The 19 Most Popular MessyNessy Articles of 2019

Messy Nessy’s 2019 was a year on the verge. We released Don’t Be a Tourist in New York, the beloved sister book to Don’t Be a Tourist in Paris, and took the MNC universe to new heights with the Vault. Most of all, we had the joy and privilege of holding your hand down the rabbit hole yet again. These days, it can be tempting to think that every rock has been upturned, and every mystery unraveled, in an increasingly divided world. But the more we examined the 19 most popular articles of 2019, the more we sensed a common thread: these stories have been under our nose the whole time, waiting for the right dreamer to find them. They’re stories of the people behind the oddest of jobs. They’re tales of caution, and inspiration. They’re proof that “Don’t Be a Tourist” isn’t just our motto, but a reminder to stay curious, and never wait for anyone else to take you on an adventure. Don’t be a tourist. Be an explorer. Be a neighbour. Be utterly, fabulously you. What a year – what a decade – it has been. Thank you for sharing it with us!

Armchair Travel

• The Lost Romance of the Transylvanian Spa Town

• The French Town on the Edge of a Giant Hole

• Greetings, from New York’s Living Ghost Town

• Wet Hot Parisian Summer: A Lost 1930s Nudist Utopia

• Paris or Egypt? 100 Years Ago, It Was Hard to Tell the Difference

Delightfully Odd Jobs

• The Secret Career of David Bowie’s Back-Up Singer

• Snow White Is Real (and She’s a Chinese Vlogger)

• The Curious Career of Living as a Real-Life Garden Gnome

• Did the Rooftop Bees of Notre Dame Survive?

Stranger than Fiction

• Tehran’s Desert Ghost Towers look like a Zombie Movie Waiting to Happen

• We Went to a Parisian Sex Club for Swingers So You Don’t Have To

• A Lonely New York Mansion For Sale, Possibly Haunted, Still a Rare Steal

• How Guillotine Haircuts became all the Rage in France

• New York’s Real-Life Handmaid’s Tale

Trailblazers

• Georgia O’Keeffe: She Lived Deliciously Alone in the Wild, Wild West

• Hiding Homosexuality on the Cover of America’s Magazines a Century Ago

• America’s King of Macabre Would Have Made a Killer Fashion Designer

• Muse du Jour: Lady Miss Kier

• Free the Nipple, Says History

See you in 2019, dear reader!