Make the most out of life in your city… from CitySocialising on Vimeo.

I’m a big fan of social-networking site MeetUp. Not that I use it very much, but I simply feel comforted to know it exists, so that if I ever have spare time on my hands I can always find interesting new things to do and people to meet. Especially if I go back to London. (See also the equally excellent City Socialising, which is explained in the video above.)

MeetUp has 466 groups in the London area, covering all sorts of passions and persuasions. I just received a list of the latest additions and, in praise of its diversity, I feel the need to share.

Anything catch your eye?

I’ll leave you with some MeetUp facts:

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It was just like any morning in London. Except now I live in Buenos AIres. Not exactly fully ‘going local’, is it? Although I do sometimes have media lunas with that coffee.

Yes, I should probably start rethinking this routine. I need to get into the habit of adding local media to my morning list. (I read it, but typically later in the day.) I also need to settle in with a local radio station - it’s silly that I haven’t already, as it would do my Spanish the world of good. (Recommendations would be welcome. Although I’m not sure I can fully part company with John H and the gang.)

A few internet comforts make living abroad much easier these days. I just passed my one-year mark out of the UK and although I’ve lived abroad in various places, this is the first straight year for me. In the past, I’ve always had time at home between trips a and although I’ve never had desperate homesickness, I have felt unsettled, far away and in need of seeing someone I’ve known for more than a short while.

This time has been different. Although I’d love to see my family and friends, I’m not at all homesick. Perhaps this is due to the particular relationship I have with BA and because I built up friends here over five years of past visits, but I’m sure I can also thank the internet.

I first moved away from home when I was 18 in the late 90s. It was only to France, so no big time differences to contest with and only a short train ride away. Yet this was a time - hard as it is to imagine - when there was no email. I wrote to my core circle of school friends longhand and waited for response, which came a few weeks later - or sometimes longer. How things have changed.

The greatest invention of all has to be Skype. A video call to friends may not be the same as a chat over a pint, but it sure beats a postcard.

And for all the concerns about the amount of information Facebook holds, it can be an expat’s best friend. In the past, you could only stay in touch with close friends - now you can keep in touch with everyone. Perhaps this isn’t appealing to everyone, but I love it and the other advantage of this constant contact is that people find it easier to drop you a line when they’re going to be in your neck of the woods. I’ve had a string of familiar faces passing through this year. Quite a lot didn’t come specifically to visit me, but were backpacking or on business and we had some great days hanging out, catching up and reminiscing over times with mutual friends. But I wonder how many would have got in touch if it had involved sending an email out of the blue after a year or more of no contact? And if it had involved finding out my address to write a letter? No chance.

Expats and travellers - has homesickness got more managable for you thanks to the internet? Any guilty pleasures? I mainly use services to keep in touch (social networking) or stay informed (beloved news services), but I also have a proxy so I can watch BBC and ITV programmes too - although I try and show restraint on this.

There are probably those who think I should take this foot out of ‘home’ life. I don’t agree. It’s not intrusive and I’m not sacrificing anything. It’s all part of being a global citizen. I’ll never be truly local. And actually I wouldn’t want to be.

Picture: still from BBC iPlayer

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It’s not hard to strike up a conversation with a porteño. From kiosco queues to bar rooms, as soon as your accent’s overheard, you’ll find yourself enveloped in their holy trinity of small-talk questions: ‘where you come from?’, ‘what you’re doing here?’, and, that all-time favourite, ‘what do you think of Argentina?’. But ten minutes of friendly chitchat aside, it can be hard for a visitor to get a real foothold into the Argentinian way of life. If you stay in a hostel, your contact is predominantly with other travellers; if you’re in hotel, the receptionist may do a sterling job professing interest in your daily sightseeing, but this rarely goes beyond ten minutes. So how do you break the cycle? Here are my top-three tips.

