Though her work on Saturday Night Live keeps her tethered to New York City, comedian Chloe Fineman can most often be found criss-crossing the country to film in Los Angeles or back to the Bay Area, where she grew up. Recently, for her campaign with Nütrl Vodka Seltzer, she got to see a new place: Mexico City. “First of all, my brain still can’t understand how it’s a three-hour flight from LA [and five hours from New York], so I could meet all my friends in the middle,” she says. “And it was the most beautiful city. We saw luchadores wrestling, and the food was unbelievable. Some of the best meals in my life were in Mexico City!”
It’s not the only place Fineman raves about. Ahead, the master impressionist—whose memorable impersonations include Miley Cyrus, Timothée Chalamet, and Reese Witherspoon—chats about hiking in Hawaii, going solo in Paris, and following dogs in Japan.
On reforming her airport routine:
I've missed so many flights in my life that now that I'm in my thirties, I've finally given myself a healthy cushion. I give myself time so I'm pleasant in an airport, which I think is one of the noble things that we need to retain as a society and a culture. There's no worse feeling than the anxiety of crunched time when trying to get on your flight and the line through security is so long. There's an ease that I have inside that is so nice; that's a new thing. I will say though, I flew out of JFK recently and I was four hours early, and that was crazy.
Her go-to flying outfit:
Again, this is my evolution into my thirties—I do trench coats. I can be in sweatpants underneath, but there's something kind of fancy about a trench coat over it that makes me feel like a traveler. I make myself a character: Carmen Sandiego is really fun to travel as. I really embrace her.
How she spends flight time:
I do red eyes a lot for that LA-New York flight, so I do sleep. But in the last year I learned that listening to audiobooks counts as reading, and that blew my mind that, as somebody who is trying to read more. So I listen to Audible and I love it. I am late to the game on most books, but I loved Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow. The Silent Patient, I listened to that on a whole plane right and it was really scary; being scared on a plane is kind of fun because you're in the dark. And then obviously Britney Spears’ [memoir] is on Audible, and that was a really riveting flight for me.
The destination she could go to a million times and not be sick of it:
Paris. Lame! I think once I'd really set roots in New York, I was like, Wait a second. This is the same flight [time] as to LA. Why am I not going to Paris more? It's so easy. I just love it. My French is so bad, and yet there I am, feeling fluent. It's so easy to get around. The people are great. I like to eat a lot. My sister lives in London, and Paris is very easy and safe to go to alone, so I've gone alone six times. There’s something empowering about it!
The places she finds to be underrated:
New Orleans, or Miami, or Atlanta. I guess America, as a concept, as a whole, is very surprising. I love ‘Merica! Covid [helped me realize], like, Oh, wait, what about where I live? Yes! Then you're blown away.
The best vacation she’s ever taken:
I've been lucky—this past year, I went to Kauai, and I think it is one of my favorite places I've ever been, ever. I stayed at 1 Hotel Hanalei Bay and it blew my socks off. It was just gorgeous. The food was amazing, and the coffee was the best I’ve ever had: Kona cold brew. Hiking is one of my favorite things to do, so getting to do that there all the time was epic. Every day I woke up to a rainbow, shaved ice, and the best poke of my life.
Where she’d recommend to visitors of the Bay Area:
When my friends come, we all go out to West Marin-Point Reyes and go on a hike there. There's a restaurant called Sol Food in Marin, which is Puerto Rican chicken. It's not exciting in New York, where you have so much of that, but in California it's amazing to have plantains. I absolutely love San Francisco’s Japantown. There's amazing food. I mean, San Francisco is endlessly entertaining and beautiful. I definitely do a lot of hiking, which maybe is because New York City has no nature. Berkeley is where I grew up, so Chez Panisse for life. I go pretty much every time I'm home. Then there's a place called Fava, which is from former [Chez Panisse] chefs, and that's my favorite lunch ever. It's just really clean and delicious. And our museums are great! The art in San Francisco is awesome. I love the de Young, which didn’t exist when I was a kid, and the MOMA, and a science discovery museum opened recently. I just love a butterfly room.
The hotel amenity that’s important to her:
I really care about the mini fridge. I like a cashew, a vodka seltzer-type drink, and a gummy bear.
Where Chloe Fineman is hoping to go next:
I have been plotting and saving to go to Japan. I'm just dying to go. Japanese food is arguably my favorite food, so I’d go on an epic sushi tour. I'd love to go to Kyoto. I have a Shiba inu, and I'm really interested in exploring what the dog culture is there. Half of what I follow on my phone are just Shiba things in Japan. To do a Shiba inu [pilgrimage], I’d probably cry.
