Going local

Change of blog address. Please visit goinglocaltravel.com

2009-06-11T21:59:00.002+01:00

Hello. I'm experimenting in Wordpress. You can find my new blog here - www.goinglocaltravel.com. Please bookmark this address. This is where I am adding my new posts.

Going local in... Deptford?

2009-05-01T19:29:00.007+01:00

It seems the world at large isn't ready for trips to all corners of London's South East. Benji Lanyado caused quite a storm following his latest New York Times piece, which tipped visiting Deptford and New Cross.

The Mail, The Mirror and The Telegraph were up in arms at the idea. "When the article says the area has 'an edge', the first thought of many was that it meant a knife edge," said the ever-one-sided Mail.

One thing I hate in travel is scaremongering. The papers made it sound like people don't walk the streets for fear of a drive-by shooting.

Whether or not it's worth a visit depends on your approach to travel. No, it's not an area for tick-box sights, but it is a good place to catch a gig, see another side of London, and maybe get an advanced preview of what, like it or not, has been tipped as "the next Shoreditch". The type of readers tempted to take up Benji's advice are not going to be the ones fitting it in between Madam Tussauds and Tiger, Tiger. "Those with well-cushioned sensibilities need not make the journey," read the first paragraph.

But, as ever, The Mail wasn't going to stop spouting nonsense while it was ahead: "What was it about Deptford that caught the eye of one of the world's most influential papers? Here's a clue. The author comes from South-East London." I'm not sure what their point is here. To me, that sounds like a local likely to be ahead of the game. Usually by the time an overseas reports get to a place, they're well behind the times. (See the Wall Street Journal - which recently discovered the "lesser-known" neighbourhood of San Telmo in Buenos Aires.)

It seems to me that the problem was less about the travel tips and more about the newspaper. "The New York Times! That's for Americans! Americans only like escorted tour-group holidays with all-you-can-eat buffets! They are bound to get mugged!"

The question is who should be more offended by this coverage: the dumb-ass Americans or the slum-dwelling south-east Londoners?

Photo: The Ben Pimlott building, Goldsmith's College, Flickr, Andy Roberts

Rosario restaurant recommendation: El Vomito

2009-05-01T14:00:00.004+01:00

I’ve just returned from a place where, when asking the locals for restaurant recommendations, there was one thing on the tip of all their tongues: El Vomito.

It wasn’t looking good, was it?

I was in Rosario – a lovely riverside city in Argentina, best known for being the birthplace of Che Guevara - and, after some initial concern, El Vomito turned out to be a term of endearment for a well-loved haunt – Comedor Balcarce (Brown and Balcarce). A traditional, no-frills restaurant, it’s earnt its nickname for offering such hearty and affordable grub, you could eat it until you make yourself sick.

When you look at it that way, it’s quite charming. Kind of.

On the pavement outside, I got talking to an Argentine-Canadian couple. I told them I was looking for "somewhere called, er, El Vomito”. They pointed to it straight away: an unassuming corner building with the sun shades pulled down. “It’s great!” they gushed. “We live next door and when we didn’t have a kitchen when we first moved in, we ate all our meals there for over a month.”

Inside I found the sort of place that serves soda siphons to dilute your red wine, fizzy drinks in family–sized glass bottles and, of course, big hunks of meat. There was a wide range of people tucking in and an aged waiter who insisted on calling me either muchachita or niña (both mean 'little girl').

I ordered the battered Merluza (hake) with a salad, which came to 15 pesos (around £3). I meant to take a photo for this blog, but I got overexcited and ate it all too fast.

The first person to mention El Vomito to me was Meag an American living the city with her Rosarino boyfriend, Guille. I got in touch with her through her blog, A Domestic Disturbance, and spent a lovely Saturday afternoon with her and Guille. They are both big fans of El Vomito and it is surely a local institution as I heard it mentioned many more times.

It’s the sort of down-to-earth place I love to find on my travels. “Recomienda!!” (Recommend us!), said the menu. And so I will.

San Pedro prison closes to tourism

2009-04-23T13:33:00.005+01:00

News from Bolivia: San Pedro Prison has closed its doors to tourism. It was only a matter of time. As I reported in the Guardian in January, the prison was allowing up to 50 backpackers enter through its iron gates every day for a bizarre tour that allowed them to try some of cocaine that was manufactured in makeshift factories inside. (Yes, you read that right.)

The tours have been run on and off for years, but this time the (totally unofficial) organisers pushed it too far. There was an increasing lack of discretion. Travellers were being allowed to take cameras in and were uploading pics on to flickr and videos on to YouTube (Were all prisoners asked permission about this?). Rumour had it that local tourist offices were offering tours under-the-table, while those that turned up at the door, like I did, found that money was exchanging hands in a sideroom on prison premises.

The prisoners leading the tours had become greedy. If they'd had any sense, they would have halted them on the six-month anniversary of the arrest of Leopoldo Fernández, a controversial ex-governor accused of genocide. That day inevitably brought protesting crowds and film crews. According James Brunker, a photographer based in La Paz, when one of the film crews got wind of a tour group inside, they decided this was "far more interesting!".

In the news report (above), the TV station presents the tourists as sneaky villains, hiding under jackets and running off while flipping the crew the bird. This isn't typical and I can only presume people were shouting accusations to get a reaction. None of backpackers I met there were sneaking out as if they'd done something wrong - it was all a big jolly for the most part. That was the disconcerting part.

The main concern for Bolivians, however was not the daytrippers, but the police and their evident involvement. "Who is watching the police?" asked an editorial in La Razon.

I emailed James to find out more. "As part of Evo's [the president] anti-corruption drive, the prison heads have been sacked and replaced. It's been common knowledge for years that a whole load of criminal activities have been run from inside the jail and there are some very rich prisoners in there as a result. A lot of this involves abuse of the local visitor system and even the families who live inside."

It wasn't looking good for Evo if the international media was becoming increasingly interested in the illegal goings on in San Pedro. And this was set to increase massively as Brad Pitt's San Pedro movie, Marching Powder, goes into production.

However, the most concerning part of this denouement is that during the "clean up" ordinary prisoners had their visitors' rights revoked for a day. A riot followed. According to reports, tear gas was used, at least 15 people were injured, and 80 children were evacuated.

Meanwhile, the backpackers have their pictures and exciting stories. Some of their money may have been put to good use helping those inside, but we'll never know for sure.

"I don't think tourist visits have restarted," James tells me. "Though there's always a few backpackers in the square and vicinity, probably curious just to see the prison as much as to try and get in."

Going local with Buenos Aires taxi drivers

2009-04-22T10:00:00.000+01:00

"Right," says the taxi driver, as the cab door slams shut. "Where do you want to go?"

"Well, the thing is," begins Layne Mosler, as she slides into the back seat, "we want you to tell us. You see I have an unusual request …"

And Layne begins to explain her quest – to find the most interesting restaurants in Buenos Aires without the help of guidebooks, online tip-sharing sites, and travel-networking websites. Instead, she goes straight to those who know the city's ins and outs better than anyone: the taxi drivers.

The 34-year-old Californian has been living in Buenos Aires for four years, and for the past two years she has been taking weekly taxi excursions to eat at the places recommended by the drivers and posting the details on her blog, taxigourmet.com.

Enamoured with the idea, I make Layne a proposition: one Saturday in the city, one taxi-gourmet marathon, with lunch, afternoon tea and dinner all dictated to us by our drivers. After more than 60 taxi adventures, Layne is unfazed by the challenge, and so we find ourselves jumping in our first cab from the cobbled streets of the Palermo district...

Read the rest of the feature and watch the video on Guardian Travel today.

WAYN: the relaunch

2009-04-22T02:42:00.024+01:00

WAYN is one travel networking site I've never really got on with. It was a combination of the Twee cartoon mascot, the spam, and those one-line emails from guys trying to pick up a date. There also seemed to be a lot of users that weren't even particularly interested in travel, instead spending most of their free time at home chatting online.

But just because it wasn't for me I wouldn't sneeze at its success. With 15 million members, WAYN is one of the biggest travel-networking sites out there and it boasts many happy, dedicated users.

Nonetheless, the WAYN guys have realised that to keep profiles active they can't rest on their laurels. Not in this field. And so the site has undergone an extensive overhaul, relaunching this week having tackled past criticism head on. (Including bidding adieu to their little cartoon friend.)

You can clearly see the influences of Twitter and Facebook in the new design, but the biggest change of all is that "Where are you now?" seems to have morphed into "What are you doing now?" Users are being encouraged to share intentions through the site - similar to Dopplr - for trips abroad or even something as simple as a local cinema trip.

"One of the main things to admire about WAYN," wrote Travolution this week, "is that they have never been afraid to re-engineer the business, and talk about it so publicly." The article continues with praise for the founders' brute honest, quoting cofounder Jerome Touze as saying, "We have done some things right, but have done many things very wrong. I look at some things now and say: 'what the f**k were we thinking."

Sometimes this is just what we want a social-network founder to say. It translates as "we're human; we make mistakes; we're learning and adapting". That's all any of us can do in this ever-changing field.

Dedicated social-network users often come to feel like that they "own" the sites as much as the founders. They need to feel that their voices are being listened to and they're not being dictated to. Site founders have to be careful not to become bigger than their sites. This is how Couchsurfing.com nearly came a cropper. A massive technical hitch in 2006 led founder Casey Fenton to send an email to all members announcing the site was unsalvageable and did "not exist anymore". This provoked outrage ("how can he give up now?", "how can he take our networks of friends away from us?"). There was even talk of legal action. However, it ended happily when volunteers banded together to save it, Casey came back on board, and the project went on to become the version-two site that we have today.

When Couchsurfing.com tipped its millionth member earlier this year, this figure seemed huge and an incredible sign of success. Remind yourself that WAYN has 15 times that many and suddenly Jerome's claim to have "done some things right" seem like quite the understatement. As the social-networking market gets increasingly crowded, let's see where it goes from here.

Are you a social netsetter?

2009-04-16T19:58:00.004+01:00

Are you a social netsetter? Travellers spending time social networking while away: it's a subject that's been hotly debated in recent weeks.

First came a survey from TNT magazine that used the buzzword "netsetter" in reference to travellers who upload pictures of their trip while they are on holiday, as "bragging rights". (The Daily Mail then took this one step further and declared that "social netsetters are holidaymakers who travel abroad so they can get images on to websites to show off to their friends". As if that's the sole reason to travel. A slight exaggeration, I think.)

Since then travel writer Rolf Potts has caused a stir by telling travellers to steer clear of Twitter.

Rolf highlighted his criticism with an anecdote about an old university friend who, in the 1990s, got a bit too enthusiastic about his new answerphone.

Whenever he left his dorm room, Doug would change his outgoing machine message to fit his current status. “Hey, I’m off in accounting class right now,” he’d say, “but leave a message and I’ll call you back.” “I’m going out to see a movie and maybe go to a bar, but leave a message and I’ll call you back.” Whatever Doug was going to do next — eat lunch in the cafeteria, travel to Portland, study in the library — invariably made it into a freshly updated answering machine message.

An amusing story, however Rolf doesn't seem to grasp Twitter. He thinks - just as I once did - that all people do is post about what they are doing right now. (It's funny how avid users leap up to Twitter's defence at this point, but the site itself - with a slogan "What are you doing?" - does little to dispel the myths.)

There was a good retort to Rolf yesterday on BootsNAll, explaining why he shouldn't be so quick to judge.

The key is not to overuse these sites. The best social media users can see the pros and the cons, and occasionally laugh at the whole damn thing. (See this excellent parody above. If the link doesn't work, find it here)

Would you class yourself as a netsetter? Do you Tweet when away? And when you upload your holiday pictures, is it to brag or to share?

Going local in Pennsylvania

2009-04-13T12:29:00.018+01:00

I just received an email from this chap above. His name is Ken Hull, he's an artist from Pennsylvania, and he thought I might be interested in a book he's written called 'going LOCAL!' (He's so passionate about this that only caps and an exclamation mark will suffice.)

It turns out Ken has spent years riding, exploring and tasting his way across central PA, bypassing the US's numerous chains behind and finding the best locally owned places for food, beer and coffee. His book brings together some of his favourite spots.

If you're heading to Pennsylvania, order a copy from his site: goinglocalpa.com In the meantime, here's a taste of one of his local experiences:

Elk Creek Café and Aleworks –
100 West Main Street, Millheim, PA. (814) 349-8850

A number of years ago Tim Bowser helped to open a little place called the Equinox Cafe in Millheim. Situated along Rt. 45, this is a one stoplight town and not really a place one would invest money and time in to create an eclectic coffee shop. But when Tim and associates opened the doors of the Equinox, it was like the whole consciousness of the valley opened and folks poured in…
The place was a Mecca for coffee, simple foods and the best BYOB music jams in the valley. But, in 2006, Tim presented his beloved community with the next chapter in his already awesome dream – a full-blown brew pub and restaurant. They responded with resounding support and financial backing, and the seeds of Elk Creek Café & Aleworks were planted. (And if you know anything about Penns Valley, you know it's a fertile land and anything planted here grows strong and hearty.)
Going local is something Tim is very passionate about. Elk Creek uses nearly 100 % local organic meat and dairy. Produce is “in season” and the beer is brewed and kegged in the back room.

The official cuisine at Elk Creek is called Nuevo Dutchie – a combination of gastro pub food and what rural Pennsylvania is known for – Dutch-style cooking. According to Tim, “Dutch cuisine is a cookery of the land, you used what was available and you used everything except the oink.” And this place is, as Tim put it so well, “an omnivore’s delight”. Meat lovers as well as vegans can enjoy a wonderful meal prepared fresh and at a fair price.

Tim set out to cultivate a gathering place for the community, brew great beer, serve great food, support and showcase local produce, meats, dairy, music and art – all in a sweet place and all with a great vibe. He told me his “community” is not just Millheim and Penns Valley (that's his home), but his reach goes well beyond his grasp and he considers any like minded folks no matter where they're from, a part of his community. He's a true indie spirit whose dream has been made reality and it’s waiting for you in Penns Valley at the Elk Creek Café and Ale Works. Enjoy!

Going global

2009-04-12T22:16:00.002+01:00

I've just watched Leonardo DiCaprio's eco documentary the 11th Hour for the second time. The below quote from one of Leo's talking heads stuck in my mind the first time round and it now seems more appropriate than ever.

From Nathan Gardels, editor of New Perspectives Quarterly:

We need to be slower; we need to be smarter. Slow means disengaging from consumerism as the main avenue of experience. It doesn’t reject any consumption, but it says we’re not going to live our lives mediated by stuff sold out there in the market. We’re not going to base our identities and our meaning on what we buy. Instead of the long commute, the bigger car, the bigger house, let’s enjoy the local produce and have time to ourselves. Let’s understand that things are thieves of time because the more things you have, the more time you have to spend working to pay for them, the more your life is chained to a rhythm of perpetual purchase.

Being smart means reintroducing a term from before the Industrial Revolution — frugality. Frugality does not mean poverty or deprivation. It means the wise use of resources.

I'm with Nathan on this. Are you?

Blogs on Argentina: the number one resource

2009-04-09T19:45:00.005+01:00

Looking for a blog on Argentina? Here's the place to head: bloggersinargentina.blogspot.com.

I'm impressed with this site. It's simple, understated, and does just what the title implies: lists all the travel blogs in Argentina. Or at least the vast majority of them.

These are then neatly divided into practical subheads: Expats in Buenos Aires, Expats outside Buenos Aires, Argentine blogs, Travellers' blogs. There are no frills here, no widgets, no distractions - it just tells you what you need to know: what blogs are out there, where they are based, and how often they are updated. The list even inspired an article in Argentina's national newspaper, Clarin.

It was put together by a New Zealander called Matt, who lived in Argentina from January 2005 until April 2007 and wrote a blog of his own, Suitcaseonwheels. Although this blog came to a natural end when he moved back home, he cleverly kept his bloggers' round-up ultra low maintenance, so that he can still keep on top of it. If you find a blog that's not on there, just leave a comment. Matt drops by every now and again to update the site - adding newcomers and moving inactive oldies into the archive section.

I wish every destination had something similar. And here's hoping Matt will continue to keep his list up to date for all those in, or coming to, Argentina and that it doesn't suffer the same dead-link end as sister site, argenblogs.com.ar, which once collected Argentina's Spanish-language blogs.

If anyone knows where to find other lists of Argentinean blogs in English and Spanish, post them here. In the meantime, Spanish speakers should make a beeline for Blog de Viajes, which just picked up Best Spanish Language Travel Blog in the Lonely Planet awards. And also twitter.com/hostelcolonia, which was nominated for best microblog.

Any that Matt has missed? Let me, and him, know.

Tent surfing anyone?

2009-04-06T19:16:00.003+01:00

If you’re still not convinced by the idea of sleeping in someone else’s home as a couchsurfer, there is one last alternative. Why not try their back garden instead? All you need is a tent and roughly 15 euros to find off-beaten-track camp spots on private land via Singlespotcamping.com. Give it a try and the world - or, in the early stages, mainly Sweden – could be your oyster.

I've written more on this and other offshoots of Couchsurfing.com in this week's TNT magazine

Tent picture: wiki commons

Going local in Peru

2009-04-04T01:32:00.005+01:00

From an article published in today's Guardian.

Sonia Guzman is the sort of storyteller who has you hanging on every word - even if you can't understand all of them. We're sitting around her dining room table and she's recounting Inca legends. She is speaking in Spanish, and there are lots of long Quechua names, yet somehow I manage to follow. With tales of ancient battles, thwarted love and lost gold, I feel like I've stepped into Inca Jackanory.

Sonia is my homestay host in Ollantaytambo, a historic town in southern Peru's Sacred Valley, known for its cobbled streets and mountainside ruins of 15th-century storehouses and agricultural terraces. Sonia's house is a traditional, stone-built Inca structure, with an open courtyard that looks straight up at some of the most dramatic ruins. It's been in her family for generations and is decorated with all manner of Peruvian artefacts, from mythological ceramic bulls to Quechua festival masks.

I've found Sonia through Leap Local (leaplocal.org), a website that allows travellers to recommend local guides and services. It's not dissimilar to TripAdvisor, but the aim is to draw attention to smaller outfits and ensure money goes to communities. It's part of an emerging crop of online communities whose focus is specifically local. These sites range from blogs written by a network of local "spotters" around the world (see spottedbylocals.com) to virtual marketplaces where the tiniest of enterprises - even individual chefs or guides - are given an online presence.

