The online tool was designed to help New Yorkers find the best boroughs to live in, so to experience the city the way they do, I figured the best way was to follow them. Using the interactive sliders, I prioritized transit, restaurants, nightlife, diversity and green space over schools, health and definitely slided housing cost all the way to the left. The top choice: “West Village/Meatpacking”.

Meatpacking? Really? From my loyal subscription to Monocle magazine, I’ve learned that a good market can always transform a neighbourhood. Read yourself about the transformation of Cape Town as a result of the opening of “Neighbourgoods Market” by Justin Rhodes and Cameron Munro (Issue 35, pp.145). Not to forget that I spent the last 6 months arguing that St.Lawrence Market was one of [...]]]> For my last trip to New York City, I approached the planning process in a completely new way: instead of spending hours looking through dozens of sites for deals, lists of hotels, distance to landmarks, comparing prices and star ratings I used one tool: the Livability Calculator from New York magazine’s Neighborhoods issue, which I had just written about in new york’s most livable.

The online tool was designed to help New Yorkers find the best boroughs to live in, so to experience the city the way they do, I figured the best way was to follow them. Using the interactive sliders, I prioritized transit, restaurants, nightlife, diversity and green space over schools, health and definitely slided housing cost all the way to the left. The top choice: “West Village/Meatpacking”.

Meatpacking? Really? From my loyal subscription to Monocle magazine, I’ve learned that a good market can always transform a neighbourhood. Read yourself about the transformation of Cape Town as a result of the opening of “Neighbourgoods Market” by Justin Rhodes and Cameron Munro (Issue 35, pp.145). Not to forget that I spent the last 6 months arguing that St.Lawrence Market was one of the best ways to discover Toronto. Fine, let’s go to the West Village/Meatpacking.

Photo joevare @ Flickr

The trip was superb in many ways. A few of the highlights included watching a World Cup game among another 30 or so neighbours in an improvised street theatre with a HDTV courtesy of an entrepreneurial bistro, walking the cobblestoned streets of West Village which seem to be rebelliously misaligned from the rest of the grid, discovering the new urban oasis that is the High Line, the quintessential subway adventure which included taking the express two stops too far and hanging out with long lost friends at one of the hottest unassuming Bossa Nova venues in the city.

But the prelude to all this was the firm decision to find accommodation in or around the West Village. There are a few really great hotels in the area, most of them small boutique hotels like Soho House New York or Gansevoort Meatpacking NYC. Even The Standard an iconic building right on top of the High Line could’ve been an option. But as nice as they all are, they have one problem: you’ll be looking at a bill of at least one thousand dollars for a long weekend.

Instead, I found a nice single room in a large apartment available for US$65/night, just a few blocks away from my target area and around the corner from a subway station. The short term rental was a in a 6-story apartment building with one of those elevators with double doors you see in old movies. The building was in itself a good indicator of the awesomeness of a mature neighbourhood, as its type is the landmark of urban models that appeared at the turn of the XX century, with “high-rise” promoting density and mix use of the land.

Lately cities like New York and Paris have been trying to figure out the ecosystem of short term rentals (read update at the bottom). Perhaps under pressure from the lodging industry that finds the emerging trend troubling following one of the worst years in terms of occupation. It is ironic that some of the arguments used to counter the trend is the fact that these rentals take away inventory that would be otherwise available for residents to live in. From The New York Times: To Address Its Housing Shortage, Paris Cracks Down on Pied-à-Terre Rentals

Mayor Bertrand Delanoë ordered an agency last year to warn property owners that renting out residential apartments for less than a year at a time violated French law. The move was intended to address the lack of affordable housing in the city center.

“To live in”. The reason why those of us exploring these social networks of short term rentals find them incredibly appealing: they are a gateway to the real lifestyles of locals. No matter how many amenities a hotel offers to their guests, they can’t control the neighbourhood. Just visualize the chaos that reigns around Broadway and 7th at the street level. It is impossible to leave the lobby of any hotel without being approached by a never ending cast of characters inviting you to every imaginable show on Earth.

