We’ve been to nearly every weed destination on the planet—so we’re offering our assistance in formulating the ultimate bucket list for bud-loving travelers. Here are two dozen destinations, both in the U.S. and internationally, that definitely make the cut!
America’s Legal-Marijuana Cities
Denver, Colorado, is the epicenter of marijuana legalization, having passed its 2012 initiative slightly before Washington State. While the city and state still wrestle with the regulation of venues for adult recreational use, numerous events are finding ways to evade the remaining prohibition on public use. If you’re a sports fan, Denver is one of nine US cities with a pro football, basketball, baseball, hockey and soccer team—tailgating and infused edibles for the win! Plus the oxygen deprivation you’ll experience here from being one mile high sure makes the herb last longer.
Seattle, Washington, has a weed scene that’s a bit odd in comparison with Denver’s. You can’t grow your own, and when you buy weed in a shop, it comes in sealed packages of 1 to 28 grams instead of bulk flower that you can inspect, smell and order in whatever quantity you choose. But the coffee is incredible, as you’d expect from a city usually under cloud cover, as are the Haze strains favored here for their energetic, heady buzz. The world’s largest “protestival,” the Seattle Hempfest, happens each year on the third weekend of August. Every toker should experience it at least once.
Portland, Oregon, is every bit as quirky and Dionysian as you’ve heard. If you like a surfeit of choices in food, wine, beer, art, books, theaters, nature, sex and cannabis—and if you don’t mind that semi-annual omnipresent rain—the Rose City is the place for you. Portland has not one but two vegan strip clubs. And if that makes no sense, just concentrate on the big, beautiful, billboard-sized pictures of concentrates and buds that you’ll see while cruising around downtown. There are boulevards in Portland where you can comparison-shop among three different dispensaries within a nine-block area.
Anchorage, Alaska, might not have made it onto your marijuana bucket list before, but don’t count out the City of Lights and Flowers: Its residents have enjoyed the right to grow and possess pot at home since 1975 (based on a privacy right enshrined in the state’s constitution), and there are some really talented growers here producing wonderful weed. Plus it’s the only city we’ve listed from the four legal states where licensed adult-use venues are approved. In the summertime, when it stays light out, you can party through the night. In the winter, it’s dark almost all day, but you can trip out on the Aurora Borealis (a.k.a. the Northern Lights). Day or night, Matanuska Thunderfuck is your best companion.
America’s Weed-Friendly Vacation Regions
The Emerald Triangle is made up of Trinity, Humboldt, and Mendocino counties in Northern California. The largest city is Eureka, on the Humboldt Bay, but the towns of Ukiah and Arcata will give you a better feel for an area that’s almost completely dependent on marijuana cultivation. The Emerald Triangle features some of the most majestic mountains and tallest trees in the world, perfectly complemented by the sun-grown hybrids that are destined to become connoisseur brands in the soon-to-be-legalized California cannabis market. Just be careful where you’re hiking, especially around harvest time: You might stumble onto some prime NorCal herb and a farmer none too happy to meet you.
The Bay Area, particularly Oakland and San Francisco, is the birthplace of the medical marijuana movement in America. Marijuana’s not yet legal here, but with statewide decrim, easy medical marijuana access and local tolerance, it might as well be. You can visit the stony Haight-Ashbury district in San Francisco and then head across the bay to check out Oaksterdam. Harborside Health Center, the nation’s largest dispensary, is at the ready to help you with all your med-pot needs. There seems to be a major cannabis expo happening nearby every other weekend, and the area is packed with world-class tourist destinations.
Colorado’s Mountain Towns have had a tumultuous few years since the legalization of marijuana. They’ve always been counted among the country’s top skiing destinations. The love that skiers have for pot has never been a secret, but city leaders in Breckenridge fought to make sure that retail marijuana outlets would be barred from opening in the downtown area (so as not to sully the high-end shopping district), so they stuck all the pot shops out by the airport. Aspen still hosts the annual NORML Legal Seminar every May, and the attendees enjoy a high afternoon at Owl Farm, the Woody Creek residence of the late Hunter S. Thompson.
The Oregon Coast is unique in America. It’s all public land—every bit of coast belongs to the people. From the northern tip of the Emerald Triangle in Brookings, to Newport on the Central Coast, north to Astoria at the mouth of the Columbia River, you’ll find plenty of pot shops along the 363 miles of the Pacific Coast Highway. Buy some firewood and fine weed and drive right out onto the beach, build a fire, watch the sunset, and let some great Oregon green bud turn your campfire s’mores into best snack ever!