I'm giving hotels, tour operators and even Machu Picchu a backseat and basing my entire trip around Leap Local. Read the rest at Guardian Travel....

NYC hotel with its own social network

2009-04-01T02:29:00.018+01:00

There are lots of hotels that like to think they are offering not just a place to sleep but "a lifestyle" too. Generally speaking, you shouldn't believe them. These are normally the sort of places who also try to sell you their branded CD of forgettable chill-out tunes.

However, one place that could have a legitimate claim on the idea is the Pod Hotel in NYC. During your stay they won't just provide fresh towels and free wifi, they'll sort you out with a social life too. Just dial room service and...

Ok, not quite. No telephones involved. It's all on the net, of course. Yes, you've guessed it, the Pod Hotel has its very own social network.

It's a rather basic affair, more like a simple forum, but it's proving very popular. When guests make a reservation, they are given the option to join the forum. There they'll find a section for each month of the year, subdivided into four categories: Eat With Me; Drink With Me; Shop With Me; Go Out With Me. If you're going to be in town that month, you can start your own post - inviting others to meet up with you - or you can respond to an invite that's already there. Site statistics show that, so far, 1776 users have contributed 251 threads and 564 posts.

I like the idea. It's perfect for travellers who are past bunking up in huge hostel dorms and yet miss the social experience of shared accommodation. It's also perfect for a city like NYC, which can be a lonely place for a solo traveller.

That's not to say you have to be on your own to use it. Couples and groups of friends are getting in on the idea too, often making plans with other guests before they've even set foot on NY soil.

All good, although you could argue that people should be more willing to start an occasional spontaneous chat in a hallway, without feeling the need to exchange emails first.

The network has earned the Pod Hotel the nickname “The Facebook Hotel”, based on the generation they are targeting and how they are targeting them.

"Get a feel for Pod culture," announces the website. Easy now, Pod Hotel. I like your style, but watch yourself or you could be selling mood CDs before you know it.

Work your way around the world as a housesitter

2009-03-30T08:16:00.007+01:00

Here's news to me: non-homeowners can house swap too. Well, kind of. Instead of offering a house in return, you offer your time and become a "housesitter". Caretaker.org - est. 1983 - brings the two parties together. Check out Caretaker Gazette, their subscription newsletter. I've yet to really explore it, but it's surely worth a look. Here's a very low-key vid (above) that offers tips for gaining trust.

And here's a sample ad:

"HOUSESITTER needed near Edinburgh. I need a housesitter for various time periods, but at least one week for my comfortable home located about 10 miles east of Edinburgh. I prefer two people, and don't mind if you are friends, a couple or married. We have two dogs, one horse and one pony, a large garden, and stables. You can have the use of a car if needed, since we are very accessible to Edinburgh and only 10 minutes from hills, the beach, and golf courses. Would love regular housesitters, if possible, to allow us to get away fairly regularly, but don't mind one off's. Our house is on the edge of a small town in a peaceful but not isolated location. The dogs run around the garden and don't need to be walked. Horses need to be mucked out daily, fed three times a day and stabled at night. Housesitter must have experience with horses and dogs."

Thanks to NaiveAbroad, who's post on Free Travel [Almost] alerted me to the site.

Going local in the 19th century

2009-03-28T16:02:00.010Z

An 19th-century female traveller, Edith Tweedie, was discovering local travel before us all. Here's an excerpt from Wanderlust: a social history of travel, by Laura Byrne Paquet. Pictured: how the world looked in 1897. So-called "British possessions" are marked in red. Map from Cambridge University Librar y.

One of the most cheerful nineteenth-century adventurers was an Englishwoman named Edith Tweedie, who published her impressions in a series of books under the name Mrs Alec Tweedie.

During a trip through Finland in the 1890s with her sister and some friends, she gets it into her head that she would like to experience a traditional Finnish bath, and nothing will satisfy her until she gets one. Disappointed that she can’t arrange to have one with the local peasants — for reasons that are unclear, but probably have something to do with the fact that the locals aren’t keen on sharing their ablutions with a stranger — she eventually manages to arrange for a woman named Saima who understands the traditional rituals to come and give her and her friends a group bath.

Difficulties arise almost as soon as the Englishwomen enter the bastu, or bathhouse. Saima gleefully begins tossing water onto hot bricks, and the visitors are soon roasting. Gasping for breath, they plead with Saima in broken Finnish to stop. The problem is that Saima is Swedish and doesn’t understand a word they’re saying, so she continues to steam them like a bunch of pale, damp clams. Finally, through hand signals and a general aura of panic, they make their wishes known. Saima obligingly stops pouring cold water on the bricks and starts scrubbing the bathers with soft soap and a bundle of rags. Once she deems them clean, she sluices them with pails of hot water, then flails them with a birch switch for a while. “It was an awful experience!” Mrs Tweedie exclaims. Nonetheless, the Englishwomen persevere. Finally, Saima signals that the bathers should head for the cold bath. They take a quick, frosty dip before wrapping themselves in piping hot towels and scurrying back to the room where their clothing is stored.

In retrospect, far from the birch switch and icy bath, Mrs. Tweedie is exhilarated by her adventure:

Whether it was the heat, or exhaustion, or the loss of one skin or many, we know not; but after a glass of mjöd, that most delicious and refreshing of Finnish drinks, we slept splendidly, and felt fit next morning for any amount of hard work, even for a journey to Russia through Finland, though we did not speak or understand the language of either country.

It’s hard not to get into the spirit of the adventure as Mrs Tweedie recounts her Finnish journey; she’s a splendid raconteur and game for just about any adventure. Her quest to explore Finland from a watery perspective leads her to try an “ant-heap bath,” which she has heard is good for rheumatism. Traditionally, an entire anthill would have been tossed into the bathwater, but in deference to the visitor’s presumed delicate sensibilities, her Finnish bath attendant bundled the ants into a little linen bag before pouring boiling water on them. To Mrs Tweedie’s dismay, when she entered the bathhouse she saw the bathwater was brown. “Did I shiver at the thought?” she asks the reader. “Well, a little, perhaps; nevertheless, I tumbled into the warm water.”

She also attempts a “waterfall bath,” where she and her friends enter a small structure built around a waterfall and simply let the cascade wash over them. “[T]he water, simply thumping on our back and shoulders, came with such force, that we felt exactly as if we were being well pummelled with a pair of boxing-gloves, or being violently massaged, a delicious tingling sensation being the result,” she reports. One wonders how a genteel Victorian lady would know what it was like to be pummelled with boxing gloves, but Mrs Tweedie does seem to have led an adventurous life.

Even when she and her sister try the more usual amusement of swimming in the lake, hilarity ensues. Since no bathing suits are available in the local shops, they buy some fabric and sew their own. The locals, who swim in the nude, immediately assume the crazy Englishwomen have fallen into the lake.

For Mrs Tweedie, her adventures with waterfalls and birch switches were the essence of her trip. Simply observing historic buildings and sipping tea with friends would not have been nearly as illuminating. “[B]aths in Finland are an art, and Finland without its bath-houses would not be Finland at all,” she concludes.

My sister blog: Facing the street

2009-03-28T16:00:00.002Z

I feel like Going Local has a sister blog. I hope that author of Facing the Street, Laura Byrne Paquet, doesn't mind me describing it that way.

I came across Laura's site about a month ago and instantly noted we have very similar interests. From her base in Ontario, she writes about ways travellers can "live like locals" on the road. "Tired of anonymous hotels? Sick of chain restaurants? Want to broaden your understanding of the places you visit? Me, too," she says. Me too, Laura, me too.

Laura's also just published a book, Wanderlust: a social history of travel. In it, she looks at where passports came from; why 1930s stewardesses carried wrenches; and how teetotalers shaped the modern vacation. Intrigued? So am I. I hope to get my hands on a copy soon. The hurdle is that it's only available in Laura's native Canada ("A long, long story," says Laura). But, for the curious, Going Local has an extract about another woman who was always seeking local ways to travel. This one, however, was ahead of us all: going local in the 19th-century.

TwitchHitching: can anyone do it?

2009-03-24T09:06:00.006Z

TwitchHiker has caused a media storm beyond his wildest dreams. His perfect timing has made him a Twitter celebrity. Just as the site broke the mainstream, up he pops up with his quirky and ambitious demonstration of just what the site can do.

I'm very impressed with his go-getter spirit. Plus, he seems like a nice, down-to-earth guy you'd want to have a pint with.

However, I do wonder how representative this is, and how much of his experiment could be replicated by others. Without the media buzz would it have worked? He certainly wouldn't have got the support from Visa, AirNewZealand and the like. So, no, he probably wouldn't have got as far.

Yet Twitchhiker is doing this on a grand scale to make a point and, more importantly, to raise lots of money for charity. Who can knock that?

The average Twitter user may not be able to score a free nights in hostels or their own PR team, but they could certainly harness a lot of goodwill.

I've been really impressed by the Twitter community. People are constantly bigging each other up, helping with problems, passing on links, sharing successes and generally being nice to one another. Where are all the scathingly bitter trolls you usually find on the net?

Right now, Twitter is the easiest place in the world to make contacts and I can certainly see how this would transfer into the real world. I've already corresponded with a worldwide stream of people through the site, many of whom I'd happily take out for a drink if they came to town, or maybe even host in my house.

Note to non-Twitter users: that statement's really not as strange as it sounds. These aren't just randoms strangers offering no more than a user name - most of them have very public internet presence and are highly traceable. You find yourself reading their daily thoughts, through blogs and tweets. You could probably even browse their holiday snaps.

A vast majority of the people I follow on Twitter are travellers. And it's interesting to see how they've all meet up and hung out at big industry events SXSW and ITB in these past weeks.

There are some really interesting characters out there. People like @soultravelers3, a family of globetrotters who are currently nominated for the Lonely Planet microblogger of the year award. When they mentioned coming to Buenos Aires, I didn't hesitate to suggest a meet.

I did jump the gun a bit though. They replied to say they've got another two years of travelling before they arrive here. I guess I won't put the kettle on just yet...

Photo: Guaka on Wiki Commons

39 British pubs close each week: time for local action

2009-03-21T22:18:00.017Z

It's a story that's inspiring and upsetting in equal measures. How did we get to the point where so many of Britain's most beloved community assets - its pubs and its rural shops - are being forced to close? According to the British Beer & Pub Association, the combination of high taxes and low supermarket prices is causing 39 pubs to close every week.

Today's Guardian carried a story on the dedicated groups of locals who are banding together to save these services. Pooling their time and money, they are forming limited-liability community companies.

It's a fascinating story and well worth a read. It also made me think of the community cooperatives here in Argentina. When the economic crisis hit in 2001/02, redundant workers took over abandoned factories, where they once worked, and put them back in to operation, sharing the profits between them. Circumstances were very different - there were no loans or official channels, and they didn't have permission - but it's another demonstration of the strength of local communities.

Want to know more about what happened in Argentina? I highly recommend watching The Take, a documentary by No Logo author, Naomi Klein. The powerful trailer (above) should certainly wet appetites.

Where are Uruguay and Paraguay? Don't ask Brazil

2009-03-19T11:56:00.018Z

Everybody needs good neighbours, right? Perhaps someone ought to mention this to Brazil; they seem to have forgotten theirs. On a map released to primary school children in Sao Paulo, they've committed the ultimate error: Uruguay and Paraguay appear the wrong way around.

And that's not the only clanger. Paraguay also makes a second appearance in the middle of Bolivia and poor Ecuador has been missed off altogether.

Come on Sao Paulo! You may be Latin America's biggest city and within its biggest country, but don't forget the little guys!

Argentinean newspaper Clarin has been having a field day with the slip-up (above right). They report that textbooks featuring the map won't be retracted, although an amendment will be printed on the internet. That's fine then, as all school kids are clearly in the habit of double-checking all their textbook content online.

Beat the crunch with a home swap on home turf

2009-03-17T08:01:00.002Z

There's a new trend in home swapping, according to Home Base Holidays. The economic downturn has prompted many members - mainly in the UK - to look for exchanges in their own country.

"In the past, swaps closer to home had often been primarily for short breaks but now many more are exchanging for longer holiday periods," says the site's blog.

Could this perfect way to escape the mortgage shackles and get the break you need, without falling victim to guilt?

"It's easy to take for granted the many attractions close to your home," say Home Base Holidays, who are living up to their name in new ways. "With many people having to make savings on holiday costs, now is a perfect time to re-discover your own country."

If economic doom and gloom is getting you down and your job enables you to work remotely, why not try a temporary change of scene?

Sample properties include the above - Huntly, Highlands & Islands in Aberdeenshire, Scotland (HE10019): "Converted 19th-century mill house in heart of Scottish countryside on the Castle Trail in Aberdeenshire. Situated in a valley with lovely views of the surrounding hills, waterfall and stream, which runs through the garden. The garden extends to about an acre and is a mixture of lawn, flower beds and woods stepped into the valley."

Couchsurfing gets its millionth member - or does it?

2009-03-16T13:16:00.003Z

Couchsurfing.com has just broken the millionth member barrier. Or has it?

If you count the people who register under one profile (couples, housemates etc), they got there a while ago. There are also those who also argue that there are far less than a million who participate actively.

Bah, whatever. The millionth profile at least shows this many people have at one stage identified with the idea. It's a huge milestone and there have been plenty of celebratory events going on this week around the world.

The site has also got a new logo and a very subtle redesign (basically just a new navigation bar).

Want to meet locals? Pack a cassette tape

2009-03-14T09:30:00.004Z

Travel tips on meeting locals? I thought I'd heard them all. But here's a rare and interesting one, courtesy of TravelAnswerMan:

"Bringing your own music in an MP3 player or portable CD player is a great way to block out the screeching noise of foreign cities, smooth the ride on trying bus or jeep journeys, or pass the time during long transit periods. On the other hand, there is nothing more isolating than a pair of headphones.

"Instead, try traveling with one or two classic cassette mix-tapes. When you tire of the cab’s selection of “the coolest American music”, or a jeep driver’s library of Mongolian throat singing tapes, offer the driver one of your own.

You’re not the only one who may be interested in hearing something new."

Depends where you are and how you do it, of course. You can't go calling out: "Hey, driver! Call this music?! We do it much better where I'm from!" He could just as easily have the same opinion of your indie hits as you do of his throat singing.

However, from time to time, it can certainly be a good conversation starter and a form of cultural exchange.

I've done it myself in Australia on bus ride across the Great Ocean Road. The tour guide liked it, we became friends, and, when we arrived in his hometown of Melbourne, he took me out for a day, showing me all his favourite hotspots.

Nonetheless, we shouldn't be too keen to listen to our own soundtrack, or it's no different from keeping those headphones on the whole time. The music you don't consider "to your taste" almost always makes the best memories. I'm thinking of the pumping reggaeton on the Panamanian diablo rojo (red devil) buses and the 1990s power ballads in Cusco cabs. Anyone enjoying the pleasure of having forgotten Rod Steward, Bryan Adams and Sting's All for One? Sorry to ruin it for you, but, believe me, it's all the rage among Peruvian taxi drivers.

See TravelAnswerMan's blog for more tips on meeting locals when travelling.

Photo: Wiki Images

AirBnB moves into apartment rentals

2009-03-13T16:33:00.009Z

AirBed&Breakfast.com has rebranded itself as AirBnB. Why? Because, despite only launching last August, they've already outgrown their original concept. Users aren't simply offering other travellers an airbed. Many of them are pulling out all the stops. Take a look on their homepage and you'll now see a gallery of bedrooms that wouldn't look place on a boutique hotel site. Ok, they've been specially selected by the powers that be, but there's definitely not an inflatable mattress in sight.

In another departure, the site has also found that members have been actively posting listings for holiday homes and slightly longer-term stays. There's certainly a gap in the market for this. Especially for a site that is going to move with the times. So far, AirBnB has shown itself to be a savvy worker by using Twitter and often linking in with current events, such as touting accommodation for this week's SXSW festival in Texas.

They'd better act fast though. Just yesterday, Tripadvisor announced at ITB (a huge international travel show in Berlin) that they were looking to do a similar thing and wanted to encourage more of their members to review holiday-home rentals. Last year, they bought FlipKey, a US-orientated site that carries thousands of rental-property reviews.

These sort of peer-to-peer sites could also be great for finding travellers' houseshares. When I found myself searching for a place in Argentina, I used Craigslist. (It surprises me how many people still think this is a US-only site. Check out the worldwide coverage here.)

Craigslist is legendary as a simple, no-frills replication of newspaper classifieds, but there's definitely room for a more sophisticated alternative. The first houseshare I found here had a basic listing with a couple of pic, but, helpfully, they'd added links to an MSN Spaces account and a Facebook group - which brought more pictures and references from past housemates. Now, wouldn't it be great if there was one site that did all that? Can AirBnB fill the gap?

Learn to swear like a local in Argentina

2009-03-09T12:33:00.003Z

You're never truly down with the local lingo, unless you pick up the slang. This is probably never truer than in Argentina, where they speak Spanish like no other. I'm considering buying this Argentine phrase book, Che Boludo, just so I can try to fit in.

The title, "Che boludo", is the most Argentine of phrases. If you can say it naturally, and don't sound like a try-hard tourist, it's the ultimate linguistic success.

Literally, it's a hard one to translate. "Che" is used to mean "mate" or simply "oi!". Boludo, meanwhile, means "big balls". Together, I've heard the phrase translated as "oi, big balls", or "mate, you're a big-balled fool". But generally it's used as a very informal way of catching someone's attention and, although not one for polite company, it's not considered offensive.

As soon as you become aware of this phrase, you hear "boludo" everywhere you go.

It was while on my quest to learn more Argentine slang words that I came across an interesting podcast teaching Spanish swearwords. Sorry to lower the tone, but it did make me laugh aloud - less for the words themselves, more for the American guy's translations. Even if you don't speak Spanish, it's worth a listen. Note how the Spanish speakers remain "tranquilo", while the American translator starts off calmly and then gets a little too into it. Is he a frustrated actor or just plain angry? You'll soon see what I mean.

To hear it, click on the audio player on this page of LearningSpanishBlog, under subheading of "Learning Spanish like crazy".

After that, if you want to practice what you've learned, there's no better place than an Argentinean football match. The above video contains no swearing, but the Argentine commentator will give you a taste of the local enthusiasm. It's an old YouTube classic, where Juan Manuel Pons of Fox Sports is so moved by a goal from Thierry Henry he sings a rather spectacular song.