As Benji Lanyado explains in his recent New York Times Travel feature Europe Without Hotels:

Social B&B networks are a natural next step, imposing an important distinction: money. The new sites appeal to a traveler’s desire to see a city through local eyes (and from the vantage point of a resident’s home)

Better experience at a fraction of the cost? That is not the only reason these sites are finding great reception among the adventurous. They are also a new kind of social network, one where the people you discover in the virtual world become your guests in real life. One where the judgement you pass on the random conversations you have online will likely have a lasting effect on the friendships you develop and one that is certain to get your closer to cities around the world that you wouldn’t have considered otherwise. I’ll call it the neighbourhood social network.

I used to spend more time trying to figure out what hotel would offer the best deal, cross-referencing information from various sources, comparing their location on a map, reading countless contradicting reviews… still to be disappointed with the overall destination. In this visit to New York all my research was mostly about the neighbourhood, automatically making the whole experience far more gratifying as I clearly scored some pretty great “insider tips” from the very same people that would be my host.

The night I walked into the apartment, my host wasn’t home, but he left a small welcome note with the WiFi password and a short list of the ways in which he was making me feel home, including his mobile number in case I needed anything, at any time. That was the last on a series of communications that started a few days before my trip. Short questions brokered by the website where I found the listing meant to introduce us and give us an opportunity to decide if this was going to be “the place”. In a way I trusted him far more than I have ever trusted a concierge before.

Update from July 28, 2010: Perhaps I used a very soft tone when I said that cities like New York “were trying to figure out the ecosystem”. A bill that outlaws rentals for less than 30 days was recently signed by Gov. David Paterson. To paraphrase Arthur Frommer: Big hotels win, tourism looses. However, these are trying times. People are digging deep to figure out a way to make a decent living and paying expensive hotels, even if prescribed by law will not do. What lobbyists may have triggered is an explosion of services that will find every possible way to give tourists what they are looking for: better prices, authentic experiences, closer relationships and opportunities to venture into cities that would otherwise be prohibitively expensive in the current economic conditions. Services that are based on hosts receiving guests in their own homes are going to be much more popular as they seem to be immune to the new bill. Other entrepreneurial property owners are likely going to learn fast, so I wouldn’t assume that their inventory will be removed from the market as much as it will be morphed into hosted accommodation.

Disclosure: iStopOver is a client. The trip related in this article was of a personal nature and paid by the author.

I was reminded of “experience design” while reading a little post by Henrik Werdelin about his stay at a W Hotel: The other day, I stayed at the W hotel in San Francisco. As I was stepping into the shower I noticed that the bath mat towel used when stepping out on the floor after showing was rolled instead of [...]]]> My routine for Saturday mornings includes an easy stroll down a street lined up with a few mature trees, to a recently opened patisserie where I can have freshly baked pastries, perhaps a strong-flavoured tea and from there to the bookstore to secure a good dose of weekly magazines in matters of travel, entrepreneurship and technology. There is a good bench just one block up the bookstore that guarantees a good amount of sun on your back while you read, or there is a very large park where the background laughter of kids does well to read with optimism no matter what. I like the flow of these simple events, as each one prepares me to enjoy the next move better. I like the fact that it all takes places within just a few blocks, my neighborhood.

I was reminded of “experience design” while reading a little post by Henrik Werdelin about his stay at a W Hotel:

The other day, I stayed at the W hotel in San Francisco. As I was stepping into the shower I noticed that the bath mat towel used when stepping out on the floor after showing was rolled instead of folded. This meant that I could tap it with my foot just before stepping into the shower instead of bending down and un-folding it. I then turned on the shower and noticed that the shower head had been pointed towards the wall, making the first bit of cold water that is always in the pipes go onto the wall instead of me. Finally, as I went out of the shower, I found the bathrobe next to the shower with the string tied in a way so I could just pull the string and the bathrobe would open instead of having to untie the knot. Future more the string was secured to the side of the bathrobe so it didnt fall down on the floor.

We’ve gotten used to experience design from brands. The example above is perhaps the result of many iterations studying every possibility and intentionally deciding to wow the guest. No wonder W Hotels have such a strong brand. But I now want to be surprised by the same intentional ‘betterness’ design when I walk down the street. Is this the stuff that makes urbanist get excited? Or is it why people engage in local politics? There seems to be a big gap between one and another and in the middle we have all those empty stretches of streets that could result in those Aha! moments. Perhaps a weather-proof magazine rack besides my favourite bench would encourage sharing; or a completely open facade to the coffee shop and an engaging tune would give the street its own soundtrack; or the best gelato in the neighborhood would be strategically placed near the park where kids play and not three blocks away. It seems there are too many opportunities wasted and my Saturday mornings could use a little bit of that continuous experience innovation.