America’s Coolest Anti-Prohibition Rallies
Ann Arbor, Michigan, is the site of the first marijuana protest event on the spring calendar: the Hash Bash, which happens on the first Saturday of April. The event arose from the sentencing of activist John Sinclair, who received 10 years in prison for the possession of two joints. In March of 1972, the Michigan Supreme Court declared the law under which Sinclair was convicted unconstitutional, and on April 1, the first Hash Bash commenced. Ann Arbor is a great college town where the penalty for possession is a mere $55 ticket, but you’ll need to know someone or have a medical card to score some herb.
Boston, Massachusetts, holds the annual Freedom Rally every September on the Boston Common, the birthplace of American democracy. While previous rallies were always tense standoffs with the cops, who once even arrested our own Rick Cusick and NORML’s Keith Stroup for puffing on a doobie, today’s rallies are as laidback as the Seattle Hempfest. Decrim was passed here in 2008, and medical marijuana in 2012. This year, Massachusetts is likely to go for the presidential-election-year trifecta by passing a ballot initiative that would legalize pot for adult recreational use—making the 2017 Freedom Rally a must-attend event.
Dallas, Texas, isn’t someplace you’d normally think of as a top toker destination, but that’s only because you haven’t experienced the incredible hospitality of the folks at DFW NORML. Their annual Global Marijuana March, held on the first Saturday in May, is always one of the biggest in America, dwarfing marches in larger cities with much more lenient marijuana laws. You’d also be surprised by how many bar owners in the Dallas–Fort Worth area cooperate with DFW NORML to provide a toker-friendly environment for their numerous events—and even more surprised at how good some of the home-grown weed is in Texas these days.
Madison, Wisconsin, hosts the last pro-pot event on the fall calendar: the Great Midwest Harvest Fest, which happens on the first weekend of October. This year is the 46th annual event, which means that it predates the Ann Arbor Hash Bash by two years, making it the longest-running marijuana celebration in America. Who would have guessed that the two oldest such events in the country would both be in the Great Lakes region, not in California or New York? Madison is another great college town with a city ordinance that allows the private personal possession of marijuana, and where getting busted for public possession is just a $100 ticket.
Chronic Adventures in Canada
Vancouver, British Columbia, is home to Canada’s best-known legalization activists, Marc and Jodi Emery, and the popular variety known as BC Bud (really a catch-all term for all indoor marijuana grown here). Seed sellers and coffeeshops tolerant of weed can be found with ease in “Vansterdam,” especially around the so-called Pot Block on Hastings Street. You can also pack a parka and make your way to numerous ski resorts in the winter, or wear only your birthday suit in the summer at Wreck Beach, where nudists drink and toke the day away.
Nelson, British Columbia, is an eight-hour drive east of Vancouver, just north-northwest of the Idaho Panhandle. But despite the proximity, Nelson is magnitudes of freedom ahead of prohibition-happy Idaho. Just head to Baker Street in the city that the National Post has called “Canada’s Pot Capital,” and you’ll find the kind—referring both to the buds and to the marijuana community here, whose founders first came to Nelson in the flower-power era of the 1960s. And now that the city’s infamous downtown dog-ban law has finally been amended, you can take your canine friend with you (on a leash) to that downtown core around Baker Street.
Toronto, Ontario, is the site of the largest Global Marijuana March in the world, with over 20,000 freedom fighters turning out at high noon on the first Saturday in May to fill the streets downtown. Bolstered by the election of the Liberal Party’s Justin Trudeau as prime minister and his promise to legalize marijuana across Canada, cannabis cafes have begun to open—only to be hit by police raids at the beginning of the year. Still, some private vapor lounges remain open. Visit the Kensington Market and Queen St. West areas of town to find some high-minded friends indeed.
European Cannabis Destinations
Amsterdam, the Netherlands, really needs no introduction to High Times readers. Its landmark coffeeshop scene and the benefits that it brought to the city were prime arguments for marijuana-law reform in the United States throughout the 1970s and ’80s. Don’t worry about those rumors of tourists being banned from buying pot; that’s only been happening in the smaller Dutch cities located on the country’s borders. Amsterdam still welcomes travelers age 18 and older in its coffeeshops. You’re allowed to buy only 5 grams, though—and don’t smoke any tobacco inside, since the Dutch, like a number of American states, have banned almost all smoking indoors.
