The Monday Media Diet with Bella Darden

On EROWID, Acquired, and Beautyland

Bella Darden (BD) writes Mindholiday on Substack. Happy to have her with us this week. -Colin (CJN)

Tell us about yourself.

Hi, I’m Bella. I live in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, with my husband and nine year-old-stepson, Quinn.

I write Mindholiday, my Substack newsletter about escape in all forms. Sometimes that means a luxury trip to a faraway place, but it can just as easily mean being a tourist in your own city, getting lost in a great book, diving into a new hobby, smoking a joint and then going on an exhilarating run, dancing like no one’s watching, touching grass with those you love, or simply finding everyday inspiration that expands your world.

When I’m not writing, I’m planning travel for my clients. In 2023, I made the pivot to start my own boutique travel agency, Mindholiday. I had just left a very toxic corporate job where I was doing social media marketing and influencer management in the CPG space, and I knew I wanted to shift away from work that felt overly transactional and completely misaligned with my own personal values. That job really made me resent overconsumption and the influencer landscape as a whole.

I took a year off to travel, and in that year of soul searching and exploration, I realized that I wanted to make my passion of exploration into a full time career. I’ve always been the friend to make the group chat trip a reality, and I found myself researching destinations in my free time just for fun—I love learning about new cultures and places, and I knew that if I could make the leap to working in the travel industry, I’d feel much happier and inspired on a daily basis.

And while travel is my business, I’m also very aware of the ways that it’s been cheapened by influencer culture and social media. My goal is to always create trips that feel off the beaten path, deeply personalized and special, and designed with sustainability and cultural consciousness in mind. Travel should expand your world without exploiting the world!

Describe your media diet.

I’m striving for it to be a well-balanced, satiating diet, I really am!

I’ve been chronically online since getting my first computer at thirteen, l so I’ve been working on significantly lowering my screen time. I deleted TikTok a few years ago and haven’t looked back. I use Opal to block Instagram and Substack on my phone from 7AM to 5PM—it’s the best $100 I’ve ever spent on an app, and much more effective than the built-in screen time controls on the iPhone.

In the mornings I try to read longer form content instead of dopamine-scrolling. I’ll spend 10–15 minutes on the New York Magazine app. The Cut, Curbed, and The Grub Street Diet are my kryptonite. Reading what people eat in a day feels more intimate than sex! I want to know what you’re having for breakfast, what hot sauce you use, and what your coffee order is. That’s truly peering into someone’s soul.

I’ll skim NYT headlines just enough to stay informed (but not enough to worsen my depression and anxiety), and sometimes I’ll play the NYT games with Quinn. Then I move on to checking The New Yorker.

I spend way too much time on Substack. I subscribe to over 50 newsletters, but the ones I read most often are:

• Consider Yourself Cultured

• The Molehill

• Joy Arbitrage

• Mr. Flood’s Party

• Gumshoe

I’m not a podcast person, but I love Acquired for longer subway rides and road trips because each episode is over three hours long (the Hermes episode is my favorite).

I read at least a book a week—mostly fiction, but I love non-fiction and memoirs too. I take my Kindle with me everywhere I go.

I watch about two hours of TV a night with my husband. It’s how we unwind after a long work day. Right now, we are watching Season 5 of The Amazing Race. It’s the best season of all time—the casting is incredible, and I’ve found myself laughing out loud a ton. We’re also big fans of going down YouTube rabbit holes. Johnny Harris does incredible deep dives on world affairs. I could watch his videos for hours. Vox and Yes Theory have wonderful travel videos that highlight places and people you wouldn’t have heard of otherwise.

As far as magazines go, I subscribe to YOLO Journal, Condé Nast Traveler, Travel and Leisure, and I’ll occasionally pick up a copy of Monocle when I’m at a bookstore. Admittedly, I only really subscribe to Condé Nast Traveler and Travel and Leisure to cut out the incredible photography for making collages. I find the content to be less stimulating than YOLO Journal, and I hate how many ads you have to flip through, but they really do make excellent collage material.

What’s the last great book you read?

Beautyland by Marie-Helene Bertino. It’s a wise, hilarious novel about loneliness and belonging on planet Earth. It follows Adina, an extraterrestrial girl who grows up on Earth, faxing her incredibly witty observations back to her distant planet—while she tries to make sense of what it means to be human. I found myself moved to tears and laughing out loud on multiple occasions.