We’re looking for an elite group of curious, well-traveled, interesting, and influential people who are willing to help us test the site before we roll it out to the public in September. If you would like to throw your hat in the ring, please visit private.afar.com and fill out a questionnaire that will help us put together a group that represents the AFAR community. This is an opportunity to get in on the ground floor to influence the direction of AFAR.com, and to share your expertise with other like-minded global citizens.

The community of people devoted to writing about travel is very savvy and has found on Twitter a great way to keep tabs on the various projects going across the space. The AFAR project spread like wildfire over the last couple of months, so purchasing the most recent issue of their magazine happened without even flipping through its pages.

Yes, there are some silly editorial experiments within its pages, but mostly you’ll find well researched, professionally written articles from people on the road and not behind their desks. I’m particularly fond of the words “nomad”, “global citizen”, “cultural immersion”, ” [...]]]> From the editorial of AFAR Magazine:

We’re looking for an elite group of curious, well-traveled, interesting, and influential people who are willing to help us test the site before we roll it out to the public in September. If you would like to throw your hat in the ring, please visit private.afar.com and fill out a questionnaire that will help us put together a group that represents the AFAR community. This is an opportunity to get in on the ground floor to influence the direction of AFAR.com, and to share your expertise with other like-minded global citizens.

The community of people devoted to writing about travel is very savvy and has found on Twitter a great way to keep tabs on the various projects going across the space. The AFAR project spread like wildfire over the last couple of months, so purchasing the most recent issue of their magazine happened without even flipping through its pages.

Yes, there are some silly editorial experiments within its pages, but mostly you’ll find well researched, professionally written articles from people on the road and not behind their desks. I’m particularly fond of the words “nomad”, “global citizen”, “cultural immersion”, ” and so most articles resonate strongly with my travel ethos. But even to the casual reader the quality of the photography will be sufficient to make things interesting. I learned a lot of things about Mexican cuisine and I am from Mexico. I found myself lost in one of the most memorable meals I’ve had in the city, reading about “Los Danzantes” in the Coyoacan area, of which I’m such a big fan.

Congratulations to the AFAR team on a great kick-off to their global journey. I hope we cross paths one day.

What I find most useful about this approach is the recognition that open data can be built into dynamic tools that help us make [...]]]> The New York magazine devoted its most recent issue to Neighborhoods and in the process of trying to decide which one was the most livable, they ran into some very interesting challenges. Unlike other rankings based on the opinion of an editorial group, they decided to arm themselves with as much information that would quantify different aspects of livability and create a model that would use it all to compute the results. Seems too algorithmic? Consider some of their sources: Yelp, StreetEasy, Zillow, US Census Bureau and the local government. In the age of open data, things like potholes, code violations, test scores at schools, crime rates, density of shopping alternatives, parks, noise levels and many more are all available to provide a robust foundation. All of these get organized into broad priorities such as housing, transit, safety, schools, diversity, green space, etc. Don’t trust their formula to prioritize the various factors that affect livability? Try their Livability Calculator to set your own priorities.

What I find most useful about this approach is the recognition that open data can be built into dynamic tools that help us make better decisions. I’m not going to claim that we went through such an exhaustive process to define our features for our recent local guide, but I’m certain a healthy dose of live data would provide the ultimate planning tool. Not only stay up to date as new businesses appear and others close, but account for shifting preferences that make some venues more popular during the summer days, or the degree to which a venue is likeable in the various social media tools may soon be the norm for ranking places, in real time.

St. Lawrence Market Guide

How is it different from other city guides? Well for starters is not a city guide, it is a neighbourhood guide. You know that neglected urban molecule that often defines the character of its citizens but it is rarely given its credit.

