Lifestyle

12 California experiences to add to your bucket list, one for every month of the year

Published

1 year ago

January 2, 2025

12 California experiences to add to your bucket list, one for every month of the year

Has it occurred to you that civilization might be overrated?

Me too. So I’ve been thinking about the natural world — actually, the many natural worlds contained within California, and how whole they can make us feel.

With that and the new year in mind, here are a dozen seasonally suitable classic California adventures. These are places where you can huddle with a loved one or steer clear of people entirely.

If you’ve been in the state a while, you’ve probably tried a few of them. Maybe you’ve meant to try a few more. And maybe 2025 is the year to act on that idea.

January: Spy on whales off San Diego

Gray whales migrate along the California coast from December through May, prompting winter whale-watching boats to head out regularly from harbors up and down the state. San Diego has a hefty supply of them, including Adventure Whale Watching (which uses rigid inflatable boats that are smaller and faster than the catamarans and other vessels most companies use), H&M Landing, San Diego Whale Watch, Oceanside Whale Watching and City Cruises by Hornblower. Excursions typically last two to four hours and cost $40 to $109 per adult.

On any of those boats, you should hear plenty about the wonders of Eschrichtius robustus (the gray whale), which gets up to 49 feet long, often migrating 10,000 miles (round trip) in a year.

Meanwhile, you may come across pods of dolphins — sometimes hundreds — leaping in the surf. Several dolphin species are common in these waters.

BTW: San Diego also has a few strong spots for whale watching from land, especially Torrey Pines State Natural Reserve in La Jolla and Cabrillo National Monument on Point Loma. If you don’t get around to chasing whales this winter, blue whales and fin whales swim through the same coastal waters May through November, and humpback and minke whales may be seen year-round.

February: Zip down Mammoth Mountain

Skiers walking by the lodge at Mammoth Mountain.

Every winter, legions zoom up from Southern California for winter sports at Mammoth Mountain (and many more come in other seasons for hiking, fishing and mountain biking). The ski and snowboarding operation, which includes 25 lifts, 3,500 skiable acres and a season that usually runs November through June, was founded in 1953 by a moonlighting hydrologist named Dave McCoy.

The mountain also has 19 miles of cross-country skiing based at the rustic lakeside Tamarack Lodge (which has the resort’s fanciest restaurant, the Lakefront) and 1,500 acres of beginner-friendly territory at nearby June Mountain (where kids 12 and under ski or ride for free).

BTW: To break up the 300-mile L.A. to Mammoth drive, detour into the rugged Alabama Hills near Lone Pine, where dozens of movies and TV shows have been filmed, including the first “Lone Ranger” film from 1938. Check out Lone Pine’s Museum of Western Film History. Farther up the road you’ll hit Bishop, the best place for a bite or overnight on the way to Mammoth.

March: Roam among Antelope Valley poppies

Visitors walk through fields of California poppies in the Antelope Valley California Poppy Reserve

The Antelope Valley California Poppy Reserve’s rolling hills go orange in spring, usually March to May. The poppy bloom, which varies widely from year to year, can blanket the slopes. Purple lupine and other wildflowers may show up too. This 1,781-acre preserve ($10 per car to enter) includes eight miles of broad, smooth paths for walking among the flowers. (A portion, just west of the visitor center, is wheelchair-accessible.) Don’t pick any poppies or go tromping off-trail. But you can lead your friends to a high spot, such as Antelope Butte Vista Point to the east or Tehachapi Vista Point to the west, and then casually mention that Eschscholzia californica has been the state flower since 1903.

BTW: In years like 2019, when a superbloom attracted thousands of visitors, the reserve’s parking lot isn’t nearly big enough. (In 2024, the parking was easy because the blooms were subpar.) Bear in mind that many poppies bloom on roadside slopes outside the reserve. If you can do so safely, legally park on a shoulder along or near Lancaster Road and you might save $10.

April: Hear Burney Falls roar

A visitor poses with arms raised on a rock at Burney Falls.

Near the northern edge of California, you can see four or more waterfalls in a day. But some get crowded on summer weekends, so a visit in spring (especially on a weekday) will give you more elbow room. The big one is Burney Falls, 129 feet high, with a wide, thundering cascade. It’s the headliner at McArthur-Burney Falls Memorial State Park, about 65 miles northeast of Redding ($10 to enter; note that some trails, including the Falls Loop Trail, have been closed for long-term maintenance work).

