If Honshu, the main island of Japan, is shaped like a banana – go with me, here – the bottom of the banana is Chugoku. A peninsula bracketed by the Seto Island Sea in the south and the Sea of Japan in the north, it is a whole other Japan than endless, restless Tokyo or neon-lit Osaka.

The streets of Okayama, a kind of gateway city to the region that has approximately the same population as Boston, feels downright sleepy during the week, the traffic ordered and leisurely along roads lined with car dealerships. Beyond it, there are green mountains and bright blue seas, moss-covered temples in the woods, and tiny hot springs towns in deep river gorges. To get into this region, you have to go all the way in.

We ping-ponged between Chugoku’s coasts so many times during our trip – most of it accomplished in multiple rental cars that somehow were all the same car, a boxy silver Honda – that it’s hard to recommend that anyone follow precisely in our footsteps. Instead, I’ve given you a kind of outline of what to see in this region. You can do it by car or by train, though the latter will require at least some connecting by car or bus.

Chugoku Roadtrip: In a Roundabout Way

Naoshima:

Why go: By now, Naoshima is well known as an international art destination. The colorful Yayoi Kusama pumpkins perched along its shores (one orange, one red) announce it as such before you even venture into the island’s dozen art museums. Each one is unique, and uniquely world class. Don’t plan on skipping any of them.

It’s hard to pick favorites when choosing between some of the greatest masterworks on the planet, but the Chichu Art Museum feels special. Built fully underground in cool concrete architecture by Tadao Ando, the museum is designed to channel light from above in astonishing ways. One gallery, which displays a series of large paintings by Monet, is lit entirely by natural light and the effect, upon entering the room, is heart-stopping. The water lilies in the paintings seem to float in a diffuse, almost misty light, evoking the conditions in which they were painted.

Getting there: The easiest way to get to Naoshima is from Chugoku. We took the 20-minute ferry – and stayed in a charming guest house – from the port town of Uno, which has its own seaswept charm. We took the car over on the ferry but this isn’t really necessary. Most visitors head to Naoshima on foot.

Note that you can do Naoshima in a single day, but I don’t recommend it. Take two days to really enjoy, especially because, art aside, the island itself is beautiful and worth a wander.

Naoshima Checklist:

• Chichu Art Museum

• Benesse House Museum

• Lee Ufan Museum

• Art House Project

• Hiroshi Sugimoto Gallery

• Ando Museum

Nearby: The day before we headed out to Naoshima, we strolled around Kurashiki, a historic Edo-era canal town that was once an important shipping center for rice.

Matsue:

Why go: It’s worth visiting this small city on the Sea of Japan just to see the castle. Dating back to 1611, it’s one of only eleven in Japan that are fully original and not re-creations. Climb all the way to the top and follow the exhibits to get a sense of how shogun-era Japan armed and defended itself. Keep an eye out for the window flaps that allowed soldiers to drop stones on their enemies. When we visited in late spring, nests in the surrounding trees were full of squawking heron chicks.

Save time for the Adachi Museum of Art in nearby Shimane, where you can view a splendid traditional Japanese garden, plus hundreds of Japanese artworks. The museum has an interesting organization that puts the art galleries at the center of the building and the glass garden-viewing rooms on the edges. This was one of my favorite stops on the trip.

Finally, you can’t come to Matsue without stopping by Izumo-taisha, which is thought to be the oldest Shinto shrine in Japan. Its most eye-catching feature is its shimenawa – the sacred straw rope that spans the entrance of many shrines. The shimenawa here is more than 44 feet long and weighs five tons.

Getting there: Matsue is reachable by both local train and Shinkansen from Osaka or Kyoto. The trip takes 4-6 hours, depending on your route. You can drive it in a little over four hours. If you’re coming here from Naoshima either by car or train, the trip also takes about four hours.

Matsue Checklist:

• Matsue Castle

• Adachi Museum of Art

• Izumo Shrine

Nagato:

Why go: There is no occasion that doesn’t warrant a soak in very hot water with no clothes on. And a little towel on your head.

We ventured into the hot springs town of Nagato-Yumoto Onsen, which is set along a river that’s been developed into a park. Open, meticulously maintained public spaces invite you to sit, relax, and ponder the surrounding nature. There’s seating, stepping-stone river crossing points, foot baths, and vistas where you’ll want to stop and take photos. Some of the onsen – individual bath houses – are open late, and the town is lovely when it’s lit in the evening.

