ArcaMax

Besides spending a week in Michigan visiting family this year, musician Stella Cole said that all of her travels have been for work. It will continue this fall when she kicks off a four-week U.S. tour. “Then we’ll do shows in the U.K., Germany, France and Switzerland, followed by another three-week U.S. holiday tour,” Cole said. “We’re hitting around 40 cities between September 1 and December 31. At the beginning of 2026, we’ll be playing in Japan, China and Hawaii, which I’m really looking forward to. The food in Japan is unreal. I’ve never been to China before, so I’m really curious about the food there.”

Raised in Illinois and now a resident of New York, Cole said that her tour will follow the release of her Aug. 22 album “It’s Magic,” which features her takes on classic love songs from the past. She keeps fans updated about her music on social media (@stellakcole). Fans may get more information about her upcoming shows at https://www.stellacole.net/tour.

Q: What are some places that are on your must-go-to again list?

A: Tokyo, Osaka, Stockholm and Nice are at the top of that list, because I played shows in all of those cities but I had a painfully short amount of time to explore. I think I was only in Nice for something like 36 hours, but it was one of my favorite places of all time. I woke up at the crack of dawn the day of the show so I’d have a chance to explore the town and swim in the Mediterranean sea. I think I cried while I was swimming because it was so beautiful and pristine, and I wanted to stay forever.

Q: What are your five favorite cities?

A: New York, London, Copenhagen, Florence and Tokyo. Not necessarily in that order.

Q: Where would you like to go that you have never been to before?

A: Croatia! I keep seeing videos everywhere and it looks absolutely unreal.

Q: What is your guilty pleasure when you're on the road?

A: Sleeping in. Sometimes I’m so exhausted from all the travel [that] I can easily sleep for 12 hours. Doing the show takes so much out of me. And the meet-and-greets after shows are so fun, but they require a lot of social energy. So I definitely sleep a bizarre amount sometimes.

Q: What is your best and/or worst vacation memory?

A: I think to this day, my best vacation memory was going to Nepal my senior year of high school. I went with a group of childhood best friends, one of [whom] is Nepali. We stayed with my friend’s family in Kathmandu, and then we did a six-day trek on the Annapurna Circuit, staying at tea houses along the way and eating the most amazing dal bhat every night after walking 20,000 steps. I will never forget the taste of the fresh mangoes. I must have eaten six or seven mangoes in one sitting that summer. Amazing.

Q: What is your favorite vacation destination?

A: I just took the first vacation I’ve been on in years to the Algarve in Portugal. We stayed at this beautiful little boutique hotel in the middle of an orange grove, right outside of this fishing town called Tavira. We took a little boat to the beach every day and drank fresh orange juice every morning. That was some of the greatest food I’ve ever had. The A Cataplana is a new favorite of mine. Everything was so fresh and light. I could have stayed there forever.

Q: How much of a city do you get to see when you tour?

A: When I first started touring, I was able to spread the shows out because I didn’t have that many gigs. I probably lost money on those first tours, but getting to spend five days between shows hiking in Norway or exploring Paris for a week was so much fun. Now the schedule is a lot more hectic, so sometimes I only have a few hours in a city. We were just in Prague this spring, and we had lunch, walked around for 30 minutes, then had to get to soundcheck. I sometimes only see the airport, the venue and my hotel room. Whenever I can, I’ll add on four or five days before or after a tour to relax and actually explore a city.

Q: How do you separate work from vacation trips?

A: Sometimes work feels a lot like vacation. I just got back from two weeks in Tuscany and Sardinia, mostly doing private concerts for a jazz retreat while staying in a beautiful villa outside of Cortona. It definitely didn’t feel like I was working, more like drinking a lot of wine and eating a lot of pecorino cheese and singing a few songs at night.

Q: If you could only pick one place to eat, would you prefer a food truck or fine dining?

A: Food truck, for sure. I’ve never been into the whole fine-dining scene, maybe I’m not sophisticated enough? But I’ve found that sometimes the best places are not the ones with the highest prices or the fanciest aesthetic. Street food is the greatest, and I definitely appreciate a hole in the wall.

Q: Where are your favorite weekend getaways?

A: A friend of mine has a family cabin in Sandwich, New Hampshire, on Squam Lake. That’s where they filmed “On Golden Pond.” It has the most cozy, relaxed, wonderful feeling. I love being there because the pace is so slow. We all get off our phones and play board games and watch old movies. My friend and his family are very musical, so everyone has jam sessions late into the night. It’s pretty much heaven. When I’m there, I question if I should really be living in Manhattan. I start thinking maybe I should leave it all behind and get really into gardening.

Q: Do you pick up new languages easily?

A: I used to be fluent in German. I studied it in high school and minored in it in college at Northwestern. I have sadly lost a lot of my speaking skills because I don’t use it much. When I do a concert in Germany, I always love surprising everyone by breaking into German halfway through the show. I picked up German pretty easily and I definitely want to learn Italian someday.

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(Jae-Ha Kim is a New York Times bestselling author and journalist. You can reach her at www.jaehakim.com, follow her on Instagram and X @goawaywithjae, or read more from her on Substack (jaehakim.substack.com).)

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