Spanglish

Imagine a speed-dating event but participants are using their ten-minute window to practice languages rather than trying to score a date. This is Spanglish, an event held in various bars across BA. I love the idea and so, it seems, do many others, as the event has created a solid name for itself during its first year. (The anniversary party is this Friday.) Here’s how they explain the concept:

Spanglish is a language exchange that brings together native English speakers, native Spanish speakers, and just enough beer to make it less intimidating to practice a foreign language.  Our format of one-on-one “mini-conversations” that last for 10 minutes (5 in Spanish, 5 in English), give you the chance to practice your conversation skills with multiple native speakers.

Attending Spanglish is a great way to mix with locals. It costs AR$20 (including a drink) and you can go as often, or as sporadically, as you like. See the website for venue details.

Alternatively - wherever you are - you could arrange your own language exchange: try posting on Craigslist or Gumtree. Or you can even do it the good, old-fashioned way. Not long ago I saw a note pinned to the wall in a Bolivian cafe advertising for a language exchange partner. 

Couchsurfing.com

The most active forum on Couchsurfing.com  is the Buenos Aires city group with nearly 8,000 members. You’d be forgiven for presuming that members primarily post to make pleas for a spare sofa or to arrange expat get-togethers, but the real key to its success is its thriving local contingency. The majority of the action is organised by Argentinians or longterm residents, who have formed an ultra-social - and totally non-exclusive – pack. Everyone is invited to step into their non-stop social life. A quick browse around the message board is all you need to discover almost daily (and nightly) activities, from picnics and gigs to house parties and camping trips. And if there isn’t anything you fancy, you can start something yourself. Want someone to tango dance with? Want to arrange lunch with someone who shares your interests? Post up a note and you may be in luck.

Puerta Cerrada dinners

Is Buenos Aires the world capital of in-house restaurants? It can seem like it at times. Attending a night behind a puerta cerrada (closed door) is a great way to meet people. Essentially it’s like choosing a dinner party invite, which is much more social than cocooning yourself away anonymously in a corner of regular restaurant. You’re likely to meet some fellow tourists, but there is usually a smattering of locals too. Christina Wiseman of Cocina Sunae told me the other day that she has one regular who comes every week. See also Casa SaltShaker, Casa Felix and Cocina Discreta.

A version of this article first appeared in Time Out Buenos Aires for Visitors. Photo: the tourist trap of La Boca. Copyright: Vicky Baker.

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Photo: Cape Town waterfront by Slack12 on Flickr. Some rights reserved.

What do murder rates tell us about a country? So asked the Guardian yesterday in a blog listing global homicide figures.

I’d like to turn that round and ask: what does a murder rate tell us about tourist safety?

My answer would be ‘not a lot’. Not if it’s just a figure in isolation. Articles about tourism often throw in a national murder figure as if that neatly sums up a tourist’s personal chances. Two recent classics: the Mirror saying Americans would be crazy to go to Lewisham and an infuriatingly daft Guardian sports blog  implying that most people going to the South Africa World Cup won’t come back alive.

If the murder rate for a country is quoted as a reason not to travel to a country as a tourist, I’d I want to know these things:

a) how many murders were of random tourists (ie not gang crime, drug dealers or domestic disputes)?

b) how many were walking through supposedly tourist-friendly areas?

c) and how many where in areas tourists were advised not to go to?

Crime shouldn’t be brushed under the carpet in a bid to protect a country’s tourist-friendly front, but you need more info than a throwaway statistic to make an informed decision about personal safety.

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A recent blog on BootsNAll had a dig at flashpackers who travel with too many gadgets:

Traveling without taking local transport carrying laptops and expensive gadgets means that you can’t be as adventurous. Part of the backpacking experience is being able to have the freedom to do what you want when you like. Loading up of technology not only increases the chances of you being targeted by thieves but just makes your traveling experience much less flexible. You’ll spend time worrying about the safety and security of your gadgets rather than just letting go and having fun.

