Singer, songwriter, and Grammy winner Jason Mraz has been touring for over twenty years, and performed on all seven continents. In that time, he’s learned how to survive, and reframe, some of the indignities of life on the road. For one, he tries to explore every city he passes through. “That's the beauty of being on tour—you are a professional tourist. It takes looking at a city as a tourist to remember what it has to offer,” he explains. “If I get a day off, or just a couple of hours on a show day, I wander, take a walk, get lost.”
With a pop-driven new album, Mystical Magical Rhythmical Radical Ride, out this week, and a US tour coming up in July and August, Mraz spoke with Condé Nast Traveler about in-flight straight jackets, performing for penguins, and the glories of Indian food at the hotel breakfast buffet.
How he makes himself at home on the road:
I have what I call my kitchen case. It's a hard-shell suitcase that, when you open it up, looks like a little travel pantry. It’s filled with ingredients, herbs and spices, teas and tinctures, and concentrated powders—like Vitamineral Green, that's a staple for me. It's this really dense, brilliant green powder. I'm a big fan of tinctures, whether it's echinacea or lemon balm or a loquat syrup for the throat. I'll leave space in it for dressing room provisions on our rider, like trail mix, almond butter, and avocado. There’s an immersion blender in there, some cutlery. It's basically survival food, so that when I’m showing up in a place and setting up to do a show, I don't have to go out and find a health food store. It also allows me to make a smoothie in a hotel room. Maybe once per tour, I have to restock my kitchen case.
The venue he always looks forward to on tour:
The Bank of New Hampshire Pavilion in Gilford, New Hampshire. They have bicycles, so you can leave the venue and ride to Lake Winnipesaukee, which is only maybe a quarter or half a mile away. Usually on tour, you're living in a parking lot, so when you get off the bus and suddenly are in a little forest, and there's a bicycle waiting for you to go to the lake, that's a perk. They have postcards on the table that are pre-stamped so you can send letters home to your family from Lake Winnipesaukee. And there's a little fire pit where they make s'mores for you after the show. They really bring the camp experience to life, because that's what people go to that region for—camping on the lake.
His amazing advice for sleeping on planes:
Pull the seatbelt snug, but loose enough that you can fit both arms underneath. With one of your hands, pull the belt a little tighter, and what that does is creates this sense of being tucked in. Swaddle yourself. Your limbs aren't worried about flying around. I don't know if it's because I can sleep anywhere, but that little effect allows me to just pass right out. I lock myself in my seat and off I go.
Sleeping on a bus is a little more challenging. For both plane and bus, earplugs take out that constant noise. They even soften the piercingly loud pilot announcements on an airplane. I cannot believe how loud they talk over those systems! Earplugs and a tight seatbelt and I'm out.
The wildest place he's ever performed:
I went to Antarctica with Al Gore and his climate friends on a summit with scientists and people from the media to learn about climate change and figure out ways we could come back from this data-collecting experience and tell stories. I was invited to be entertainment, because it's a very long boat ride to Antarctica. I played a couple of sets, I hosted an open mic. I would sometimes wake up the boat with a song on the PA system, letting people know the morning announcements and what time we would be having breakfast and stuff.
We would also take excursions off the boat in little zodiacs or kayaks, and we had chances to hike and sing for penguins, which is a wonderful experience. But the performance... My friend Mona [Tavakoli], who plays cajón, and I with my guitar, we took a zodiac around this beautiful bay filled with icebergs and sang our song. Hearing it echo through these brilliant canyons of ice—surreal! And surprisingly not that cold. I will say this: arriving back on the boat, I learned that icebergs can tip over at any moment. It’s just very dangerous. We didn’t stand on one, but we got very close. I realized how much we put ourselves at risk for some photographs. When we went on land to perform for the penguins, nothing could flip over. You could slip in penguin poop! But usually we were just on the boat performing for the scientists and whatnot.
They limit how many people can go each year, but I highly recommend it to travelers. Lindblad Expeditions-National Geographic has room for residents who teach you how to use your camera, about the safety of traveling there, how to help tell the story of this really unique environment that doesn't look like anything else on Earth. It's really cool.
What’s important to him when planning a vacation:
I usually prioritize coffee shops, so I'll check reviews on the area and find out who's doing what. Is there an award-winning roaster in town? Is there a celebrity barista? I want to find that spot. Coffee shops are like terminals: People are coming and going, from all types of jobs or leisurely strolls or they're meeting friends. It's a great place to be a fly on the wall and get a sense of a community, or sit in front and watch the world go by and get a sense of a community that way. I try to imagine myself living in that town. Oh yeah, this is just my coffee shop. I come here every day. Maybe it's a way of faking myself into thinking I don't live on a bus, I don't travel every day. I live here, in whatever this city is!
A city he thinks more people should visit:
Pittsburgh. What's in Pittsburgh? There's a lot in Pittsburgh! Every city's going to have somebody of note that they honor, and I took a walk there and found this brilliant statue of Mr. Rogers on the riverfront. There's miles and miles of walking that can be done on trails around the river, which led me to the Strip District, an old, warehouse-y retail area. It was brilliant, with farmer's markets and gritty, classic Pittsburgh restaurants, coffee shops, and old clothing stores. It's a city with, I don't know, a hundred bridges and tunnels. It's like being inside of a model railroad scene. You can wander over to the Andy Warhol Museum, which is six, seven floors of Andy Warhol's life [displayed] chronologically as you go up. And these are things I discovered on a quick walk in a few hours! So what seems like a landlocked steel city actually has a lot to offer.
I also love San Antonio because they've designed their city to have a lot of brilliant walking streets, and a river walk that makes you feel like you've suddenly been transported to Europe or something, the way these cute little paths go between the buildings along the riverfront. There's a lot of fun little secrets out there!
The hotel amenity he cares a lot about:
Give us a good breakfast! The best breakfast I've ever experienced was at the Mandarin Oriental in Singapore. Singapore by nature is an international hub. People from all over the world are walking the streets, and this breakfast buffet reflects that. There's fresh baked goods and all of that, and your classic egg-anything, and then an entire section of Indian food and Chinese food. Any breakfast you've ever imagined in your head is available. And it's a beautiful setting—you can sit indoors or outdoors, and outside is a beautiful, tropical environment with birds flying around. It was at this breakfast where I discovered Indian food on a waffle. To this day, if I order Indian food at home, I always make a waffle as my naan. I have to thank that hotel for introducing me to that. Like, I want a waffle and syrup, but I also want chana masala and saag aloo.
Where he wants to go next:
I haven't done all of our national parks. I've been to Yosemite, Yellowstone, and the Grand Canyon, but on short trips. But I've not been to Zion. Gosh, I haven't been to any national parks on the East Coast. So there's this craving. There's a version of me, in a future life, where I rent a van and I go exploring the national parks. Could I even figure out a way to tour and play around a campfire at some national parks without causing too much of a footprint? I would like to continue to explore the parks of the US. That seems like a real nice way to pass the time.