What are you reading now?

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith, which I am devouring. I absolutely love reading novels set in New York. I love living here, and there’s something about seeing the city through different lenses and different time periods that makes me fall in love with the city all over again.

Smith’s Brooklyn is much harsher than the Brooklyn I know. It’s filled with poverty and struggle, but it’s also filled with many moments of joy and beauty, which is a reminder that New York has always been this way—unforgiving and really hard to live in on one hand, but full of life and inspiration on the other.

Living in New York will chew you up and spit you out. I’ve had moments of crisis where I wanted to flee and questioned my sanity for ever choosing to stay. But it’s those moments of beauty that keep me here—watching ten year olds ride the subway completely unfazed, listening to the xylophonist perform in Fort Greene Park, a good slice of pizza being within reach 24/7. I can’t quit it, and I can’t imagine raising my son anywhere else.

What’s your reading strategy when you pick up a print copy of your favorite publication?

I always read my magazines in the park. It has to be a sunny day, and I’ll usually smoke a joint and then let myself sink into the pages for an hour or two. I’ll flip, make notes, and dog-ear the travel essays I know I’ll want to revisit later. Sometimes I’ll cut things out and make collages. My husband jokes that I get more creative ideas during these “magazine sessions” than in an entire workday, and honestly, he’s right. They really energize me creatively. I’ve planned most of our summer travels this way.

Who should everyone be reading that they’re not?

Khaled Hosseini’s complete collection of novels. He’s one of those rare authors who will rip your heart in two but somehow leave you feeling more human on the other side. He writes about Afghanistan with so much detail, complexity, and love. His words are so unbelievably transportive. I first read The Kite Runner in high school—I wasn’t the best student and dreaded assigned reading, but I read it cover to cover in one afternoon. It absolutely floored me, emotionally. Most people know The Kite Runner, but his other works are just as impressive and readable. If you need to expand your empathy or feel incredibly lucky to be alive, look no further.

What is the best non-famous app you love on your phone?

AllTrails. Hiking is my favorite form of exercise, and it’s always the first app I check when I travel to a new place.

Plane or train?

Both. I don’t discriminate. I find myself on planes more often, but whenever I end up on a train in Europe, it feels so whimsical and special! I wish America prioritized rail infrastructure more. Our dependence on cars infuriates me to no end. Fuck driving.

What is one place everyone should visit?

Somewhere completely out of your comfort zone, doing something very challenging you never thought you’d do. The more the thought of it makes you squirm, the better.

For me, it was Tanzania. Right after I graduated college, I spent a month there through a volunteer project building housing for school teachers. I had the opportunity to go a bit early and climb Mount Kilimanjaro. I had never hiked a mountain in my life. It was the most physically challenging thing I’ve ever done, but I’ve never felt so connected to nature and myself. The trip came at a time of major transition in my life—I was completely directionless and had no idea what I wanted to do next or where I wanted to be. Being completely off the grid, not showering for ten days, and seeing the Milky Way every night really reset my brain and made me feel very small in a way I had never experienced before. In a way, I think that was my first ego death of many.

And then there was the volunteer program. I spent about twelve hours a day doing manual labor, mostly digging toilets. It was backbreaking work, but also incredibly rewarding because it allowed me to connect with locals and see how they lived their everyday lives. I was welcomed into their homes, invited to government meetings to see how locals applied for microloans to start businesses (mostly selling goats or bananas), and witnessed a level of generosity and resilience that will stay with me forever.

I came back still unsure of what was next for me, but also with an awareness of how big the world is, how much it has to offer, and an immense amount of appreciation for everything I already had in my life.

Tell us the story of a rabbit hole you fell deep into.

EROWID, which is an educational nonprofit and online forum with over 30,000 user-submitted drug experiences and stories, along with information on how to safely test substances, substance histories, and research articles.

I’m a big believer in the healing powers of psychedelics and other psychoactive plants, when taken intentionally and safely—always test everything, people! I’m an anxious person in general, especially before trying a new psychoactive drug for the first time. EROWID is great because it’s an honest account of what to expect from psychedelics, how to safely take them, and dosing advice, which isn’t something you can easily find on Reddit. It’s an unbelievable harm reduction and educational tool.