Bambino Pons, as he's nicknamed, is famous for his singalong commentaries, which often include background music. Here's an internet "best of", where highlights include singing Dennis Bergkamp to the tune of We Will Rock You. Note the slang in the YouTube viewers' comments: "Es una boludez que me mata de risa!!" - "It's boludo (here meaning 'silliness') that makes me die laughing."

Local blogs for the weekend: part 2

2009-03-06T10:34:00.007Z

Looking for some weekend reading? Try working your way through the shortlist for the Lonely Planet blog awards .

There are some great destination blogs among them and two mentions of SpottedByLocals. It's also good to see the categories are not entirely Anglophone.

As for microbloggers (ie members of Twitter), I'm now following all the LP nominees. I'll see what they have to say over the next week before I cast my vote. Interesting to see a Buenos Aires hostel is among them: Hostel Colonia. I've never visited, but perhaps I should check it out. It's amazing how prolific Twitter usage can thrust the little guys into the international spotlight.

For more tips on travel people to follow on Twitter, see the Telegraph's 50 best travel tweeters.
It'll be interesting to revisit this list - and Lonely Planet's - next year to see how things have changed.

But what about here and now? Any sites - blogs or microblogs - these lists have missed?

Couchsurfing tips for flashpackers

2009-03-05T19:30:00.001Z

"Is couchsurfing for flashpackers?" This was a question posed recently by TuxInBackpack, a site aimed at travellers who wants to see the world independently, but without using those two dreaded words: "roughing it".

The site's author - an Italian career-breaker called Andrea - admits he's yet to try couchsurfing himself, but he has used a blog post to brainstorm a few ideas on why it may, or may not, be suited to flashpackers.

Personally, I believe this type of travel is less about people's budget and more about their mentality. It could certainly work for flashpakers, providing they are flexible, open-minded and easy-going.

Even those with sofa phobias will find that there are plenty of people offering up beds and spare rooms. You just have to keep searching through the profiles until you find something that suits.

Andrea presents a couple of hypothetical situations when looking at potential downsides. "What if you'd like to go to a place different from the one your host is suggesting? Wouldn't it be bad to be stuck for dinner with your potential messy-chef host when you're dying to visit that restaurant you read about?"

The advice for avoiding these situations is simple: never turn up on someone's doorstep with a backpack full of expectations.

Here are some other points flashpackers should note:

Most hosts are keen to help their guests have a good time, but they're not mind-readers. Establish some email contact with your host before you arrive. Tell them what you want to do while you're there. If you communicate properly in advance, you'll be able to predict potential personality clashes and still have time to make alternative arrangements.
If you really want to be in charge of your own schedule, consider staying in a hotel or hostel for some, or part, of your time. You'll still be free to socialise with couchsurifing contacts for coffee, lunch, or a night out.

Try using a site such as AirBnB or Crashpadder instead, where you pay a small fee to stay in people's houses. Hosts on these sites sometimes post more detailed pictures and info on what you're going to get. Plus, if you're going to be handing over money, you may feel more comfortable asking questions.
Find equally flash travellers by bypassing sites like Couchsurfing.com and getting yourself into one of the more elite travel-networking sites, such as ASmallWorld or Qube.

And, as for worrying about not going for a meal at "that" restaurant. If you're really flash why not treat your host as a thank you?

So, what do you say, Andrea? Ready to give it a try? If you do, let us know how you get on.

Photo: Napoleon's bed in Château de Compiègne is not on Couchsurfing.com. Wiki Images/Andreas Praefcke.

The best secret bars

2009-03-02T21:40:00.021Z

Travellers can't seem to get enough of speakeasies. Check out this top secret drinking dens piece from yesterday's Observer Escape.

As soon as I read the headline, I scanned the page for the mention of Buenos Aires. It was inevitable given this city's long-standing word-of-mouth culture. And, sure enough, there it was: a mention of good ol' Ocho7Ocho - which I've previously tipped in the Guardian.

Today's speakeasies can be divided in two genres. There are the rare, gritty ones that are hoping not to get caught. And the above-board, new ones who are playing marketing games, such as a New York bar calling itself PDT, standing for Please Don't Tell. As if.

So, what is it about a lack of sign that makes people go ga-ga?

First, it makes people feel in-the-know. (Even though it may have been going for years and everyone in town knows about.)
Second, it conjures a boho spirit. (Even though the owners are probably making a fortune.)
Third, it feels rebellious. (Even though most are completely above board.).

Yes, it's one big, fat illusion and we're all falling for it. But let's enjoy it. I am. Here's another "bar escondido" (hidden bar) I've recently discovered in Buenos Aires: Puerta Uno in Belgrano.

Want to know where it is? See their ultra-flashy website, telling you, er, exactly where to find it. The website designer must have let that one slip accidentally. Don't tell, will you.

Going unplugged

2009-03-01T20:16:00.025Z

Right, that's it. I'm burning all my social-networking passwords and logging off.

Ok, not really. (Plus, that "click if you forgot your password" button makes such drama impossible.) But this is how I felt after reading a great piece by Make Travel Fair's Stephen Chapman entitled Unplug, Enjoy The Journey & The Experience Of Travelling. As the name suggests, it encourages people to turn off their computers, forget the pressure of finding the "best" places in town, and rediscover the simple joy of unplanned wandering, or, as the Australian Aborigines say, "going walkabout".

The internet is, undoubtedly, an incredible tool for travellers - helping to enhance experiences on so many levels. I'm continually advocating the use of travel networking to make contact with locals. Often, a quick search and an email exchange is all it takes to get a fast-track straight into a side of the country you may never otherwise see.

However, the net is not the only medium for achieving this. You can gain a lot just through simply keeping an open mind and putting your ear to the ground. Heavens, you can even go so old school as to ask people for tips in person. No online forums, no emails, no Tweeting.

Although I still love social networking, I do occasionally feel bogged down. The internet has become both my blessing and my curse. Last week I went to Uruguay and was shamefully concerned over whether my rural, beachside hostel had wifi. (It did. So many do these days). A second rush of guilt followed when I was sitting inside typing when the sun was shining and all the other backpackers were heading to the beach or on various excursions.

Yet it's this that enables me to do what I do and work remotely. I meet a lot of travellers doing the same thing - writers, the occasional professional poker player, and even the odd trader. It's something we'll all be seeing more and more. But although this way of life has many good points it also makes it even harder to draw the line and switch off.

Any what about those who are travelling to take "time out" on a gap year or a career break? With more and more now packing their laptops, "getting away from it all" is not what it was.

I talked with a backpacker the other day about her pre-email travels in Asia. "I used to have to go to the poste restante every month or so. The feeling of getting a letter had so much more impact. It felt so special. I just never get the same buzz from Facebook."

Danger! Language barrier!

2009-02-26T19:21:00.020Z

There's a glitch in the Couchsurfing.com website at the moment. (Well, it's one of many, if you listen to the discontented bunch on the site's "brainstorming" forum, who seem perennially on the verge of a mutiny.)

Before I go on, let me explain a little thing about Couchsurfing profiles for the uninitiated. Besides displaying general info about who you are and what you like, there is also room to list the languages you speak and the level: "mother tongue", "expert", "intermediate" or "beginner".

Usually, it's up to the individual to check out their host/guest's profile to see if communication will be a problem, however - owing to an apparent bug - the site is currently taking it upon itself to flag it up for you. So, if you aren't both "experts" in the same language, the person's profile is adorned with a warning in big, red letters: "language barrier exists".

Bit off putting, eh?

This happened to me last weekend in Uruguay. I contacted a local girl called Florencia. She speaks expert Spanish and intermediate English; I speak expert English and intermediate Spanish. For me, there was no question that'd we'd be able to get by. I've managed with people with zero English before and it's all part of the experience. However, the language barrier warning appeared on her page, as if our meeting would be like stepping into a danger zone.

It's a shame if some people are put off by this. (I wasn't, although, in the end, Florencia and I couldn't meet due to conflicting schedules). Some of the greatest travel-networking experiences I've ever had have been with people where I've had a so-called "language barrier" (such as with Toyo in Panama - pictured). In fact, I've just written a feature for the April issue of the The Linguist magazine about my experiences and singing Couchsurfing's praises as a way to attain valuable language emersion.

So, imagine my horror today when I came across a blog post aimed at travellers, entitled Don't learn a foreign language (via the Travel Rants newsletter).

Fortunately, my concerns were abated as I read on...

Learning how to communicate without words is a travel skill that you can use throughout your life, in all parts of it. It can help you navigate bad situations, deal with people’s emotions, understand people ...

It turned out that the piece wasn't anti-languages at all. Instead it was praising the wonders of non-verbal communication, and the joy of understanding universal gestures/expressions. It was encouraging people not to afraid of interaction, simply because they don't share the same mother tongue.

The post was written by a traveller known as Nomadic Matt. A speaker of English, Thai and Spanish, he is currently in Tawain preparing to start Chinese lessons. Although he speaks around three words of it so far, he isn't holing himself up in his hotel room for the first week six of his course, planing to resurface when able to ask about people's favourite food or how old their siblings are. No, he's getting out there, meeting people, making friends. Nice one, Matt.

As for the Couchsurfing.com hitch, I think it's up to the people - not the site's inner coding mechanisms - to decide whether there will be a language problem. We can get a pretty clear indication by ourselves, after reading a person's profile, looking their language list, and exchanging a mail or two.

The sooner the hitch is fixed, the better. In the meantime, sensible Couchsurfers should continue to ignore it. Especially as it is, occasionally, going completely haywire and throwing up completely inappropriate warnings, such as between two experts in English: one from England and one from Canada. This happened to me last week.

Now, I know they call beanie hats toques and their coins are loonies, but we can get by. Eh?

Going local on the Great Barrier Reef

2009-02-20T00:38:00.016Z

Does Tourism Queensland's marketing body really need any help? They seem to have got the publicity thing down rather well. Their "best job in the world" campaign has been a monstrously huge hit. I've lost count of how many times I've seen it in the travel press or on a blog. Do a Google search for "best job in the world" and - bonza! - Queensland's right up there.

As a quick recap: they are on a worldwide hunt for someone to work a six-month, A$150,000 contract in the spectacular Whitsundays islands. No formal qualifications necessary, but the candidate must be willing to swim, snorkel, dive, sail and work to publicise the region. For this, they'll be able to live rent-free in a three-bedroom villa, complete with plunge pool.

Yep, these specs sure beat your average nine-to-five.

It was a clever idea and, thus far, it seems very well executed. I've just been having a look at the ultra-slick website. Candidates have been posting their video applications in their thousands - more than 19,000 so far. There are certainly some good ones and watching them is oddly compelling.

I'm not quite sure how they'll be judging it. Does the number of video views bump up your chances? Or the star-rating the public have given it? Will they choose a PR or journalism professional? An Aussie or a non-Aussie? An ardent traveller or someone who's never left their homeland? An experienced blogger and social-media fanatic? (After all, blogging and networking are big parts of the role.)

So far, the field (or should that be white-sand beach?) is wide open. I'll be interested to see who makes the grade and gets to live on Hamilton island for six months. If you're interested, you have just two days left to apply.

Failing that the Danish tourist board are trying their hand at a similar scheme. Be their travel "guinea pig" and get a free trip. No tropical reefs, no fat paycheck, but not to be sniffed at. In return, you just have to write about it. Good one for budding travel writers.

Couchsurfing meets Twitter

2009-02-17T20:06:00.012Z

Apologies for having gone slightly Twitter mad this past fortnight, but here’s another interesting find. Twitter also has search facility, which enables you to look for updates related specifically to your interests or hobbies. I decided to put "couchsurfing" in and give it a whirl. The results showed reams of mentions. I scanned a few pages and came up across some interesting links. Here are the best ones:

Are couchsurfers 21st-century hobos?
Article from Dakota Today nicely touches on the idea that good Couchsurfers are more interested in making connections with people than sightseeing. The writer, living near Mount Rushmore, also discovers how hosting a couchsurfer can help him rediscover his own area.

Couchsurfing for cyclists
Tips from two intrepid travellers who are blogging their three-year trip cycling from Alaska to the “end of the world” in Argentina’s Ushuaia. Featuring Couchsurfing.com, HospitalityClub.org and WarmShowers.org too. This is a blog to watch.

Let the world come to you
Time Out Chicago profiles a local twentysomething who couldn’t afford a plane fare, so decided to travel through others by becoming a couchsurfing host.

Couchsurfing for Obama
CNN on how couchsurfing helped ease the accommodation shortage in Washington during Obama’s inauguration. Features one couple who hosted 16 travellers in their three-bedroom home. "We read about the people who are renting their houses for $2,000 a night, and we thought, 'That's so in contradiction to what we believe’."

Couchsurfing with kids
A basic intro from HaveKidsWillTravel for those interested in couchsurfing as a family.

Also on Twitter:
Within people's tweets - aside from the predictable "OMG! Have you heard about Couchsurfing.com?" messages - I also noticed people discussing Couchsurfing.com's new logo (sneak preview above) and came across this interesting character, @CouchsurfingOri.

Here are some of the tweets I liked:

@wanderblah: Mum still cant quite get the couchsurfing thing...

@stefidi: Being active on CouchSurfing again makes me happy. :)

@houshuang: Found a CouchSurfing host for Houston Open Education conference. Great!

@arsie: At a local Couchsurfing party in Wellington. AWESOME!!!

@godfoca: Just switched "couch available" from "Yes" to "Maybe" on CouchSurfing. I really need some time to get some shit done =/ =(

And, on that note, like @godfoca, I’m off to get some shit done...

Where to network with millionaires

2009-02-16T20:04:00.031Z

If you've never managed to get a sought-after* invite to the elite travel network A Small World, here's a solution. Newly launched network Affluence.org doesn't require a recommendation from another well-established member. Instead you can sign up yourself with zero prior connections. And it's free.

There's only one small hurdle: you must have a demonstrable minimum household net worth of US$3 million, or an annual household income of at least $300,000. Or, if you come in a little shy of the required millions, you can also gain entry by getting invites from five others that qualify.

But, before you start calling all your millionaire friends, is it really worth it? The site lists the benefits as follows:

Interact with other affluent people from around the world
Receive free access to a dedicated Affluence Concierge
Attend the most exclusive parties and events in the world
Receive priority access to the world's most exclusive nightclubs, hotels, and restaurants
Find other millionaires, billionaires, and socially elite people to network with.

Choosing your friends based on their bank balance? Nice. I wonder if Affluence members can "poke" each other, Facebook style, or if this has been replaced by the virtual airkiss?

Perhaps the site will appeal to ASmallWorld members that complain the network had lost exclusivity since becoming overrun with estate agents, WAG wannabes and expats.

* As for A Small World membership still being "sought after", I'm not so sure. The name seems to be being banded around almost as much as Facebook in expat circles. It's now dropped into conversation as if it no longer needs explanation. "Yeah, I'm looking for apartments in the usual places, you know, Craigslist and ASmallWorld," a backpacker told me the other day.

** Photo from WikiImages/David Shakebone

The world goes mad for Twestival

2009-02-13T19:20:00.017Z

I didn't make it to Twestival last night. My internet connection went down so I didn't have means of contacting other attendees or, crucially, knowing where it was. (It looks like there are some drawbacks of internet-based festivals.)

For those who missed the build-up, Twestival was a multinational event taking place for users of social-networking site, Twitter. It seems it was quite a success, with 175 events worldwide.

Some of the most extensive coverage of the event came from the Twitter-obsessed Guardian. The point they made repeatedly was that - aside from raising money for Charity: water - the events were all about getting people away from their screens and interacting in person.

In San Francisco, co-founder Biz Stone said he was pleased that users were coming together to do something positive, rather than simply socialise with each other over the net.

Meanwhile, London co-organiser Tom Malcolm said he was amazed by the turnout. "On Facebook people tend to know someone else before adding them as a friend," he said. "On Twitter you meet people you wouldn't necessarily meet in real life."

However, these events were limited in only being able to allow attendees to meet users in their own city, thus giving a very narrow indication of the network's global reach on a personal level.

Predictably, the positive coverage (written by active Twitter users Jemima Kiss and Bobbie Johnson) was shortly followed by plenty of mockery from the naysayers. Unfortunately for these critics, most of their arguments fell flat because they simply didn't know what they were talking about.

Example one:
"I know who my mates are – I see them down the pub on a Friday night, I dont need to be kept informed of what the fat f****** are up to all week as well. Oh Richies up a ladder? Great. Daves stuck in traffic? Cosmic. Kevs having steak for dinner? Whoppee!"

Wrong. It's not just about leaving status updates. It's about interaction. For every status update, there are many more conversations going on and a mountain of information being shared. It's also not just about chatting with your mates - it's about expanding connections and "meeting" new people. If you only interact with people you know in the real world, you'll have a very limited experience.

Example two:

"Twitter is a load of people talking about themselves. It's the cult of the individual. Me! Me! Me!"

Wrong. Well, partially wrong. This does go on and some people do use it just as a platform to broadcast news about themselves. However, there's a lot of people helping each other out too. If you join, you'll soon learn to RT ("retweet" - ie pass on other people's news as well as your own).

Example three

"Is coming onto a website and having a conversation so Web 1.0? On Twitter, noone can ever point out you're an idiot."

Wrong. This person thinks Twitter is just for signing in, leaving a note and signing out. D'oh.

Example four:

"Argh! Twitter. Twestival. And I hate the world a little bit more"

Not wrong, not right: This person doesn't claim to know what they are talking about and they doesn't want to know. This is just pure, unadulterated cynicism - which, admittedly, made me laugh.

This may sound like I'm a huge Twitter fan, defending it vehemently, but I only recently signed up myself. I'm still finding my feet and making up my mind on it. I agree that spending too much time online is not a good thing, and agree that one of the pictures on the Guardian site could be a still from Nathan Barley. However, I'm also discovering that dipping in and out can actually increase productivity and forge lots of real-life contacts. Ask a question there and get it answered instantly: no phone calls, no waiting for email responses. It's certainly a good professional tool and it can come in handy for travel too, as Benji Lanyado found out on his TwiTrip in Paris.

If you still don't get it, read this great introductory guide to Twitter from a New York Times tech writer who gradually came round to the idea.

However, there's only one way you'll really be able to "get it" and make up your mind. And that's by trying it.

Google Latitude takes local knowledge too far

2009-02-10T15:03:00.001Z

The other day I was having a bar-room chat about coincidental run-ins. I mean those times when you randomly bump into someone on the other side of the world, or someone you haven't seen for many years. I've had a fair few of these and they never fail to blow my mind.

"And for all the people that you do run into," I said to my drinking buddy, "imagine all those you just miss. If you'd been five minutes earlier, you would have walked straight into an old colleague. Or we could be sitting here in this bar and one of our long-lost university friends could be having a drink three doors down."

