Hi, my loves!! Happy Friday! Thank you for all your kind words and messages yesterday! To say we are unbelievably happy and in love with this baby girl would be an understatement.
I’m soaking in the newborn bliss, but I’ll still be writing here every week. I actually couldn’t be more excited for these next few Friday issues, which I’m co-writing with my closest friends!!! Since I started Beau Society, I’ve wanted to feature the people in my innermost circle and share their stories and perspectives with all of you. I’m obviously biased, but they’re so much fun, and I know you’ll love them! It makes sense to kick it off with a letter I wrote with someone you already know and loved so much the first time…
GREER GUSTAVSON!
If you’ve been reading Beau Society for a while, you know that Greer is one of my best friends and has been by my side for nearly every important moment over the past five years. We were living together when I started dreaming up the idea for Beau Society! We’re both born and raised in LA and share weirdly similar tastes in books (and newsletters), clothes, music, and the topic of today’s letter: travel!!
Earlier this year, Greer took this amazing, spontaneous trip to Japan with her husband and a couple of friends. When she came back and told me about it and showed me the photos(!), I begged her to write a little travel diary for Beau Society. Luckily, she was down! Plus, she pulled in Jess Bazan, a professional travel advisor and a friend of ours, to give us the inside scoop on top travel destinations for 2026. (How gorgeous is Hotel Yellowstone??) Plus, Jess gives us her expert carry-on tips, like the throat spray she always keeps in her bag to avoid getting sick and the best cure for jet lag I’ve ever heard.
Handing it over to Greer to take us through her incredible trip to Japan…
Hi everyone, Greer here!
I recently got married, and after our wedding, Demitri (my husband) and I told each other that, while we’re young, we’d try to be yes people and take advantage of any opportunity to go on an adventure together. I’m a planner by nature, so spur-of-the-moment trips are not usually in my wheelhouse. But when we realized we had two free weeks in February (rare for us these days), we started dreaming up a trip to Japan, which has been at the top of our ‘dream destinations’ list since we started dating.
I channeled that yes-person energy and got to thinking about our itinerary, which, for me, usually begins with calling Jess, one of our best friends and our built-in travel agent extraordinaire (more tips from her later). As it happened, Jess already had a work trip to Japan scheduled for the same week we were thinking about…so a slightly impromptu group trip seemed like fate! Japan has become the go-to spot for honeymoons, and for good reason, but if you ever have a chance to go with friends, I absolutely recommend it! We had so much fun exploring (and eating) as a group and soaking up everything Japan has to offer!
A little bit about the specifics of our trip:
We had nine days total, so we hit two different cities: Tokyo and Kyoto. We spent five days in Tokyo, then took the bullet train (highly recommend!!) to Kyoto and spent four days there.
I went into this trip without much of a plan at all — Hailee, you know how tough this was for me! — but I loved being detached from an itinerary. When you’re overly concerned about hitting everything on a to-do list, it’s easy to miss the magic a city or country has to offer. Instead, I ended up making a short priority list of things I wanted to do while I was in Japan. One was as vague as “try a random food at 7/11,” and another was a specific temple I’d heard about that I wanted to visit. I fully untied myself from the idea that I’d hit every “hot spot.”
This trip was a good reminder not to get all your travel recommendations on Instagram! Leading up to our trip, my feed was made up entirely of “what to do in Japan” videos. While these can be very fun and useful jumping-off points, I am so glad I didn’t limit our experience to just the “trendy” spots. You can walk down any street in Japan and find amazing food and hidden treasures to explore. Not to mention that the places we found on Instagram all had lines. I hate to say that waiting an hour for a matcha isn’t worth it, but it probably isn’t.
Japan is one of the most amazing places we’ve ever visited from a cultural perspective. The Japanese people are so intentional in the way they do things. Everyone was so kind and hospitable. And there are so many unique cultural norms that you pick up on right away. Some that really stood out to me:
It is so quiet. The streets and the public transportation are almost silent compared to LA or NY. There’s also a “women only” section of the train, which I thought was so amazing, even though I didn’t get to use it on this trip without ditching Demitri.
Simple technological advancements can really change your day. In our hotel elevator, you could unclick a floor that you pressed accidentally. Hello? Why do we not have that capability in elevators here? They really are 10 steps ahead.
Everything was so thoughtful. I noticed this a lot in stores and restaurants, though I am sure there are a million ways this manifests throughout Japan. The vintage clothing is so well cared for, restaurants focus on perfecting one particular item instead of a full range, and snacks are efficiently wrapped for easy opening. The Japanese are specific in a really cool way, and it shows.
This restaurant popped up many times on my Instagram feed before our trip, and it was one of the few that was totally worth it. Since Kyoto is close to the city of Kobe, you naturally run into a lot of wagyu on menus. At this particular place, they make one single type of beef patty, which they serve with unlimited white rice and different toppings and dipping sauces. It seems worth mentioning that the rice refills were unlimited — mind you, this was the best white rice I’ve ever had in my life!