A few minutes from the town center, we visited a 15th century soto zen temple called Dainei-ji (Tainei-ji), which is tucked back into the woods and feels like a fairytale with its original stone bridges and moss-covered stones. The temple is also the final resting place of the Ouchi clan, which ruled western Japan in the 16th century.

Getting there: Nagato is about 2-2.5 hours from Fukuoka, whether driving or taking the train. You’ll definitely need a car to get to Tsunoshima, mentioned below.

Nagato checklist:

• Nagato-Yumoto Onsen

• Dainei-ji

Nearby: We took a rambly little day trip farther down the coast toward Yamaguchi to see a cluster of smaller sites that came with some incredible scenery. We started at the very Instagrammable Motonosumi Shrine, with its rows of vermillion gates curving down a mountainside to the sea. (Check the shrine’s opening hours, which are limited.) We also crossed the long bridge to Tsunoshima island, which is surrounded by bright blue water and has a lighthouse and some pretty lookout points.

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Tips for a Japan Road Trip:

• Highway rest areas in Japan are amazing. Yes, there are clean bathrooms and gas, but the food selection is always tops. Two of the best things I tried on this trip – a vending machine iced latte (!), and a matcha/vanilla swirl soft serve – were procured at rest stops.

• If you collect ink stamps (I obviously do), remember that rest areas often have their own.

• This trip marked my introduction to Michi no Eki, a special kind of roadside stand that carries local products and gifts, including local specialty food and produce. I tried citrus I’d never seen before and got fun souvenirs.

• If you can’t find the USB connector in your car, check inside the glove box.

• Some parking lots in Japan have gates that block your car from reversing out of parking spots until you pay for your parking. Pay before you try to leave or you could seriously mess up your tires.

• Visitor information centers are everywhere in Japan, even in small towns. Use them! You can pick up maps, learn about local events, and even ask for restaurant recommendations.

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In the Connecticut River Valley in central Massachusetts, after you extract yourself from the spaghetti clump of highways around Springfield, you enter the leafy towns of the Five Colleges. I grew up in the eastern part of the state and hadn’t been here until recently. It is lovely, the roads winding, the colleges standing grand and solemn on their quads.

As someone who went to college in Boston and never experienced life on a proper campus, I describe these schools as “real colleges,” as opposed to the random collection of downtown skyscrapers where I got my degree. I wouldn’t change much about my academic choices, but I do harbor a kind of ache for the ultra-stereotypical trappings of campus life — reading on a lawn, studying in a library that looks like a castle, sports.

I spent a day in Amherst, home of Amherst College and UMass Amherst, and visited the genteel homestead where poet Emily Dickenson was born, worked, and died in a sunny upstairs bedroom wallpapered in pink flowers. The town feels serious, academic. After a stop at the cemetery to pay my respects to Emily and her family, I stopped in a bookstore and the Mead Art Museum, which has a room with panels that date back to 17th Century England. Then I got amazing soup dumplings at Lao Hu Tong.

By the time I made it to the town of Northampton (home of Smith College — bright white with tightly manicured flower beds), I didn’t have much time for a proper wander, but I did make it to the library.

The Forbes Library, with its imposing 19th Century stone facade, is the town library of Northampton. It was once the Smith College library but today it belongs to everyone. Inside, it has none of the stuffiness or silence of a college library. Its surfaces advertise programs for kids, community education, a book sale, an art exhibit. It’s busy with patrons, even though it’s less than an hour before closing. And on the second floor, not far from the shelves of arts and music magazines, is the Calvin Coolidge Presidential Library and Museum.

It is one room lined with old fashioned glass cases. There are a few tables, a few exhibits, including a mounted wall-eyed pike (“Caught in Lake Vermillion, near Tower, Minn”) and a contraption labeled as an “electric exercise horse” that looks like a cross between an oil drum and sewing machine. High on top of a metal filing cabinet sits an enormous elephant tusk with a card that reads, “Gift of Theodore Roosevelt, 1918.” The overhead lighting is a sallow yellow — a color I associate with the faded pages of old paperbacks and dioramas half-covered in dust. On this day, I’m the only visitor.