It seems that just as we got all dreamy eyed and lost in our own imaginations, along came Google. Again. Not content with having the world's web habits, email accounts, videos and world mapping sown up, now they've gone and bought up fate.

Google Latitude is a new application that you can download on to your mobile and track/stalk your friends, family and exes. If they opt in, their profile pics will appear all over your Google map (as above - although maybe not quite as goofy).

Google suggests advantages of using Latitude on the site, such as “only heading to a party when you see that several of your friends have arrived”. But what if everyone's doing it? Imagine a whole crowd of potential partygoers sitting at home looking at the iPhones all night, waiting to take someone else's lead.

Google Latitude is currently available in 27 countries, which could make it great for frequent travellers. In theory. However, I think I'd prefer to let people know my location as and when I want to - via Facebook, Twitter or Dopplr. Latitude is one networking trend I can probably resist.

What is 'authentic' travel?

2009-02-08T22:00:00.004Z

There's a new (beta) travel site on the block, TourDust.com. According to the blurb, "It's all about discovering and sharing authentic travel experiences offered by passionate locals." They've got some interesting trips up there so far: from wine-tasting in the UK to photographing bears in Alaska. (The latter is possibly my dream trip. Although at US$750 a day, I'd better start saving now.)

The one thing I'm unsure about is the over-reliance on the word "authentic", which is plastered across the site. They are asking people to post their "authentic travel experiences". What exactly does that mean? Is it the same as striving to see the "real side" of a country? I've never been comfortable with that phrase either.

The Gecko Villa, for example, is billed on the site as "The real Thailand!" It looks like a beautiful place to take a holiday. It's intimate, it's tasteful, it's got traditional elements to the design, it's in a rural area. But does this make it "the real Thailand"? At £125 a night, I'm not so sure.

But this isn't just about prices. It's more about the constraints of labels. In trying to pin it down the real Thailand/Egypt/Tanzania, you'll inevitably end up chasing myths.

At its heart, Tourdust has good intentions and I wish them luck. They support responsible travel and want to encourage travellers "to think twice about the impact of their holidays". They also believe in working directly with local guides and hosts so tourism money goes into the local economy. (See also LeapLocal.org.)

Ultimately, travel companies and tour sites have products to sell. "Real" and "authentic" do that job quite nicely. What's worse is seeing them overused in travel journalism. "So-and-so discovers the real Brazil on a favela tour in Rio." No, they don't. They discover a different side of Brazil.

All countries have multiple identities - not just a dichotomy of the "real" (typically used as a synonym for "poor", "unvisited", "authentic") and the "unreal" (ie "more affluent", "popular").

Of course, the good news is this means that your ways of experience a country are limitless. Just think of all those different sides within every country in the world...

Another godfather of Couchsurfing

2009-02-06T12:20:00.006Z

Ah, they're all coming out of the woodwork now. I've already mentioned Jim Haynes and MeetURPlanet founder Jeff Mitchell as forerunners to Couchsurfing.com. Now introducing ... Ramon Stoppelenburg, the Dutch founder of LetMeStayForADay.

Ramon travelled the world from May 2001 to July 2003. He did so without any money, relying on people who had agreed to host him through his website. His invite-me-over page led to 3,577 invitations from 72 countries.

Inspired by online schemes such as SendMeADollar and the RedPaperClipGuy, he gained sponsorship to help him travel the long distances, and hitchhiked the rest.

Read an extract from his book (translated from Dutch) on WorldHum.

Is Twitter useful for travel?

2009-02-04T14:00:00.008Z

Like many people, I didn't get Twitter at first. "Bit limited, isn't it?" I thought. "Why would I want to use that site to tell people what I'm doing or where I am. Might as well just update my status on Facebook."

Ah, poor misguided fool that I was.

But although it's proved its worth for following the exploits of celebs, like Twitter legend Stephen Fry, or reporting breaking news. Is it really any good for travellers?

The aspect that I totally overlooked about Twitter is the interactivity. It's not just about telling the world where you are or what you're doing; it's about their reactions. This is great news for travellers.

Imagine you're in an unfamiliar city, in a rather lame bar. Your guidebook only gives you options for places right across town. There's nothing obvious on the doorstep. What do you do?

A quick tweet from your mobile saying "Vicky is looking for a cool bar near so-and-so street." Next thing you know you have a reply from a friend who used to live there. "There's a great speakeasy with live music and cheap cocktails, two blocks down," they say and pass on an address. Bingo.

Guardian Travel has gone Twitter mad in the past week. First news of Benji Lanyado's Twitter Trip to Paris (where he'll be guided around the city by people's tweets), then they got Twitchhiker on board, a guy who plans to travel for 30 days relying solely on the hospitality and advice of the Twitter community.

Will Twitter Trips catch on? I can certainly see people gleaning advice from time to time, if not for every move.

I'd love to give it more of a trial myself, however my mobile phone is from the dark ages and can't even cope with sending a text back to the UK, let alone access the net. Best to follow Benji, who is in the middle of his Parisian jaunt right now.

Photo: Benji Lanyado arrives in Paris. (Reproduced with permission.)

From fridgesurfing to pottysurfing

2009-02-03T13:41:00.013Z

The couchsurfers and the cynics have been having virtual fisticuffs again. This time, they've been arguing the merits of travel networking in response to an article on MLive.com. I must admit the cynics make for a better read.

"Just what I want, someone I don't know staying at my home. Might as well pick up a hitchhiker and invite them home for dinner," says one of the commenters. "If anyone is interested, I am start a fridgesurfing site. I'm sure it will become all the rage."

It's shortly followed by this suggestion...

"I have what I think is a perfect business for possible cross-promotion. It's called PottySurfing. It's a network of kind, caring, progressive-minded households across the country who make their loo available to travelers in their time of bodily need. For the traveler it replaces the sometime frantic search, gas station, to grocery stores, to the bushes by the side of the road. For the homeowner, renter or squatter, it provides the opportunity to meet some really interesting people. You don't really get to know a community until you can say for certain if its an over the roll or under the roll town. Our company motto is ´You know where to go, when you got to go´."

Actually, it´s not far off the idea of WarmShowers - where cyclists open their homes to other cyclists who need to freshen up after a long ride.

Perhaps an enterprising soul should buy up the pottysurfing.com domain before it´s too late.

Thelma and Louise go home swapping

2009-02-02T14:20:00.013Z

Apparently, they cut a scene from 1990s road movie Thelma and Louise. Just before the fugitive pair took a drive over the canyon, the smarter one looks at her ditzy-but-lovable friend and says, "Darn it, Thelma, I know how to solve this mess we've got ourselves in to. If we wanted to escape our day-to-day lives, we could have just done a home swap."

It might not have made such a good movie and, from what I remember, they would have had trouble convincing anyone to swap with them. ("On offer: one bedroom in Redneckville. Abusive boyfriend included.") But it certainly could have provided the getaway they needed, and for very little outlay.

Ok, as you may have guessed, it's not really the movie heroines that have moved into home-swapping, but the women's travel networking site of the same name - thelmandlouise.com. (Founders Grace and Christine, pictured.)

One of the site's reps tells me: "We started offering the house swap service because we had received requests from members who were keen to share their homes with other members, however they weren't sure how to go about doing this. We thought swapping accommodation was a great idea, as it is a fun and cost-effective way of seeing another region of the country or the world."

Couchsurfing the movie

2009-01-30T13:30:00.005Z

Here it is: a promo by Couchsurfing founder Casey Fenton and sidekick to introduce 'Couchsurfing: the movie'.

Watch and learn, people. And prepare to cringe.

It's essentially a shout-out ahead of a documentary they're planning. They are looking for three Couchsurfers with "inspiring missions". Candidates are being asked to send in a short video message and, if Couchsurfing HQ likes what they see, they'll pick up the tab for your dream trip (or the production company they're teaming with, or one of their partners, will.)

Great opportunity, eh? Except they've made it sound like the most bog-standard travel comp in history. "My inspiring mission? I totally wanna go to the Amazon, and, like, meet local tribes and stuff."

Hopefully, the finished product will be a different story and have a very different style. Otherwise we could be in for two hours of "hilarious" (ahem) tongue-in-cheek comedy, followed by you-had-to-be-there outtakes.

It seems the site with details for video applications, csthemovie.com, is currently down.

Which makes me wonder is this sequence supposed to be on the internet at all, or has it leaked? Did they really want to show this to the world?

Secret suppers: where to dine with locals worldwide

2009-01-29T22:38:00.003Z

What could make you feel more at home when travelling than an invite to dine at someone's house? It sure beats a restaurant for making an experience relaxed and personal.

But how do you go about getting such invites? Is the only option to make unsubtle hints to people you've just met in a bar or metro queue? ("Mmm, I just love homecooking. Sigh, I sure miss it. If only I found someone who...").

Well, before you resort to such desperate measures, read on. There are plenty of people round the world willing to have you round for dinner. You just need to know where to find them.

Call them in-home restaurants, secret supper clubs, salon dinners, or whatever you wish: they've been going for years and the internet is making them easier to track down than ever.

Personally, I love the idea. I've tried two so far: Casa Saltshaker in Buenos Aires and Jim Hayne's Sunday Dinners in Paris (which I wrote about in the Guardian last Saturday). I've also visited La Cocina Discreta in Buenos Aires, although I have yet to put their food to the test.

The set-up varies from home to home. They might resemble an intimate restaurant, a dinner party, a buffet at an informal get-together, or an arts club with music and poetry. Typically there's a fee involve, but it's often reasonable.

So apart from a good feed, what do you get? A peak around a local house (within reason - noses out of the medicine cupboard), a sociable evening out (rather than just dining with your same old husband/wife/mate - yawn), the chance to hang with some locals (cue lots of insider tips for the rest of your stay), and maybe some new friends (further dinner invites if you're very lucky).

And the hosts? For them, it's a great way to meet people, share a passion for food/life/travel, and maybe even earn some extra cash. Tips on starting your own: here.

I've been doing some research and have uncovered lots great in-house restaurants around the world. I've also been corresponding with some of the people running them, who, by nature of what they do, are always interesting characters with stories to tell. I'm now longing to meet Jessica Buck who runs the arty Portland dinner club, D'Merde, which she describes as "a toast to the spirit of Parisian Salons in the early 1900". [Website seems to be down, but stay tuned.]

So, it was during the course of this research that I had a brainwave: "I know! I'll compile all the ones I've found into a handy blog. What a great resource!"

So, I ploughed on, finished it (below), and then came across a version by Dan Perlman of Casa Saltshaker that is far, far better and makes mine look rather pitiful. Bah. (Just kidding - everyone should check it out, and his ever-interesting blog.)

Anyway, here's my little list nonetheless. You never know there may be a few different ones on here. The London one is very new (a tip-off from my editor at the Guardian).

Paris, France, 1: jim-haynes.com (Sunday night)
Paris, France, 2: meetup.com/TalkTime (Saturday night)
Paris, France, 3: parissoirees.com (Sunday night)
London, UK: The Secret Ingredient
Dusseldorf, Germany: Sunday Dinner Parties
Portland, Oregon, US: dmerdesalon.com
Buenos Aires, 1: Casa Saltshaker
Buenos Aires, 2: La Cocina Discreta

Worldwide
dinewithlocals.com
Like-a-local.com

US
theghet.com

And here's a link of world's best dining clubs that various Aussie papers nicked from Travel+Leisure magazine via Reuters last month. Rather unhelpfully, they include no contact details whatsoever. I guess the reader is just expected to Google around until they find them.

Slumdogging it: will a movie boost India's 'slum tourism'?

2009-01-27T21:59:00.018Z

Will Oscar-tipped Slumdog Millionaire see a rush of tourists on Mumbai's shantytowns? That's what the Telegraph has predicted. It seems this could be the City-of-God-versus-the-favela-tour controversy all over again.

The subject was picked up today on Vagablogging. "I've never really understood how movies inspire people to travel," writes the author. Really? Big sweeping movie images of a foreign land just don't do it for you?

A Vagablogging reader adds: "It’s easy to judge a 'poverty tour' without actually experiencing one but ironically slum tours can be very educational and may be the very way to start change."

I'm not sure about the irony, but other than that, I agree. I've touched on this subject before with Harlem "ghetto" tours and I'm sure I will again.

Tourists here in Buenos Aires could confine their entire visit to the trendy neighbourhood of Palermo and think Argentina is the land of milk and honey (with lattes, wine and steak thrown in too). Many will never see the shanty towns here, which unlike Brazil, are kept more hidden away.

I visited one - the notorious Villa 31 - on a previous stay, not on a tour but with a friend. She was a local headmistress, who was looking to set up a teaching programme there and get some volunteers from overseas to help out. I can't see that this is a bad thing. I'm meeting up with her again in the next couple of weeks and will report back on how she got on...

Going local in Paris, part 2

2009-01-24T07:00:00.000Z

Published in today's Guardian: an account of my meeting with the so-called godfather of travel-networking, Jim Haynes.

Every Sunday since the mid-70s, Jim has opened his Paris apartment for any traveller that cares to join him for dinner. An estimated 120,000 have done it so far.

I think I am slightly in love with Jim Haynes and here's betting that, if you take up his invite, you will be too.

To get your name on the list, just go to his website, jim-haynes.com.

Save money: rent your room to travellers

2009-01-22T16:43:00.005Z

"Get a lodger to help pay your mortgage," advised the Times at the weekend. It seems they've caught on to sites, such as Crashpadder and Airbed&breakfast, which allow users to rent out spare rooms and turn their place into a temporary B&B. They're peer-to-peer accommodation networks, like Couchsurfing.com, but with the added twist of allowing cash to exchange hands and profits to be made.

Although I've had my reservations about such sites in the past, they certainly have potential. I think we could be looking at the next big thing here and we're sure to see more start-ups in the near future.

This week, I came across another one, roomft.com, which runs under a motto of "rent your room to the world". Although it's new to me, it has been operating since 2007 and it looks like a good place for new hosts to start.

Until now, one of my concerns about these sites is they allow hosts to charge anything they want for their room and offer no pricing structure whatsoever. So, one thing I like about Roomft is its "value your room" function, which allows users to complete a very short survey about what they are offering and, as a result, suggests would be a reasonable per-night price. At least this adds some sort of scale to the process and gets hosts to think more realistically about what people need when travelling. Room size, location, transport links, internet facilities and local amenities should all be taken into account.

RoomFt.com charges the host a small booking fee, but doesn't take commission on the room price. By contrast, Airbed&Breakfast allows hosts to set any price they want, up to $3,000, with no guidance, other than pointing out the average charge is $90. The site also then takes 5-12% commission - meaning if you get overcharged, they still profit.

So, if you really are looking to boost your income through renting a spare room, RoomFt could be the most economical option. As part of a sign-up incentive, they are also giving every new host three free bookings. This means that hosts can rent out their rooms to travellers three times, at no charge whatsoever.

And, even when that booking fee does kick in, it's unlikely to break the bank. The site says the fee costs "one credit", which is "equivalent to £1 UK, $2 US dollars, €1.50 euro or 250 Yen". That seems highly reasonable, especially if these rates still stands for travelling Brits, for whom last year's £1 = $2 rate now seems like a distant memory.

Pictured: A special edition cereal made by Airbed&Breakfast and available through their site for $39 a box.

NYC: When Couchsurfing goes wrong

2009-01-18T15:55:00.014Z

Check out the Irish Times online for an article about the potential downsides of Couchsurfing. Their writer certainly didn't get a very warm reception from his NYC hosts, a couple who seemed to be in the midst of their own relationship meltdown.

I empathise with the writer although I do think there are some lessons to be learnt on both sides here. Here are some tips for all couchsurfers to keep in mind.

1. Do not presume you will always get a front door key to your host's home. In London, I don't offer guests a key. This is because I have housemates and, even if I deem a person trustworthy, I don't feel it is up to me to make that decision on their behalf too. However, I do make this clear on my profile and it was certainly bad form of these NYC hosts to wait until the morning to tell their guests that they expect them to vacate the building when they go to work.

2. Select your host wisely. If you're on a short city break, where your host can make or break your whole experience, it pays to do a bit more research than you would if you were on a schedule-free round-the-world trip, where you can change plans and move on the next day if necessary. Exchange a few emails with your host in advance to build up an idea of the sort of reception you might get on arrival.

3. I imagine the Irish Times writer would have been a lot more tolerant if his hosts hadn't been so frosty, however, you can't complain if a New York City apartment is cramped. It probably feels the same for your hosts too, and yet they've agreed to share it with you.

4. If it's that bad, move on. Granted, that's not so easy in New York, where hotel rooms and couches are in high demand. However, if it's got to the point where you are "escaping" your hosts and dread even thinking about them, then spending a few minutes to send a couple of mails to some alternative hosts is surely worth a try. The hugely active NYC forum has a sub-group for last-min couch requests.

5. Finally, and most importantly: the golden rule. Couchsurfing always works better if you socialise with your hosts and don't just use it as a place to crash.

Home swaps: a beginner's guide

2009-01-17T22:47:00.007Z

When staying in a hostel or hostel, no matter how you spend your days, you can't escape feeling like a tourist. That's why, this week, I forced myself to move on from the best hostel in Buenos Aires (more on that at a later date) and into houseshare. It's a temporary arrangement with a couple of expats, so hardly complete local immersion, but it still feels good and I confess to getting a little buzz when walking down "my" street with door keys in hand.

Another good way to get this "at home" feeling when travelling is to try a home swap. If you've never tried it, today's Independent carries a full beginners' guide.

According to the article, the UK's biggest home-swap company, Home Link, expects to organise more than 13,000 exchanges in 2009. Vietnam, Senegal, Oman and the Reunion Islands are among the destinations on their books.

Tempted? "Get to work now," says the Indy. "The busiest time of the year for UK swappers to set up trips is between January and March."

Down with the prisoners in La Paz

2009-01-17T15:24:00.002Z

Bolivia's San Pedro Prison is back in business. In the tourist business, that is. It’s never really been out of every other sort of business. Behind the heavy concrete exterior, it operates its own real-estate trade, cocaine factory, and, allegedly, does a good line in counterfeit banknotes. It's such practices that lead it to become subject of a cult book, a forthcoming film from Brad Pitt’s production company and, according to Lonely Planet, “the world’s most bizarre tourist attraction”.