This riled net-savvy travel writer Benji Lanyado, who put forward an interesting counter-argument defending flashpackers on his blog:

Mobile web has revolutionised the way I travel. When I’m at a loose end, I’ll nip into Google Maps and find a cracking local cafe, as recommended by local reviews. If I find something interesting, I can Google it and learn more about it. It enhances my experience. It makes me learn more. It helps me understand the local history better. Which makes striking up a conversation all the easier…

Although I’m very much for "letting go" and taking some time out, Benji puts forward a very good case on the other side too. Although, as he also says, there’s no need to make a cut-and-fine choice.

Or is there? Where do you stand? Any refusers out there? Any wifi addicts?

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Thinking about going to Peru? How’s this for advice?

The water? Is poisonous. The food? Gives you diarrhea. The country? Is ugly. The pollution in Lima makes you choke. And everyone, and I mean everyone — taxi drivers, hotel owners,tour operators, souvenir vendors — tries to rob you. It makes you paranoid. I went to Peru, and I thought everyone was out to get me. Then I realized — they were out to get me!

Sound like like the Peru you know? No, me neither.

This was a comment from a talk Lonely Planet author just gave in Colombia. It was given in front of an audience of the country’s tourism professionals - all looking at ways to increase tourism, make the most of the country’s pros and look at how it can pitch itself against other South American countries with more a established tourist industry. But among the very well thought-out observations on what a gringo crowd wants and some excellent advice about not overlooking the backpacker market, there were a couple of throwaway comments that seemed to undermine the debate. The one that stood most for me - and made me shiver - was the above statement on Peru. (Although Ecuador and Venezuela didn’t come out too well either. But for other reasons.)

In his speech, the writer looked at how Colombia is fighting back against generalisations with their ‘the only risk is wanting to stay’ campaign and yet he then makes one of the most extreme generalisations against a country I’ve heard for a long time.

I first saw a link to this speech on South American travel blog, TravelOjos. I’ve been having an email discussion about it with the blog’s editor, Steven Roll. We both have mixed feelings about the speech. Generally, our thoughts are that it has good foundation (ie - Colombia has a lot to offer and it needs to work to its strengths), but this could have been expressed without an attack on Peru.

Was it a joke? We wondered. Apparently not. Steven emailed the writer to check.

This was Steven’s take on the speech:

Writing about Latin America means acknowledging that certain problems exist. While his characterization seems overly broad and probably is unfair, I find his frankness somewhat refreshing. It’s not as if no one else thinks these things. I wouldn’t trust a restaurant reviewer who liked everywhere she ate. A larger question raised by his speech is: where do you draw the line with generalizations/stereotypes etc. To entirely disregard all of them seems like political correctness run amok. To buy into them too much smacks of bigotry.

Interesting. There’s a bigger question here for sure and frankness can be good. A travel writer is being responsible if advising people not to turn up in Lima with an expensive camera slung over one shoulder or drink tap water. However, this is extreme and I don’t think it’s political correctness gone mad to be astounded when someone says all Peruvians working in tourism are crooks.

Back to Colombia, the fundamental point was that although it doesn’t have a Machu Picchu, it has a whole lot else on offer if it finds the right market (less tourists looking for sights, more travellers looking for experiences). The idea of people needing to look beyond the travel icons for their travel experiences? I agree wholeheartedly; I’ve said it time and time again myself. I also agree that Colombia is an amazing country with hugely untapped potential and it’s wise for them to compare their situation with that of other Latin American countries in order to find their niche.

I would love to be blogging now about the good points that were made in the speech, but sadly this Peru comment stuck in my head and I can’t let it slide. Neither, it seems, can the Peruvians that have already got hold of the text from the speech, which is circling on the net. They are, quite rightly, not impressed.

Peruvians, Colombians, travel writers, travellers, anyone: what do you think? Any thoughts on the wider picture of generalisations in South American tourism?

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[Photo by Stuart Noble on Flickr]

So London now has a version of Friends coffee shop, Central Perk. It opened last week. Yes, last week, in 2009, around a decade after the peak period when everyone wanted to be part of the Friends gang.