United States presidential libraries are strange things. FDR founded the first one in 1941 when he donated his presidential papers — and a chunk of his Hyde Park, New York estate — to the federal government. Until that point, the president’s papers were considered to be his personal property, and at the end of his presidency, he could do with them whatever he wished. He could destroy them. He could store them in a bathroom with a gold toilet and a chandelier.

In the wake of FDR’s gift, new legislation shaped the idea of the presidential library and how it should be managed. It became a tradition for departing presidents to voluntarily give their papers to the National Archives, who would administer the collections in partnership with privately funded presidential foundations and museums. And that worked pretty well… until Watergate.

In 1978, Congress passed a law declaring that the president’s papers relating directly to his duties were the property of the United States. They can be held in presidential libraries, but by law, they are part of, and must be administered by, the National Archives.

There are now sixteen presidential libraries that have been developed under these laws, one for every president since FDR. Not all of them have corresponding museums or presidential centers (Joe Biden, Donald Trump), but they eventually will.

(And no, I do not want to sit here and overthink myself into hysteria over the hypothetical golf course/casino/strip club/steakhouse that will eventually comprise the Trump Presidential Center Presented by Miller Light. All we know so far is that it’s planned for the city of Miami at some point in the future when we hopefully will still be a country.)

Rules for presidential document archives that predate FDR, however, don’t really exist. Those collections, due to the personal property law, are quite literally all over the place, though the Library of Congress fills a big part of this historic gap and acts as a more unofficial — but ceremonially appropriate — holder of presidential documents. It holds extensive collections of papers from Presidents Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, and well beyond.

It is in this context — a world before there were laws about the keeping and administration of presidential papers — that the Calvin Coolidge Presidential Library and Museum, in Northampton, Massachusetts, exists. The collection is also unique in that Coolidge began assembling and donating it to the library while he was still serving as governor of Massachusetts. He chose its location — the town where he began his career and lived out his life — and included not just his papers, but memorabilia like the “electric exercise horse,” which Coolidge used in the White House to stay in shape. Official presidential portraits of Coolidge and his wife, Grace, which once hung in the White House, preside over this room and are its most visually arresting artifacts.

But even in this collection, and in Coolidge’s presidency, there seems to have been an understanding that a locally held collection of memorabilia and papers were different than presidential documents and correspondence that should be in Washington and easily accessible to — if not the property of — the American public. It’s not an accident that the largest collection of Coolidge’s presidential documents is not in Northampton. It’s at the Library of Congress.

With all this in mind, consider two new presidential centers that are opening this year — the Barack Obama Presidential Center in Chicago, and the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library in Medora, North Dakota.

Neither of these is a true presidential “library” as outlined by the 1978 law. That is to say, these collections are not entirely comprised of duty-related presidential documents, and they are not administered by the National Archives. They are more like museums or commemorative monuments. In the case of the Obama Center, it is a community center, performance space, and art collection. It does have a library, but it’s a branch of Chicago’s public library system. Its holdings and mission reach far beyond the narrow legal definition of presidential libraries.

Of course, Obama is still legally bound to have a presidential library — that is to say, a collection of documents related to his presidential duties — that are the property of the American public. And it could be housed in the Obama Center in Chicago, but it’s not. Obama chose in 2017 to have a fully digital presidential library — a first for an American president. You can look at it right now if you want to.

As for Theodore Roosevelt, who was bound by no such laws concerning his presidential documents, his North Dakota library is more purely a learning center and museum. Essentially, it takes the new concept of presidential-center-as-museum — like the Obama Center — and applies it to a president from the more distant past. It’s cool, and it reflects a radically evolving idea of how to commemorate the legacy of an American president.

Of course, a former president like Barack Obama or Theodore Roosevelt warrants — and has the financial support for — a massive modern presidential center designed by A-list architects. Both are chock full of interactive screens and community programming and they are the result of herculean private fundraising efforts. Meanwhile, Calvin Coolidge gets one room in an obscure public library in Massachusetts. Its fundraising efforts, simply to create a nicer display for the room’s artifacts, have ground on for years. The combined powers of legacy, storytelling, and time, are powerful, if not absolute.

These rooms, be they online or in the middle of Chicago, enormous monoliths or one case of memorabilia, tell us so much about who we are and what we value as a nation. If you get the chance to see one of these places, personal politics aside, go. The law defines how much of a president belongs to the people, but the memory and reach of his presidency spills well beyond those easy boundaries. May we have the capacity to grasp at all of it.

