A few weeks ago, I woke up to discover that no fewer than four friends had sent me the same TikTok: a British expat enthusiastically evangelizing about the state of New Jersey. In his telling, the Garden State is unequivocally the greatest state in the United States — and possibly the best place in the world.
“As a Brit living in America, I am in love with New Jersey,” Oliver McAteer wrote across the video, which has since racked up nearly 36,000 likes. “It is the greatest place I have ever lived,” he declared, before launching into a full-throated defense of the state’s easy access to New York City and general quality of life. Over the last decade, he’s conducted what amounts to a statewide residency — Hoboken to Jersey City to Maplewood — so this isn’t exactly the perspective of a tourist passing through.
I gloatingly dropped the link into the group chat. I’ve lived in Jersey City for nearly seven years — a fact my friends teased me about, right up until everyone turned 34 and relocated across the Hudson or deeper into the suburbs. Still, I assumed the viral love letter was a one-off. An algorithmic fluke, if you will.
Then, earlier this week, a colleague sent me the account Kiki in New Jersey. For the uninitiated, Kiki is a self-described “N.J. lover from Japan,” and her TikTok feed is devoted almost exclusively to documenting what she’s done, seen and eaten while visiting the state — from thrift stores and gas stations to delis and bakeries, all places locals wouldn’t think twice about. “Planning to revisit New Jersey in 2026!” her bio reads.
Kiki is from Japan — one of the most compelling, culturally rich countries on Earth, in my opinion — and yet more than 30,000 people follow her for content about New Jersey. Thirty thousand people who are, presumably, invested in what the state has to offer.
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According to Airbnb it is. According to this SUNY Oneonta grad? It most definitely is not.As recently as this morning, I stumbled onto yet another TikTok trend — this one more tongue-in-cheek — comparing cities like Jersey City and Hoboken to places like Croatia, Italy, Cuba, Greece and Spain. “Croatia was cool, but it’s not Finnegan’s Pub in Hoboken, N.J.,” one caption reads, as the camera pans across an especially scenic stretch of Adriatic coastline. A joke, of course, but perhaps there’s a kernel of truth inside it.
I love New Jersey — something you would not have heard me say a decade ago. I love its proximity to New York City, spending my summers down the shore, not having to pump my own gas, Wawa. But, while the state gets a bad rap, I’m not here to mount a tourism campaign.
What I am interested in is what this says about the idea of “hidden gems.” We talk about them as though they’re objective discoveries — secret beaches, undiscovered towns, places unspoiled by the masses. But as Laurie Baratti recently wrote, hidden gems have changed: “The real magic of travel today isn’t about finding a secret place. It’s about how you experience the places everyone already knows.”
Everyone travels for different reasons. The qualities that make Japan extraordinary to me might be the very same qualities someone else finds in New Jersey. Both things can be true. A destination doesn’t have to be remote or rare to feel revelatory.
Maybe the takeaway isn’t that New Jersey is the greatest place on Earth — though, depending on the day, I might entertain the argument. It’s that travel is wildly personal. The “hidden gem” might not be hidden at all. It might just be the place you stopped looking at closely.
Sometimes, it’s the place you already call home.
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