Next, head to McCloud Falls, a series of three cascades about 45 miles northwest of Burney Falls along California 89. It’s seven miles round trip to hike the trail connecting the three cascades; all are part of Shasta-Trinity National Forest, with campgrounds nearby.

May: See green along Highway 46, west of Paso Robles

A person looks over the hills while standing along Highway 46, west of Paso Robles.

So long as it rains just a little in spring, the drive along Highway 46 between Paso Robles and the San Luis Obispo County coast is 22 miles of scenery so green and gorgeous, it’s a traffic hazard. Verdant hills. Grizzled oaks. Grapevines in formation like troops about to march. Country roads that will take you to tasting rooms. As you head west, you’ll glimpse Morro Rock and the blue Pacific in the distance. When you reach the traffic circle at Vineyard Drive, about 4.6 miles west of Highway 101, you may be tempted to wander off on Vineyard for a few miles of low-speed bucolic splendor. Do it. When you’re westbound on 46 again, you’ll find several scenic turnout spots as it twists and swoops to its end at Highway 1. From there, you’ll be choosing between Cambria (4 miles north) and Cayucos (11 miles south), with the hamlet of Harmony on the way.

BTW: If you’re overnighting in Paso Robles, consider Sensorio, a walk-through display of ever-changing lights, most of it concocted by artist Bruce Munro. Imagine electric flowers with a dimmer switch. (And in some displays, the changing colors are set to music.) It’s generally open Thursday through Sunday nights. Adult all-access passes start at $65.

June: Raft the American River’s South Fork

River guide Kyle Brazil navigates the American River, near Coloma, in a dinghy.

Running a river is a signature thrill in California’s Gold Country — and if it’s early summer, you can expect a few splashes of cold water on your face. Guides say the South Fork of the American River is a perfect introduction to river rafting, thanks to its evocative scenery, relatively mild Class III rapids and proximity to campgrounds and the pleasant town of Placerville.

Rookies should sign on with a licensed, experienced company. Family-friendly river floats typically begin north of Placerville, below the Chili Bar Reservoir, near Coloma. All-day rafting trips typically cost $100 to $180 per person. Half-day trips also are often available.

BTW: Marshall Gold Discovery State Historic Park, where the Gold Rush began, is less than a mile from many of Coloma’s whitewater rafting outfitters along California 49.

July: Soar (or stand by) at the Torrey Pines Gliderport

A paraglider glides over the cliffs with an ocean horizon in the background at Torrey Pines Gliderport.

This is the place to see people jump off a cliff, then rise on the updraft. The gliderport sits between the UC San Diego campus and the Pacific, sending skyward a steady stream of paraglider pilots and the occasional model airplane. Grab breakfast or lunch at the Cliffhanger Cafe (where none of the soup or sandwiches costs more than $11.25), settle in at a picnic table and watch the action in the air. (On Saturday afternoons in summer, there’s usually live music.)

Sail planes were taking off here as early as the 1920s. In 1930, Charles Lindbergh glided on these winds. Hang gliders joined in the 1970s, then paragliders, then tandem paraglider flights (bookable for $200). See the shoreline about 200 feet below? That’s Black’s Beach, accessible by a steep, half-mile trail. (The beach also has a nude zone.)

BTW: For a smoother hike to the beach and equally amazing views, try the Torrey Pines State Natural Reserve. For straight-up beach time, head for the sand beneath the cliffs at Torrey Pines State Beach.

August: Camp or kayak at Santa Cruz Island

Hills meet the the water at a coastal section of Santa Cruz Island.

On a clear day, you might glimpse the silhouette of Santa Cruz Island from the California mainland. But it takes a boat ride out there — ideally followed by a night of camping — to appreciate the island’s rugged bluffs, flowery meadows, raw beaches and sea caves. It’s the largest section of the chronically under-visited Channel Islands National Park.

