The Airelle View

The best part of arriving somewhere new isn’t the landmarks — it’s finding the coffee shop where the regulars already know each other, or the corner store that somehow has the best sandwich in town.

Skip the top 10 lists (at first)

Generic “best of” lists tend to point everyone to the same five places. Instead, I search the neighborhood name plus “local favorite” or scroll geotagged posts from people who actually live there.

My first-24-hours checklist

• Walk one residential street that isn’t in any guidebook
• Ask one local (barista, bartender, shop owner) where they actually eat
• Find the neighborhood park or square — it tells you a lot about daily life there
• Save anything interesting to a map, even if I don’t get to it this trip

Every guide I write starts exactly this way — wandering first, researching second. It’s slower, but it’s how I find the places actually worth sharing.