LOCAL PICKSGUIDE

Custom destination guides, built after you book.

We build you one guide, for your trip, of the places the locals rate.

Here is the part that is actually hard, and it is the whole product. A 4.5-star average is a popularity contest, and popularity is how you end up at the place with the queue outside and the laminated menu. So we don't average the stars — we read the words. Someone writing “my go-to”, “we come here every week”, or “order the pie first, they sell out by ten” is telling you something a five-star click never will. Someone writing “touristy” or “better options nearby” is telling you the other thing. We keep the first kind, we name the second kind, we check it is still open and that the rules are right for your dates — and then we build it around the trip you have already booked.

  • The places people who live there keep going back to — not the top of a review-site ranking, which is just whatever is most visited.
  • The tourist traps named, not quietly left out. Knowing what to skip saves as much of a trip as knowing what to book.
  • Built after you book, around your real dates and your real base — so "go Tuesday, it shuts Monday" is advice instead of hedging.
  • Shaped by how you actually travel. Not a template with your city swapped in, and not a chatbot's list of the same ten restaurants.

A Glacier National Park road trip, 14 days, built for a family of four. Every page of a real guide — the summary itinerary, the day-by-day, the picks, the tourist traps named, the booking dates. A composite traveller; the destination research is real. Questions before you buy? Questions? Ask us — a person answers, and we'd rather talk you out of it than sell you a guide you won't use.

Not travelling yet? Help us pick the next city.

We're building one free general guide next, and we'd rather the people who'd use it chose it than we guessed. Vote below and leave your email — you'll get the sample guide now, the free city guide when it lands, and the occasional note when we add a city. Nothing else, and one tap unsubscribes.

What's actually different from asking a chatbot

Not "better AI" — anyone can say that, and it means nothing. These are the specific things we do that a chatbot answer doesn't:

  • Everything's still openWe check before a place goes in your guide. Ask a chatbot and it will recommend, with total confidence, a restaurant that shut two years ago.
  • The rules are right for your datesPermits, timed entry, shuttles, seasonal closures — checked for the year you're actually travelling, with the date we checked it printed next to it. A chatbot repeats last year's rule.
  • Ranked by what regulars say, not by star averageA 4.5-star average is a popularity contest, and popularity is how you end up at the tourist trap with the queue outside. We read what people who keep going back say about a place.
  • Built after you bookYour real dates, your real base, the actual season. Not generic advice for "a week in Montana".
  • Tourist traps named, not just left outKnowing what to skip saves as much of a trip as knowing what to book.
  • Every guide makes the next one betterWhat travellers tell us goes straight back in. A chatbot starts from nothing every time you ask.

What you get

A single PDF, made for your trip and nobody else's. The second page is the one that earns its keep: a one-page Summary Itinerary built to be screenshotted and glanced at on a phone with no signal — day-by-day in one line each, your top picks, the reservations with their booking deadlines, and the handful of things that ruin a trip if you miss them.

  • Built around your questionnaire — your pace, your food, your people
  • A one-page Summary Itinerary you can screenshot and use with no signal
  • Day-by-day spine for your real dates
  • Every pick opens in Google Maps with one tap
  • Know-before-you-go: the things that ruin a trip if you miss them
  • Reservations you need, and the date you need to book each by
  • Print-ready PDF
  • Built for everyone travelling with you, not just one person
  • One free rebuild if it isn't right
  • A real reply address on the last page — a person answers
Don't take our word for it

Read the full sample guide (PDF) — the whole thing, every page, opens in your browser. It is the fastest way to know whether this is worth $29 to you, and it beats anything we could write about ourselves on this page. Prefer not to open a PDF? Read a page of it here instead.

Standard turnaround is 48-72 hours.

A page from a real guide. The number is our local-favourite ranking — it is not a star average.

How it works

Step one

You book your trip

Flights, hotel, dates — all yours. We don't sell travel and we don't book anything for you.

Step two

You tell us how you travel

A short questionnaire: your pace, your food, who's coming, and what would make this trip a win for you. That last one is the question a template can't ask.

Step three

Your guide arrives

A PDF built for your dates and your base, in 48-72 hours. If it isn't right, tell us and we rebuild it once, free.

Where we build guides

Right now, the United States and Western Europe at full price — that's where we can do the job properly, and we'd rather say so than take your money and hand you something thin.

Going somewhere else?

Ask us. If we can do it justice we'll say yes and quote you; if we can't yet, we'll say that instead — and we'll tell you which of the two it is before you pay anything.

Pricing

Priced by how long you're travelling, because that's what changes the work. One guide, one price, no subscription.

Short

3-5 days
$29

One guide, one price.

Buy the Short guide — $29
Most trips

Standard

6-10 days
$49

One guide, one price.

Buy the Standard guide — $49

Extended

11-15 days
$79

One guide, one price.

Buy the Extended guide — $79

Grand

16-20 days
$99

One guide, one price.

Buy the Grand guide — $99
Straight answer

Our address is on the last page of every guide, and we read the replies. If something in your guide is wrong, or you want more of one thing and less of another, that's the most useful message we get all week — it fixes your guide and it improves the next person's. Before you buy, the same address works: [email protected].