The island’s Scorpion Anchorage, where most visitors arrive, is about an hour’s boat ride via Island Packers from Ventura Harbor. You can do a day trip or camp. Either way, you can snorkel and kayak in sea caves with a guide and rented vessel from Channel Islands Adventure Co. Or hike to Smugglers Cove. On your way, keep an eye out for island foxes, once endangered, now plentiful and skilled in campsite food thievery. (Island Packers, which has sailed among the Channel Islands for decades, is the National Park Service’s concessionaire for transport to and from the mainland.)

Once, the island’s hills and valleys were home to 11 Chumash villages (and Santa Cruz served as a sheep ranch as recently as 1984). Nowadays, there’s one 31-site campground about half a mile’s walk from Scorpion Anchorage. The park service controls about a quarter of Santa Cruz. The rest, owned by the Nature Conservancy, is off-limits.

BTW: If you only have time for a day trip, consider nearby Anacapa Island, home to a 1932 lighthouse, spectacular views and two miles of trails. But maybe wait another month. During the March-through-August nesting season, that island sees enough swooping, shrieking, pooping seabirds to trouble Alfred Hitchcock’s dreams.

September: Hike Yosemite, far from cars

Clouds cover a portion of the cliffs at Yosemite's Half Dome.

Yosemite National Park is vast, gorgeous and busy in summer, even when there’s a day-trip reservation requirement in place. But if you wait until the second half of September, when most kids have gone back to school, the chaos is reduced. And as soon as you get one mile from the nearest road, chances are you’ll see a lot more trees than people. Be sure to check reservation requirements well ahead.

Once there, if you’re a newbie, head for Yosemite Falls, the great spigot of Yosemite Valley and North America’s tallest waterfall, a 2,425-foot medley of cascades down granite walls. Later maybe climb the Yosemite Falls Trail to Columbia Rock (two miles round trip). Or try the Mist Trail to the top of Vernal Falls.

But remember, the valley is six square miles in a 1,187-square-mile park. From there, you could drive into the high country and catch the panorama from Glacier Point. You could check out the Hetch Hetchy Valley. You could take Tioga Road (which usually closes for the winter in November, reopening in late May or June) to Olmsted Point, Tuolumne Meadows and Tenaya Lake.

BTW: Lodging options inside the park have shrunk with the indefinite closure of the Wawona Hotel on Dec. 2. Also bear in mind: An extensive seismic retrofit was due to continue at the Ahwahnee Hotel through the end of 2024; and Aramark, the concession company whose subsidiary runs the Ahwahnee and other Yosemite operations, has been faulted by parks officials for multiple operational lapses in the last two years.

October: See trees at Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park

A hiker walks along the fern-lined Fern Canyon Trail in Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park.

In Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park, about 50 miles north of Eureka, Prairie Creek Trail leads hikers through a grove of implausibly tall old trees. The park’s Elk Prairie and Gold Bluffs Beach campgrounds also are popular, and its mile-long Fern Canyon trail is famed as a shooting location for the “Jurassic Park” movie “The Lost World.”

The surrounding Redwoods National and State Parks include miles of trails and coastline north and south of the Klamath River estuary, including the rocky coastal view from High Bluff Overlook. Even in summer, this territory is relatively uncrowded. In fall, that will be doubly true. (Del Norte County’s population is less than 30,000.) Just be ready to be cool and damp. If you need a bed or breakfast, consider the Historic Requa Inn, a rustic landmark alongside the Klamath River that dates to 1914.

November: Gather driftwood at Moonstone Beach

A conical driftwood sculpture on the beach at Cambria's Moonstone Beach.

Cambria is a coastal town for all seasons. The shoreline is mostly rugged and rocky, with pines marching up steep, often-foggy slopes. In the midst of this waits Moonstone Beach, often strewn with driftwood, and Moonstone Beach Drive, which is lined by about a dozen inns and boutique hotels.

Stroll the mile-long Moonstone Beach Boardwalk. Make a fort out of some driftwood. Hike on the Fiscalini Ranch Preserve‘s Bluff Trail. Sample the eclectic menu at Robin’s Restaurant (a mainstay for more than 25 years), dig into olallieberry pie at Linn’s Restaurant (more than 30 years). Or stand in line for seafood at the cash-only, no-reservations Sea Chest Oyster Bar, which turns 50 in 2025.

BTW: Remember to visit San Simeon and Hearst Castle, about nine miles up the road. Also remember that you can’t continue up Highway 1 to Big Sur. The highway is closed two miles north of Lucia for major repairs. Caltrans officials say they expect to reopen some time in 2025, with a date to be determined.

