Other ways to choose
One Street Back does one job: it measures which streets near the sights still belong to the people who live there, and how crowded each city is this week. These are good ways to decide too. Here is what each gives you, and what we add.
Ask an AI chatbot or a search engine
Google · ChatGPT · Gemini · Claude
- What it gives you
- An instant, free answer for any city, and you can keep asking follow-up questions.
- What it doesn't
- It repeats what has been written most often, so the famous "local" districts keep coming up after visitors have filled them. It measures nothing, and it rarely tells you a centre has no lived-in streets left.
- What we add
- Counts from the map, made the same way in every city, that you can check street by street. We say so when nothing near the sights passes.
Reddit and travel forums
- What it gives you
- Real people describing recent trips, and the chance to ask someone who lives there.
- What it doesn't
- Answers are hard to compare between cities, threads age fast, and the same few names get passed around.
- What we add
- Neighbourhoods ranked on one scale across 95 cities, with the date the data was built.
Booking and rental sites
- What it gives you
- Places you can actually book, with prices, photos and guests’ reviews of the room.
- What it doesn't
- Neighbourhood descriptions are written to sell stays, and they don’t say whether residents still live on the street.
- What we add
- No paid placement and no rooms to sell, so nothing pushes us towards one area. Pick your street here, then book where you like.
Spotted by Locals
- What it gives you
- Tips written by residents in about 85 cities: cafés, bars, shops and things to see. A single city costs €9.99.
- What it doesn't
- It doesn’t tell you where to sleep.
- What we add
- Where to stay. The two work well together: choose your neighbourhood here, then use their tips once you’re there.
Google Maps busy times
- What it gives you
- How busy a single café, museum or shop usually is by hour, and often right now.
- What it doesn't
- It covers one place at a time. It doesn’t compare whole cities or look weeks ahead.
- What we add
- The Herd Index: how crowded each city is with visitors this week, every Tuesday, and what to do about it.
A city’s own crowd forecast
Kyoto’s official congestion forecast
- What it gives you
- Official comfort levels and live cameras for the busiest spots, from the people who run the city.
- What it doesn't
- Each covers only its own city, and few cities have one.
- What we add
- One weekly measure across cities, free to reuse, so you can compare Lisbon with Bruges before you choose.
Use them together. Ask around for ideas, check them here, and book wherever you like.