There’s a ton of great vintage in Japan. The collection of vintage designer handbags in Tokyo is a sight to see in and of itself. I came home with a special clutch from the ‘90s, and Demitri absolutely scored in the clothing department. Japanese streetwear. Japanese denim. We described almost everything as “effortlessly cool.”
If you know, you know. I was ~hesitant~ but happily surprised to find that the online hype wasn’t undeserved here.
I love insider travel advice, so when Greer mentioned she was traveling to Japan with Jess Bazan, her dear friend who was just named a top travel agent of 2026 by Condé Nast Traveler(!), I texted her a quick BS travel Q&A….
First things first, the best carry-on on the market is the Calpak Luka Duffel. I am always amazed by how much I can manage to squeeze in there. My carry-on must-haves are:
Keeping in theme – Tokyo, Japan!
As a travel advisor, I sit in an interesting position: I’m constantly gathering inspiration not just for my own taste, but for my clients’ too. Recommendations are incredibly personal, so a big part of my job is understanding the tastemakers in my clients’ lives and the aesthetic they’re drawn to, then matching them to the right places.
Personally, Substack is my happy place for inspiration. A few newsletters I always trust to send me somewhere great are Happy Hoteling, Strictly the Good Stuff, and Atelier Le Monde. I also love larger publications like Italy Segreta, Yolo Journal, Net-a-Porter, and Robb Report.
A rule of thumb: find people whose taste you love, whether they’re interior designers, fashion people, or writers, and pay attention to where they travel. Chances are, if you love their style, you’ll probably love their hotel taste too!
Greece – One of my favorite summer travel destinations. There is so much new coming, like the Rosewood Blue Palace in Crete. Clients are looking into lesser-touristed islands like Folegandros, where I am itching to stay at Gundari.
Harbour Island, Bahamas – An island where you are forced to slow down and golf cart around, with perfectly pink-hued sand. A weekend at Coral Sands sounds lovely.
Egypt – Particularly, sailing through the Nile on a luxury vessel like the Nour el Nil.
South Africa – I am planning a South African honeymoon and want to end at a beach resort. Benguerra Island in Mozambique has been particularly on the mind at Kisawa Sanctuary or &Beyond Benguerra Island.
Jackson Hole, Wyoming – I’ve never been and would love to go in the summertime to Hotel Yellowstone.
Canada! Stunning nature from Whistler to Lake Louise. Great cities like Vancouver and Montreal. Truly special luxury properties like Nimmo Bay Retreat or Fogo Island Inn.
The answer to this question is totally based on personal preference, so without calling anyone’s baby ugly, I plead the fifth…
Beis for roller luggage. Calpak for duffels and packing cubes.
An IV drip, no napping, and a double shot of espresso. Give yourself grace on the return and an extra day off work to fully reset, unpack, and reorient, if you can.
Erewhon Liposomal Vitamin C and Beekeeper’s Naturals Throat Spray.
My rule is carry-on always, unless it is over two weeks or it’s a cold-weather trip!
A bit of both. Personally, I like to plan 2-3 prescheduled activities through the trip, but leave a lot up to wandering and spontaneity. I come prepared with a general outline of neighborhoods I’d like to visit — its stores, sights, cocktail bars, etc. — that I can turn to if I’ve wandered too aimlessly and need direction.
San Ysidro Ranch.
Caesar salad and fries.
TO PACK: A great travel pouch. For your findings.
TO KNOW: What actually gets confiscated by TSA.
TO WATCH: “I got a thing for hotel stationery.”
TO SHOP: Our BS travel edit, informed by Jess’s amazing recs and our team’s favorite travel must-haves.
TO TAKE WITH YOU: “Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity.” – Simone Weil
Hope you have some spring break travel coming up — or maybe this inspires you to book a trip to Japan for summer or fall! Let me know where you’re going. Next week, I’m sharing my favorite travel memories from being on tour, and we have a very special fashion issue with my stylists!! Sign up for More BS so you get all of it. Happy to have you here, and as always, thanks for reading!!
Love,
Hailee
(Beau)
Highlighting your comments on the previous week’s issue. Today, Bria’s response to Marching into spring.
“I love how you mentioned the ‘stop and smell the flowers’ moment/quote. Just the other day, I saw a clip from The Drew Barrymore Show that made me look at that quote, flowers, and the beauty of spring differently this time around. Someone asked how to make flowers last longer, and this florist’s response blew me away. He said, ‘Flowers are not supposed to last, their job is to help us stay present.’ I’m so beyond happy to hear you’ve taken this time to really remain present in your life, and I hope our BS community does too. <3. Happy Spring, everyone.” -Bria (MBS)
AloJapan.com