In “Travel Takes,” Guide staffers share their personal opinions about the world’s best, worst, and most debated travel destinations. This week’s question: What “tourist town” (i.e. Niagara Falls, Orlando, Cancún) do you love the most? 

Andy Seifert 

I just returned from a honeymoon in central Europe, and was awfully charmed during my 24 hours in Salzburg, Austria. Salzburg can be shamelessly touristy, with gratuitous amounts of Mozart-branded chocolate balls and other Mozart-themed confections and trinkets. I got to the point where I broke down and decided “FINE I WILL PURCHASE A MOZART BALL.” But once your nervous breakdown is out of the way, you can focus on the gorgeous setting of the city’s historic center, where a collection of baroque churches are tucked between the Salzach River and a clifftop fortress. Tight pedestrian walkways crisscross the city—I recommend exploring the little alleyways connecting the streets, one of which contains Bosna Grill, a 1950s-era sausage stand that’s a local institution. Salzburg may be one of Europe’s most walkable towns, small enough to see everything on foot, but big enough to keep you occupied for days.

Andy Seifert is a travel editor. He has written for The A.V. Club and NewCity magazine.

Rashawn Mitchner 

Growing up three hours from Traverse City, Michigan, I thought everyone’s family had vacationed there except for mine. I finally went a decade after I moved away, and I couldn’t believe how much I had missed in my own state. Even cloudy 50-degree weather (in August!) couldn’t ruin the views of Grand Traverse Bay and the hills around it. On Front Street, I ate food-truck tacos at Little Fleet, bought the best fudge I’ve had outside of Mackinac Island, and spent a good chunk of an afternoon in an indie bookstore. And then there were the vineyards and gorgeous homes on the drive out to Mission Point Lighthouse. The real gem was nearby Sleeping Bear Dunes—I never knew that Michigan could be so not flat or that Lake Michigan could be so blue.

Rashawn, an editor, hopes to eventually pack her Kindle and trail mix for a trip that requires a passport. For now, she visits US cities with microbreweries and nice views.

Molly Metzig

It's gotta be Key West, Florida. My family spent Christmas there a few years ago. We were coming from Wisconsin, and being able to walk around in short sleeves after nightfall was surreal. We did nothing but eat seafood, snorkel, lay on the beach, smoke cigars, and shop on Duval Street the whole time. (I was too young for the nightlife, but I hear that's big too.) Every night brings the Sunset Celebration, where craft vendors and street performers draw a huge crowd to Mallory Square as the sun dips into the Gulf of Mexico. I’ve never felt more like a tourist, but it felt so right. My only real beef with Key West was the shops selling T-shirts with stupid slogans like "Can't stop drinking about you” and “Punk in drublic.”

Molly has been to 10 countries, but her favorite trip is a good old American drive up the Pacific Coast Highway.

Tyler Clark

We rolled into Bar Harbor, Maine at the tail end of a drive up the Eastern Seaboard that began in Charleston, South Carolina. It was early June, and tourist season was just beginning, which meant that we had most of Mount Desert Island's prettiest parts to ourselves. We spent days losing ourselves in Acadia National Park’s interior forests, skipping along the tide pools that form along the rocky coast, and waiting for the booming crash of waves at Thunder Hole. There were plenty of creature comforts, too; one of my favorite memories of that trip involved writing postcards and knocking back a few pints of Atlantic Brewing Company's Real Ale (brewed right on the island) while listening to the salty bartender at the cozy One Off Pub. Also: the lobster here is no joke—the one I ate came fresh from the ocean that morning, and was served with locally sourced fiddleheads and a heaping basket of popovers.

Tyler is a writer, storyteller, and musician from Chicago. His stories have appeared on stage at shows including Mortified, Story Club, and Lethal Poetry.

