What makes a travel guide a great one? One thing I noticed from my own personal travels and from researching other blogs is that you can get the best information from the people that live there. When you tie that together with someone’s experience as a traveler, something magical happens! You get local travel guides.
When planning a new trip, I’m always excited. Not only for the vacation, but also for the research. I do a lot of research about a destination before visiting it.
Yes I know I’m the exception to this, but I love finding out what there is to do and to see in a new place. Probably why I love doing this travel blogging thing as a career.
I find that bloggers often give me the best information. They have traveled to the location and can tell you what the highlights are, the logistics of getting to and from a location, and some of the costs to anticipate.
However many travel bloggers only visit a location for a handful of days and can really only see a few attractions. So, when they mention that it is the best restaurant, they really just mean that they had an amazing experience there. Somewhere along the line, I started wondering if recommendations started to become a cycle.
One blogger would recommend a great restaurant, another blogger reads about that restaurant, visits and writes a similar review.
Could this whole travel blog writing just be a self perpetuating wheel that spins out the same recommendations over and over and over again?
It should be obvious that we, as visitors, don’t see or understand the whole picture of a location, but I wanted to do more.
Inspiration For Writing Local Travel Guides
Before our trip to Bocas del Toro, Panama, I found a local travel blog, Sol Bungalows. It was written by expats that have lived in the area since 2015.
They know Bocas.
Like any of us that live in a place for years, you learn the best things to do and see, where to eat, what is hype for the tourists and what is truly worth doing. I only needed their blog to help plan our whole trip.
This was easy, but I’ve found that most locations do not offer something as comprehensive and straight forward like this.
I usually have to read multiple travel blogs, compare what they say, look beyond what is already written and then come up with a list of things that actually appeal to me and my family.
This all takes time.
Not everyone has the time for this level of research AND not everyone is as crazy about vacation planning as I am, right?
Light Bulb Moment
This got me thinking. Why not incorporate what the locals already know, instead of trying to act like I am an expert after a few days or even a month of visiting a place?
While we were traveling full-time in 2022 and 2023, I started meeting with expert travel guides and expats that live in the places I’m visiting and interviewing them.
During the initial interviews, I received such incredible insights into locations that we would never have known about or understood through simple research online.
Before going into the interviews, I research the top attractions that I can find from the top few blogs. Then, I get a local’s perspective on whether or not these activities are actually worth a stop and why. In addition to this, I also have them share about other things to do that do in their city that they love, kid-friendly specific activies that families would enjoy, their favorite restaurants and the best places to stay.
What we get is a comprehensive travel guide with the best travel tips from locals.
My First Local Travel Guide
My first local travel guide was Cartagena. I vividly remember the moment that I came up with the local travle guide idea. I was out on an early morning run and thinking it all through. There were so many ideas coming to mind, that I had to stop, sit down on the side of the road and type them out on my phone. It got sweaty, but the ideas kept flowing. It was incredible moment.
I wanted to start right away. During our walking tour of the city, our guide was incredible. I reached out to her with my idea to incorporate local voices into future travel guides, and she graciously accepted. We met at an amazing restaurant (her recommendation), and she gave me so much insight on Cartagena. I quickly wrote up the very first local travel guide.
Check out our very first local travel guide here: Ultimate Cartagena Travel Guide: Tips From A Local Expert
Since then, I have reached out to many more people and got fantastic tips from locals. This is the complete list of our local travel guides so far:
Europe
- Barcelona Like A Local: A Complete Travel Guide
- Amazing Things To Do In Stavanger, Norway: An Ultimate Travel Guide
- Riga Travel Guide: The Best of Riga With Kids
- London With Kids: The Ultimate Family Travel Guide
South America
- Ultimate Cartagena Travel Guide: Tips From A Local Expert
- Ultimate Quito Ecuador Travel Guide for A Memorable Family Vacation
- Panama City With Kids: The Ultimate Travel Guide
North America
- Complete San Luis Obispo Travel Guide: From A Local
- Charlotte With Kids: The Ultimate North Carolina City Guide
- Visiting NYC With Kids: The Ultimate Travel Guide For The First Time Visitor
- Best Things To Do In Bozeman: A Complete Travel Guide
- Plan The Best Family Trip To Yellowstone National Park
- St Louis Family Vacation: The Ultimate Travel Guide
If you live in a destination that isn’t mentioned above and would like to help me write a local travel guide to your city, fill out the form below. I can’t wait to hear from you!