- Curated content: the fact that we limited the scope of this guide to a very small section of the city, allowed us to be thorough in our research. If you are from Toronto, you’ll find that our features are carefully selected and represent the best this area has to offer. If you have never been to Toronto, you probably don’t [...]]]> As I’ve been announcing for a few months already, today we’ve finally launched the St. Lawrence Market guide in collaboration with the PlanetEye team (in case you haven’t heard, that’s my day job). I learned a lot over the last year trying to figure out how to bring this project to life and I’m pretty happy with the results. There are many ideas flowing through my mind about the significance of this project, but I’ll limit this post to brag about the guide itself:

St. Lawrence Market Guide

How is it different from other city guides? Well for starters is not a city guide, it is a neighbourhood guide. You know that neglected urban molecule that often defines the character of its citizens but it is rarely given its credit.

- Curated content: the fact that we limited the scope of this guide to a very small section of the city, allowed us to be thorough in our research. If you are from Toronto, you’ll find that our features are carefully selected and represent the best this area has to offer. If you have never been to Toronto, you probably don’t need to look any further to organize a nice little stay in our city.

- Great photography: Yes, there are photos in every page and every map. Some of them we took while walking around the neighbourhood and others were organized photo-shoots with pros. All the photos are geolocated and can be expanded so they can be appreciated fully.

- Super useful maps: Every one of the sections in the guide features a couple of interactive maps: one with the features written about, and another with a larger collection of places. The maps are fully functional and will allow you to explore the area without ever worrying about “too much information”. The best part is that the maps are powered by some really cool technology that allow us to continuously update their content as new places appear and others close. You can expect this guide to remain current.

- Essentials: travelling is not only about finding a good hotel, a nice restaurant and a photo opportunity. We tried to include a small collection of essential services that every traveller has needed at least once while on the road. My favourite? Essentials/Working Spaces will show you several locations that provide reliable WiFi or will even allow you to rent a desk for a day.

- Sustainable, Livable: above it all, we wanted to portray in good light a neighbourhood that has transcended the daily routine that is so characteristic of large cities and has created an interesting vital energy that is obvious while walking its sidewalks and crossing paths with the locals. Everything within a few blocks so you don’t even need to worry about transportation in most cases.

If you’re considering travelling to Toronto on business or pleasure and plan to spend more than a couple of days in our city, I can assure you this guide has everything you need for a memorable travel experience. At the end of the trip you may even find yourself thinking “I could live here“.

The reason to travel: there are inner transitions we can’t properly cement without a change of locations.8:03 AM Apr 12th via webAlain de Bottonalaindebotton

And travel, my reliable muse, has not only brought me back to familiar places but reignited the passion for the ideas that I have developed throughout this blog.

Where were we? Oh yes, hyperlocal is hard.

The quest to assemble a local guide for the global citizen has taught me that Hyperlocal is hard. While cities have a convenient way to measure their boundaries, narrowing a particular area within a city with a very specific mindset or spirit seems a lot harder. We often fail to recognize that a lively neighbourhood is the sum of its core commercial strip, the back alleys that hide its best secrets, the surrounding residential areas that define the character of its inhabitants and the eternal flow of people that make it their favourite. Now imagine trying to define a [...]]]> It’s been a long hiatus from writing in this space, but as Alain de Botton says

And travel, my reliable muse, has not only brought me back to familiar places but reignited the passion for the ideas that I have developed throughout this blog.

Where were we? Oh yes, hyperlocal is hard.

The quest to assemble a local guide for the global citizen has taught me that Hyperlocal is hard. While cities have a convenient way to measure their boundaries, narrowing a particular area within a city with a very specific mindset or spirit seems a lot harder. We often fail to recognize that a lively neighbourhood is the sum of its core commercial strip, the back alleys that hide its best secrets, the surrounding residential areas that define the character of its inhabitants and the eternal flow of people that make it their favourite. Now imagine trying to define a city by one of its many neighbourhoods.

Such was the naive journey I embarqued in when decided to develop such a guide. In the process of researching some neighbourhoods I found myself knocking on doors of boutique hotels camouflaged as residences, negotiating “licensing fees” to take a few photos in amazing secret gardens, discovering the unbelievably rich history behind ancient buildings, growing frustrated with the gross inaccuracy of map services that led me to dead ends or ghost hotels (I swear, they are not there) and trying to put myself in the shoes of the brave traveler willing to go farther for the sake of a great journey.

