Moving somewhere for a month and needing to work while you’re there vs going somewhere for a fun week of travel is a bit different, but when I’m looking into a new place for either reason I typically start researching in the same few ways:
Before you open a search engine
Before you dig into the wonders of Google, Pinterest, Instagram, and the rest of the web, ask yourself what things you actually care about. Do you want to know where the best vegan food is? The best nightlife? Are you obsessed with food trucks? Hiking? Museums? Pick a few things that you the resident or you the visitor want to focus on while you’re there and plan your stay around them. If you really love a certain kind of food, find a “10 best” list and map the locations. Are 6/10 of them in the same neighborhood? Maybe you should stay there. Do you mind driving places or do you want to walk / bike everywhere during your stay. Map out the things you want to visit most and give yourself a reasonable walking distance from most of them, or see if there is a local transit system that will get you close to each.
Essentially, have a little chat with yourself about the things you love to do / see / eat most when you’re anywhere (away or home), and set yourself up with the info and access to those things while you’re there.
Facebook / Instagram Recommendations
Like I said in my How to Meet People post, throwing a question out to your friends & followers to ask for recommendations about your desired location can give you a great mix of results. Anything from “what neighborhood should I live in?” to “best vegan food in XYZ"?” and “what do I need to check out when I’m in ABC”? can all get you some great ideas to start with.
Google These Three Things
What to Visit in (insert place here)
Usually google will give you a list of places with photos, and then it will spit out anything from local tourism websites with ratings to travel blogs to Trip Advisor. There’s a reason some things are top rated… it’s because they’re good. So skim through the top 10, 20, 50 things to do or see in this place and see if anything catches your eye.
Key word here is “visit” instead of “do”. With “visit” you will get a google generated list of top spots, along with other search items.
Best neighborhoods to live in (insert place here)
This will give you a bunch of rankings or lists of various parts of town. It might group them by location, by name, by vibe. Either way, most ranking lists will give you some info about each spot. Urban / suburban, kid-friendly, walkable, lots of bars & restaurants, quiet / noisy, general vibe, average age group of residents, median home cost. Someone else has most likely already done the legwork of finding out all of this info for you, so take an hour or two to read through a couple different lists to get a feel for which spots may be best for you as a home base.
Top 50 Restaurants in (insert place here)
I say 50 and not 10 because one person might love seafood, another Italian, another Thai. You can go for specialized lists of each thing you like, but you might forget one. I try to find the local restaurant guide or city magazine with an annual list and see what piques your interest. Going to a top restaurant may not be on your list, but what makes it onto the list will tell you a lot about the city. Are they featuring only high end expensive places? Or are there local food trucks and BBQs to choose from because they are local favorites. What that local publication deems is “best” is going to tell you what kind of town you’re in.
Use Google Maps / Drive
I’ll do a separate post on how to really use Google Maps & My Maps to your advantage for trip planning, but I would recommend starting a folder for your trip, and breaking down sub-folders for each location. Make a word document with notes (links to articles you liked, lists of good places to eat, recommendations from friends, etc.), maybe make a spreadsheet if you want more room for data. Save PDFs or images of things you find that interest you (fliers of events, screen shots of restaurants, cool parks to visit). You can also save PDF receipts of any reservations (airBNB, hotels, rental cars, museum or event tickets, etc) for easy access later.
Use Pinterest
Some may see this as only a place for crafting and home interior ideas, but Pinterest is really just a place to save links to things on the internet and have them associated with a picture. Instead of taking the time to read a “best restaurant” list and write down all of the entries, if the list included pictures, just save the 3-4 pictures of places you want to go and you’ll be able to get back to the whole list later if you need by clicking on any of them. You can also just search for the name of a place and see what comes up, you’ll get cool pictures of places and links to articles, so it’s essentially a visual version of google. If you’ve never tried it, give it a whirl. It can be helpful to organize things visually.
I hope these tips start you on a fun path of trip research. Let’s go forth & adventure!
~ Victoria