December: Hug a boulder in Joshua Tree’s Hidden Valley

A rock formation at Hidden Valley in Joshua Tree National Park.

Hidden Valley in Joshua Tree National Park draws climbers, boulderers, desert campers and geology geeks from all over. Hidden Valley has 44 first-come, first-served campsites (Joshua Tree has about 500 campsites total) and no water — but those rocks! They look even more amazing when reflected in the water that sometimes accumulates at nearby Barker Dam. There’s also prime stargazing and edgy art around the fringes of the park, courtesy of Noah Purifoy, High Desert Test Sites, Desert X and others.

BTW: If you don’t know much about singer-songwriter Gram Parsons’ life and death, you could book the Joshua Tree Inn, where Parsons spent his last night in Room 8.

Lifestyle

The Nerve Center of This Art Fair Isn’t Painting. It’s Couture.

Published

10 hours ago

April 23, 2026

Press Room

The Nerve Center of This Art Fair Isn’t Painting. It’s Couture.

The art industry is increasingly shaped by artists’ and art businesses’ shared realization that they are locked in a fierce struggle for sustained attention — against each other, and against the rest of the overstimulated, always-online world. A major New York art fair aims to win this competition next month by knocking down the increasingly shaky walls between contemporary art and fashion.

When visitors enter the Independent art fair on May 14, they will almost immediately encounter its open-plan centerpiece: an installation of recent couture looks from Comme des Garçons. It will be the first New York solo presentation of works by Rei Kawakubo, the brand’s founder and mastermind, since a lauded 2017 survey exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute.

Art fairs have often been front and center in the industry’s 21st-century quest to capture mindshare. But too many displays have pierced the zeitgeist with six-figure spectacles, like Maurizio Cattelan’s duct-taped banana and Beeple’s robot dogs. Curating Independent around Comme des Garçons comes from the conviction that a different kind of iconoclasm can rise to the top of New York’s spring art scrum.

Elizabeth Dee, the founder and creative director of Independent, said that making Kawakubo’s work the “nerve center” of this year’s edition was a “statement of purpose” for the fair’s evolution. After several years at the compact Spring Studios in TriBeCa, Independent will more than double its square footage by moving to Pier 36 at South Street, on the East River. Dee has narrowed the fair’s exhibitor list, to 76, from 83 dealers in 2025, and reduced booth fees to encourage a focus on single artists making bold propositions.

“Rei’s work has been pivotal to thinking about how my work as a curator, gallerist and art fair can push boundaries, especially during this extraordinary move toward corporatization and monoculture in the art world in the last 20 years,” Dee said.

Kawakubo’s designs have been challenging norms since her brand’s first Paris runway show in 1981, but her work over the last 13 years on what she calls “objects for the body” has blurred borders between high fashion and wearable sculpture.

The Comme des Garçons presentation at Independent will feature 20 looks from autumn-winter 2020 to spring-summer 2025. Forgoing the runway, Kawakubo is installing her non-clothing inside structures made from rebar and colored plastic joinery.

Adrian Joffe, the president of both Comme des Garçons International and the curated retailer Dover Street Market International (and who is also Kawakubo’s husband), said in an interview that Kawakubo’s intention was to create a sculptural installation divorced from chronology and fashion — “a thing made new again.”

Every look at Independent was made in an edition of three or fewer, but only one of each will be for sale on-site. Prices will be about $9,000 to $30,000. Comme des Garçons will retain 100 percent of the sales.

Asked why she was interested in exhibiting at Independent, the famously elusive Kawakubo said via email, “The body of work has never been shown together, and this is the first presentation in New York in almost 10 years.” Joffe added a broader philosophical motivation. “We’ve never done it before; it was new,” he said. Also essential was the fair’s willingness to embrace Kawakubo’s vision for the installation rather than a standard fair booth.

Kawakubo began consistently engaging with fine art decades before such crossovers became commonplace. Since 1989, she has invited a steady stream of contemporary artists to create installations in Comme des Garçons’s Tokyo flagship store. The ’90s brought collaborations with the artist Cindy Sherman and performance pioneer Merce Cunningham, among others.

