A Travel Guide for the Cultural Underbelly

All travel guides narrow down sprawling cityscapes into an organized list of things to do, but 200 pages later, the information can still be overwhelming to a newcomer. A startup called Indie Guides takes a different tack by not including major tourist attractions and not catering to everyone. Instead, it carefully selects 50 addresses for each of its mobile city guides.

We first learned about these artistically inclined travel guides from an article on CNTraveler.com that describe the write-ups as “worded in an easygoing style, as if you were reading a friend’s emailed list of recommendations.” And in fact, friends’ recommendations they are.

As musicians, the creators of the guides reached out to fellow artists around the world and elicited their very personal choices for things to do and see in Athens, Berlin, Istanbul, Madrid, Rotterdam and Paris, in categories such as culture, drink, eat, shopping and going out. The result is an eclectic mix of boutiques, hidden live music venues, art workshops and galleries that you may easily have walked past had you not known what was on the other side. On their site, the creators of the guide describe their picks as “subjective, yes, but informed, honest and passionate.”

Being musically minded, founder Anne Le Gal and friends have also crafted a streamable playlist for each location, based on the local music scene.

The app — for both iOS and Android devices — offers an offline map so you can travel with your recommendations regardless of Internet connection. Each guide costs $1.99, with the exception of Paris, which is free for the next six months. A guide to Tokyo is debuting in March, and Rome is set to launch in April.

Would you be interested in an Indie Guide? Which cities would you like to see guides for next?

— written by Brittany Chrusciel