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Questions and answers

Where is the data from?

Everything comes from OpenStreetMap, the open map edited by volunteers and used by many navigation apps. We rebuild every city from it each month. There are no reviews, no AI and no paid placement. Nobody can pay to be listed or to be left off.

How do you choose neighbourhoods?

For each city we take its main sights and every named neighbourhood within about 15 minutes of them, on foot or by one short ride. In 17 cities, mostly the largest, the reach is 20 or 25 minutes because their centres are bigger.

Around each neighbourhood, within a ten-minute walk, we count the places residents use every week: bakeries, grocers, cafés, markets, pharmacies, hairdressers, dentists, vets and driving schools. In the same radius we count what serves visitors: hotels, guesthouses and hostels, souvenir shops, sights and museums.

Where visitor places outweigh everyday life, the neighbourhood is lost. Where they come close, it is On Watch. The rest are recommended if they also have enough daily life and some life in the evening.

If a street has a dentist, a vet and a driving school, people live there, because nobody on holiday needs any of them.

Who decides what counts as a sight?

The editor chooses three to six per city, from what visitors actually go to see. They are named on each city's maps, so anyone can check them.

Why do some tourist cities show nothing?

In Venice, Bruges, Dubrovnik, Marrakech, Cusco and Cartagena, nothing near the sights passes. That is the finding, not a gap in the data: near their sights, places for visitors outnumber places for residents everywhere.

Why are some cities missing?

Some we have held back because the method does not fit them yet. In Las Vegas and Orlando the sights are a drive from anywhere people live. Valletta is too small. In New Orleans, Hobart and a few others the map is too thin to judge fairly. We would rather leave a city out than publish something misleading.

Can a map really tell you that?

The map tells you what is there, not what it feels like. So every city page asks visitors to report back: were the shutters up at 8 in the morning, were the queues locals, did they feel comfortable at night. Neighbourhoods we have walked ourselves carry a Walked by us mark. Over time, people on the ground correct the map.

What doesn't the data show?

Holiday flats are not on the map, so where short-term lets are common the figures understate tourism. Mapping is more complete in some cities than others. A 400-room hotel and a three-room guesthouse count the same.