Today's Location Travel Guides
Learn about our travel style, how we plan, and what to expect from our travel guides.
There is no shortage of travel guides, and we use the big-name ones all the time to get an overview of destinations and a general lay of the land when we’re planning a trip. We also follow a handful of travel bloggers, Instagram accounts, and other newsletters for inspiration, and we get recommendations from family, friends, and people we meet while traveling.
But it can be tough to find consolidated resources and guides that match your travel style, goals, budget, etc.
So, we’ve decided to launch travel guides for places we’ve traveled to (and are traveling to) when we have something great to offer. We do a lot of research traveling full-time, and we want to pass along this info to you to help you plan for your own trip, provide inspiration on destinations to consider, share more about our travel planning process, and share our mistakes along the way.
These guides will not replace the big-name ones you may also want to consult for your own planning. We won’t be focused on destination overviews, the history of cities/countries, all the transportation logistics, etc. Rather, we want to help you discover places that you’ll find interesting and worthwhile.
We’ll also share helpful tips, info about costs/budget, our process for choosing where to stay, where to go, etc.
Our travel style:
We usually focus on mid-range travel, although we do splurge when we think it’s worth it, and we’re always willing to go budget when it doesn’t sacrifice the experience.
In addition to sightseeing, a lot of our recommendations and focus is on finding great coffee, food, and drinks. These are all things that we really enjoy and prioritize, and we’ve found that we have some of our richest experiences meeting local residents and learning about the place/culture from these interactions. This approach also provides great jumping-off points to wander around neighborhoods we might not otherwise know to explore (based on other travel guides).
We like hotels, but we love Airbnbs. Of course, it always depends on the location, but Airbnbs have generally allowed us to engrain ourselves more in neighborhoods and cities.
For example, we stayed in the residential neighborhood of Sheung Wan in Hong Kong, in an apartment above a row of traditional medicine and dried seafood shops. It was a great location for seeing daily life up close for residents of Hong Kong, was central to other neighborhoods we wanted to explore, and we had lots of great options for local eateries, third-wave coffee bars, and more.
We interacted with more local residents and feel like we got to know the city better and deeper than we would have if we stayed in the more commercial areas of the city where most hotels are located.We care about being responsible travelers. We care about the environment and communities we visit, and we engage vs. disrupt.
If this travel style and philosophy align with yours, we hope you find these travel guides useful.
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Our family has enjoyed your food and coffee suggestions in various cities you've traveled. We appreciate the tips!
I’m looking forward to your guides!