Zac Thompson

Door County, Wisconsin is a pinkie finger of land pointing into Lake Michigan in the northeastern part of the state. Little tourist-trap towns line the waterfront, with names like Fish Creek and Sturgeon Bay and, I don’t know, Jet Ski Cove probably. Self-consciously quaint shops hawk pottery, trinkets, fudge, and wine to a steady stream of Midwesterners, particularly during the summer and fall. It all sounds pretty corny, but the peninsula is redeemed by its scenery and the chances it affords—despite the crowds—for simple pleasures. You can traipse to lighthouses, passing white-barked birch trees along the way, or set off in a kayak for the full wilderness experience. Back in town, attending an outdoor fish boil is considered semi-mandatory. It involves eating whitefish that’s cooked in a cauldron over a blazing fire. I got a fishbone stuck in my throat but there was cherry pie for dessert, so it all turned out okay.

Zac is a writer living in Chicago. His favorite trips ever were to Istanbul, Paris, Argentina, and the Irish countryside. He will do anything Rick Steves tells him to do. Anything.

Sarah Gorr

There was no shortage of people ready to warn me about the touristy nature of Cusco, Peru when I announced I was heading there in 2013. I was assured I wouldn’t find the real Peru there, that it would only disappoint. But after spending several days there, I couldn’t have disagreed more. Yes, there were hundreds of products slapped with pictures of Machu Picchu selling for far too much. And yes, it was a little unsettling to see so many locals dressed in authentic Peruvian dress solely to pose for tourists’ snapshots. But I fell in love with the cobblestone streets, the smell of pollo a la brasa wafting from open-air diners, and the views from hilly San Blas. It’s walkable and charming, and I could’ve spent several more days here eating and drinking my way to happiness in the Andes.

Sarah is a writer, book lover, and dog petter who’s hiked the Inca Trail, chased the northern lights, and fallen into the Mediterranean Sea. She's forever planning her next (mis)adventure.

Shelby Kimbrough

Every time I go home to visit my parents in Houston, I insist that we drive the one hour to Galveston, Texas. I love strolling the weathered, wooden boardwalk and poking my head into the kitschy souvenir shops that sell everything from fluorescent yellow t-shirts to glossy seashell sculptures to cold bottles of beer, which you can drink outside on the boardwalk. The beach is a short walk away, with fine-grained sands lapped by the Gulf’s calm, greenish waters. In spring and summer, the city is overrun with beachgoers who lounge on the sand, surf the diminutive waves, and put on normal clothes long enough to ride a roller coaster or two at the nearby Galveston Island Historic Pleasure Pier. But I prefer Galveston in the quieter months, when the city shakes off its sand-and-sun frenzy and you can focus instead on its stately 19th-century homes, museums documenting early sea and rail travel, and the Gulf Coast’s quiet, natural beauty. (Or, if you prefer, the natural beauty of a rainforest and 1.5-million-gallon aquarium at Moody Gardens.)

Before becoming a travel writer, Shelby lived and traveled in the Caribbean for 2.5 years with the Peace Corps. She once ate a raw sea urchin right from the ocean.

Ian Hicks

South Haven, Michigan has all of the charming, touristy staples you'd expect—river walks, antique stores, mom-and-pop ice cream shoppes, and a bridge with an actual bridge operator. But beyond its small-town delights (which can verge on overly cutesy), this Rockwell-esque burg teems with hidden gems. First off, it's got one of the best record stores I've ever been to. Inside the easy-to-miss Phoenix Records are new and hard-to-find LPs, rarely costing more than $25. Bad business sense? More like small-town hospitality, if you ask me. Then there's the tiny bookstore with free coffee and two dogs, and the ATV track overseen by a family straight out of a Garrison Keillor novel. But whether the itinerary winds up being quaint or quirky, the amazing sunset over Lake Michigan—embellished with a postcard-worthy lighthouse—always ends the day on a serene note.

Born and raised in the Midwest, Ian has both an affection for and an intense hatred of the cold. Though he enjoys traveling, he kinda hates to leave his three dumb cats alone for too long.