Be a Better Traveler Q&A With Spotted by Locals

Plus a brief guide to sparkling wines & and the state of Mexico + Caribbean travel

Jul 16, 2020

Hi there,

How is everyone doing?

Mexico and the Caribbean are open for travel, but should you go? I interviewed Megan Frye, a journalist in Mexico, and Sarah Greaves-Gabbadon, a journalist based in Miami but focused on the Caribbean, this week.

Sarah said to visit the Caribbean right now would be “the height of privilege,” and Megan shared a similar sentiment about Mexico. Sadly, traveling from the US to anywhere right now seems off limits, but both conversations also have tips for future trips. Sooo, let’s hope we can travel in 2021?

Be a Better Traveler Q&A with Spotted by Locals Founders Sanne and Bart

Spotted by Locals is a community of blogs & apps by volunteer locals in 81 cities (another great 2021 travel resource).

Spotters at Spotted by Locals live in the city they write about, speak the local language and write only about their current local favorite spots. Why is this local emphasis so important to you?

It’s a matter of personal preference. Many travelers don't care at all about local recommendations, and happily visit only tourist highlights and tourist traps recommended by fellow travelers. And that's absolutely fine of course!

But we ourselves have always been mostly interested in doing what locals like doing. The more we traveled, the less we visited tourist highlights. Now we often skip all of them, just because we think it’s more interesting to hang out at spots and learn from locals.

And the only locals we trust are the ones who actually live in the city and speak the local language. Because we always struggled to find up to date information about local hangouts in cities online, and because we knew we were part of a niche but not alone, we started Spotted by Locals in 2008. We meet all our locals who write for us in person in their city.

[Related: In Defense of Touristy Places–to a point]

Overtourism is an issue I've talked about in this newsletter and we’ve highlighted at Curiosity Magazine, and something you're concerned with as well. You promote locally owned spots outside of the touristy center, and have launched guides to cities that can actually use more tourists. Can you tell me more about the reasoning behind this?

We think the best and easiest way to battle overtourism is to help convince people that it's better to travel to places where tourism doesn't lead to problems for locals.

Iceland receives 6.5 times more international visitors than there are people in the country. At the bottom of the European ranking there's Moldova (factor 0.04). Even though it wasn’t easy, we were determined to launch a guide to its capital Chisinau last year. We visited the city and it was so nice to see how proud locals are of this city guide.

Another important reason for focusing on destinations that are still "developing" economically: putting tourist dollars directly into the pockets of local entrepreneurs in countries that really benefit feels so much better than filling those of big travel conglomerates that exist just to reap the benefits of overtourism.

All the research points to the fact that, increasingly, a truly local experience is what travellers are looking for. And increasingly, in cities worst affected by tourism, tourists are facing cold indifference and sometimes even open hostility. By daring to be unconventional and supporting the ‘underdog’, travelers to destinations off the tourist map are far more likely to experience true hospitality and honest gratitude.

What are a few of the recent guides you've launched to places that could use more tourists?

A few of the 20 city guides to non-touristy cities we launched in the last few years:

Bern, Switzerland. Known as the slowest city in the world, the music capital of Switzerland, it has the best urban swimming river we know, a giant anarchist culture temple in the middle of the city and – yes – it’s a UNESCO World Heritage site. Quite impressive for a town of 140,000 people.
Cairo, Egypt. One of the most crowded cities in the world, a wonderful chaos, a cradle of civilization full of treasures, amazing food and incredibly friendly people. [Agreed! See these highlights from a March trip]
Prishtina, Kosovo. The youngest capital in Europe, also in terms of average age. Full of energy, recent and ancient history and some of the best (and definitely cheapest) Balkan food. And hardly any tourists.

In the coming years, we're going to concentrate on expanding to very exciting but too little visited cities in former Soviet Union states, the Middle East, and Central Asia.

Coronavirus has changed travel, especially for Americans, who are banned from visiting Europe and elsewhere for the foreseeable future. How do you think coronavirus has or will change the way people travel? Is there a positive side to it?

We think the COVID-19 crisis will make people search for destinations that are less crowded with tourists. That's good news for countries that are off the tourist track, and for the world economy. And good news for us we think :)

When people can travel again, is there anything you hope they keep in mind?

We think many people realized in this crisis that it feels so much better to spend your money at the locally-owned spots that are having such a hard time nowadays (and who also pay taxes, while many multinationals like Starbucks do not).

If someone was visiting your city, Amsterdam, what are three things you would recommend they do or see or eat?

Our city Amsterdam is a very popular city with tourists. We're proud of our city and love showing it to others, but we'd probably recommend people to visit another great city that is less touristy like The Hague.

However, if you're in Amsterdam I would definitely recommend visiting these three off the tourist trail spots:

> The Bimhuis: one of the best Jazz clubs in the world.

> Cafe Soundgarden: my favorite bar in Amsterdam, with a no-nonsense vibe, great punk and rock music, and the very best terrace in the city.

> Sova Coffee Roasters: top of the bill coffee and one of the best places in the city to do some hipster-watching

If readers are interested in becoming a Spotter, do you have positions available?

Always! We welcome applications from all over the world, and save them all for the moment we're ready to expand to a city:

Be a Better Eater

On Tuesday, I’ll be talking all things cheese with Christine Clark, a cheese expert and writer, and the host of Is This a Brie? Send me your cheese questions and tune in on IG Live July 21 at 11am CST.

Wine of the Week

Do you know the differences between sparkling wines? What makes Champagne different from Cava? What makes Cava different from Prosecco? And what about Pét-Nat? Here’s a brief guide.