S5, E25: Feel-Good Fridays | A Queer Dance Revolution, Dog-Friendly Hotels, and What Actually Makes You Happy

Welcome back to Feel-Good Fridays. This week, host Aislyn Greene and producer Nikki Galteland are joined by Afar executive editor Kathrine LaGrave—and the three of them are ready to carry you into the weekend a little lighter, with stories about line dancing, travel with your dog, and the surprisingly simple science of being happy.

Transcript

Aislyn: Welcome, everyone. This is Unpacked by Afar I’m Aislyn: Greene.

Nikki: I’m Nikki: Galteland and today we are joined by the amazing Katherine: LaGrave.

Katherine: It’s great to be here.

Aislyn: It’s always so good to have you. Wait, We haven’t had you on the show, but it’s so nice to have you here for Feel Good Friday!

Katherine: Yay!

Nikki: Feel Good Friday! Yes, we are gathering once again to share stories that are making us feel good from the week. And today we have a story about traveling with pets.

Katherine: The rise of queer line dancing.

Aislyn: And how you can actually be happy right now. Like literally right now.

Nikki: Amazing. Right to the point. That is all coming up after the break.

Aislyn: So we are back. We’re ready to dive in. Katherine:, I just want to dance right now. So how are you going to inspire us today?

Katherine: Oh yes. So raise your hand if you’ve line danced.

Nikki: Me.

Aislyn: Two hands.

Katherine: Both of you line dancing. Okay, so just last week, I was at my cousin’s wedding and practically everyone hopped on the dance floor to dance to the Cupid Shuffle, which, like, you know, the Macarena, the Electric Slide is a line dance. So basically we all we all know what a line dance is, right?

Aislyn: I’d like to have you describe it, though.

Katherine: I would say people following a choreographed set of steps while arranged in lines.

Nikki: Beautiful. We actually just heard the Cupid Shuffle at a restaurant while we were in Michigan, and we were we were reminiscing on all of our line dancing. So the story is perfectly timed, Katherine.

Aislyn: To the left. To the left.

Now walk it by yourself. Now walk it.

Katherine: Exactly. I think I saw a fact that the Electric Slide is maybe the most popular line dance, but the line dancing story I’m going to talk to you about today is about country line dancing, so I’m sure you can picture it, looking at me today, I happen to love country music and line dancing. And I grew up doing both of those things at family reunions, like in the Midwest and in the South, and I’ve been looking for a place to dance more as I’m getting older and doing less like physical contact, exercise, and a few friends recommended this group called Stud Country, which offers country dancing parties and classes rooted in the legacy of queer cowboy culture. Though it’s an explicitly queer event, it’s not exclusively queer, which means allies can attend. And then earlier this week, I read an article about the rise in popularity in queer line dancing, and I thought it was such good news, especially for pride, that something so historically straight, white, and cis has become more inclusive since groups like Stud Country and in places all across the country. Nikki:, they’re in Los Angeles, they’re in Albuquerque, you name it. And I am in New York, and I think I saw a few days ago that Lincoln Center, which is a big performing arts venue that we have, just announced their summer for the city initiative with a bunch of free events beginning June 10th and ending August 8. And one of them is a 3.5-hour Stud Country set. So I’ll see you there. Bring your boots. We can all be dancing outdoors.

Aislyn: So 3.5 hours of line dancing?

Katherine: Oh, yes.

Aislyn: Are you going to do all 3.5 hours? That is some real activity there.

Katherine: Well, they have a catch up class, of course. You know, I think they have warm ups at the beginning, but then, you know, classes and a bunch of dancing outside.

Nikki: I love that. In addition to stud country, there is a rooftop bar, right, like directly across the street from my apartment that does line dancing on Wednesdays and Sundays. And so I hear, I hear the music. I hear the guy, like, calling out for the little class that they do ahead of time. So next time you’re in LA, we should go.

Aislyn: That’s so fun. Amazing. Okay, question for you, cowboy boots. What color? What would they look like? What color would they be? All of your boots.

Katherine: That’s a great question. I actually found a perfect pair when I was, I thought it was perfect, when I was in Tucson last year for my birthday with my dad, but the guy wouldn’t sell them to me because he said they were a little big. And he said, where do you live? New York? No, no, if you want cowboy boots that you’re actually gonna wear, like really where they have to fit just right. You can’t be just wearing them for style because they’ll wreck your feet. So he wouldn’t sell them to me, but they were cherry red, broken-in and beautiful.

Aislyn: Wow.

Katherine: Your turn.

Nikki: I had a pair that was white with tassels when I was little. That were pretty fun. Yeah, it had the, like, sparkle. A little bit of bling. I feel like I would go brown. I like, you know, a lot of the nice leathery look I feel like is fun or black halfway between like moto and cowboy.

Aislyn: Yes. They go with everything. The little black boot. Mhm. All right.

Katherine: No, Aislyn:, you’re not.

Nikki: Come on. Yeah, baby.

Katherine: She’s trying to move on.