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This week on The Escapologist:

• Remember the Ladies (or Don’t?)

• Renegade America 250

Remember the Ladies (or Don’t?)

I was attempting to navigate the snarl of official government web sites created for America 250, the sesquicentennial celebration of the United States, and it was not easy. There are multiple sites, inconsistent branding, tacky design, and “history” that feels curiously sparse or selective.

Don’t be shocked but The White House is the worst offender. It’s renamed the celebration Freedom 250, for one thing, and its homepage features some feeble-looking animated fireworks, an illustration of the Washington Monument looking more disturbingly phallic than usual, and an animation of the President standing in front of his hypothetical triumphal arch. It’s silly as hell, and that’s just the first page.

A section of the site called The Founders Museum especially gave me pause. The images, about sixty of them arranged in rows, feature illustrations of the founders of the United States, but they look… weird.

Why are they all wearing the same color jacket? Why are they all standing in front of more or less the same background? Why are they all making one of three hand gestures? (A pensive hand on the chin is popular.)

The answer, of course, is that all of these images are likely created by AI. But the collection is curious in other, more startling ways.

Nearly all of these portraits are of white men and include the signers of the Declaration of Independence. Seeing them lined up like this, a blur of eerily similar faces, they are difficult to tell apart. And indeed, some of these men are so obscure in the context of history that it doesn’t actually matter if you can. Pennsylvania statesman George Ross, looking rather girlish with a blonde bob, is present but his exceedingly more famous wife, Betsy, is not. There are no native American men or black men, even though we know they played significant roles in the Revolution and its aftermath.

There are four women on the list – Poet Phillis Wheatley, who is the only non-white person represented; writer Mercy Otis Warren; First Lady Dolley Madison, and Abigail Adams.

It was Abigail who sent me over the edge.

Adams was the wife of President John Adams and despite having no formal education, she was his intellectual equal and closest political advisor. She ultimately left more than 1,000 pieces of correspondence with her husband that are thought to be among the richest accounts of the new nation. She also opposed slavery and supported women’s rights in an era when such positions were nearly unspeakable for someone in her position.

Two portraits of Adams exist that were painted from real life – one when she was 21 years old, and one from much later in her life. They give us a sense of what she might have looked like, dark-eyed and dark-haired with a long nose, but neither of them indicate that she looked anything like this:

There is a lot to say here about women – even, and maybe especially, famous women – always needing to look pretty, passive, and pleasant. But the First Lady was neither a milkmaid nor a Disney princess, and no portrait of her ever existed that shows her in this pose, or in this BBC period drama dress. It is entirely a fabrication – Abigail Adams flattened and simplified for a smooth-brained administration. Because why check the National Archives for something real when your computer friend can draw you a cute picture?

The other women’s portraits are not much better. Mercy Otis Warren wears a totally anachronistic dress and looks like she’s about to either go golfing with the Nixons in Palm Springs or get into an argument with Christine Baranski on The Gilded Age. There is only one extant engraving of Phillis Wheatley and its resemblance to her actual person is debated. So it’s curious that there is a complete illustration of her here, looking boldly – but not too boldly – toward the horizon. Dolley Madison, in a dress that belongs to no era of fashion that ever existed, is giving Joanne Worley.

I shouldn’t be surprised. In a moment when the current administration is asking national park sites to remove mentions of climate change, slavery, and civil rights; when public lands are under threat from mining and drilling; when the President orders the demolition of an entire wing of the White House and plans a white marble arch in his own honor, it’s all right on brand.

The name change from America 250 to Freedom 250 is apt, in a way. The President’s version of history is not to be confused with the real thing.

History is messy and complex. It requires the ability to grasp multiple ideas at once, some of them contradictory. The people in the portraits do not always look conveniently beautiful, and they certainly do not all look the same. History is alive and well in so many places across the US. You just have to know where to look – and in most cases, that means looking directly away from the man in the White House.

Renegade America 250

Forget the Liberty Bell. (Although admittedly, it’s kind of cool.) Below are sites that show many different, often complex perspectives on American history. More than a few of them have been challenged by the current administration – either through attempted censorship, funding cuts, or purposeful understaffing.

Visit these places and lend them your support. And if you have favorite historical sites or monuments, please share them in the comments!