More cross-disciplinary projects followed, including limited-release direct mailers for Comme des Garçons. Kawakubo designs each from documentation of works provided by an artist or art collective.

The display at Independent reopens the debate about Kawakubo’s proper place on the continuum between artist and designer. But the issue is already settled for celebrated artists who have collaborated with her.

“I totally think of Rei as an artist in the truest sense,” Sherman said by email. “Her work questions what everyone else takes for granted as being flattering to a body, questions what female bodies are expected to look like and who they’re catering to.”

Ai Weiwei, the subject of a 2010 Comme des Garçons direct mailer, agreed that Kawakubo “is, in essence, an artist.” Unlike designers who “pursue a sense of form,” he added, “her design and creation are oriented toward attitude” — specifically, an attitude of “rebellion.”

Also taking this position is “Costume Art,” the spring exhibition at the Costume Institute. Opening May 10, the show pairs individual works from multiple designers — including Comme des Garçons — with artworks from the Met’s holdings to advance the argument made by the dress code for this year’s Met gala: “Fashion is art.”

True to form, Kawakubo sometimes opts for a third way.

“Rei has often said she’s not a designer, she’s not an artist,” Joffe said. “She is a storyteller.”

Now to find out whether an art fair sparks the drama, dialogue and attention its authors want.

Lifestyle

They set out to elevate karaoke in L.A. — and opened a glamorous lounge that pulls out all the stops

Published

11 hours ago

April 23, 2026

Press Room

They set out to elevate karaoke in L.A. — and opened a glamorous lounge that pulls out all the stops

Brothers Leo and Oliver Kremer visited karaoke spots around the globe and almost always had the same impression.

“The drinks weren’t always great, the aesthetics weren’t always so glamorous, the sound wasn’t always awesome and the lights were often generic,” says Leo, a former bassist of the band Third Eye Blind.

As devout karaoke fans, they wanted to level up the experience. So they dreamed up Mic Drop, an upscale karaoke lounge in West Hollywood that opens Thursday. It’s located inside the original Larrabee Studios, a historic 1920s building formerly owned by Carole King and her ex-husband, Gerry Goffin — and the spot where King recorded some of her biggest hits. Third Eye Blind band members Stephan Jenkins and Brad Hargreaves are investors of the new venue.

Inside the two-story, 6,300-square-foot venue with 13 private karaoke rooms and an electrifying main stage, you can feel like a rock star in front of a cheering audience. Want to check it out? Here are six things to know.

The Kremer brothers hired sculptor Shawn HibmaCronan to create an 8-foot-tall disco-themed microphone for their karaoke lounge.

1. Take your pick between a private karaoke experience or the main stage

A unique element of Mic Drop is that it offers both private karaoke rooms and a main stage experience for those who wish to sing in front of a crowd. The 13 private rooms range from six- to 45-person capacity. Each of the karaoke rooms are named after a famous recording studio such as Electric Lady, Abbey Road, Shangri La and of course, Larrabee Studios. There is a two-hour minimum on all rentals and hourly rates depend on the room size and day of the week.

But if you’re ready to take the center stage, it’s free to sing — at least technically. All you have to do is pay a $10 fee at the door, which is essentially a token that goes toward your first drink. Then you can put your name on the list with the KJ (karaoke jockey) who keeps the crowd energized throughout the night and even hits the stage at times.

Harrison Baum, left, of Santa Monica, and Amanda Stagner, 27, of Los Angeles, sing in one of the 13 private karaoke rooms.

2. Thumping, high sound quality was a top priority

As someone who toured the world playing bass for Third Eye Blind, top-tier sound was a nonnegotiable for Leo. “Typically with karaoke, the sound is kind of teeny, there’s not a lot of bass and the vocal is super hot and sitting on top too much,” he says. To combat this, he and his brother teamed up with Pineapple Audio, an audio visual company based in Chicago, to design their crisp sound system. They also installed concert-grade speakers and custom subwoofers from a European audio equipment manufacturer called Celto, and bought gold-plated Sennheiser wireless microphones, which they loved so much that they had an 8-foot-tall replica made for their main room. Designed by artist Shawn HibmaCronan, the “macrophone,” as they call it, has roughly 30,000 mirror tiles. “It spins and throws incredible disco light everywhere,” says Leo.

