It's sort of my intention that this website functions more as a blog than a list of travel tips. If I can write or photograph something insightful about the place I've visited in my own voice rather than list off restaurants to eat at and sights to see, I'll consider it a success even if (as I fully expect) no one reads it. Having said that, I want to share one travel tip.

I believe that a visit to a great city should involve the standard sightseeing, if for nothing than to establish setting. If you visited Paris and didn't lay eyes on the Eiffel Tower, then you fuckin blew it. I also think that a fair amount of time should be allocated to exploration of restaurants, bars, cafes, clubs, what have you. The thing is, most of the ones which are near tourist areas tend to be pretty awful. You need to find a way to locate quality places without ending up in a tourist trap.

I think I drip a fair amount of travel swagu when it comes to finding good local spots in whatever city I'm in. This is not a viral marketing effort (this website would need to have some sort of following above and beyond myself), but the Four Square app - which is certainly available on iOS and surely other mobile platforms - is a pretty democratic and reliable way to figure out what people think of a particular place. It's led me to some phenomenal places, which can impress locals when they hear where I've been. One caveat would be that it's location-based, so you're probably still gonna want to do a little bit of research to figure out what places are worth checking out in other parts of the city or outside of it. I like wikitravel.org.

My travel tip is also consistent with the ethos of my site - figure it out for yourself. You know what you like, what your interests are. It would be presumptuous of me to assume that any particular place or sight is a must-visit for you. The joy of travel is that it can be fully your experience, not dictated by others' tastes or the rigid itinerary of a guided tour (no shots fired at guided tours though, there are definitely times and places for them). The great thing about Four Square is that you don't have to roll the dice on a tourist trap. Use it to filter all of the options a city can offer down to give yourself the best experience you're looking to get.

TL; DR use Four Square, drip travel swagu