Spoken by Local Editors: A New Travel Resource

Welcome to the Travel Onion blog! Everyone sees a different layer of a city and the blogs we've featured on Travel Onion give you the opportunity to see a new and unique perspective on your chosen destination. We have local editors curating each page, selecting the best blogs and ensuring each blog is useful, current, and exciting. These local experts know the best of what is going on right now, pointing you to events and exhibits calendars and reviews of restaurants they ate at or shows they saw last night. For example, Heather Stimmler-Hall, our Paris City Editor, is an American-born journalist and private Paris guide, whose website Secrets of Paris has subscribers from over thirty countries. Amy Melrose, our Washington DC City Editor, keeps a frequently updated and resourceful blog of all of the free events happening around DC. And here, the Travel Onion blog, is the place where the best of the best posts from around the world are highlighted. Let us know what YOU think - which posts are most useful? Which are the most unusual and fun to read?

Lots of people are intrigued by travel. Some hope to replicate the antiquated glamour of early 20th century travel, which meant long rickety train rides toting large trunks to far-off exotic locales, such as you would read about in a Hemingway novel or in Orient Express. Others look to experience in person the monuments, paintings, and cuisines that are first experienced in textbooks or on the movie screen. But, as the world continues to globalize, more and more people turn to travel to expand their horizons, experience new cultures, see incredible sights and taste different cuisines in locales that would have never previously attracted foreigners before Google. As tourism expands as an industry, it is imperative that tourists understand the location they are visiting is the home of another culture and of rich traditions. Each trip will undoubtedly leave you with irreplaceable memories and unexpected little lessons. Cliche? Yes, but true.

So, whether you are visiting a city for the first time, looking to explore less well-known areas, or simply want to find the most exciting and up-to-date things to do in your hometown, Travel Onion puts you in touch with the locals who know all the secrets. Our bloggers share the hip events, overlooked experiences, and best-kept secrets only locals know.

Sometimes the best restaurants, hangouts, or experiences are excluded from guidebooks. Cities have so much to offer in addition to the museums and monuments that fill those guidebook pages. We put you in touch with the local voices who have dug a little deeper to uncover the best things to do right now - the name of Tim Krepp's blog, DC Like a Local, says it all. Doni Belau and her team at Girls Guide to Paris will have you dressed like a Parisian before you arrive. April of April's London Invitation helps your prepare for your first, second, or eighth visit to London, with advice for getting around, days out of the city, culture, pubs, music, markets, sports, and the always important food and drinks. Through their blogs, they share their insights, wisdom, and insider tips to make you an informed travler. And you will feel like you have contacts and friends from around the world offering advice and suggestions for your trip. Once you've found a blogger who seems to share similar interests, I encourage you to click-through to their blog and spend hours pouring through all of their wonderful posts.

After spending some time on Travel Onion, youll be sipping sake with hip Tokyoites in a Shibuya bar, instead of being ogled as the archetypal fanny pack toting tourist. Youll be on your way to those authentic travel experiences that make your friends envious of your inside travel know-how.