Sources
Forget the tourist offices. Most of them just regurgitate the information in the mags they hand out to tourists. They can't make any recommendations and they definitely don't know the dirt.
An article appeared in the ClarÃn last week about the city considering training cab drivers to give tours to tourists. Now there's a fucking idea. It doesn't matter what city I'm in, cabbies are always always the best sources of information. From the swank hotels to the dives (and I'm not even going to go into our mad strip club dash around the city last weekend that took us from the $50 entries in Recoleta to the cavernous brothels of Flores), they know everything.
Next best are the newspaper stand owners. They'll tell you how to get from point A to point B and tell you all the cracks in the sidewalk to watch out for along the way. It's amazing. Ask someone for directions, and if they can't tell you (and they always try), they send you to the newspaper kiosk to make sure.
An article appeared in the ClarÃn last week about the city considering training cab drivers to give tours to tourists. Now there's a fucking idea. It doesn't matter what city I'm in, cabbies are always always the best sources of information. From the swank hotels to the dives (and I'm not even going to go into our mad strip club dash around the city last weekend that took us from the $50 entries in Recoleta to the cavernous brothels of Flores), they know everything.
Next best are the newspaper stand owners. They'll tell you how to get from point A to point B and tell you all the cracks in the sidewalk to watch out for along the way. It's amazing. Ask someone for directions, and if they can't tell you (and they always try), they send you to the newspaper kiosk to make sure.
posted by Travelburro at 1:59 PM
1 Comments:
a thing or two about cab drivers... and strippers for that matter, both of whom are excellent ambassadors to a city. as a former cab driver, that is the best and only way to really get to know a city - from the inside out. every waking moment with your finger directly on the jugular pulse of the city... unless you have a guide book and just want to have the same 'under the skin' experience that everyone else reading that guide book is having.
my advice? always take the left turn...
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