Anyway, now the hangover has faded, and my friend seems to have forgotten about that broken radiator which I can’t afford to replace, it’s time to think about 2012 and which great destinations we’re going to explore. If you normally do this by spinning the globe and pointing (damn, middle of Pacific Ocean… again!) then why not try a more practical approach and take some inspiration from our team of Urban Travel Bloggers… starting with Sasha Arms.

“I’m really looking forward to going to Bulgaria for the first time this year. I’ve heard the country is becoming a real contender in terms of food, wine, skiing and spas – and I intend to give each of them a go to see if the rumours are true. Sofia is also putting itself firmly in the running for being the Capital of Culture in 2019 and I can’t wait to see how the city is transforming itself in preparation.”

Richord Tulloch meanwhile plans to head stateside, for good reason: “For the first time in over a decade I’ll be visiting New York. I’m looking forward to doing some alternative UTB reporting and seeing some shows, most notably a play I wrote myself. The Book of Everything, New Victory Theatre, 42nd St, New York, opening April 19th. Catch it if you can!” Naturally we wouldn’t let him leave Australia without some more adventures, and keep your eyes peeled for a two wheel tour of Melbourne coming to UTB soon.

Photojournalist Anna Spysz is a girl on a mission. “My big travel plan for 2012 is stepping foot on the South American continent by my 30th birthday in October, as one of my life goals is to visit all of the continents except Antarctica by age 30, and that’s the last one left on the list. Luckily one of my good friends just bought a house in rural Ecuador, so it must be a sign!” She also tells me she is contemplating a 10 day trip in a cargo ship across the Atlantic… so good luck Anna!

Pola Henderson, despite being recently introduced to the charms of London’s Crystal Palace by the UTB Editor, is planning her next trip closer to her native Chicago. “For me the destination is Guadalajara, Mexico. If not for its historic buildings, then definitely for ‘tortas ahogadas’ – sandwiches drowned in spicy sauce, a local specialty.” You can follow Pola on Twitter or her own blog, Jetting Around.

As for me, top of the hitlist for 2012 has to be Kiev. Not only is the Ukrainian Capital set to play a major role in the Euro 2012 Football tournament, but with its parks and river beaches is a great place to crack open a can of kvas and enjoy the summer sunshine. From there it’s not too far to get to the Kazantip dance music festival in Crimea.

Got a better idea? Please share it with us! Meanwhile wherever you’re travelling in 2012 you might want to check out City Guides before you go. We’ve got a collection of 25 or so of these insider guides, with the latest being to Havana, Cuba (another great option for 2012 if you want to see it before it changes completely!).

So it sounds like the UTB team will be having plenty of fun this year… and you’ll be able to read about (most of) it right here! Hope you’ll stay tuned in 2012.

Croatia: Still summer in September

Still there was plenty to keep me mind off the mercury levels and my lack of suitable attire, not least the Unsound Festival, a fast growing name in the world of underground electronic and experimental music. The chance to rave it up to the likes of Catz N’ Dogz in a theatre in Nowa Huta (a surreal Stalinist city on the edges of Krakow) was not to be missed… even if the dipping temperatures meant that a newly-purchased 2 PLN pair of gloves and a pocket bottle of zoladkowa were essential for the tram journey over.

The omission of enough warm clothes for my sojourns was sadly not my only packing error. Travelling to Budapest without your bathing suit is an amateur error indeed, but at least now I’m in possession of a Szechenyi Baths regulation pair of swimming trunks (not speedos thankfully!) – I’m sure I’ll treasure them for ever. Whatever the weather it’s hard not to enjoy yourself in this grand capital, and a good soak at the best of Budapest’s baths was the perfect remedy/conclusion to what was a rather alcoholic 12 days in East Europe (is there any other kind?). The miserliness of the Hungarian meteorological conditions also gave me the chance to experience what happens to the city’s legendary summer gardens/kerts when winter takes over. But more on that at a later date!

Budapest: Definitely autumn in October

Other great new material on UTB comes in the form of Pola Henderson‘s expert guide to Chicago, which breathes fresh life into the Windy City. It’s Pola’s first contribution to our travel magazine – so welcome aboard Pola! You can also keep tabs with her at Jetting Around.

Naturally there’ll be plenty more travel stories to sink your teeth into in the coming weeks as Chris Osburn will be reporting from Edinburgh and Richard Tulloch will make us all jealous with tales from Sydney, as spring turns to summer down under…

If you’re not an RSS feed (wo)man, then ‘liking’ us on Facebook or following on Twitter should keep you up to speed with all the latest stories.

A number of talented new writers have also jumped on board the UTB wagon, including Sam Chimes who invited us on a trip around London’s weirdest travel attractions, Simon Taylor who took us on a tasting tour of Krakow’s best pierogi restaurants and Nick Hodge who was our guide on a subterranean adventure – also in Poland’s ancient royal capital – of Krakow’s legendary ‘piwnice’.

Importantly our collection of expert city guides has been steadily growing over the last couple of months too, with Emma Weinbren’s Madrid guide and Natalie Buster’s New York guide the latest additions… we’ll be publishing more in the coming weeks from established travel destinations such as Valencia and Paris, and some lesser known greats such as Cluj, Sibiu, Tbilisi and Baku. In the meantime you can get ‘The Juice‘ on 13 great cities around the world. The best neighbourhoods, bars, bolt-holes, and even hot soundtracks to the city!

And for those who can’t think of anything worse than concrete and car horns this time of year, you might be able to draw inspiration for your next break from Michael Bailey’s altruistic conservation work in Tobago, or Ben Rhodes’ indulgent lazing on Ibiza’s hidden beaches.