It’s your America. Don’t let the bad guys have it.

Northeast and Washington, DC

Boston African American National Historic Site, Boston

A series of sites in the Beacon Hill neighborhood that tell the story of black life and resistance in 19th century Boston.

El Museo del Barrio, New York City, NY

Founded to preserve the culture and history of Puerto Rican and Latin American culture in the US.

Frances Perkins National Monument, Newcastle, ME

Family home and museum dedicated to the first women ever to serve in the US cabinet and a key architect of the New Deal.

Lowell National Historic Park, Lowell, MA

The history of the Industrial Revolution in the US, but also the birthplace of American labor movements.

Museum of the Chinese in America, New York City, NY

Situated in New York’s Chinatown and dedicated to the preservation of Chinese-American history and culture.

National Constitution Center, Philadelphia, PA

A nonpartisan museum and event space dedicated to civics education and debate.

National Immigration Museum at Ellis Island, New York City, NY

The spot where eight million immigrants first set foot in the United States.

National Museum of African American History and Culture, Washington, DC

The preeminent museum in the country of its kind, containing more than 45,000 artifacts.

National Museum of the American Indian, Washington, DC / New York City, NY

An expansive collection that’s at the forefront of the conversation about repatriation and ownership of native American artifacts.

Stonewall National Monument, New York City, NY

The first US national park site dedicated to LGBTQ+ history. It has been subject to censorship under the current administration.

Tenement Museum, New York City, NY

Reconstructed apartments in a historic tenement building bring the lives of New York’s immigrant communities to life.

Women’s Rights National Historical Park, Seneca Falls, NY

Home of the first ever US women’s rights convention in 1848.

South

Dry Tortugas National Park, Florida

The southernmost national park in the US where scientists are racing to save and restore coral reefs that have been severely damaged by climate-change-driven ocean warming.

Maggie L. Walker National Historic Site, Richmond, VA

Restored home of the businesswoman and activist who would become the first African American bank president.

National Center for Civil and Human Rights, Atlanta, GA

Dedicated to the cause of human rights for all, including an initiative focusing on untold stories of racial violence and systemic exclusion.

National Civil Rights Memorial, Memphis, TN

Museum and memorial built into the former Lorraine Motel where Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated. A portion of the museum examines the assassination in painstaking detail.

National Memorial for Peace and Justice, Montgomery, AL

History museum and monumental sculpture honoring the victims of racial terror lynchings.

Southern Food and Beverage Museum, New Orleans, LA

A look at how cuisines, specific dishes, and drinks evolved across the Southern US.

Whitney Plantation, Wallace, LA

One of the few plantation museums that centers the story of human enslavement.

Midwest

Arab American National Museum, Dearborn, MI

The first museum in the US dedicated to telling the Arab-American story, and the only one actively collecting art by Arab-American artists.

Cahokia Mounds State Historic Park, Illinois

A UNESCO World Heritage Site, this was once the site of a pre-Colombian city (circa 1100) that spread over more than 4,000 acres and had a population of 20,000 – more than London at the time.

Hopewell Culture National Historic Park, Ohio

Please don’t let anyone ever tell you that the US is a “new” country. These enormous mounds were used by the Hopewell cultures of the Midwest, which ran from Wisconsin to Florida, more than 2,000 years ago.

National Underground Railroad Freedom Center, Cincinnati, OH

Located on the Ohio River, the boundary that divided slave and free states in the Civil War, the museum is dedicated to the cause of inclusive freedom.

Negro Leagues Baseball Museum, Kansas City, MO

The only museum of its kind honoring and celebrating the heroes of the Negro Leagues.

Voyageurs National Park and the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, Minnesota

A sprawling area of pristine rivers and lakes across the northernmost part of the state. Under constant ecological and political pressure from private mining interests upstream.

West and Pacific Northwest

Bears Ears National Monument, San Juan County, UT

Among the most contested preservation lands in the US, this national monument was the first created through public-private partnership with local tribes.

Biosphere 2, Oracle, Arizona

A research facility, sort of like a big green house, run by the University of Arizona where scientists study climate and ecosystems.

Chaco Culture National Historic Park, New Mexico

The home of the ancestral Pueblo peoples from 850 to 1250, this complex of stone buildings is one of the most important pre-Colombian sites in the Americas.