I was pleased to see that the Guardian responded with a piece in praise of independent coffee houses (a list of the ten best, plus a call for readers to recommend their own favourites). The UK is ready for a coffee house revolution. Actually, scrap that and let’s call it the café revolution. It was our striving to recreate the All-American ‘coffee house’ that lead to the problem. Now we’re tired of the Costas, the Neros, the Starbucks. This month Starbucks unveiled a new plan to try and inject some personality into its stores. They want to become less corporate and will now rebrand by debranding. Urgh. The fact that people are using that language shows the battle is already lost.

I used to go to the chain coffee shops from time to time in the London, but here in Buenos Aires, I refuse. I’ve said this before, but Buenos Aires has a refreshing absence of carbon-copy coffee shops. There are only a handful of Starbucks here.  I can’t help feeling that to stop the spread all we have to do is resist an overpriced milky drink with a dash of coffee and take the rash step of drinking a reasonably priced, strong cortado. As challenges go, it shouldn’t be too hard.

Where do I go for a good cortado? My local is the wonderful Bar Gallego in Palermo Viejo, which is a workman-style cafe run by an elderly Gallician owner who fled Spain after during the civil war. In the 1990s he was offered a million dollars to sell his prime-location premises, but heroically refused and the place has barely changed since. It is known for serving huge chunks of meat, jamon crudo sandwiches, shiny chips and strong coffee. I love the fact that one of the more eccentric waiters always leaps out of the shop to greet me when I walk past and always tries to speak a token bit of English, even though that usually just extends to "thank you very muchy". You wouldn’t get this sort of service in Starbucks. As the Observer’s Word of Mouth blog says of the Starbucks fall from grace: 

As the shops proliferated, their bright, studiedly informal interiors began to look like cynical clones, the staff quietly morphed from stunning resting-between-jobs actresses into stunned looking minimum-wage droids with thousand yard stares, and everything began to smell of sour milk. What had once looked like the brightest of futures began to look like McDonald’s.

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Here’s a dilemma for all you travel writers out there…

What do you do when a hotel specifically tells you they do not want to be included within your article/book/website?

This situation arose recently for a colleague of mine. (Those on Twitter may remember I mentioned it briefly.) I won’t go into details, but it was a South American destination, and some rural, no-frills accommodation. The owner told the writer, very politely, that she specifically did not want to reach out to a European or US clientele. Why? The general gist seemed to be it would bring a different set of expectations from the guests and the owners would be under more pressure.

I wasn’t quite sure what to make of this. On one hand, fair enough, I respect their want to kept to their roots, stick to what they know, and also that they don’t feel the need to chase the Euro/US market. On the other hand (and after reading the email exchange), I feel the owner had fallen into a trap of stereotypes. She thought that the writer would fail to mention that it was simple, rural dwelling and guests would all turn up with their Luis Vuitton wheelie cases wondering why there was no soy milk for their cappuccino. Had they been reading Liz Jones’s Exmoor files?

The above case was not the only one I’ve heard recently where a hotel owner feared an influx of disappointed guests. When another publication highlighted an establishment among a shortlist of ‘best’ recommendations, the hotel’s owners got nervous. "We aren’t the best in town! We’re just a simple B&B!" was roughly the theme of their written complaint. It certainly wasn’t the usual response. The editor then had to assure them that the article was meant to show how they shone in their own way and that they were the sort of unassuming gem we all like to read about.

You can see why owners fear disappointed guests. And especially these days when people advertise their disappointment on the world wide web via social networks and peer-to-peer review sites.

It is also true that once a local joint becomes popular with international tourists, there is a danger that the feel of the place can change and the local clientele could find themselves getting priced out. For travel writers, it’s a dilemma. We can be more than just a cog in the wheel. In some cases, we’re the electric motor.

Perhaps the biggest danger comes from over hyping a place. Yes, this makes editors happy (mainly because they’ll be oblivious and will fall into the hype honeypot too). And it makes readers happy, as they excitedly start planning their trip to paradise. Indeed, everyone is happy until someone actually goes there and finds the reality is rather different. "Are you on ‘hype watch’?" asked a colleague of mine when I was editing a guidebook recently. Good advice.