There’s certainly no prison like it. The inmates here are expected to make a living just as they do in the outside world. The more enterprising might practice a trade or become proprietors of internal restaurants (complete with Coca Cola sponsorship), while all are expected to pay for their accommodation. Whole families live inside, with prisoners’ wives and children being able to come and go. And, even more bizarrely, every backpacker in town wants in.

Getting a tour of San Pedro Prison in central La Paz became a cult backpacker attraction a few years ago. However, safety concerns circa 2003 caused a complete crackdown and, until recently, only those willing to masquerade as a foreign prisoner's long-lost relative could get through the iron gates.

At the end of last year, that changed. The tours are back and gaining entry is now easier than ever. I wrote about my recent visit in today's Guardian.

Now, a typical day in San Pedro sees the place is swarming with backpackers. I joined about a tour with about eight 20-to-30-somethings: English, Irish and a couple of Scandinavians. Within a few minutes we crossed paths with another similarly sized group, one terrified member clutching his Bolivia guidebook to his chest as if it might double as a shield.

I've done prison tours before - most recently in French Guiana, where Papillion was once held - but these places have been long out of action. San Pedro, by contrast, is very much a working prison - a place of corruption, violence and extreme poverty.

Is prison tourism a step too far in local tourism? I've tried to cover the pros, the cons and the ethical dilemmas in my article to let people draw their own conclusions. There were certainly times when it felt voyeuristic and uncomfortable. But, then again, I don't believe travel experiences always have to be sugar-coated. We should be learning about all sides of life in the places we visit.

Bolivia has lots of slightly dubious tourist attractions. Another involves going to see the mines of Potosi, which have almost medieval working conditions, child labour and appalling health-and-safety. And yet, for exactly these reasons, it can provide a quick thrill for tourists, who can spend a couple of hours ducking in and out of the claustrophobic shafts. I couldn't bring myself to do this one.

The most important thing, however, is that all these situations are approached sensitively and with respect. The danger, when they start herding tourists in and out as they are doing (up to 50 entering a day), is that it becomes just another "must do" and there is far less personal impact.

As for visiting prisons, here's some parting advice from Prisoners Abroad:

"We get quite a few requests from the public asking us about prison visiting, generally if they are going on business, or on holiday (including round the world trips). We don't arrange visits ourselves but tell people to get in touch with the British Consul in the country direct. We also run a pen pal scheme for people wishing to write to a prisoner which is a vital lifeline to the outside world. There is more information on volunteering on our website." www.prisonersabroad.org.uk

Some local blogs for the weekend

2009-01-16T19:19:00.014Z

Desert island blogs: now that's a sign of the times. Following the premise of the long-running Radio 4 show Desert Island Discs - where a guest is asked to pick songs they'd want to have with them if stranded from civilisation - Cool Travel Guide has turned to the blogsphere and selected the travel blogs they'd continue to follow if island-bound. Author Lara Dunston admits that electricity and wifi might prove a problem - and email access means you probably wouldn't be stranded long - but let's just go with it. Especially as Going Local made the list and wants to enjoy the moment. Being deemed one of "coolest travel blogs on the web" by Cool Travel Guide is cool indeed.

What would make my own blog list for a desert island? Of course, Lara's would be up there for me: lots of great tips, inspiring stories and yet never overlooking the difficulties of life on the road. It's also the site I recommend to those trying to break into travel writing as Lara has covered this extensively.

But what else? Here's my pick of the best local-travel blogs on the web:

Home Exchange Travels Everything you need to know about house exchanges from a New-York-based blogger with countless swapping experiences behind her.

Gridskipper Expert, insider knowledge on a range of world capitals. Always on the button and ultra quirky.

Couchsurfing the world - An online travel journal from DJ Ajam, from Bolton, who is aiming to couchsurf his way around every country on the planet.

Open Couchsurfing The behind-the-scenes blog for those interested in how Couchsurfing really works.

Make Travel Fair Newly relaunched, it's cleaner, sharper and more informative than ever. You can catch some Going Local content on their from time to time too.

And what about all the local destination blogs? The possibilities are endless. Here in Buenos Aires, you can't beat Saltshaker for foodie tips. And, back home in London, much respect goes out to the London Review of Breakfasts, who's author never tires of his quest to find the city's best places for starting the day.

However, when I think about it, would a really want to read about a good fry-up and a perfectly brewed cuppa on a desert island? Maybe I should reconsider ...

[Photo of the Indian island of Lakshadweep. Taken by Lenish Namath and posted on WikiImages. It's not actually deserted, so does offer internet access if you're a blog addict.]

*Postscript 17/01/09: Vote for your favourite travel blogs in the Lonely Planet Travel Blog Awards.

Stepping out of cyber travel and into reality

2009-01-15T12:52:00.004Z

"Apaga la tele. Vive tu vida." Turn off the TV. Live your life.

I saw this piece of street art in Valparaíso, Chile last month. Good advice, wouldn't you say? However, seeing as I rarely watch TV, turning off my laptop might be a better resolution for me.

Like many people, I spend a lot of time in front of my computer for my work. Consequently, the last thing I want to do is socialise online too. I have zero interest in virtual travel on sites such as Second Life.

Nonetheless, I am all for using the internet as a social stepping stone. That's why I like travel networking. Although you meet the people online, these virtual meets are soon transferred into real, life-enhancing experiences.

Map-based social network Platial.com is the latest to encourage its members to get out more. In 2007, the site launched as an online community featuring worldwide maps where members pinpoint local attractions, sites, happenings, or just about anything they want. However, in a new twist, they've now launched the "Local Guides" subdivision, which highlights specially selected members who are willing to meet with others in person and show them around.

Here's how they describe it:

Local Guides are informal ambassadors volunteering to represent their unique parts of the world. They offer a unique perspective beyond traditional travel writers and editors, they are real locals offering up first-hand gems of information about their homes. They are eager to share and to connect.

Sounds good. So far the site has handpicked guides in Taipei, LA, Orange County, Malaysia and Chennai. More to come. Read more about it on Make Travel Fair.

Hostels vs hotels vs couchsurfing: part 2

2009-01-14T12:00:00.003Z

What do today's budget travellers prefer: a hostel, a hotel or a couch? It seems the debate that I touched on a couple of weeks ago has been continuing over at Vagablogging, the blog of high-profile travel writer, Rolf Potts. The post - "Hostels go upscale as budget travelers discover couchsurfing" - refers to HostelWorld.com's announcement that hostel bookings by North Americans increased 20% in 2008. The site puts this down to hostels going upmarket and no longer being the last resort for just the skintest of travellers.

Now as hostels install pools and bypass the bunks for more single rooms, prices are inevitably being pushed up. Could they be pricing out their original market? With iPods and laptops now part of the typical checklist, backpacking is certainly not the frugal experience it once was. Last April, the YHA opened London Central (pictured), a £4m hostel offering wifi, pop art and organic cider. Although, from £12 a night, it's certainly not badly priced by London standards.

Vagablogging is predicting more budget travellers will switch to couchsurfing for a more affordable way to travel in these lean times. I think we'll also see people searching for cheap alternatives on the likes of Airbed&breakfast, Crashpadder and LeapLocal.

Budget travellers should be rejoicing. Not that long ago there were no such facilities tailored to their needs. Now we have choices.

Couchsurfing with a family is child's play

2009-01-13T18:41:00.002Z

"Couchsurfing: not just for students and hippies." This could have been a slogan for my travel-networking experiment last year. One of my main aims was to show people that the concept offers something for everyone. As long as the attitude is right, there is no such thing as being the wrong age, the wrong economic group or the wrong marital status.

I was particularly keen to show that having kids doesn't prevent you from getting involved and, rather than expecting readers to take my word for it, I set about finding someone who could talk from experience. I can't remember how I first came across Leigh - I think it was just from searching the Couchsurfing.com's families group - however we started corresponding via email while she was living in Panama. She shared some stories about couchsurfing with her husband and four-year-old daughter, Lila; and I, in turn, shared these with Guardian readers at the end of one of my columns.

To be honest, I've been sharing them ever since. Every time someone tells me they love the idea of couchsurfing but it's not an option now they have children, I use Leigh's story as an example of why it's never out of the question. I love the way that Leigh - a writer who's originally from New York - uses the site not just to stay with other families, but sometimes to simply find another family to go to the beach with. What a great idea. Mum and Dad get some interesting new company; Lila gets local playmate.

Why am I bringing this story up again now? Last week I clicked on a post on Couchsurfing.com's Buenos Aires forum and found someone was suggesting a meet-up for any writers in town. It was Leigh. She'd moved on from Panama and was spending some time in Argentina, where I'm now based. I wasted no time dropping her a line and we soon arranged to meet for a mid-morning coffee at little place I know in Barrio Norte - Clásica y Moderna. It has a bookshop at the back, a live pianist, and some very strong coffee that had us jabbering for hours.

Leigh turned out to be just as inspiring in the flesh. It was great to hear more about her couchsurfing experiences, such as when they stayed with a single dad in Belgium. "It soon felt like we were visiting family of our own. It was wonderful," she recalls. She also says she gets a very good response rate from hosts because she takes time to select them and gives lots of detail about who they are and what they are looking for. She says that's one difference about couchsurfing with kids: there are lots more questions to ask in advance.

Lila is one luckly girl to be having all these great experiences at such a young age. I also love the way Leigh is encouraging her to document her travels along the way: Lila gets control of the family camera and Leigh posts the pictures on her blog, thefutureisred. You can browse her online gallery, including this self-portrait above, under the heading "What Lila sees".

What another great idea for helping kids get the most out of travelling. I can't wait to see how Lila portrays the family's impending move to Salta in Argentina's far north.

Facebook: Delete 10 friends, get a free Whopper

2009-01-11T14:33:00.012Z

Fast-food chain Burger King has created "Whopper Sacrifice", a Facebook application that will give you a coupon for a free hamburger if you delete 10 people from your friends list.

Is social networking getting nasty? Or just moving with the times? As people's "friends" lists move into quadruple figures, an occasional friends cull could soon be common practice. On Friday, I met a hostel owner here in Buenos Aires who claims to have 2,000 "friends". "I'd say I actually know about 1,000 of them," he said. The rest are just people - or, in some cases, places, events or attractions - he has said 'yes' to without a second thought.

Personally I draw the line at adding places or events, as I have no desire to be bombarded with marketing messages. However, I do have a couple of people on my friends list that I talked to for a few minutes in a hostel. "Are you on Facebook?" is now just as common a question as "Where are you from?".

Admittedly, the site is a great resource when travelling, especially for helping you keep in touch with everyone back home and the people you meet on the road. Having been in my current hostel for nearly a month, I've got to know some of the other guests well. These are people I'd like to stay in contact with and catch up with again if our travel itineraries cross. Without Facebook, it's hard to remember every other backpacker's plans: who will be back in Buenos Aires later in the year, who you've tentatively arranged to meet in Uruguay in late summer etc etc.

However, some travellers are going even further and using the site to help make their plans. I've recently come across two Buenos-Aires-themed Facebook groups: one for people looking for a housemate and another for people who were in the city for Christmas and New Year. For this sort of thing, I'd say there are better places to look than Facebook (such as Couchsurfing forums or Craigslist), but it looks as though the site is becoming a one-stop shop for many users.

I'm sure I have some Facebook friends who would neither notice or be offended if I sacrificed them for a Whopper. Although in my case, unless veggie version is an option, I'm more likely to be the sacrificed one.

Then again, looking at the above picture - a Japanese Terriaki Whopper taken from Wiki Images - is it really worth the effort?

The hottest barrio in Buenos Aires

2009-01-10T18:14:00.000Z

Want to know the hottest barrio in Buenos Aires right now? Start by looking beyond Palermo, which reached its boiling point so long ago that its soul is now danger of evaporating. Head instead to Villa Crespo, which is just starting to simmer.

It's not a place where you'll find rows of hip bars and nightclubs, but you'll be in your element if you are the sort of tourist who is happy to leave the guidebook alone, wander aimlessly, and enjoy soaking up local life. Here you're likely to encounter residents having a makeshift asado (BBQ) on the pavement, admire antique furniture in ramshackled street-side shops, or catch a glimpse through a window into one of the local artists' studios.

On my last three visits to the city, this barrio has been my favourite place to wander. It still has the cobbled streets and low-rise houses that you find in Palermo, but it's much more "tranquilo", as they say here. I love the way hip bars, like Ocho7Ocho (878 Thames, pictured), rub shoulders with some of the most old-school joints in town, like the delightful 1930s icecream parlour, Scannapieco (Córdoba 4826).

I tipped Villa Crespo as the place to be in Buenos Aires in last Saturday's Guardian Travel. You don't have to be a local to be down with the local knowledge, but you do need to look beyond the obvious. How did I find the places I tipped in the Guardian? Aside from spending many an hour pounding the cobbles, I simply asked those in the know.

One afternoon, I had a particularly good brainstorming session round the kitchen table at La Cocina Discreta. Run by Alejandro and Rosana, this is one of the city's newest in-home restaurants. The pair gave me lots of good pointers - including alerting me to their friend, Shoni Shed, who hosts blindfolded gigs in his house (see the article for details).

In the end, I was spoilt for choice. Here are some of the other local finds that I couldn't fit in the article:

Carlitos (Scalabrini Ortiz, 701) - This popular pancake house has hundreds of options that are filling and cheap (10 - 15 pesos). To make things a little more interested, the best combos are named after famous people. Try a Chaplin (roquefort, onion, ham); a Pablo Neruda (cheese, tomato and oregano); or even a rather odd homage to the inventor of Viagra (cream cheese, roquefort, celery, green olives). Open from midday until 1am. 3am on Friday, Saturday, Sunday.

Thymus (Lerma 525)
Stylish restaurant in a converted home on a sweet residential street just behind Corrientes. It's run by a sculptor and famed for its multi-course tasting menu. Evenings only, Mon - Sat. Book ahead on 4772 1936.

La Perla (Canning y Triunvirato)
Classic bakery and a Villa Crespo institution. Stop by for facturas (little pastries to be enjoyed with coffee or mate). I haven't had chance to check it out myself yet, but it is highly recommended by La Cocina Discreta and they haven't been wrong yet.

Couchsurfers coming up from the underground

2009-01-08T12:18:00.001Z

Is it me? It the time of year? Or are there really more couchsurfers than ever in Argentina?

When I was on my Going Local trip last year - meeting locals while staying in a mix of hostels and homestays - the times I crossed paths with other travelling couchsurfers were rare. Occasionally we'd meet when staying with a particularly active host, who organised multiple meet-ups, but, generally, it seemed like a behind-the-scenes community, going on quite apart from the hostel scene.

However, since arriving in Argentina, every other traveller seems to be a couchsurfer, or part-time couchsurfer. I met at least four while staying in a hostel in Cordoba - all had failed to get a host because the student city was in the middle of exam period. Then, in Buenos Aires, I soon met another three: one in a bar, one in my hostel and one friend-of-a-friend, who used Couchsurfing.com's BA forum board to find his houseshare - with a fabulous terrace where I ended up seeing in the new year (pictured).

Argentina is certainly a good place for a Couchsurfer to be. Aside from the obvious attractions (the steak, the wine, the culture, the diversity of landscape), it is also within the top 25 Couchsurfing countries (with nearly 9,000 members), while Buenos Aires is in the top 20 cities.

The BA Couchsurfing forum is quite simply fantastic for any new arrival in the city and yet, refreshingly, it is not just the domain of expats. Most of the regular users are Argentinean and seem to have limitless enthusiasm for new arrivals in their capital. On NYE they posted a hugely helpful list of suggestions of what to do in the city, including open invites for house parties and a camping gathering on the delta. Today I noticed a post from a Canadian newcomer asking how safe BA is for cyclists. Within no time, she received a string of helpful responses, including an offer of a personal bike tour.

I met a lot of these great people back in July and now I'm going to be staying in Buenos Aires for the foreseeable future I must admit that knowing about this forum has really taken the edge of any fear about not meeting people or getting homesick. I've already joined them for their regular Monday outing to an incredible percussion night called La Bomba del Tiempo and am sure this was the first of many for me.

However, here's hoping the balance is kept. Everyone that utilises the goodwill of such forumites should be willing to give something back to the community to keep it going and not just pop in to use it as some sort of nuevo Craigslist. I'm hoping that once I am more settled I can help out some newcomers to the city and, in one way or another, some locals too. My first mission: to find a way to get some specialist books from the UK over to a friend I met via HospitalityClub.org. I've had no shortage of folks back home expressing a desire to visit, so hopefully it won't take long.

Things get tricky for Fiiki

2009-01-07T22:00:00.001Z

With so many travel-networking sites out there now, wouldn't it be easier if a single site pooled all the accommodation options into one, easy-to-view list? Need a bed somewhere? Just look for your destination on their drop-down menu and, bingo, every host listed on every hospitality site on the web suddenly appears before your eyes. This is exactly what the folk behind Fiiki.com had planned. Unfortunately for them, the travel-networking community wasn't quite so keen.

The aim of Fiiki's portal was to collate information from around 10 different hospitality sites, including Couchsurfing.com, HospitalityClub.org and BeWelcome.org.
The trouble was Fiiki seemed to have ignored members' privacy settings and thus opened up all manner of online copyright issues.

The forums of Couchsurfing.com are now awash with suggestions that the site's creator must have signed up as a member, then proceeded to copy info without permission. Predictably, members are unimpressed. Hospitality sites work by creating a network of trust; if any non-members can find you through Fiiki, it defeats the object.

Fiiki also seriously underestimated the loyalty people have to their travel-networking site of choice. The more you use these sites, the more you realise each has a very different personality. While a member of BeWelcome.org might welcome likeminded fellow members, they may not be so keen to open up to members of Globalfreeloaders.com.

What erks members even more is the way Fiiki has misrepresented their details. For example, if someone types in New York, a snapshot of a Couchsurfing profile might appear reading: "Contact Belinda, 27, from Brooklyn, for a 100% chance of being hosted". This is totally inaccurate. The % figure displayed on all Couchsurfing.com profiles refers to the response rate to messages. Belinda may be polite enough to respond to 100% of messages, but this does not mean she ALWAYS hosts EVERYONE.

The Fiiki crew also showed their ignorance by including sites such as UK-only StayDon'tPay.net. If they had done their research they would know the site is currently down and works on a very different, token-based system. You can't simply sign up, drop someone an email and turn up on a doorstep.

Couchsurfing.com general manager Matthew Brauer has addressed members' concerns on the site's message boards: "I just wanted to let everyone know that CouchSurfing has not endorsed or approved the content on Fiiki.com. [...] CouchSurfing does have the right to request the removal of member profile information from the Fiiki website, including information from profiles that are set to viewable by non-members. Our legal team is currently looking into it."

