapolis.

The couple is so enamored with their adopted state that they’ve become – as they’ve named their new website – Minnevangelists.

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“In the end, the Twin Cities won us over not because we have work or family here (we don’t),” wrote Halpern and Parks in the first photo on their @Minnevangelist Instagram feed, posted on January, “but because of its beautiful parks and lakes, countless festivals, bountiful bike paths and ski trails, ace cocktail bars, indie cinemas, overflowing farmers markets, edgy galleries, sterling museums, hip boutiques, excellent restaurants, superlative craft breweries, offbeat bookstores, gut-busting comedy clubs, first-class music venues, cultural diversity, walkable neighborhoods, and — above all — kind and welcoming locals.”

Halpern and Parks’ website has earned them local notoriety; they were recently profiled at length in the Star Tribune under a boastful headline: “These world travelers could live anywhere – they chose Minnesota.”

They’re documenting their discoveries in a growing “Reasons to Love Minnesota” list: They’re up to No. 67. (No. 59 is a hipster-ish barbershop named Fellas Haberdashery & Salon.)

The reasons they’ve racked up are wide-ranging. Want art? Check out their writeups of the Minneapolis Institute of Art (“the Met of the Midwest”), art galleries and the futuristic Weisman Art Museum. Food? The couple has chowed down at local restaurants serving everything from Ethiopian to Cuban to tongue-tingling Szechuan. Quirky ephemera and phenomena? Halpern and Parks have chronicled their explorations of the Midwest Polka Association, urban saunas, the winter sport of Skijoring (where skiers get pulled by dogs of all sizes) and a local celebrity named Fancy Ray. The couple also loves that big-name musicians and authors pass through often and others call the state home (R.I.P. Prince).

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Halpern is especially drawn to the outdoorsy aspects of Minnesota living. “Our parks system is phenomenal and we have an abundance of lakes, bike trails, and snowshoeing/cross-country skiing trails to choose from,” she says. “Yet if you drive just 20 to 30 minutes, you can disappear into the silent woods. Nature is everywhere here. It just makes us so happy.”

More practically, from the perspective of a travel writer who spends about half the year on the road, the airport is a dream. Before, her trek from Williamsburg to JFK took over an hour.

Adds Halpern, “MSP is a wonderful airport — calm, clean, efficiently run and located 12 minutes from our house.”

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