I love my cultural travel to be meaningful, memorable, fun and stress-free. I like my trips to bring me new experiences and enlighten me with new intriguing and amazing knowledge.
I achieve this is by planning with a lot of detail ahead of time. I follow a seven step method that I created and that I’m working on sharing with you in an up-coming e-course. So watch out for that!
One of the steps of the method is to actually decide the attractions you want to see when visiting a specific city, the things that you can’t miss out, the things you’ve always wanted to see, things that nobody talks about but are actually hidden gems and everything in between.
Back in 2007 I discovered an excellent tool to help you do just that.
Schmap is so much more than a website. It’s a comprehensive service covering local businesses and events so that you know what’s going on in the local scene, but in my opinion, the best of their services is their city guides.
With 200 city guides available, they cover some of the most important cities in Europe, Australia, Canada and the United States with real-time help from their 300.000 contributors.
On their website, you can find recommendations about local businesses and events which will allow you to add more flavor to your visit.
And you can also download their guides as an application for your computer for FREE! What I love about Schmap guides is that they go into a great level of detail listing the city attractions and organizing them thematically or by neighborhoods which is quite neat.
Right now Schmap is innovating with their very popular Twitter service, so why not sign up and check it out?
So let me introduce you to Schmap City Guides
Installing the software is pretty much like any other software if not easier. Once you’re in it, the software is going to ask you to select a city.
For this example, I’ve chosen Paris. Then you get this view which is your home and the overall table of contents for what you can find inside the application. In this view you can see your dashboard and in it you can manage all your content. (Click on the images to view them larger!)
Another thing I really dig is the fact that they include a historical background for the city and an explanation of the layout of the neighborhoods which is something really useful to understand the city and how it works, this can all be seen in a very succinct way in the Intro tab. I dig it because this information helps you get into context, to understand the big picture of how the city functions and where they’re people and customs come from.
If you go to the Directory tab, you’ll find all the attractions organized in categories, I love this because it allows you to select attractions based on your interests. Maybe you’re into museums, or cathedrals or zoos or just plain weird places, this is a fast and easy way to find them. This view also let’s you select the neighborhood from the drop down menu, narrowing down your search even more!
Once you’ve decided your category you go in, and find all its attractions listed in alphabetical order. In this example I have not downloaded all the images, but you can do that yourself when the software prompts you to. You can see I’ve highlighted the Catacombs in Paris and on the right sidebar, find a brief description of what this attraction is about, which I really enjoy, because I can read quickly if it’s something I would be interested in visiting and make a decision on the spot. If I want more information, I can go to my other favorite source, Wikipedia!
Another super cool feature is the fact that you can bookmark your favorite attractions, which you can see in the Bookmarks tab. This view is really useful because you can have an overall look at everything you’ve bookmarked you want to do, giving you a 10.000 feet view of your trip which allows you to start making some choices. From any page you can also email, print of search further with the buttons on the right bottom corner of the window.
Maps are very good, you can zoom in and out and you can also filter them by neighborhood. By clicking the options on the left, you can make the map show you hotels, restaurants, attractions, etc. and everything you select has a brief description, making it very easy to make decisions.
Going to the Links tab will give you a list of the most important links related to the city regarding transportation, tours, events, guides, resources, hotels, etc. So this is most of the links you’ll need in one spot!
The Publish tab allows you to add your own pictures and content and contribute to make these guides even better!
Lastly the Picks tab suggests the best of the best and the Tours tab provides suggestions for walking tours and other activities.
I am certain that Schmap will be a great tool when planning your trips to Europe and the US so why don’t you try it out and let us know what you think in the comments?
Do you know of any other service such as this that you can recommend?
Have you used Schmap before? What has been your experience?
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Good post there. Keep up the good work.
Hey, Trixie! Thank you! Let us know about your travels too!