3. A concert-level performance isn’t complete without good stage lighting and a haze machine

Each karaoke room features a disco ball and dynamic lighting that syncs up with whatever song you’re singing, which makes you feel like you are a professional performer. There’s also a haze machine hidden under the leather seats. Meanwhile, the main stage is concert-ready with additional dancing lasers and spotlights.

Brett Adams, left, of Sherman Oaks, and Patrick Riley of Studio City sing together in one of the private rooms at Mic Drop.

4. The song selection is vast, offering classics and new hits

One of the worst things that can happen when you go to karaoke is not being able to find the song you want to sing. At Mic Drop, the odds of this happening are slim to none. The venue uses a popular karaoke service called KaraFun, which has a catalog of more than 600,000 songs (and adds 400 new tracks every month), according to its website. Take your pick from country, R&B, jazz, rap, pop, love duets and more. (Two newish selections I spotted were Raye’s “Where Is my Husband” and Olivia Dean’s “Man I Need,” which both released late last year.) In the private karaoke rooms, there’s also a fun feature on Karafun called “battle mode,” which allows you and your crew of up to 20 people to compete in real time. KaraFun also has an entertaining music trivia game, which I tested out with the founders and came in second place.

The design inspiration for Mic Drop was 1920s music lounges and 1970s disco culture, says designer Amy Morris.

5. The interiors are inspired by 1920s music lounges mixed with ‘70s disco vibes

If you took the sophisticated aesthetic of 1920s music lounges and mixed it with the vibrant and playful era of 1970s disco culture, you’d find Mic Drop.

When you walk into the lounge, the first thing you’ll see is a bright red check-in desk that resembles a performer’s dressing room with vanity lights, several mirrors and a range of wigs. “So much of karaoke is about getting into character and letting go of the day, so we had the idea to sell the wigs,” says Oliver. As you continue into the lounge, the focal point is the stage, which is adorned with zebra-printed carpet and dramatic, red velvet curtains. For seating, slide into the red velvet banquettes or plop onto a gold tiger velvet stool. Upstairs, you’ll find the intimate karaoke studios, which are decorated with red velvet walls and brass, curved doorways that echo the building’s deco arches, says Mic Drop’s interior designer, Amy Morris of the Morris Project.

Sarah Rothman, center, of Oakland, and friend Rachel Bernstein, left, of Los Angeles, wait at the bar.

6. You can order nontraditional karaoke bites as you wait for your turn to sing

While Mic Drop offers some of the food you’d typically find at a karaoke lounge such as tater tots, truffle popcorn and pizza, the venue has some surprising options as well. For example, a 57 gram caviar service (served with chips, crème fraîche and chives) and shrimp cocktail from Santa Monica Seafood. For their pizza program, the Kremer brothers teamed up with Avalou’s Italian Pizza Company, which is run by Louis Lombardi who starred in “The Sopranos.” He’s the brainchild behind my favorite dish, the Fuhgeddaboudit pizza, which is made with pastrami, pickles and mustard. It might sound repulsive, but trust me.

As for the cheeky cocktails, they are all named after famous musicians and songs such as the Pink Pony Club (a tart cherry pomegranate drink with vodka named after Chappell Roan), Green Eyes (a sake sour with kiwi and melon named after Green Day) and Megroni Thee Stallion (an elevated negroni named after Megan Thee Stallion).

Lifestyle

You’re Invited! (No, You’re Not.) It’s the Latest Phishing Scam.

Published

22 hours ago

April 23, 2026

Press Room

You’re Invited! (No, You’re Not.) It’s the Latest Phishing Scam.

When John Lantigua, a retired journalist in Miami Beach, checked his email one recent morning, he was glad to see an invitation.

“It was like, ‘Come and share an evening with me. Click here for details,’” Mr. Lantigua said.

It appeared to be a Paperless Post invitation from someone he once worked with at The Palm Beach Post, a man who had left Florida for Mississippi and liked to arrange dinners when he was back in town.

Mr. Lantigua, 78, clicked the link. It didn’t open.

He clicked a second time. Still nothing.

He didn’t realize what was going on until a mutual friend who had received the same email told him it wasn’t an invitation at all. It was a scam.