Barcelona, Spain, hosts Spannabis, the largest cannabis-community gathering in Europe, every March. Spain’s system of collective cultivation and social clubs has provided most people with access to quality marijuana without creating a commercialized storefront system. Cannabis isn’t bought and sold here; rather, you need to be a member of a collective, and then you’ll get your share of the cannabis cultivated for all. One such collective, the Barcelona Cannabis Users Club, has over 5,000 members. But if you can’t find a friend to get you an invitation to join, you can always legally grow and possess cannabis in private.
Freetown Christiania, Denmark, is a neighborhood within the city of Copenhagen. This area, about one-eighth of a square mile in size and with roughly 900 residents, has its own law (the Christiania Law of 1989) that largely allows it to govern itself. Here, cannabis isn’t just tolerated—it’s sold in open-air marijuana and hashish markets on the unfortunately named Pusher Street. You’ll want to stick to daytime visits to Christiania, though, and be sure you haggle for better prices. The rest of Copenhagen is reasonably tolerant of marijuana consumers, so long as you’re keeping to yourself and not bothering others with your smoke.
Ganja Island Paradises
The US Virgin Islands is an unincorporated territory of the United States. Its residents are US citizens, but they can’t vote for president and have only one nonvoting delegate in Congress. But they do have their own territorial government, which in 2014 voted to decriminalize marijuana, reducing personal possession to a maximum fine of $200. Helping lead the charge was Senator Terrence “Positive” Nelson, a Rastafarian lawmaker who is working to create cannabis-trade policies that will benefit poor Caribbean nations. The islands also boast the kind of gorgeous aquamarine waters and perennial warm temperatures that make marijuana even better.
Negril, Jamaica, is everything you imagined Jamaica to be: images of Bob Marley and sounds of reggae music everywhere you go; warm afternoon rains followed by hot sun as you enjoy a hand-rolled joint while drinking rum punch on a white sand beach. Despite the abject poverty that exists on the island, the people here are beautiful and friendly—and to make a living, many of them sell ganja freshly picked right off the mountain within the past week. Jamaica has been steadily decriminalizing marijuana for religious and medical use, and recreational possession is a minimal fine—but you’d have to smoke in front of a cop to earn it.
Wellington, New Zealand, is the capital of this gorgeous island country that provided much of the landscape for the Lord of the Rings movies. Like those pipe-weed-smoking Hobbits, New Zealanders consume a lot of cannabis—in fact, their rate of consumption has outpaced the United States’ over the last few years. But you have to be careful: Cannabis is still illegal here, and personal possession can result in a $500 fine and up to three months in jail. But this is also a place where cannabis activists once pushed a shopping cart full of burning weed into a police station, so cool people are everywhere!
Global Reefer Getaways
Marrakesh, Morocco, is the center of a North African hashish trade older than the United States. Tribal farmers in the Rif Mountains have cultivated cannabis for more than a thousand years, producing the potent Moroccan hash of legend. Cannabis is still illegal here, with possible prison sentences of up to a decade—but if you’re a tourist, you’ll have to go out of your way to attract police attention. You won’t long for the attention of dealers, though, who will brazenly approach you right on the street.
Montevideo, Uruguay, is the capital of the tiny South American nation that became the first in the world to legalize cannabis back in 2013. Now there are growers’ clubs that can cultivate as many as 99 plants for their 45 members, with each member receiving up to 40 grams per month. Legal residents age 18 and older can grow up to six plants at home and harvest up to 480 grams. And starting this year, legal residents can also go into a pharmacy and buy up to 40 grams a month of three government-grown strains for a little over $1 per gram. The key is knowing a legal resident.
Nimbin, Australia, is the home of MardiGrass, a huge festival that takes place on the first full weekend of May. The town’s New Age vibe and the openly tolerated sale and use of cannabis make Nimbin an oasis in New South Wales, an otherwise harsh state where possessing anything more than 15 grams can subject you to criminal penalties. (Most other states and territories in Australia have decriminalization or interventions for amounts up to 50 grams.)
from
http://hightimes.com/culture/24-top-pot-destinations/
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