Looks like the legal team have made some progress as Fiiki is now out of action. The homepage reads simply: "Due to legal issues we're currently unable to offer our services. Please come back later". Before it went down, I emailed them via their contact us page to ask for more information on the official launch they'd said was "coming soon". So far, no comment. I'm guessing they've got some homework to do first.

Hostels vs hotels vs couchsurfing

2008-12-29T17:47:00.006Z

We Don't Speak The Language is a series of video travel blogs "for the young and the broke". It's the work of Sean Blanda and Chris Wink, freelance journalists from Philadelphia, who recently completed a three-month trip around Europe. Unfortunately, the series has come to end now the guys are back home, but check out this episode below, offering lots of good tips in the pros and cons of backpacking accommodation options: hostels, hotels and couchsurfing.

It's a two-parter and the couchsurfing tips follow in the second video. They're spot on about making couchsurfing requests personal to increase your chances of finding a suitable and willing host. Cut-and-paste efforts are instantly recognisable, expose you as having made no effort to read the person's profile and are not likely to elicit a response. Watch on for more advice...

Part one: hostels

Part two: hotels and couchsurfing

Local travel: future trends

2008-12-28T21:39:00.014Z

Geographical magazine coined all sorts of new buzzwords for their December “future of tourism” issue. Most include the prefix “geo” as a subtle reminder of where you heard it first.

First up is the “geotourist”. According to the term’s inventor, Jonathan Tourtellot of National Geographic Traveler, this is someone who “gets off a cruise ship and discovers an interesting town, then decides to come back and explore it another time”.

Tourists who like places and aren’t satisfied with a couple of hours docking in a cruise port? This didn’t strike me as anything new, but, reading on, the underlying point gets more interesting.

Geotourists are those who look beyond just ticking places off a list and want to build connections with the destinations and their people. Their aim is to "sustain or enhance the geographical character of a place: the environment, heritage, aesthetics, culture and well-being of its residents”.

Sustainable, or conscious, tourism may not be a brand new concept, but here's hoping Geographical are right and it will continue to spread. After all, something's got to give. Tourtellot points out there could be seven billion tourists rooming our planet in next decade and “if four billion people decide to see the Mona Lisa, it would take 309 years, even with groups of 25 viewing it for one minute, 24 hours a day”.

So what else does the future hold? According to Geographical, travel by 2020 will also be “geo-local”. Basically, this means holidaymakers will travel closer to home. "We'll begin to travel more within our own countries and continents, and less frequently beyond them. A British family might head to Cornwall to stay in a locally run Cornish cottage, shop for Cornish crafts and enjoy a cream tea.”

Perhaps. Although, as the economic crisis takes hold, I’d say people aren’t going to wait until 2020 until they start holidaying closer to home.

So, it's buzzword number three that is arguably the most innovative of the lot: hyper-local sourcing. "By 2020, we'll also see the majority of hotels getting their produce, employees, materials, services and the like from sources within their immediate vicinity," they say. They also predict a new type of hotel - 'the ten-kilometre hotel' - for which all food and materials will have been sourced from within a ten-kilometre radius. Hotels will offer energy and water for guests on a metered system, and there will be discounts for visitors who keep their consumption below average.

For me, "geotourism" and "geo local" travel are already in full swing, but I'll be interested to see if the "hyper local" prediction comes true. I can see the potential. My first, and only, such experience was when received a discount for arriving by public transport at a tree-climbing centre on the Isle of Wight.

The hotel or excursion bill of the future (ResponsibleTravel.com's mock-up is pictured), which offers discounts rather than just piling on unexpected extras would certainly make a welcome change.

Local tips on trekking in Peru

2008-12-17T20:55:00.014Z

Picture the scene: you’re high in the Peruvian Andes. It’s 5,000 metres above sea level, the air is thin, and you’re doing your best to keep altitude sickness at bay. You’re surrounded by snow-capped mountains and the rain is relentless.

This is when you happen upon a teary eyed backpacker, who has been separated from the rest of her group. She’s wearing cotton trousers, two T-shirts and a jacket that isn’t waterproof. She’s so cold that she’s verging on hypothermia and she’s even started to hallucinate.

This is what my group came across a few weeks ago on the week-long Salkantay trek through Peru’s sacred valley.

Fortunately, we were able to take her to a nearby lodge, where we dried her off the best we could, and gave her some hot food and dry clothes. Finally, her exceedingly casual guide showed up, accompanied by her shivering friend, who was similarly under-prepared with plastic bags on her feet to combat leaking boots.

This article isn’t meant to scare people out of trekking in Peru. The point is just because so many people are doing it (up to 500 people a day embark on the famed Inca Trail), it doesn’t make it a walk in the park. Altitude and weather conditions can make it tough, so preparation is essential.

I’ve been speaking to the experts (namely Jose from LeapLocal.org, Dameiro from Mountain Lodges of Peru and Jose at Cuscoguides.com) and getting their tips on what people should know before starting their big Peruvian trek.

If you’ve been trekking in Peru, feel free to add your own.

To combat altitude sickness
Keep hydrated by drinking lots and lots of water.
Don’t drink alcohol or caffeine.
Do drink coca tea - locals swear by it.
Go to bed early, as your sleep will be interrupted at high altitude.

What to pack
Decent trekking boots (fully broken in and making sure toes don’t touch the end)
Sock liners to go inside trekking socks to prevent blister-inducing friction (available from outdoor shops, or ordinary thin socks should do)
Blister plasters
Insect repellent
Gloves
A warm hat
A sunhat/cap
Longsleeved T-shirt (to protect against insects/sunburn)
Waterproof jacket and trousers
Non-cotton trekking clothes (they dry faster)
Sleeping bag suitable for the season (or you can often hire one)
Consider taking or hiring walking poles, which, according to Cusco Guides, "reduce up to 30% off your legs' effort and also give more confidence when you walk downhill".

Remember
Book ahead if you want to do the Inka Trail (at least six weeks). The trail is closed in February, which is the height of the rainy season. It’s not all about the Inka Trail though. Consider taking an alternative and less busy route. The Salkantay - which traverses nine bio zones and gives an unusual, distant view of Machu Picchu - is highly recommended.

Going local with the lingo

2008-12-11T21:00:00.005Z

I've just spent a week in Santiago, living with a friend of mine, hanging out with her mates and generally getting a feel for Chilean life. People would pay a lot of money for that sort of language immersion. But for me, it was free. Xili was a contact from Couchsurfing.com.

Xili (pictured far right) and I met earlier in the year when was visiting her hometown, Panama City. She had listed herself on Couchsurfing as willing to show travellers around town and her profile carried an abundance of glowing references. We ended up spending the best part of two weeks together and got along so well that we vowed to meet up again in Santiago, where she was heading to study.

Our reunion was a testament to how travel-networking can accelerate language learning. The first time we met, back in March, we spoke almost entirely in English. This time, the tables had turned. I'd been travelling across South America pretty much ever since, hanging out with locals, and generally doing my best to get off the standard Gringo trail. All the while, my confidence and vocab have been growing.

For the past week, we have conversed entirely in Spanish, which is hugely exciting progress for me. This doesn't mean Xili's English isn't still far superior to my faltering efforts in her language. For example, I still have a tendency to speak in uncertain, approval-seeking questions when using the past tense - ie "I saw? the film", "I had? lunch already". However, ever-patient, she gave nods of encouragement where appropriate and ensured I retained confidence not to give up.

What I love most about learning Spanish in Latin America is that people are delighted when you have a go and are ultra patient, even when you make a mess of it. I remember it being rather different when I lived in France, where I'd often get "Quoi?" barked back at me, accompanied by a semi-disgusted wrinkling of the nose. I'm a big fan of French people, but it was tough at times and it took much longer to feel comfortable communicating. Although, the fact that I was a self-conscious 18-year-old may have been a factor too.

Spending the best part of this year hanging out - and, in some cases, living - with locals has worked wonders for my Spanish. It goes without saying that it's far better than learning it from a book or even in classroom setting - where, as soon as you get into the "real world", you often seize up. Or at least I do. When I first arrived in France - after seven years of lessons - I may have been able to discuss the films of François Truffaut but I didn't have a clue how to say "You're welcome".

I'd highly recommend travel-networking sites to keen linguists as a way to learn how a language is used on a real, day-to-day basis. Couchsurfing.com, for example, clearly shows you which languages members speak and many specifically use it to get extra practice with native speakers. So, you might find yourself in Milan, speaking Italian with your host over your morning cappuccino and then switching to English when you take an impromptu shopping tour.

My only criticism is that Couchsurfing.com insists on dividing competence levels into just three categories: beginner, intermediate, or expert. I'd argue there's a big leap between the upper two levels. Could they not slot "fluent" in between? Fluent is a much better description for those who can communicate effectively, but would never claim perfection.

There are a range of travel-networking sites you can use to meet local hosts. Or, if you're rooted to the spot, why not have people come to you? When in London, my Couchsurfing profile specifically states that "patient French and Spanish speakers are particularly welcome". Alternatively, if you're feeling particularly shy, you can do it all via your computer with sites such as MyLanguageExchange.com, VoxSwap.com and Babbel.com (incorporating what was Friends Abroad). Many of these also offer "voice chat", providing invaluable conversation practice.

You could also meet with a group of other enthusiasts through MeetUp.com. (Michael Muszlak runs a great Anglo-Franco get-together in Paris every Saturday night.) Or you could try a skill exchange via community sites such as Gumtree.com. Last year, Luz Marina became my Spanish teacher in London, thanks to Gumtree; this year, I visited her in her native Bogota.

Recently, in a gringo-friendly cafe in Sucre, Bolivia, I saw a good-old fashioned noticeboard request. "Looking for someone to practice English with. Nothing weird. I'm just planning to move to the US." My Couchsurfing contact in the town, Laura, noticed it too. "I used to do that," she said. "Until I discovered Couchsurfing."

I think I might try the old-fashioned note in a cafe when I get to Buenos Aires, or I'll revisit the local Couchsurfing group. I'm also hoping Xili will come and visit me while I'm there. That way I can finally return some of her hugely appreciated hospitality.

Paris Hilton is not your friend

2008-12-08T19:32:00.003Z

What happens to members of elite travel-networking site ASmallWorld.net that break the strict rules of conduct? Those, for example, who after gaining much sought-after membership simply can't restrain themselves from sending a wishful friend request to the site's celebrity contingency, such as Paris Hilton or Naomi Campbell?

Immediate expulsion followed by profile deletion was the worst I imagined. But no, it's much more humiliating than that.

ASW wrong-doers get relegated to a purgatory otherwise know as A Big World. Next time they log in, they find the normally blue welcome screen has turned a shameful green, access to the forums and other profiles is denied, and all they can read are the "what did I do wrong?" lamentations from other ejectees.

An old article from Wired details an anecdote from one reluctant Big World member: a 20-something from Geneva called Talal bin Laden, who admits he's "distantly, distantly related to that guy no one likes".

"One guy posted some anti-Arab racist slurs, and I responded with a polite deconstruction of why I felt that was inappropriate," says bin Laden. "For that, I was evicted to hell."

Tourists in Japan must dance to a different tuna

2008-12-04T17:01:00.013Z

It was Tokyo's ultimate local travel experience: get up early and head to the world's biggest fish market, Tsukiji. See the giant tuna roll in, catch the auction action, and try some of the freshest sushi in town. It was a everyday life that few tourists had seen before. Until, that is, everyone caught on to the idea...

When 200 and 300 people started packing into the auction area, it became too much. Earlier this year authorities called for tourists to show voluntary restraint and stay away, but, of course, that was never going to work. So now the ban is complete. For at least a month.

As soon as tourism becomes a mass activity, problems usually follow. The main issue with "must sees" is that people usually go through the motions and forget their common sense - especially, perhaps inevitably, when getting up at 4am. There have been reports of tourists obscuring auction hand signals with flash photography, walking around in high heels and compromising hygiene by prodding the fish.

However, couldn't such stupidity be avoided without a total ban? Tsukiji's restaurants and shops must surely hope so.

"As far as sushi restaurants are concerned, I think more than 50 percent of their customers are [outsiders] on weekdays. On Saturdays, they probably account for more than 90 percent," Susumu Isono, director of local sushi chain Isonoya, told the Japan Times.

So is this just a clever PR scam? If the authorities create a storm of publicity by making such a drastic move, guidebooks and tour operators will be obliged to change their info. "Arrive at 5am to catch the action," says Lonely Planet. Expect an update soon.

Photograph: Derek Mawhinney/ Wikipedia images

Wanted: a friendly Parisian

2008-12-04T14:51:00.003Z

Parisians rude and unfriendly? No, you´ve got it all wrong. In fact, to prove it, Paris Greeters will get a extra-friendly resident to give you a free city tour. Or, at least, that´s the theory. In reality, it seems all 11 million of them are a little busy right now. One will get back to you though. Maybe. If you´re very persistent.

Journalist Agnès Poirier waited six weeks to get a response - and only then after tipping them off that she was journalist. She wrote an entertaining blog about it over at Guardian Travel.

But friendly Parisians can´t be in that short supply, can they? My recent trip there showed that the best way to get behind closed doors - literally and metaphorically - is to stay with a local via a B&B network, such as 2binParis.com or Alcôve & Algapes. Pictured left is my host, Françoise - a professional laughter coach living in the eastern suburb of Vincennes - with the equally friendly Jenny Johnson from 2binParis.

Or you could try meeting a Couchsurfer. Paris is the world´s largest Couchsurfing city, with over 15,000 local members.

And before you despair in all greeter schemes. Check out this follow-up blog, Pleased to Greet You, which covers more successful greeting experiences in Jamaica and Argentina, among others.

I'll add links to these greeter sites to the Going Local Travel sidebar. And thanks to Stephen Chapman of MakeTravelFair for making me aware of many of them.

London shopping: keeping it local

2008-12-02T15:35:00.006Z

Wards Corner is the latest London market to come under threat. The Latin American enclave in Tottenham is the being earmarked for "development".

Londoners have already lost a large chunk of Spitalfields and Camden´s future has been looking dubious for sometime. And what have we gained in their place? That monstrous shrine to excessive consumerism: the Westfield Centre.

But all hope is not yet lost. Big up to the site that celebrates London´s independent traders: Unchained.com. Good luck to them and their New York branch.

And "suerte" to the Wards Corner community. If you´re in London, show your support at their Christmas party on Dec 5.

Koalas in Bolivia?

2008-11-24T23:06:00.010Z

What do you do when you get off a night bus in a chilly Bolivian city at 5am when there are no couchsurfers in town? You rely on your guidebook and book into the only place that it says isn't freezing at night: the Koala Den.

Despite my fear of the cold and the den's billing as "warm and cosy", this was not an exciting prospect. I was in Potosi, a traditional Bolivian mining town that claims to be the highest city in the world, and yet was checking into a clearly Aussie-owned place called the Koala Den. Could this be the furthest thing from going local? I was disappointed with the Lonely Planet for writing off everywhere else in town and I was disappointed at myself for falling for it.

But I was wrong. On one count, at least. Sure, the hostal was full of travellers, with a DVD library of American blockbusters and a fair few Australians, but, to my surprise, it was Bolivian-owned and staffed entirely by locals.

Why the name? "Because," explained the receptionist, "the miners here are famed for chewing coca leaves. Just as koalas chew eucalyptus."

Ah ha. Proof that you should never jump to conclusions.

In fairness, it turned out to be a very sweet place: cheap and friendly. The Aussies were ok too.

I'm only kidding. Aussie travellers are always fun. I'm not avoiding other travellers because I don't like them, I just hate being trapped in bubble, which is how it can feel in many of the hostels out here. There are less travel networkers in Bolivia and I am struggling to get off the gringo trail.

Here's hoping I'll have more luck in Sucre, the nation's capital, where I'll be meeting a Couchsurfer called Laura. Her profile pics is nothing more than a rather seductive pair of lips, so I'm rather intrigued...

Back to the future with MeetURPlanet

2008-11-21T14:06:00.004Z

I've discovered a new hospitality network. Well, new to me. MeetURPlanet.com has actually been going since 2001 - three years before Couchsurfing.com. It turns out the founder, Jeff Mitchell, was quite the pioneer in the field, completing a world tour through members homes in Japan, Hong Kong, Thailand, France, England, US and Australia back in the site's inaugural year.

Shame, then, to see it’s been left to go a little stagnant since then. I wanted to try and give it a whirl here in Bolivia, but there’s only one member in the entire country and he last logged in 2001.

“I have been a little lazy with the site in the last year or two,” said Jeff when I emailed him. Come on Jeff, now’s not the time to be lazy. Hospitality tourism is storming forward and you should be leading the field, not playing catch up. Time to get back on it, or else you’ll certainly need to change the “the future of travel is now” tagline.

In the meantime, I’ll try that Bolivian. You never know…

PickUpPal picks up the bill

2008-11-19T15:20:00.006Z

Bad news for carsharing site PickUpPal: they lost their Ontario hearing and now have to pay an C$11,ooo fine. The charge, which I reported on for the Guardian (Would you stick your cyber thumb out for a lift? Oct 4), followed a complaint by a local bus company that such car-sharing schemes were illegal in the Canadian province.

An antiquated law means PickUpPal users are expected to follow a bizarre series of rules, such only arranging a liftshare if you are travelling between home and work, riding with the same driver each day, and paying the driver on a weekly, not daily, basis. If you want to step outside of these rules - and, say, ask your friend for a fiver for petrol or arrange a cross-country roadtrip – the authorities demand you obtain a license first.

The ruling proved to be a shock for co-founder Eric Dewhirst, who had been confident in the run-up. Yet he's remaining optimistic. "Because we made a case out of it and received a lot of media attention we were able to put enough pressure on the government to change the laws. Two weeks ago they introduced an amendment to the current legislation that would essentially allow us to operate. The laws still has to pass but we are hopeful," he says.

"We are disappointed at losing at the hearing, however we're thrilled that we got the attention of the government and they are moving forward on changing the laws."

With over 100,000 members, it will take more than this to keep PickUpPal down. While technicalities are being sorted out, Ontario members are being asked to abide by the local law.

Traveller´s Tree goes couchsurfing

2008-11-17T22:38:00.003Z

It wasn´t easy arranging the interview from a small radio station in Cusco, but we got there in the end. Here´s a link to Traveller´s Tree´s virtual travel special, broadcast on Radio 4 earlier today. I spoke on travel networking and couchsurfing. Who knows, perhaps I have tempted presenter Katie Derham into giving it a go. She was very surprised to hear the sites are open to families too.