Glacier National Park, Montana

The most endangered of the US national parks, global warming is driving the melting of its famous glaciers. Preservation efforts include ecosystem protection and carbon footprint reduction.

Hibulb Cultural Center and Natural History Preserve, Tulalip, Washington

A cultural center dedicated to the culture of the Tulalip tribes of the Pacific Northwest, it’s surrounded by 50 acres of forests and wetlands.

Museum of Indian Arts and Culture, Santa Fe, New Mexico

With collections of pottery, textiles, and everyday objects, this museum frames its exhibits from the native perspective.

California, Hawai’i, and Alaska

Alaska Native Heritage Center, Anchorage, AK

The museum includes six reconstructed native dwellings in a wooded area around the museum that visitors can enter.

Bishop Museum, Honolulu, HI

With exhibits, performances, and classes, this Hawaiian cultural museum is also home to collections you’d typically find in a natural history museum – all from the state of Hawai’i.

California Science Center, Los Angeles, CA

This world-class science museum is slated to become the permanent home of the space shuttle Endeavour. The (literally) sparkling new gallery built for the shuttle is slated to open this year.

GLBT Historical Society, San Francisco, CA

Chronicles the history of LGBTQ+ culture and houses the largest document archive on the subject in the world.

Manzanar National Historic Site, Lone Pine, CA

One of several historic sites in the US where Japanese and Japanese-American citizens were confined during World War II.

Museum of Social Justice, Los Angeles, CA

Looks at the history of social change in Los Angeles and beyond.

Rosie the Riveter WWII Home Front National Historical Park, San Francisco, CA

A museum and historic site that focuses on women during World War II, including their entrance into the workforce and efforts to help the cause.

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There is no such thing as a trip without mishaps. The big ones — missed flights, showing up on the wrong day — are generally avoidable, but the small stuff always tends to trip me up at least once. Here’s some of the stuff that I screwed up in Milan.

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I was in Sorrento and it was one of those summer days that feels like what people think the Amalfi coast feels like. Cloudless, a little too warm in a way that feels sexy and not gross. Sparkling Mediterranean, lemon granita, sandals on cobblestones, a pale blue skirt.

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In about a week, I’m going to the Olympics. I’ve decided to stay in the city of Milan and focus on the important stuff. That is, the figure skating.

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All of these just need to stop, thanks.

The Wes Anderson-ification of Everything: It’s pastel, it’s sans-serif, it’s deeply twee, it’s absolutely everywhere, and it’s killing me. Director Wes Anderson’s signature style is gorgeous, but it’s also limited, and at times, kinda uncomfortable. His fans will balk. He’s creating a dream world, they’ll say. Ok,…

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We drove from São Paulo and they put us on a boat. The boat was a squat, metal catamaran built for comfortable if unglamorous sightseeing. We boarded late in the afternoon, a group of about six of us – a scattershot handful of journalists and our guides.

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Stahl House Is for Sale

Perched in the Hollywood Hills overlooking Sunset Boulevard, you’ll find Stahl House – a masterpiece of American architecture. Designed for the Stahl family by Pierre Koenig on a lot that was considered impossible to build on, it…

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When you’re offered a chance to see Bob Fosse’s choreography on a Tuesday afternoon in Queens, you go. Such was the case a few weeks ago at RWS LIC Studios, where a small audience of media and industry …

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Years ago, a representative from a European tourism board described for me, with much excitement, a new travel trend called “wild swimming.”

“It’s a beautiful way to connect with nature in a tactile way,” she said.

I was confused. “So you mean like… swimming in a lake…

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I’ve been to Florence once, more than fifteen years ago. I feel like it’s fallen off since then, since social media flattened the entire nation of Italy into a lemon-print dress that everyone is wearing, an okayish gelato you can get in New York, and a single tumbling sea cliff that no one realizes ne…

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When I start daydreaming about trips to New Orleans, I know something is… happening.

Either I am bored or feeling a bit flat or underwhelmed or out of ideas. I need sweaty heat, wrought iron, oysters, palmettos, live music that starts at 1:00 a.m., and that coffee shop with the back patio that overlooks the…

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Two of The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s featured exhibitions right now, Sargent & Paris, and Superfine: Tailoring Black Style, have intriguing ties to travel.

The Sargent exhibition includes a number of canvases from Sargent’s travels in Sp…

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