Nikki: We’ve got cherry red. And then, like the boring colors. Where do you fall?

Aislyn: Well, in that case, I’m gonna say I want a pair of rainbow boots when we all go line dancing. Or we go to this, you know, queer line dancing community. So. And I’m wearing, like, a magenta pink shirt today, so yeah, I want rainbow boots.

Nikki: Amazing.

Katherine: Everyone should look up, um, photos of these events because the people are dressed with their boots to the nines. It’s so cool.

Aislyn: I want to go.

Nikki: Very fun.

Katherine: So, Aislyn, it’s your turn. What I want to know is how can I be happier?

Aislyn: So, I mean, the easy answer is that you should just join a mahjong club or go play mahjong, which I know you already do. So that’s why you have that happy glow about you.

Nikki: Line dance and mahjong. Katherine:, you have the coolest life I know exactly right.

Aislyn: That’s why she’s smiling all the time. So I’ve loved Laurie Santos for a long time. She’s a cognitive scientist. She’s a professor of psychology at Yale. And if that name sounds familiar to you, it’s because she went viral back in like 2018, 2019, because she was teaching a happiness class at Yale. And I interviewed her at that time for essentially, how can travel make you happier? She’s a big traveler as well. And one of her top tips was actually to talk to people on the plane, which I still don’t do. I was like, no, Laurie, sorry, that’s that’s a bridge too far for me. But this week, a reporter from the Daily podcast interviewed her for her kind of 2026 masterclass on happiness. And it’s not explicitly about travel, but there’s some themes in there that I feel like could lend themselves well to travel. And basically, it brought up questions that I want to ask both of you.

Nikki: I actually did yesterday talk to my seatmate on the plane, which is rare for me, but they had just, it was a couple, and they had just gotten back from a 5-week cycling trip in Europe. They were very cool. They were very interesting. They seem very happy.

Aislyn: What prompted the like, how did the conversation begin? That’s what I’m always curious about in these conversations.

Nikki: They started it with the sort of generic, like, what were you doing in Atlanta? And I was like, oh, I actually wasn’t that, you know, traveling like the basics, but got very quickly into the cool cycling and all the fun stuff that they did.

Aislyn: That’s funny because my seatmates were chatting and I was like, I’m putting my headphones on and I’m turning on Cruella.

Nikki: Put up a little screen.

Aislyn: But I still feel happy at the end of it.

Nikki: That’s good.

Aislyn: Laurie and the reporter were talking about the two different types of happiness. So hedonic, which is about pleasure, like eating great ice cream or going for a bike ride. And then there’s eudaimonic, which is more about building your character and your values and connecting with other people, which is where we get to travel. And she talked about kind of the history of the pursuit of happiness, like as human beings and how that has changed over the generations as we got better food and basically became less sick as a species.

But what I thought was really interesting is she was talking about increasingly technology, making it harder for people to find happiness or like, we want to optimize our happiness. And that’s actually like so counterintuitive to actually becoming happier. And the main thing is about connecting with people more, which we don’t do as much. We’re not part of bowling leagues. We’re not going to church as much.

So this brings us back to mahjong and why we all need to a travel talk to people on the plane have kind of more frictionful moments where technology is not solving all of our problems and, and line dance. I guess it’s kind of a full circle moment, but I just thought it was a really interesting conversation about this particular moment in time. And it just made me think, like, travel is still such a wonderful tool to increase our happiness in the world.

Nikki: Yay! I love that. Go talk to people.

Katherine: I love that too. And it’s a good reminder that we’ve talked about this a little before as a group. I think that we’re so used to a frictionless or we’re expecting this now, or a lot of travelers do, but that’s not how we’ve traveled for so long. And that’s not the real world experience.

Aislyn: Totally.

Katherine: So it’s really helpful to, to have that reminder.

Aislyn: I have actually had conversations with both of you where you’ve shared stories about interesting moments during your travels that I would say maybe in the moment felt uncomfortable or hard, but ended up ultimately, I think, making you happier as a person or you learned or you grew. And I realize like having those moments where it is a little uncomfortable, or you have to put yourself out there. That’s what creates those wonderful memories. If we’re using technology to avoid that, then we miss out on those great moments. So you both inspire me. Thank you.

Nikki: Oh you too.

Aislyn: But I think, Nikki:, you’re going to be talking to us today about dogs. And we all love dogs. Yes. In this room.

Nikki: It’s it’s a dog story. I’m happy because I got home late last night after being gone for like a week, and I got the, like, solid 10 minutes of wiggle hug excitement from my dog. I just sat there and like, ah, this puppy is so sweet. And he was so excited. And so it had me thinking about dogs and travel. And basically my feel good story is that it’s just getting a lot easier. And there are more options for people. If you want to travel with your dog. More and more places are not just tolerating, but like actively excited to have you there with your dog, which I think is really nice.

Aislyn: Just tolerating what kinds of places like when you say there are more places, is that like restaurants or hotels or?