Adios to Friends Abroad

2008-11-16T16:40:00.009Z

FriendsAbroad.com is no more. The website that enabled users to practise languages with native speakers has become a part of Babbel.com. The FriendsAbroad site will be closing soon, but all profiles are being automatically migrated over to Babbel (pictured).

I first wrote about FriendsAbroad for The Linguist magazine back in 2006. The site was established by Simon Murdoch, one of the early internet entrepreneurs, who after selling his online company Booksellers to Amazon for a hefty £5million, went on to run Amazon.co.uk.

For nostalgia's sake, here's an extract from my piece from The Linguist. I like to think my Spanish has improved somewhat since then. Meanwhile, for other sites that link you with language learners overseas, you can also try MyLanguageExchange.com or Voxswap.com.

"''Hi. My name is Vicky. I am English and live in London. Je parle Français. Hablo Espanol tambien, pero solo un poco.’ My introductory post is short and to the point, and yet a couple of days later I start to get a series of messages. Many are in Spanish, which could be a bit of a challenge, but there’s a translation aid on the site if I get stuck. There’s also no hunting around your keyboard for the special characters menu, as accented letters are easily accessible onscreen.

Most of the messages come from men - which makes me wonder if some are using it as a dating service - but as long as you don’t give out any personal information, you’re safe. Members, I am told, tend to police the site themselves and report anyone who arouses suspicions.

The introductions keep coming. “Hello,” says Ange, a 29-year-old engineer. “I’m from Paris. I can help you with french and hope to learn from you english ... Are you OK?” A quick ‘hola’ from a 17-year-old Spanish schoolgirl follows.

When I was doing my A-levels, the latter would have been an ideal correspondent. These days, I doubt we’d have much in common. To find someone with your own interests you have to search around instead of letting people come to you - but there is certainly no shortage of people to choose from."

Hello stranger

2008-11-15T01:51:00.004Z

Not feeling up to boarding a place by yourself and taking the leap into travel networking with the locals? The first step could be finding travel companion that can head out there with you. Read my article in today's Guardian for all you need to know and an account of my recent trip to Barcelona, with friends met through CitySocialising.com.

I'll meet you in the plaza...

2008-11-15T00:17:00.013Z

When I first started out on my travel-networking experiment, a reader emailed me to tell me about his own adventures across South America using mylanguageexchange.com. "Let's see how many times have you found yourself meeting someone at the main plaza, in front of the cathedral," he joked.

It's true that this seems to be the meeting place of choice in this part of the world and it still amazes me when it works out.

Yesterday evening, I phoned a Couchsurfer called Jose when I arrived in Cusco. "Meet me in the Plaza d'Armes [ie the main plaza] at 6pm," he said. "But where? It's a big plaza," I asked. "By the water fountain. Ok chau. Hasta luego," he said and promptly hung up.

A couple of hours later, I was found myself trying to make eye contact with every single guy in the radius of the said fountain. Not ideal, but fortunately, at ten past, up bobbed Jose with a big grin on his face.

Some travel networkers grow on you over time, but Jose was an instant hit. He seemed highly amused by the lost look on my face and we've been laughing pretty much ever since.

Since our plaza meet, he's taken me to the local market where we've chatted with some of the traders; he's guided me on an informal walking tour around the lanes of the San Blas barrio (and to a lookout point that I probably wouldn't have found myself); he's introduced me to local delicacies such as "te pitedo" (hot tea with pisco) and tamal (moulded maize, wrapped in maize leaves, resembling a banana); and he seems to be constantly waving to people he knows, which, somehow rubs off on me, making me feel more at home.

But, best of all, he got me out of my hostal. I made the mistake of checking into one of those sprawling great place that feels like a university campus. It's nice enough (clean, hot water, good facilities), but I don't think there's a Peruvian in the place, Arctic Monkeys CDs are playing in the bar, and English echoes off all walls, whether with an Aussie, Irish or Euro twang. With the in-house pyjama party last night, I felt like a gatecrasher at Freshers' Week.

All good fun perhaps, but no different from any other huge hostal around the world, which is the main reason I turned to travel networking in the first place. If ever I was glad of a local contact, it was last night. Gracias Jose!

Couchsurfing and the importance of keeping in touch

2008-11-12T17:51:00.005Z

“It’s tiring being a host,” sighed Thomas. As an active member of Couchsurfing.com and HospitalityClub.org, he has put numerous travellers up, for free, at his home near the French Guianan capital of Cayenne.

“I enjoy it,” he continued, “but you put so much effort into creating these friendships and then you never hear from the person again.”

He’s not the only host I’ve heard voice such an opinion. Felicia, a member of BeWelcome.org, who I visited in her home within a downtrodden barrio of Caracas, Venezuela also told me that “most foreigners come, and then disappear”.

With these conversations in mind, I´m trying my best not to do a disappearing act. It’s particularly important to keep in touch with the hosts who aren’t travellers themselves, but are putting people up purely because they want to meet people and make friends across the world.

Admittedly, Felicia’s emails, filled with stream-of-consciousness, punctuation-free slang, push my Spanish beyond its limits, but we’re getting by. In general, MSN and Facebook make it a lot easier and, of course, all travel-networking hosts are, by definition, often online. A short email or a round robin is often all it takes to show you haven’t forgotten a person.

I can’t claim to be an angel when it comes to keeping in touch with everyone I’ve met through travel networking. I have a backlog of people I need to drop a line and one slightly intense Colombian contact is constantly telling me off from sporadic contact. (A little unfairly, I feel. The understanding needs to go both ways.)

However, I’m doing my best and what I like about couchsurfing is the connection it enables you to build with the places you visit. Usually when backpacking, you only make friends with other backpackers. You might become good friends and stay in contact for years, but what becomes of the place? Once you all move on, it is little more than a shell for your memories from that one period of time.

The advantage of staying with locals is you keep in touch with the places as well as the people. Life goes on there; you receive the updates, you can picture it moving on; and, as many hosts repeat, the door is always open for your return.

My city secret: Lima

2008-11-11T23:03:00.009Z

After I posted on Benji Lanaydo´s best of the local blogs earlier this week, he alerted me to a blog chain he´s started, encouraging writers to share a city secret on their blog, call it ´My city secret´, and then post a link over at Guardian.co.uk.

"Could a ´My city secret´ post be part of the Going Local remit?" he asked. Well, it can be if I get a local to pass on their top tips instead.

I asked my newfound Peruvian friend, Claire Jaureguy, a journalist who also works for the Peruvian tourist board, if she had any tips on her hometown, Lima. Knowing she usually has her iPod glued to her ears and is more up-to-date on the London bands than I am, I asked if she had a tip for catching up-and-coming Peruvian bands when in the country´s immense capital.

Here are her suggestions. I´m not sure how secret they are, but I´d certainly trust her enough to consider them well worth checking out.

"Sargento Pimienta (Sgt. Pepper) is the rock bar in Barranco, the bohemian part of the city. Also El Dragón and Barrancois Discoteca Voce are musts for live music."

She also mentioned Juanito en la Plaza de Barranco "for something more traditional". When I Googled "Juanito, Lima", it lead me this interesting Peru-based blog, Coolperu-blog.blogspot.com.

Thus, Benji proved his rabbit-warren theory once again. I´ll let the Cool Peru guys know and maybe they can post a city secret too.

Going local in Paris, part one

2008-11-10T14:09:00.005Z

Also in Sat’s locals special in the Guardian was my account of a recent B&B visit in Paris. It follows below and is part of a larger piece on tips on where to stay around the world.

Françoise was a fun host and I was impressed with the agency, 2binParis.com. While I was in town I also meet with one of their representatives, Jenny Johnson. It is part of her job to visit all the hosts, to personally vet the accommodation, and make sure they fully understand what their role involves.

Here’s my review. And stay tuned for part two of the Going Local Paris experience, when things got even more interesting and I met one of the city’s greatest local legends.

The Parisian B&B

Françoise Rousse answers the door with a big welcoming smile. Well, smiles are to be expected given that she is a professional laughter coach and the founder of the French University of Laughter. This weekend, this flame-haired sixtysomething is also my host. She has established her own Parisian B&B, offering her spare bedroom to travellers looking to get a more personal perspective on this vast, enigmatic city.

B&Bs are currently enjoying a resurgence in Paris. For proof, thumb through the newly released Chambres d'Hôtes à Paris, a pictorial guide of the city's 100 best (Hachette, €16). You don't have to be able to read the French text to have your imagination captured by images of Le Bateau Johanna (bateau.johanna.free.fr), a houseboat moored by the Musée d'Orsay, or Chez Bertrand, where the bed is fashioned out of an old 2CV (chezbertrand.com).

According to Jenny Johnson of B&B specialists 2binParis.com, Parisians are signing up to the idea in order to "meet more people and earn a little extra money". The plus points are just as obvious for the tourists: B&Bs offer the chance to tap into some local knowledge and are also a welcome alternative to overpriced tourist hotels.

Françoise's 1930s apartment block is just off a tourist-free road in the eastern suburb of Vincennes. Inside, the homely decor is just as cheerful as the owner. Its bijoux dimensions are enhanced by a wall of mirrors and a bouquet of lilies; wooden furniture is painted in primary colours; and my bedroom is pastel purples and greens.

I nearly backed out when 2binParis.com told me I'd be staying in Vincennes, which looked far from central on my map. But it turned out to be just a 15-minute metro ride from the fashionable Marais district, on numerous handy bus routes (the number 29 takes you straight to St Lazare, for shopping at La Fayette), and there is even a Vélib stop so you can use Paris's hugely successful public bike scheme.

But, best of all, Françoise alerts me to the nearby Promenade Plantée, a green-fringed footpath (cyclists and skaters welcome) that follows an old railway line and takes you all the way to the Bastille.

There are some drawbacks to staying in such a small B&B: you are constantly aware that you are a guest in someone's home and you have to stick to a specified arrival time. However, it's certainly a more personal and insightful experience.

As for me, I still have some way to go before I get fully under Paris's skin, but I'd be happy to make my way through the 100 best B&Bs to get there.

• Françoise's apartment, Courteline, costs €34.22pp per night through 2binParis.com (+1 47 34 01 50). There are around 120 B&Bs on the site, from €35-€100pp pn. Sister company bbitalia.it has over 4,000 B&Bs across Italy. Eurostar (eurostar.com) runs from St Pancras, Ebbsfleet and Ashford to Paris from £59 return.

Going loco for locals

2008-11-09T17:36:00.004Z

If you missed the Guardian´s local travel special, you can catch up online. Being out of the country, that´s what I´m planning to do. I´m particularly looking forward to reading Benji Lanyado´s piece on the best of local blogs. But, as Benji always says, entering the blogosphere is like falling into a rabbit warren, one good link always leads to another, so I need to set aside a decent amount of time. Right now I´ve got to dash back to my host family here in Peru. Lunch is on the table and we have a local fiesta to go to. More on that to come...

Surfing sofa - the gay way

2008-10-28T17:31:00.005Z

Everyone is looking to ride Couchsurfing.com's wave. The latest in a long line of copycats is SurfingSofa.es, a gay and lesbian site of Spanish origins.

You don't have to be gay to register on Surfing Sofa, according to the FAQ page. "Surfing Sofa is hetero-friendly," it says.

There's certainly a gap in the market for the site, with LGHEI (the Lesbian and Gay Hospitality Exchange) having failed to have seized its position as one of the hospitality movement's originators. LGHEI, pronounced El Gay, now looks seriously dated and a membership of just a few hundred makes its future look dubious.

The bare torso on Surfing Sofa's current homepage certainly gives the site more of a dating-site feel than Couchsurfing. "Do I have to have a fling with my host?" is another FAQ. No, there's absolutely no obligation - is the answer. Although there's a clear subtext that they expect a whole of that to be going on.

Nonetheless, it's a slick looking site. We'll have to see how it fares.

Perhaps their oddest decision is choosing to call their ambassadors "slaters". The site's explaination: "The name is making reference to Kelly Slater the number one surfer in the world." I guess it must have seemed like a clever idea at the time.

Tripwiser: Roll up, roll up, get your clone holidays

2008-10-09T11:00:00.003+01:00

Cloning sounds like something best left to Photoshop users, Dolly the sheep's creators, and the dark forces in Star Wars. Yet travel-networking site Tripwiser.com is currently celebrating the launch of their new cloning tool: something that enables users to copy other members' trip and itineraries.

I've just had a quick scout around the site and I'm not sure I'd want to clone any of these trips. For the most part, they look rather unimaginative. Itineraries for Paris, for example, make groundbreaking suggestions such as "Don't miss the Eiffel Tower and the Louvre".

I use the internet to plan holidays that escape the bog-standard, cookie-cutter experiences and try, instead, to get the inside track. I'm far from keen on wading through reams of clueless recommendations that would be too basic for a standard guidebook. Even if I can now have the convenience of accessing these via Facebook.

Sites like this will soon become victim of their own success. They may build up an initial following from people wanting to announce to the world that they've been somewhere, but more discerning travellers will soon end up giving them a wide berth.

Much better advice can be found over at ever-growing PlanetEye.com, which enables you to leave your own tips, but also specifically selects knowledgeable local experts. Or possibly TripTips, which allows you to build a network based on people you know and trust.

This is what I want. Not having to wade through a million and one opinions on Tripwiser. Or Tripadvisor. Or TripTie.

And, good grief, a bit more imagination with site names wouldn't go a miss either.

The rise of cyber-hitching

2008-10-07T11:13:00.017+01:00

"In these uncertain financial times, more and more people are turning to cyber-hitching - car pooling via the internet. Would you get into a car with a stranger?"

This was the question I asked on the Guardian travel site this weekend. So far, there have been some interesting responses. Read them here.

Local travel means cheaper travel

2008-10-04T13:09:00.000+01:00

Here are a few tips I've written for the Guardian's money-saving special this weekend.

Learn to share

Want to take a trip, save some cash, decrease your carbon footprint and a possibly make a new friend en route? Liftsharing can tick all these boxes. Carpooling website PickUpPal.com has seen sign-up rates double in the last month, meaning they are now racking up 5,000 new members a week. "Our members are looking at ways to weather this economic storm," says co-founder Eric Dewhirst. He describes the site as "like eBay for transportation": you say where you want to go and drivers suggest a fee for taking you there. Since launching in January, the site has accrued 100,000 members worldwide. It's free to join and they have now scrapped the original 7% commission charge.

Find a city B&B

Now that all small hotels are labelling themselves "boutique" and using this as green light to raise prices, it's time to revert to the good old-fashioned B&B. When in Rome, stay with the Romans via Sleeping Rome (0039 068 620 9286, sleepingrome.com, from £20pp). In Paris, try Alcôve & Agapes, which offers full profiles on each host to ensure a truly personal experience (bed-and-breakfast-in-paris.com, double rooms from £60: note that the office is shut until Oct 14.)

House swapping

Nicole Feist, the blogger behind the hugely informative Home Exchange Travels (homeexchanger.blogspot.com), says she's been inundated with enquiries about this money-saving mode of travel. She points out that home exchanges are not just for long-haul, long-term trips to places such as Australia. "We love doing exchanges over long weekends, and, in Europe, budget airlines make it even easier," she says. For good European coverage, Nicole recommends Dutch site homeforexchange.com, or try the Guardian's own home-exchange service, guardianhomeexchange.co.uk. Both cost around £35 for one year's online listing.

More money-saving tips for European travel here.

Breaking news: house swapping exists

2008-10-03T17:51:00.001+01:00

"Budget travel have found a new way to travel for free," announces CNN. What's new? Home exchanging, apparently.

Somehow I doubt Budget Travel magazine, who run a hugely informative, on-the-ball website, are under the impression they've "discovered" this mode of travel. The travel press have been covering it for years. However, as I mentioned last week, it seems to be entering a resurgence due to tough economic times.

You can read Budget Travel's honest and entertaining account on the secrets of happy house swapping here, while the CNN interview (above), although nothing enlightening for experiences swappers, is still worth a watch.

In the meantime, watch out for more articles about this "brand new trend". The same description is often given to Couchsurfing.com, even though it's been going since 2004.

Going solo: propping up female confidence

2008-10-03T17:05:00.001+01:00

When I was travelling around South and Central America for the Guardian earlier this year, I received lots of emails from female travellers looking for advice.

"All my friends travel with their boyfriends. I'm not sure if I can do it alone" was a line that sticks in my mind.

Of course, I encouraged her and everyone else debating taking the leap. Solo travel is great for boosting confidence and, in my experience, you are never on your own for long.

Journalist Fiona Cullinan contacted me last week when she was researching this What's stopping you? piece for AllAboutYou.com.

Of course, I'd recommend travel networking for meeting new people, but I appreciate that for inexperienced travellers the concept of meeting strangers online can be even more scary than the idea of being all alone. So I'd suggest, as a starting point, organising a group tour or staying in a hostel. It won't immerse you in local life, but it will ease you in gently and help you get used to the travellers' mentality.

Fiona has lots of other tips in her piece. One that caught my eye was the idea of travelling with a prop as a talking point. I emailed Fiona to find out more and she told me she travelled with a small guitar with stickers from each country she visited. "After three years, it was covered and people would come up and ask to photograph it, " she says.

Now this, I can understand. A beloved object with a purpose, one she could use to keep herself, and others, entertained. Good on you, Fiona. But the Glaswegian travelling with a monster-tyre? Did he also introduce himself by saying "all my mates think I'm well mad"? Sorry, I'm not convinced.

Globetrotters in Harlem: the case of 'ghetto' tourism

2008-09-30T16:53:00.002+01:00

Do tourists visit Harlem merely to gawp at poor, black people? The following is an extract from an article on the Guardian's Comment is Free site by a Harlem resident, Lola Adesioye.

"I'm still struggling to get to grips with tourists' fascination with coming into a poor area, one still considered by many to be a "ghetto", just to watch black people eat, worship and generally go about their daily lives - as if deprivation is somehow interesting and the way in which black people socialise really is so different from other Americans."

Just as India has "slum tours", Brazil offers the "favela experience" and South Africa serves up township "poorism", now Harlem is the must-see place to get down with, and get photos of, people less privileged than yourself.

Or is it?

As some of the blog respondents point out, isn't the Afro-American heritage likely to be more of a draw than poverty? I think many residents would be rather unhappy slotting modern Harlem into the slum/favela/township category.

