Unpacking with Jennifer Garner: How 'Five-Star Weekend' Turned Into a Monthlong Love Fest With Nantucket

When Jennifer Garner travels, she never just skims the surface of a destination. Whether she's chasing the Northern Lights with her mom in Yellowknife, Canada; performing purifying rituals at a Japanese temple; or obsessing over a doughnut shop in North Vancouver, the 54-year-old explores the world with a sense of open curiosity and eagerness to learn.And that's the spirit that she packed when she spent nearly a month on Nantucket filming The Five-Star Weekend, the Peacock series based on Elin Hilderbrand's best-selling novel. In it, she plays a food influencer Hollis Shaw who mourns her husband's sudden death by inviting girlfriends from every era of her life for a weekend getaway on the Massachusetts island.“It's the perfect location–especially in September when the crowds have dispersed a bit—where everyone can have their own experience in the day and come back together at night and talk about it,” the actress, who also served as an executive producer, tells Condé Nast Traveler. “We all really fell in love.”With a powerhouse cast that also included D’Arcy Carden, Gemma Chan, Regina Hall, and Chloë Sevigny, the coastal setting provided just the right backdrop. “I've never worked with a group of women like this before on set—we are so different, yet we had such group harmony from the very beginning,” she says.That rapport grew as they immersed themselves into the island’s way of life. Garner relished in going to “a beautiful congressional church” on Sunday mornings and “really loved” joining local workouts including Pilates and hot yoga—a practice she hadn't done in a decade. In fact, the cast melded so much into the community that they were even spotted karaoking with locals at The Gaslight restaurant. We sat down with the Golden Globe winner to dissect her time on New England island.The TripWhat trip are you unpacking for us?I’m so ready to talk Nantucket. We were there for three and a half weeks and really worked nonstop. I was in all the scenes, so I didn’t have a ton of playtime, but you wouldn’t know it looking back through my photos because I made the most of every minute.How familiar were you with the region?I really didn’t know this part of New England. I had been to Martha’s Vineyard for a night when I was 24 and lived in New York, and I'd been to Nantucket once about 10 years ago to speak at The Nantucket Project for Save the Children. But I had gone straight to meetings, and never saw one thing on the island. So when I came back, I was like, oh my gosh, there are beaches everywhere!What made the trip so unique?What’s so special is that there are so many different Nantuckets you can experience. You can hike and bike and be lost in the middle of the island on beautiful natural trails. You can be a beach bum all day, go on a shopping trip, or have a food journey and enjoy lobster mac and cheese, lobster quesadillas, lobster ravioli, lobster everything—so much good stuff! You can even have a full Ellen Hildebrand Nantucket experience. We met a lot of women in book groups going to experience everything Ellen, and that looked like a lot of fun!Who joined you?My mom and sisters were up with me at the beginning. My ballet teacher from growing up in West Virginia came up for a day in the middle—that was really special. My ballet partner came as well. Then my kids came really quickly at some point in the middle.Did you overpack, underpack, or get it just right?I always over pack. But I am not sartorially gifted, so any time my clothes looked good, I was in wardrobe. I did notice the local style—if you are a Lilly Pulitzer or Jenni Kayne person, Nantucket is a good place for all that. I’m probably not that preppy. I was going to work at four or five in the morning in sweats and coming back at the end of the day without a bra on in a T-shirt and sweats, just trying to limp home to learn my stuff for the next day. But I got to be Hollis every day, and she was the best dressed of them all.What I PackedAviator Nation5 Stripe hoodieVuoriEveryday cotton stretch fitted teeThe clothes she packed:I definitely love Aviator Nation. I confess to Vuori. T-shirts are everything. I probably took five or six from the brand perfectwhitetee. They bug you so much on Instagram, you eventually give in. But it's one of the only times that I've actually gone back to buy more. I do think it is the perfect white tee—and I take white t-shirts very seriously. The Great also has a really good white t-shirt, and I definitely have some sweats from them too. My jeans were probably Mother and Nili Lotan. If I wanted to go fancy, I might have had a sweater or two from The Row because they’re thin and just right for the summer breeze.The GreatThe Stadium sweatpantThe footwear she brought:Sneakers, and only sneakers. I'm not a flip-flop gal, and I have a hard time with sandals. I like a shoe and socks. My socks are Feetures—that's very important. My shoes are Brooks or when I want to be cute, Seevees.The drugstore items she never travels without:Dove deodorant and Neutrogena sunscreen—I worked for them so long that, out of habit and loyalty, I still wear it.Her travel guilty pleasure:I do not travel without Virtue’s Recovery shampoo and conditioner. You don’t know what the water is going to be like in different hotels. Every time you use Virtue, your hair is better when you get out than when you go in. You don’t have to rake your comb or brush through, and it’s healthier, especially when you’re working out in the sun. I will hunt it down!The tech that kept her connected:I use my phone more than anything else. I'll also bring an iPad with a keyboard for any computery stuff.The souvenir she brought home:What I really personally fell for—which everyone made fun of me for—was the Nantucket history. I was so into the Whaling Museum, so I got a lot of whale-shaped things at the Whaling Museum gift store. Whaling was a completely brutal, horrible time—how much we ravaged our own sea and these beautiful animals, the way they died, all of it. But in order to learn from it, you have to just dive past discomfort. I went three times, went to lectures, and became a member. I had Whaling Museum stickers on the back of my phone. People were like, "You are obsessed,” and I was like, "There's so much to learn!”