The intent was clear: if I was a “slow traveler”, willing to invest myself into a destination, which particular area within a city would maximize my chances of understanding it? Originally conceived as a project to arm myself with plenty of good ideas for future travel, it quickly became the topic of many conversations with travel enthusiasts realizing this was a fresh alternative to the complexity of city-oriented travel guides with their endless listings.

So it is hard. Not impossible. And because I have the good fortune of being allied with a smart group of people that have devoted their careers to make travel easier, I have escalated this particular venture to the level of a business project with PlanetEye. As I write this post, the production team at PlanetEye is finishing touches to launch what is our first joint project: a mix of some of the ideas you’ve read about here and some of the content that I produced over the last months with a very interesting visual proposition and more importantly a potential business angle that will make it a viable project, allowing us to expand to many other destinations. I really hope this first venture of the Global Culture brand is embraced by the always curious global citizen.

St. Lawrence Market - our photoshoot

I’ll be giving away the guide online under a CC license, but you’ll have to wait a bit longer. If you’re a writer or photographer and would like to get involved in the production of a similar guide for your city, please let me know.

If you’ve been following our Global Culture Tour, you know our second destination is the St. Lawrence Market. A very lively neighbourhood in downtown Toronto, this area will also give us a great opportunity to explore interesting attributes that make places like these desirable to the global citizen. Could one of them be a good international bookstore where you can get your latest Monocle?

Although I had already shown a little preview of our first photo shoot in Coyoacán, here is another teaser. One of the reasons I’ve delayed the posting of the final photos is because we were very fortunate to gain access to a museum in the area that will give this guide a very distinct visual identity. Our crew was back in this neighbourhood just a few days ago and soon you’ll be able to enjoy a very unique journey through one of the most serene areas of Mexico City.

I can’t believe we’re already halfway through October. It’s been a while since my last photo post on a Saturday. Hope you enjoy it.

Call it the “curse of memorable places”: you’ve just spent a couple of weeks at what you believe has been the greatest journey of your lifetime only to come back and try to articulate into a “travel blog” how great it was or create a slideshow of your obviously less than stellar photography. Perhaps the only satisfaction that results from these failed attempts to convey the grandiosity of a trip is that your boring interpretation will keep this treasure safe from others “discovering” it.

This is [...]]]> I find a little bit ironic that Google released their new “Places” page at the same time that National Geographic Traveler celebrates their 25th anniversary with a collector’s edition featuring “50 Places of Lifetime“. My opinion in this matter is likely very biased as this is what I do for a living: try to figure out how to best convey the qualities that make a particular destination desirable to the traveler and build websites that attempt to organize such knowledge. But it is a very tough problem and the attempt from Google, while strategic is perfect proof of how far we are from capturing the essence of travel.

Call it the “curse of memorable places”: you’ve just spent a couple of weeks at what you believe has been the greatest journey of your lifetime only to come back and try to articulate into a “travel blog” how great it was or create a slideshow of your obviously less than stellar photography. Perhaps the only satisfaction that results from these failed attempts to convey the grandiosity of a trip is that your boring interpretation will keep this treasure safe from others “discovering” it.

This is exactly what it feels to browse through the amazing catalogue of places that Google has assembled from millions of random geolocated snippets of content: business listings, photos, videos, articles. The result is a fairly useful “Yellow Pages” of the world, unable to do justice to the qualities that have impregnated each of those places into our collective memory. It is unfortunate that Google’s blog post to announce their product says: “there are places we remember”, as we remember them too and they are not much like Google says they are.

But an even more worrisome trend is that many travel guides out there will end up looking very much like this “Place” pages: a collection of attractions depicted by a low-resolution thumbnail along with a 50-word summary. Clearly those travel guides are out of the race as there is a computer somewhere that can accomplish the same thing.

For the last little while I’ve been writing about our attempt to create a very special travel guide. One that falls short of covering every place on the planet, but that is able to capture the personality of very unique places, not by aggregating dozens of photos taken by different photographers, but carefully composing our interpretation of a place and tasking a great photographer to capture it with a hint of his own passion for the location. Perhaps avoiding factual information such as addresses, business hours and prices (as all of these are now just one query away) and crafting a narrative that makes the place a coherent part of a bigger story that dares you to make it your own.

Having just finished the first photo-shoot for the St. Lawrence Market in Toronto, I’m confident our story will be far more beautiful, entertaining and informative than what Google tells us about it.