LA: What’s your game plan when you go in?
KM: So I try to go early in the morning, the minute they open, and I try not to go on a weekend because it gets too packed, it’s too chaotic. There’s a quarter million people all in one place, usually on the weekends. It gets very, very crowded. And then I just have my favorite sections that I know I like to go to. Everyone has different favorite sections. Some people want to go to Machinery Hill and just look at all the machines. I don’t want to go to Machinery Hill. I don’t really care about that. But I do want to go and see all of the people doing displays of different home improvement products. I want to see the person showing me how absorbent their Shamwow is. “Ma’am, would you like to see how absorbent this is?”
“Yes, I would. I would like to see that.”
“I’m going to spill a cup of coffee right here on this rug, and I’m going to show you how fast this picks up this coffee.”
And I love saying that, I want to see the seed art. I know the different things I want to see. So I suggest go in with a game plan. And if you are with certain friends who you know they want to go to the home economics displays and you want to see the baby animals, have a meetup spot. You don’t have to do everything together all the time, but prioritize what you want to see because you might get exhausted faster than you think and then wrap it up and call the day while you’re happy. Don’t stay until you’re overheated and overly tired.
LA: Are there any other state fairs that you are obsessed with or that you really want to visit?
KM: Well, people always tell me I should visit the Texas State Fair because Texas likes to say that their fair is larger than the Minnesota State Fair.
LA: Very Texas.
KM: And they say that because they get… There’s a slightly higher number of visitors every year to their state fair the Minnesota does, but I don’t think that’s fair because their state fair lasts twice as long as Minnesota. But I will say I do like to visit little county fairs.
LA: Actually, Kristen, I was going to ask, we’ve been talking about all the trips that you have done recently, but is there anywhere that you have your eye on that has lots of human stories and history that you might be going to next?
KM: Yes. So one trip I dream of taking is the Prince Edward Island Track. So Prince Edward Island has a walking track that goes around the entire perimeter of it. And there are different sections of the walk you can do. Some that go inland, some that are only to see lighthouses. There’s one section of the walk that is just for Anne of Green Gables fans, where you can go to the Lucy Maud Montgomery House. You can see various sites where Anne of Green Gables supposedly did this or did that in her books. And the walk, I believe can take up to seven days if you’re doing shorter sections. But if you are a more long walker like me, you can do the whole walk, I think in three to four days and every night, walk from one village to the next. Stay in an inn, drink some cordial or whatever it is that Anne of Green Gables would drink, eat some sandwiches, have a picnic, spend the night in the inn and then wake up the next morning and go to the next spot.
LA: Oh, that sounds magical.
If people want to follow along with you, when you hopefully embark on this trip and hear your stories, find your podcasts, just follow your work, where is the best place for them to go on the internet?
KM: Well, you can go to my website, kristenmeinzer.com, that’s K-R-I-S-T-E-N-M-E-I-N-Z-E-R.com. Kristenmeinzer.com, or you can follow me on Instagram. My handle is @k10meinzer. So those are the two best places.
LA: Oh, that was so fun.
KM: That was so fun. You guys make it so easy. Thank you so much.
LA: God, you make it so easy.
KM: Oh, what a joy.
LA: Thank you for listening to Women Who Travel. I’m Lale, and you can find me on Instagram @lalehannah. Our engineer is Pran Bandi. And special thanks to Jake Lummus for engineering support. Our show is mixed by Amar Lal at Macro Sound. Jude Kampfner is our producer, Stephanie Kariuki our executive producer, and Chris Bannon is head of Condé Nast Global Audio.