Before 2020, I had never rented an AirBnB. Then my husband and I’s ten year anniversary landed in the fall of 2020, the first year of the pandemic.

We wound up spending our anniversary in the Smoky Mountains, in an adorable cabin set in the woods outside of Boone, North Carolina.

This introduced us to a whole new type vacation the cabin weekend getaway. Since then we have traveled we have stayed in we have stayed in five other cabins in the national Smoky Mountain park.

What makes these trips so great is there is no need for a complicated itinerary. We just show up with food, maybe look up a local trail to hike, and just enjoy the relaxing cabin atmosphere.

During the pandemic, Taylor Swift was able to capitalize on the rising popularity of remote trips and cozy cabin aesthetic.

Writer Jim Harrison may have passed away four years before the start of the pandemic but he was a master of capturing the wonder and loneliness of a remote, solitary lifestyle in the wilderness.

Cabin Poem, Jim Harrison

I

The blond girl
with a polka heart:
one foot, then another,
then aerial
in a twisting jump,
chin upward
with a scream of such
splendor
I go back to my cabin,
and start a fire.

II

Art & life
drunk & sober
empty & full
guilt & grace
cabin & home
north & south
struggle & peace
after which we catch
a glimpse of stars,
the white glistening pelt
of the Milky Way,
hear the startled bear crashing
through the delta swamp below me.
In these troubled times
I go inside and start a fire.

III

I am the bird that hears the worm,
or, my cousin said, the pulse of a wound
that probes to the opposite side.
I have abandoned alcohol, cocaine,
the news, and outdoor prayer
as support systems.
How can you make a case for yourself
before an ocean of trees, or standing
waist-deep in the river? Or sitting
on the logjam with a pistol?
I reject oneness with bears.
She has two cubs and thinks she
owns the swamp I thought I bought.
I shoot once in the air to tell her
it’s my turn at the logjam
for an hour’s thought about nothing.
Perhaps that is oneness with bears.
I’ve decided to make up my mind
about nothing, to assume the water mask,
to finish my life disguised as a creek,
an eddy, joining at night the full,
sweet flow, to absorb the sky,
to swallow the heat and cold, the moon
and the stars, to swallow myself
in ceaseless flow.