But back to the original question: travel writers - would you respect the wishes of a hotel to be kept out of your publication? Or if it’s a place that would really suit your readers would you explain your case? Or would you go ahead and publish without a second thought in the name of free speech? Readers of travel writing - what do you think? "Writers shouldn’t even tell people they are writing about the place" is the common answer. But as travel writers know, this isn’t always practical.
 

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To deny us them is like a Roman emperor running out of bread and circuses, a French president failing to defend the Common Agricultural Policy or a Russian leader being pleasant: the people won’t stand for it.

Not long ago I was talking to an Argentinian who works in travel in Buenos Aires. She’d been doing some research into how tough economic times affect spending priorities and I noticed a few interesting cultural differences. Argentinians, for example, are still going to eat out: it’s not a luxury to pop to your local parrilla (steakhouse) for a quick bite with your family, it’s just something you do. However, for most Brits, eating out is still considered a treat and would probably be one of the first things we cut back on. We’d rather put that cash into a holiday fund.

One thing that I see all over the world and wish we did more in the UK is to take city breaks on our own doorstep. The way porteños take off for a day in the campo. It’s something my friends and I almost never did in London. Maybe that’s just us. I did once get a train to Broadstairs (a cute costal town on the south coast) for the day. It felt like a million miles away. "Wow, I should do this more often," I said. I never did.

Mitchell’s piece did have a ‘class’ undertone (deliberately  - he was tacking the "I don’t want to have a situation where only rich people can afford to fly" comment by Ed Miliband). But by concentrating on Ibiza, Disney World and drinking holidays in the sun, Mitchell forgets that those taking cultural breaks in Berlin, Paris and Hvar are just as obsessed with ‘getting away’.

Fair enough, you can still have a relaxing weekend in your own town or city and feeling in the need to ‘escape’ every single weekend would be an equal shame (I was recently in the Uruguayan capital, Montevideo, which is a somewhat a scary extreme - the city is deserted on Saturdays and Sunday, like something out of 28 Days Later). But making the most of freetime close to home is the ideal way to get the dose of refreshment we crave, and without getting on a plane.

It’s nice to see UK travel sections using these times to promoting more domestic travel, but I wonder has it made a difference?

A friend of mine on complained on Facebook the other day of everyone using their status updates to brag about exotic travel plans while he was ’stuck’ in Norfolk.

A series of spoof updates followed:

Wow, Cromer rocked, the people, so friendly! Now off on the highway to Wroxham…wowsers

Stopped off on the B1150 highway for a local delicacy, a bacon bap. Stalham at sunset, amazing

They made me laugh. But perhaps we Brits be using these times to fundamentally change the way we approach our free time, so we’re not, as Mitchell says,  "living for two weeks of escape".

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The first place I’d look to find a independent local guide is LeapLocal.org, an online database full of such types and which is committed to helping local communities benefit from tourism. Unfortunately, there’s limited entries for central America at the moment. Although I did find a local guide in Guatemala who can arrange hiking and kayaking trips across the country.
More options can be found on Localyte.com, a fast-growing site that promises to help you ‘travel like a local’. An abundance of locals have listed themselves on the site - from those owing tour companies to those who don’t work in tourism, but are keen to pass on their insider knowledge in their spare time. Next to each profile there’s an ‘ask a question’ button to contact the person directly, so you can get some good tips here too.

For staying safe, find out as much as you can about the person and their hiking experience in advance. If you’re going truly off track, you need someone who knows the area inside out. Problems can arise if there are price disputes, so be sure to clarify costs from the outset; depending on your guide’s situation, you may have to pay their expenses. The advantage of going with a tour company is that they are used to working with tourists and are prepared for all eventualities. Going it alone means making those preparations yourself. Be sure to ask lots of questions so you know what to expect and what to pack. Above all, be flexible and enjoy going with the flow.

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