Story so far...

The idea for Locals Know it Best was the desire to go back to basics and have an old fashioned adventure, discovering a city or place without using a guidebook or smartphone. While technology has made travel much more easier , safer and more accessible it has also made travel too predictable and people less connected to the places they visit. Might be too bold to claim that we want to make people rediscover travel but the idea is help travelers rethink the way we discover places, introduce an element of unpredictability and also encourage them to connect with locals, an essential part of what makes travel so magical and transformative. Given my rudimentary design skills, I decided to create a deck of cards with the help of Canva. Canva launched a global marketing campaign in 2022 celebrating 15 Billion Designs and Locals Know it Best was one of the featured ideas.

The card deck has prompts to questions tourists have when visiting a new city like ‘ Tell us your favourite place to go for a walk’ or ‘ The best viewpoint in the city’ or ‘ A bar where locals meet’ -the kind of knowledge that plugs you straight into the DNA of a city. The idea here is also to make it easier for tourists to connect with locals and make it fun.

Our first adventure was in Basel and was a huge success with a bag full of memories, new connections and stories.We did get lost a few times but again, this this felt like a real adventure just like the backpacking adventures of old when you had to depend on locals and also be guided by your gut.

The card game launched in June 2021 to the public and Basel Tourismus sell the cards in their shops across the city. Basel Tourismus created a fantastic microsite for the game. We also created this video of our adventure to give people an idea of how the game works.

Locals Know it Best Malta

After a 2nd edition was launched for the region of Vorarlberg, in 2023, we were approached by Visit Malta to create a Maltese version of my travel card game, Locals Know it Best. The card game’s aim is simple, to help encourage tourists to leave their smartphone and guidebook behind on their next trip to Malta. Just construct an entire trip with the card deck. The Locals Know it best card deck has prompts to questions tourists have when visiting a new city like ‘ Tell us your favourite place to go for a walk’ or ‘ The best viewpoint in the city’ or ‘ Favourite dive bar' -the kind of golden knowledge that plugs you straight into the DNA of a city.  I think the key was to inspire people to discover Malta in a fun, sustainable way that would get them in contact with locals , instead of the same old cliched Instagram hotspots that people follow when they go on holiday. When you engage with locals, they automatically will guide you away from the tourist hotspots towards more local places where they would go with family, friends. We visited Malta in April 2023. As you can see from the video below, we had a brilliant time. Locals of Malta are extremely passionate about their island and are great ambassadors of the island.

Results

The video for the campaign gathered 116k views across Instagram and Facebook with a lot of great positive comments from locals and readers alike.

The card game continues to be used by Visit Malta for their PR and Marketing purposes. The ‘Locals Know it Best’ cards were used as a fun and interactive series of Instagram stories on their Instagram channel and Visit Malta UK got Maltese professional football players , Luke Tabone and Oscar Borg to play the Locals Know it Best game ( who play for Wales based HaverfordWest AFC )

We are currently speaking to several destination partners for developing our next editions of the game. If you are keen to partner with us, drop me a line at kash@budgettraveller.org