When singer Jon Batiste was looking for a place to open his first jazz club, he landed on an unexpected choice: the Baha Mar resort in Nassau, The Bahamas.

"Everybody from all over the world comes here — it allows you to share in this moment something that will be spread everywhere," the 38-year-old says. "When you leave, [you're] talking to people all over the world."

The Oscar and Grammy winner who hails from New Orleans — where he sang the U.S. national anthem at the Super Bowl on February 9 — was first introduced to the island nation as a touring musician, but forged a connection through his friendship with Bahamian trumpeter Giveton Gelin, who he met at Juilliard. 

Since debuting the new 278-seat venue in the 1,000-acre Nassau resort on January 17, Jon Batiste's Jazz Club at Baha Mar has become the island nation's epicenter for nightly live music, filling a much-needed hole for those seeking one of this year's biggest travel trends, live tourism.

From vacations centered around never-to-be-repeated events, be it sporting events (bonjour, Paris Olympics), music tours (Taylor Swift's record-shattering Eras tour, anyone?), and even celestial sensations (case in point: the next total solar eclipse in the U.S. won't be until 2044), 2024 showcased that it's not just about going to the right place, it's about being there at the right moment.

Baha Mar

While those mega-events may represent live tourism at its boldest, moments that propel that same FOMO-inducing emotion spring up around the globe every single day. Perhaps it's an epic sports match-up in an offbeat venue, like last summer's Manchester City vs. AC Milan soccer game taking over Yankee Stadium, or a big-name comedian surprising audiences at a small club, like Matt Rife, who sold out his world tour in 48 hours but popped up at a cozy Massachusetts club this month. Perhaps it's a limited-run event, from the latest Yayoi Kusama exhibition to a four-day-only Rockefeller Center experience that gives guests the chance to mock-host Saturday Night Live for its 50th anniversary.

However it takes shape, every night around the globe artists of all kinds take over stages for performances big and small. It's just about forging that connection with the one that speaks to your soul.

In fact, that was exactly Batiste's motivation for opening the club at Baha Mar — to make cultural moments easy for travelers to find in a location they were already going to. 

"It allows for the energy of what's happening to spread," he says, of the ability to spread those local footprints even more. "For the culture to continue, you've got to go where the people are."

Indeed, the musician turned his club's opening night into a trending event when he followed his scheduled on-stage performance with an impromptu roaming concert, strolling through the resort's casino, inviting hotel guests to jump into his procession, and becoming a part of the thrill of the club's debut night — something that will never be replicated.  

Baha Mar

While he hopes this venue will provide a permanent location for those organic moments to spring up more often, he also hopes travelers will seek out moments wherever they roam."

"When you go to a place, [like when] you go to New Orleans, you see commercials about Mardi Gras and about Bourbon Street," he says. "But then when you go and you really meet the people in the community, and you hear the music and you feel it — it's something." 

Finding that something is a part of the magic of traveling, and Batiste lives by the belief that there's one core secret that can help travelers discover those moments: Curiosity.

"You've got to live a life of curiosity," he says. "That's your inner child. That's your sense of play." He recounts an example in Paris when his night ended around 11 p.m. and he was just hanging out with some people just met. "They're like, 'You've got to go here,'" he says. "Six or seven places later, it's three in the morning and you find some joint, going down the stairs surrounding the basement and somebody's playing in there."

"It's that feel," he says, oohing and aahing at that joy of finding a live travel moment through happenstance. "I don't know how to explain it." 

Baha Mar

One clue to finding the right venues is leaning into the culture. "Every jazz club that's great is rooted in the place and the culture that the club is in," he says. "That's the powerful thing about places that have that rich culture. It's in the mud, it's there so you can experience it and bring something else to it and create something that's never been done before."

Another hard-and-fast rule is to not judge a place by its cover. "Sometimes it would be like a hole in the wall, like, without even half a name on the sign," he says. "It's the place and the people." He also believes that being open to going beyond the most trending places can also lead to unexpected joys.

Ultimately, there's always one guaranteed way to find an amazing venue — ask a musician. 

"I grew up going to community center jazz club environments in my early teens, and before that, I was playing in my family's band, way too young to even be in the club," Batiste says. "So I feel like the years of that, it's like a PhD in jazz clubs."

"As musicians, we love to trade notes and stories, ask what records we're listening to, how to play this groove — and we always know a place," he says with a laugh. 

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Getty Images/Rainer Puster