One other strand of travel stories that has been flourishing nicely this summer are our photo stories, and thanks to Krystyna Dul and Keven Erickson our readers can enjoy some arresting images of Sofia’s Zhenski Pazar (Women’s Market) and Krakow’s trademark trams. Monika Chodakowska meanwhile reveals the slow side of cafe life in Paris and the almost unchanged traditions that still take place in the Sicilian port of Castellammare del Golfo.

That about rounds up what we’ve been up to lately. As for what’s coming next… well suffice to say it will be more interesting than postcards from your ma and pa’s week in Devon. Even as we speak one of our more foolhardy reporters is busy writing up what happened to him when he bought a Super Soaker and signed up for a month-long water-gun assassination contest. Once you’ve signed up for Street Wars it seems you never know you might be knocking at your door!

As usual you can keep up with what’s going on by following us on Twitter or Facebook…

Enjoy the rest of the summer!

The Editor

Spotted By Locals first came to our attention a few months ago, as a quality series of travel guides with a difference. Rather than rely on travel writers passing through a destination to compile their listings, they recruit knowledgeable locals who are passionate about their home cities to share their tips and secrets. The result is a series of city guides that are a far cry from standard guidebook fare: ones that offer the visitor a genuine chance of experiencing the city like a local.

So naturally we were delighted when Bart van Poll, Spotted By’s creator got in contact. He told us how he and his partner, Sanne van Poll gave birth to the project:

“On a citytrip to Brussels in early 2007 we came up with the idea of Spotted by Locals. We had been to Brussels a couple of times before, and had some bad experiences with the guidebook we were carrying. Quite a few of the places we had wanted to visited before, described in the guidebook, were closed. So this time we decided to rely solely on tips from local Brussels inhabitants from the internet.

To our surprise, it was very difficult to find updated information from locals in our language or English. Eventually we found a personal blog by a guy we thought shared our taste. He wrote about a lot of subjects, but also about what he liked to do in Brussels. We decided to “follow” the tips he had, and go to the bars and restaurants he frequents, and walk around in the hidden local neighbourhood that was certainly not in our paper guide. We had one of the best city trips ever, because of the tips of this Brussels guy we don’t even know!

On that trip, around a good Belgian beer, we decided to investigate the idea of a series of cityblogs, written by locals we’d personally meet. It’d be the perfect job for us…”

And so after travelling extensively in 2008 and 2009, Bart and Sanne met 300 potential spotters eventually recruiting 130 eagle-eyed locals in 23 cities, who now regular write posts about their favourite joints and discoveries – resulting in arguably the most authentic guides out there on the www.! In many ways the Spotted By Local’s city blogs (from Athens to Zagreb) are the perfect complement to Urban Travel Blog’s weekend city guides – an attractive website where you can delve deeper into each destination than the overview we present. And that’s why we’re delighted to recommend Spotted By Local’s city blogs in the More Juice section of our corresponding guides!

In the meantime, in order to improve the services we offer our readers we’ve also partnered up with Easytobook.com so that now our users can quickly click and book the hotels that we recommend in our city guides to Cape Town, London, Dublin, Barcelona, Rome, Vilnius, and Wroclaw! The great news about Easytobook.com is that they don’t charge any booking fees to the customer (and in fact they are often privy to some pretty special discounts on hotel rooms!) so we are pretty sure that this is one relationship that will work out for both us and our readers!

With Urban Travel Blog’s love life wrapped up, all that remains to do is recommend that you check out some of our latest stories: such as James Ashford’s entertaining feature article on the post-30 festival experience and Monika Chodakowska’s evocative Photo Story in which she captures Paris’s bikes at rest – plus The Juice on Prague and Lodz. For those readers for whom Spring has signalled the end of relationship, rather the start of something beautiful, slit not ye wrists… for just the other week Urban Travel Blog put together some great travel ideas for getting over your ex.

If you want to keep up with all our latest articles then we suggest you follow us on Twitter or click ‘become fan’ on our Facebook page…

Enjoy your Spring travels!

The Editor

However, even if you’re an intensive sufferer of SAD like I am, it’s not all doom and gloom here at the Urban Travel Blog. Just because you’re huddling under a blanket saving up for that fat turkey doesn’t mean you can’t indulge in a spot of armchair travelling to sunnier climes, and Sasha Arms‘ brilliant city guide to Cape Town certainly hits the spot in that respect… this is one article well worth bookmarking for the World Cup in 2010!

Or why not get in on the credit crunch action and book yourself in for a little staycation (or should that be ‘noliday’?). They’ve been this year’s essential penny-pinching trend and, thanks to the insight of guidebook author Marsha Moore, our London readers can take a look at their home town from a more touristic perspective – let’s face it, we’ll all too often guilty of overlooking the attractions on our very doorstep!

Finally if you can rustle up a couple of coins for a bit of winter travel, one last city break before 2009 draws to a close, then why not look to East Europe? Completely neglected since the advent of the credit crunch (perversely so, since the region has become even cheaper versus the Eurozone!) this colourful swathe of the continent may be a fraction cold this time of year but the warmth of the people, not to mention their mulled wines and spirits, means you won’t regret the journey. Wroclaw Poland is one destination we’ve got The Juice for, and with the students still running rife until Christmas now’s the perfect time to go. A little further North and there’s still one precious month left of Vilnius’s tenure as European Capital of Culture 2009. We’ll be publishing our lowdown on the Lithuanian capital very very soon (won’t we Thymn?), so book flights now if you can (hint Ryanair fly to nearby Kaunas!).

That’s all for now folks, we hope you’re enjoying the early fruits of this blog and if you’re got any suggestions, or feel well-placed to make a contribution, then feel free to get in contact.

The Editor