Phishing scams have long tried to frighten people into clicking on links with emails claiming that their bank accounts have been hacked, or that they owe thousands of dollars in fines, or that their pornography viewing habits have been tracked.

The invitation scam is a little more subtle: It preys on the all-too-human desire to be included in social gatherings.

The phishy invitations mimic emails from Paperless Post, Evite and Punchbowl. What appears to be a friendly overture from someone you know is really a digital Trojan horse that gives scammers access to your personal information.

“I thought it was diabolical that they would choose somebody who has sent me a legitimate invitation before,” Mr. Lantigua said. “He’s a friend of mine. If he’s coming to town, I want to see him.”

Rachel Tobac, the chief executive of SocialProof Security, a cybersecurity firm, said she noticed the scam last holiday season.

“Phishing emails are not a new thing,” Ms. Tobac said, “but every six months, we get a new lure that hijacks our amygdala in new ways. There’s such a desire for folks to get together that this lure is interesting to people. They want to go to a party.”

Phishing scams involve “two distinct paths,” Ms. Tobac added. In one, the recipient is served a link that turns out to be dead, or so it seems. A click activates malware that runs silently as it gleans passwords and other bits of personal information. In all likelihood, this is what happened when Mr. Lantigua clicked on the ersatz invitation link.

Another scam offers a working link. Potential victims who click on it are asked to provide a password. Those who take that next step are a boon to hackers.

“They have complete control of your email and, in turn, your entire digital life,” Ms. Tobac said. “They can reset your password for your dog’s Instagram account. They can take over your bank account. Change your health insurance.”

Digital invitation platforms are trying to combat the scam by publishing guides on how to spot fake invitations. Paperless Post has also set up an email account — phishing@paperlesspost.com — for users to submit messages for verification. The company sends suspicious links to the Anti-Phishing Working Group, a nonprofit that maintains a database monitored by cybersecurity firms. Flagged links are rendered ineffective.

The scammers’ new strategy of exploiting the desire for connection is infuriating, said Alexa Hirschfeld, a founder of Paperless Post. “Life can be isolating,” Ms. Hirschfeld said. “When it looks like you’re getting an invitation from someone you know, your first instinct is excitement, not skepticism.”

Olivia Pollock, the vice president of brand for Evite, said that fake invitations tended to be generic, promising a birthday party or a celebration of life. Most invitations these days tend to have a specific focus — mahjong gatherings or book club talks, for instance. “The devil is in the details,” Ms. Pollock said.

Because scammers don’t know how close you are with the people in your contact list, fake invitations may also seem random. “They could be from your business school roommate you haven’t spoken to in 10 years,” Ms. Hirschfeld said.

Alyssa Williamson, who works in public relations in New York, was leaving a yoga class recently when she checked her phone and saw an invitation from a college classmate.

“I assumed it was an alumni event,” Ms. Williamson, 30, said. “I clicked on it, and it was like, ‘Enter your email.’ I didn’t even think about it.”

Later that day, she received texts from friends asking her about the party invitation she had just sent out. Her response: What party?

“The thing is, I host a lot of events,” she said. “Some knew it was fake. Others were like, ‘What’s this? I can’t open it.’”

Andrew Smith, a graduate student in finance who lives in Manhattan, received what looked like a Punchbowl invitation to “a memory making celebration.” It appeared to have come from a woman he had dated in college. He received it when he was having drinks at a bar on a Friday night — “a pretty insidious piece of timing,” he said.

“The choice of sender was super clever,” Mr. Smith, 29, noted. “This was somebody that would probably get a reaction from me.”

Mr. Smith seized on the phrase “memory making celebration” and filled in the blanks. He imagined that someone in his ex-girlfriend’s immediate family had died. Perhaps she wanted to restart contact at this difficult moment.

Something saved him when he clicked a link and tried to tap out his personal information — his inability to remember the password to his email account. The next day, he reached out to his ex, who confirmed that the invitation was fake.

“It didn’t trigger any alarm bells,” Mr. Smith said. “I went right for the click. I went completely animal brain.”

The new scam comes with an unfortunate side effect, a suspicion of invitations altogether. It’s enough to make a person antisocial.

“Don’t invite me to anything,” Mr. Lantigua, the retired journalist, said, only half-joking. “I’m not coming.”