Nikki: Yeah. So I was looking up some stats and apparently, like TripAdvisor says, that searches for pet friendly activities and restaurants, that kind of thing are up 260 percent year-on-year. But primarily I was thinking about hotels. And so there are certain hotels where they’ll have welcome treats at reception and dog dishes and dog bowls in the room. Yeah, it’s very, very sweet. I was reading that apparently at the Kimpton hotels, you can ask to speak to their director of pet relations and you will get an employee.

Katherine: Great job.

Nikki: Who is a dog? Oh. Oh.

Katherine: Well, an even better job.

Nikki: An even better job. And it is the dog’s job to greet guests and pets in the lobby and be the sort of ambassador and furry mascot for the hotel. And I think it started with dogs that were being fostered. And so it’s just a really sweet, sweet, welcoming, happy idea to be able to have a fun interaction and travel with your pet.

Katherine: I love that.

Aislyn: That is a really positive story.

Nikki: Oh. Oh, no.

Katherine: You’re gonna get dogs for that joke.

Nikki: Oh, no.

Aislyn: It’s so perfect though. Come on. I guess that’s more of a cat joke.

Nikki: That’s okay. Cats are good too. We also like cats. I don’t know if these hotels. But they probably would allow cats as well. And especially in some of them, they’re partnering with local animal shelters. So there’s a hotel chain in North Carolina. I believe it’s the Aloft hotels, where they will have adoptable pets in the lobby. And the guests can like play with them, take them on walks, learn about the local animal services, donate to the shelters.

Katherine: Sounds dangerous for me.

Nikki: I know, I know, I feel like people might be like coming home with a new friend from their vacation.

Aislyn: Right? You’re on a road trip. How do you walk away from an adorable dog in the lobby of your hotel? That’s like, I don’t have a house.

Nikki: I need a home. Take me with you.

Katherine: Oh.

Aislyn: So what do you think about, you know, obviously, as we’ve talked about, we all love dogs and have dogs in our lives in some way. But for people who aren’t as maybe pro-pup, how do you deal with that? Like you’re running into dogs in the hallways? Like it’s just.

Nikki: It’s a good question. I do wonder, from the hotel’s perspective, when they implement these policies, if they see any sort of drop-off in non-dog people coming in.

Katherine: Yeah, I would bet that too. I think you’re probably losing some audience, but gaining more of another.

Nikki: In a perfect world, hopefully the hotels are really nicely cleaned and relatively soundproof and like, maybe you wouldn’t even hardly notice that they’re there. And like, you might see them in the lobby and it’ll be nice. But hopefully I would assume that they’re not sort of encroaching on your private space too much.

Aislyn: Yeah, maybe there’s like a little happy hour or what would you what would it be a good dog pun for that?

Katherine: Yappy hour.

Nikki: Yappy hour. Yes. There are apparently there are like dog spas. You can go get like a dog massage. So if your dog is causing problems in the room, you could send them to the dog.

Aislyn: That’s so funny that they go to the spa and you stay in your room. There’s something that seems.

Nikki: Well, maybe you would both go to the spa, I don’t know.

Aislyn: The dog is giving you the massage.

Katherine: Yeah. the joint dog.

Nikki: Couples massage.

Katherine: Instead of a couple’s massage. It’s you and your pet.

Aislyn: You’ve got, like, the little towel wrap on the dog’s head.

Nikki: Cucumbers on the eyes.

Aislyn: I mean, yeah, it depends on the dog, I suppose, how long they could sit for that.

Nikki: As long as it’s not like a proper bath. I think Franklin would be okay.

Katherine: Have you ever done one of them? Have you tried it yet?

Nikki: No. We did take Franklin to one place that was, like, explicitly dog friendly, but it wasn’t very fancy. It was just like, You are welcome here. Thank you. But there was no dog spa that I was aware of. I think they did have, like, a water dish and food bowl in the room, though.

Aislyn: So are we gonna do a feature feel Good Friday in one of these dog friendly hotels. And we all bring our dogs.

Katherine: Bring our dog.

Aislyn: Or dog nieces. Yes. In my case.

Nikki: We all unite.

Katherine: We interview them for their Feel Good Friday pics and it’s just snuffling and barking noises for 20 minutes.

Aislyn: And then we have like a video version. We have little captions below about what we think they’re really saying.

Nikki: They can do the little like hotel review and they like. This is what I thought of the dinner.

Aislyn: That was my best dog. Um, that was a wonderful I love that. Thank you. We’ll see you. We’ll see you there. Have a bone to pick.

Nikki: Reunite with all our dogs, I love it.

Aislyn: Mhm.

Nikki: This was a Feel-Good Friday episode of Unpacked by Afar.

Katherine: Make sure to tune in every Friday for a dose of good news from Afar’s favorite travel writers.

Aislyn: You can subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast player, and follow @AfarMedia on social.

Nikki: And don’t forget to subscribe to our Behind the Mic newsletter at Afar.com.

Katherine: This show is part of the Airwave Media Podcast Network Music from Chris Colin and Epidemic Sound.

Aislyn: We’ll see you next Friday.