One blog respondent, Raz, says:

I intend to visit Harlem on my next visit to NYC. Not to gawp at poor people but because it's another part of the jigsaw of a fascinating city. I'm not sure that you can live in an historical neighborhood and not expect tourists. Lola, I'm sure you've visited Chinatown. How did you feel about that?

I'd have to agree with Raz. As a home of jazz music, soul-food restaurants, gospel churches, historical sites and hip-hop, Harlem has all the hallmarks of a tourist attraction.

Two years ago, I went on a hip-hop tour of Harlem (tour guide Grandmaster Caz, pictured above). Admittedly, it was a group tour on bus, which is never my favourite form of tourism, but I did it to get to know another one of the city's neighbourhoods and learn about the origins of a genre of music that became part of my own youth on the other side of the Atlantic. I certainly didn't do it to get my fix of "deprivation"; my motivations were no different from doing a Bob Dylan tour of Greenwich Village.

Back to the idea of poorism or favela tourism, it's never going to be simple right/wrong, black/white case. Each experience depends on the individual tourist's attitude, as Lola concedes. If the alternative is to visit all other neighbourhoods and ignore the so-called "black areas", I can't see that this would be preferable.

Admittedly, bus tours aren't ideal and seem to jar with something as personal as church worship (Harlem church trips are very popular among tourists), but it is up to the congregations to decide whether to accept this or not. Meanwhile, tour guides are in the ideal position to breakdown inevitable preconceptions.

The best advice from Lola comes in her parting words. "I'd encourage anyone coming to Harlem to get off the bus, sit in a bar or café and talk to some locals." Travel networking anyone?

Credit crunched? Try a home exchange

2008-09-23T01:00:00.000+01:00

In times of hefty morgage payments, rising fuel bills and general financial doom, the Daily Telegraph has offered a solution: make your home your passport. Home exchanges are nothing new, but, as the credit crunch takes hold, the idea of living abroad rent-free has never been more appealing.

Last month, the Observer also renewed interested in such schemes with an entertaining account of a London-NYC home swap.

Juliet Kinsman writes:

Our introduction to the immediate neighbours was a hello over the fence - followed by the offer of a paddling pool loan. To parents of an infant in the sweltering city heat, this ranks with a private hotel infinity pool. Imagine our delight when they reappeared brandishing guests passes to MoMA, a mountain of toys and fresh-from-the-oven New York Times recipe cookies. We hadn't been there 48 hours and they'd already made our holiday.

It was a lovely piece and a huge success in terms of online page views. Well, who wouldn't be tempted to click on headline reading 'New York for a month without spending a dime'? (Even if this did seem to overlook living expenses and flights.)

The Daily Mail's money section has also been enthusing about home-swapping this week, while the Guardian launched its own home-exchange service, powered by Home Base Holidays, in January.

In general, as listing sites get more sophisticated, it's becoming even easier to arrange a house exchange. Although that doesn't mean swappers aren't thinking ahead: according to the Travel the Home Exchange Way blog, exchange plans are already underway for the London 2012 Olympics. Time to get on your marks? Here are the Telegraph's home-exchange tips:

Register with an agency, which will cost from £40 to £250, to display your home details on a professional website and give you access to details about other homes

Describe your home thoroughly with plenty of digital pictures, and remember that American and Australasian visitors love history

To start making a swap, either wait for another client to contact you or identify a place and home you like, and email the owners

Most agencies have checklists of details to discuss with your exchangee – cars, pets, wear-and-tear and breakages, insurance, and what’s out of bounds

Some agencies have pro forma contracts which can be exchanged between the two sets of home owners

Further advice on house exchanges on the Which website.

Couch surfer: the song

2008-09-21T22:12:00.000+01:00

Proof that the word "couchsurfer" was around before 2004-established Couchsurfing.com. Here's an extract from Couch surfer, a Bran Van 3000 song released on their 1998 album, Glee. The band come from Montreal, which is the third most active city in the Couchsurfing.com network.

Alongside a refrain of "I'm couch surfing, I'm a couch surfer", choice lyrics include:

"Can I crash at your place again?
Just one more night?"

Plus a finale where the couchsurfer appears to have overstayed his welcome.

"Mind if I eat those chips?
Oh that's okay,
I don't like salt and vinegar anyways.
No no no, I didn't use pay-per-view.
I figured it was free.

Yeah, I'm going.
I'm a couch surfer, couch surfing "

Full lyrics here.

Is Couchsurfing the new Google?

2008-09-19T19:28:00.000+01:00

Is Couchsurfing the new Google? Not literally of course, that’d never work.

What I mean is the word “couchsurfing” seems to have become a catch-all term for the whole hospitality movement. Today people refer to “going couchsurfing” when they may be sourcing hosts through multiple sites, while newspapers write on the “new trend of couchsurfing” when really it goes much broader than just Couchsurfing.com. (For proof, just see the list of links on the right of the Going Local Travel homepage.)

Couchsurfing.com can’t take credit for inventing the word, it has been in the lexicon a good few before the site was established in 2004. However, Casey Fenton and co did make a very savvy move by opting for a site name that, like Google, also works as a verb (I couchsurf, you couchsurf, we all couchsurf).

It’s certainly one of the key factors that has enabled Couchsurfing.com to pick up so much media coverage and leave its rivals in the dust. The rival conjugations don't exactly roll off your tongue: I BeWelcomed today, we are going Servasing, he has been Hospitality Clubbing.

However, there’s one difference between Couchsurfing and Google – ok, there’s more than one, but here’s one worth noting for this discussion - whereas Couchsurfing.com has made no official statement on its service-marked buzzword, the search-engine giant has made it perfectly clear that it will sue your ass if you don’t refer to it with a capital letter (eg "I Googled it").

In fact, the "what you are not allowed to do" section on Google's extensive permissions page is quite hilarious - in a threatening sort of way. I quote (and therefore hope not to be sued): "you can't mess around with our marks. Only we get to do that. Don’t remove, distort or alter any element of a Google Brand Feature. That includes modifying a Google trademark, for example ... Googliscious, Googlyoogly, GaGooglemania."

Meanwhile, Couchsurfing.com have registered their term as a service mark, but don't seem to be strictly policing it. Their exclusivity rights are no doubt somewhat different as they didn't invent the name.

The most public current use of the couchsurfing phrase includes the recent T-Mobile ad. One seemingly in-the-know member on the forum says (and this has not been confirmed):

"Although T-mobile contacted CouchSurfers before the commercial aired, they refused to work with us before the commercial aired (...) The first thing that pops up when you google [sic] the term CouchSurfer is CS, so in the end we are still getting new members from the commercial."

It's true that the "couchsurfer" in the advert makes no reference to using the internet to find his hosts and appears to be relying on a network of friends he contacts through his trusty mobile phone.

Currently, there are references to couchsurfing on online dictionaries, but there’s no entry in that true bastion of language, the OED. Surely it won't be long...

Staying with weirdos and murderers

2008-09-15T18:16:00.000+01:00

Couchsurfing: an idea for weirdos and full of potential axe murderers. Discuss.

This was basically the tone of the Richard Bacon Show on Radio Five Live, which I appeared on as a guest on Thursday night.

It wasn't the approach I was expecting, or could have predicted following chats with enthusiastic researchers who had heard I was speaking about Couchsurfing across South America at the TNT Winter Travel Show. But that's tabloid radio, I guess. They were bound to be provocative.

"I'm not offering my house to anyone!" cried out a melodramatic Bacon (pictured above) within seconds.

"I'm sensing the plot of a very scary slasher movie," added comedian Steve Punt, a fellow guest on the show.

I gave them both a telling off for being such cynics and, by the end, I think they were coming round to the idea.

"Actually, I can see that having a personal introduction to a strange city would be good," said Punt. "You know how in a hotel reception, you go to the concierge and it all feels really impersonal? I really like the idea of having someone who knows the place being able to show you around."

"I'm warming to it," admitted Bacon finally.

It was a pity that such an interesting debate had to be condensed to such as short segement, but we had to make way for the breaking news of the XL travel collapse.

Given more time I would have shared a recommendation with Punt, who mentioned he'd draw the line if his 18-year-old daughter wanted to go and stay with "complete strangers" on her gap year.

The Punts should try YourSafePlanet.com, a site that, for a small fee, could put their daughter in touch with an in-country contact who has been fully vetted and could be on-hand if she had any problems. Not only that, she'd also have her first "friend" already set up in advance. Surely any father would be happier with this than knowing she was boarding a plane to a place where she didn't know a soul, as many gappers do.

"Really, it's a terrible comment on the world that we both heard this idea and thought 'serial killers'," said Punt to Bacon at one point. And, on this, I couldn't agree more.

Unlit on the road

2008-09-10T23:12:00.000+01:00

The Unlit boys have gone up in the world. No crashing on couches for them anymore. They've bagged themselves a spanking new tour bus.

With T-Mobile having pounced on Couchsurfing, it seems mobile companies can't get enough of hip, new social-networking projects. Orange are the latest to jump aboard, sponsoring the new Unlit tour round the UK.

Nonetheless, the lads' concept remains as down to earth as ever. They travel around, putting on gigs in the homes of people they've found online, mainly through MySpace and, this time, through the Orange website.

At the helm of the online series are two of my superbly talented friends Jont (singer-songwriter) and Dave Depares (filmmaker). They first took the road together back in 2006, travelling across the US and creating a series of films en route.

Catch them if you can, or catch up with the movies online.

Couchsurfing goes mainstream

2008-09-10T22:14:00.000+01:00

Wanna Couchsurf? You'll be "outta luck" without a mobile phone.

Says who?

Says mobile phone giant T-Mobile, which has used the concept in its recent US ad campaign.

"Guess it was just a matter of time before mainstream marketers hitched to the buzz and good will of Couchsurfing," sighs World Hum.

The girl who filmed this rather shaky YouTube clip is far more impressed. "Oh my God, that is like the coolest thing I have seen all week," she gushes.

Go local, get laid

2008-09-10T15:10:00.000+01:00

“Meet the locals, get laid,” announces a Sydney Morning Herald travel blog about Couchsurfing.

"Mate, it's sensational," Brian, an Aussie enthusiast, told the blogger. "It's a shag-fest. I stayed with this French girl in Paris, and she barely let me put down my pack before she jumped me. I'm doing it every time I travel now. You should get on there."

Is Brian really that irresistible? Probably not, but that’s why Couchsurfing dating appeals. Suddenly - much to his own surprise - average old Brian has morphed into a exotic foreigner with a sexy accent and no strings attached. Let’s face it with all these random encounters (646,877 at last count) – sex is going to happen.

“Couchsurfing is not a dating agency,” the site insists. However, what annoyed devotees most about the SMH blog (and caused them to complain in droves) was not that they implied sex happens, but the implication that this should be the predominant reason for joining.

As an India-based member of the Couchsurfing forum explains: “We were pissed off by … the insinuation that CS has no other dimensions than young people hooking up for sex... The piece says clearly that no one but single people who do this... which in itself was quite a strong and untrue judgement.”

Indeed, families and couples are just as likely to be Couchsurfing these days.

The question is: can all these different groups coexist on one site?

Travel networking: the rules

2008-09-08T18:49:00.000+01:00

Want to start surfing couches round the world? Here are some tips on how to do it the right way.

Keep it personal
Contacting someone saying simply "Hello. Can I stay at your house for a week?" is unlikely to elicit a positive response. Introduce yourself and your plans. Where possible make the person feel you've chosen them for a reason.

Always reply
If you request to meet someone and they send a personal response to say they won't be able to make it, return the courtesy with a reply rather than just moving straight on to the next person.

Communicate
Keep to your plans. Don't leave your host waiting for you. Don't pull out at the last minute.

Give a little
If you're staying at someone's house, bring a gift (maybe something typical from your own country). If they're showing you around town, buy lunch or drinks if you can, and always pay your way. Many guests offer to cook their hosts dinner; cleaning up after yourself should go without saying.

Be courteous
If staying at someone's home, do not use it as a base to party with other people. Fit in with host's schedule. Don't sleep in for hours. Don't overstay your welcome.

Socialise
Make sure you spend time getting to know your host. If you're just after free accommodation or a tour guide, you've got the wrong idea.

Consider a skill swap
One way to give something back is through a skill exchange. Offering a dance lesson or DIY expertise can enhance the travel-networking experience and increase the chances of being hosted.

Keep in touch
Lots of hosts don't travel themselves, but open their homes in order to make friends around the world. Don't disappear off into the sunset when you leave. Drop an email every now and again. If they've got on a travel-networking site, it's highly likely they're on Facebook, MySpace or the like.

Is sofa surfing safe?

2008-09-07T16:11:00.000+01:00

Safety. It’s everyone’s first thought when you mention couchsurfing. And rightly so. No one should enter into meeting “strangers” completely blindly.

However, blind panic isn’t the answer either.

A while ago I was contacted by a journalist from Sky News who was writing a piece about the safety issues of travel networking and staying at the homes of people you have met through websites.

Oddly the readers’ comments don’t seem to be visible anymore, but here’s one I made a note of at the time. "Stupidest thing I have heard of,” it began. “I am a young male and I wouldn’t risk it, especially in places like South America and most certainly not in Austria. Imagine couch surfing at the Fritzl household. There is no level of safety you can maintain when you are sound asleep in a stranger’s house."

Now, although I totally understand people concerns, and would always advise employing caution before embarking on any face-to-face meets, this view seems extreme, close-minded and rather sad. He appears to be writing off an entire country (a nation of Fritzls) and one of the world’s biggest continents (just full of drug dealers and pickpockets, right?)

People have much more control over the risks they take through these sites than they think. After all, you could meet someone for a coffee in a public place in the middle of the day.

As I said in my first Going Local column, any sort of independent travel relies on the kindness of strangers and you often find yourself hanging out with people you don't know, even if it's just another backpacker in a bar.

Neither travel networking or straightforward backpacking ever 100% guarantees your safety, but I for one wouldn't pick the alternative: staying at home.

Here are my tips for staying safe when travel networking:

· Take advantage of the sites' own safety precautions. Couchsurfing.com offers members a security grading — from 0 (ie anyone who signs up) to 3 (name and address verified by a small credit card payment) — along with the chance to be vouched for by a high-level, "trusted" member. Other sites, such as globalfreeloaders.com and hospitalityclub.org, require users to exchange passport numbers and advise people to check identity documents when they meet. Most sites also store all email exchanges for at least a year.

· Always meet in a public place and tell people who you are meeting.

· Check references left by other travellers. Most social network profiles include testimonials from people who have previously met the person via the site.

· Attend an event in your hometown first (Couchsurfing.com has loads). Get to meet some active members and they can recommend some of hosts/guests that they know personally. This way it is more of a friend-of-a-friend situation rather than complete strangers.

· Suggest talking on the phone or via Skype or instant messenger before you meet up. Perhaps check out their MySpace, Facebook or Bebo page. If it’s your first time, tell the person. They’ll understand your nerves.

· Consider parting with a small amount of cash to use vetted contacts who have undergone police checks and provide official references, like those on yoursafeplanet.com or Servas.

· Don't be afraid to pull out of a meeting if it doesn't feel right and, above all, use common sense.

It’s not such A Small World after all

2008-09-06T16:33:00.000+01:00

Is it the end of ASmallWorld.net? This week the Guardian predicted the demise of the exclusive, invite-only travel networking site. "Did you manage to get into the site?” sneered a well-to-do member at the reporter, as if this illustrated its downfall.

I'm sure the same member would turn his nose up at me. Not typically moving in the same circles as other members, which include Naomi Campbell and Ivana Trump, I managed to wangle an invite to ASW through a very vague contact.

I've dipped in from time to time, curious to how travel networking functions at the other end of the spectrum. However, when I mentioned the site within my weekly travel-networking column in the Guardian, it sparked a couple of reader emails.

One wanted to know if I could hook him up. (Sadly no, I'm a low-level member without invite privileges). Another said it was wrong of me to include it when it was clear out of bounds to most readers. (Although perhaps not anymore, if this week's article is anything to go by.)

I'd argue that ASW - even if you can't or won't join - is fascinating. Not just because of the outlandish snobery found in its forums, but it is also an interesting illustration of how the travel-networking movement is forming "niche" offshoots and how it is motivated by the idea of “belonging” to a likeminded group. Whether you’re a member of ASW or BeWelcome.org, people trust each other based on a presumed mutual understanding.

The Guardian has recently reported on how the future of social networks lies in niche sites. I also predicted this when I started out on my trip.

However, achieving a small-club feel on worldwide web must have its limits. Have some already reached their peak? ASW has now grown to 325,000 users. Far behind Facebook’s 90 million, but almost matching the 328,000 of Hospitality Club, a site that is open to all and sundry.

I've always thought that ASW and HospitalityClub/Couchsurfing – although based on the same principles of bringing travellers together – share no overlap. But it seems this is changing too. One of the other big hitters in the ASW forum recently was a thread suggesting ASW members start accommodating each other in their own homes ("Couchsurfing on ASW" was its heading).

What surprised me the most was finding there is already such a big cross over of members from the two sites. It seems many ASW members are also part of the exceedingly down-to-earth and non-elitist Couchsurfing.com. It’s something that must horrify the core elite. An old-school member (since 2004) replied to say he didn't believe the two networks are compatible: "Everyone is satisfyingly rich on aSmallWorld. Every ASW member I know stays in the Belle Etoile Suite at Le Meurice when they visit me.” He was soon shot down by the Small World Couchsurfers for totally missing the point.

It seems ASWers aren’t as likeminded as they once were. Perhaps the original members will set up their own offshoot where people have to provide proof-of-funds before signing up.

Meanwhile, the ‘Death of ASW’ thread (9,000 views) is nothing if not entertaining. One London member said the day they knew it really was all over was when a Foxtons estate agent told him he’d “discovered cool new website for chatting up girls and all his mates were on it”.

A London/Dubai member added: "This used to be a playground for the jet set, the good looking, the creative and business powers that be. now i feel like a slimebag when i log in." Something tells me his inner slimebag has been waiting to get out for sometime.

Going local

2008-08-19T19:54:00.000+01:00

Well, I'm back. Home in London after four months travelling around South and Central America testing travel-networking sites for the Guardian newspaper. What an eye-opener it was. And my timing couldn't have been better.

Hospitality tourism has just begun to break away from its cult roots and become a worldwide phenomenon. It is on track to be the biggest travel trend of 2009.

It’s certainly an travel trend to watch and that’s exactly what I intend to do with this blog. I’m going to use goinglocaltravel.blogspot.com to comment on news stories and issues related to "local travel", "hospitality tourism" and "travel networking".

What defines local travel? That’s a post for the future…