Our Travel Guides are on Buggl…Create Your Own and Win.

Beth and I have always had a thing for guidebooks. I think it comes from our youth, when travel guides, maps and AAA triptiks were more than just vacation resources, they transported us from our rooms to distant lands, like Orlando, Sandusky and Los Angeles.

In fact, on our first trip together (roughly two years before this blog), we talked about how fantastic it would be to work on one as we drank cervezas in our $15/night Antigua hotel room. We wanted to travel extensively and at that time writing guidebooks seemed like one of the best options for a wandering journalist and photographer. Then Beers and Beans happened, and we got our chance to not only share our stories and photos, but also be our own publishers.

Blogs can be an invaluable resource for planning, but when you’re out in the thick of things there is nothing better than having an information packed, well-designed guide with you.

Even as our blog grew, we wanted to create travel guides to share our knowledge with our readers in a concise, portable manner. Blogs can be an invaluable resource for planning, but when you’re out in the thick of things there is nothing better than having an information packed, well-designed guide with you. And as smartphones and tablets continue to grow in popularity, digital guides can now fit in the palm of your hands or be carried in your scarf pocket without the need for a data connection.

So when Derek Bugley, of Buggl, reached out to us about his new digital guidebook start-up, Beth and I were pretty jazzed. We delved into Buggl while it was still in beta and realized quickly how great the platform is for creating travel guides. With all of the design work handled by Buggl, we could focus solely on content creation, which gave us the opportunity to expand on posts already on our blog and include additional Local Secrets that we haven’t had a chance to publish yet.

And Then There Were Three…

For our first collection for Buggl, we put together three guides for three different cities. The Vienna and Reykjavik guides are perfect for visitors who’ve never been or for anyone who has visited these cities, but felt they never got off the tourist track.  Our San Diego guide, on the other hand, is topic-specific, and was inspired by our visiting friends, who were always curious to taste the best of San Diego’s craft beer scene.

The Vienna Starter Guide

We made our Vienna city guide FREE to download, that way you can check it out and see firsthand why we’re such fans of the new era Buggl is ushering in for digital guides.Think of this guide as a starter kit for Vienna. We lay out our favorite places–cafes, restaurants, bars, sights and accommodations–so you can spend more time doing and less time planning.

Cost: Free

The Beer Lovers Guide To San Diego

We love beer. We love San Diego. And it’s these two simple facts that have led us to publish this guide. For years, we’ve recommended many of these places to family, friends and visiting beer lovers. Now for the first time ever, we’ve put all of our favorites into a portable guide, which can be carried easily with you on your smartphone or tablet.

Cost: 99 cents

The Best of Reykjavik

Want to know where to get the best authentic Icelandic cuisine? How about the best accommodation for your budget? Or, simple the absolute best spot to capture panoramas of Reykjavik? This guide will answer all those questions and so much more. Really, it’s like having a best friend in the city, except you don’t have to buy it dinner!

Cost: 99 cents

Create Your Own and Win!

One of my favorite things about Buggl is that its full of authors from all walks of life. In addition to having a great collection of travel bloggers on Buggl, such as Dave and Deb of The Planet D, Earl Baron of Wandering Earl, Dan and Audrey of Uncornered Market,  and Adam Groffman of Travels of Adam, there are also former tour guides, camp experts and authors who just frankly love their city and want to share their Local Secrets with other travelers.

To celebrate the platform’s launch, Derek and the crew at Buggl are offering one lucky author a free airline ticket and $500 spending cash! Yep, you heard me right. All you have to do is create a guide in the month of February and you’ll be automatically entered to win. You can see all the details here or by clicking on the photo above.

We can’t wait to see what you create!