In my experience, people either love or hate tripadvisor. I believe that it can be quite a useful tool in planning your perfect weekend-trip or beach vacation, but you need to be aware of certain things.
Let me tell you a story
When I planned my trip to Barcelona last year I was looking for a great tapas-place close to our hotel. Of course, the first website I went to was tripadvisor and I marked some of the restaurants on my map. When we got to Barcelona I quickly realized that the top 50 restaurants on Tripadvisors were mainly classic tourist traps: Way too expensive and no ‘local’ feeling at all. We then had to learn that the lower-ranked restaurants with good ratings were a LOT better and less packed.
How to effectively use Tripadvisor
Fewer but better ratings:
To go for the top 50 restaurants proved to be of no good use. So how can you use Tripadvisor in an effective way? I usually look for restaurants with good but few ratings. You can rank the search results by name and then pick the best rated (see tutorial video below). You will find a lot of 5-Stars restaurants which would never appear in the top 100 or 50 because they simply do not have enough ratings). In my experience, those are the places you will usually find locals. I mean have you ever rated any restaurant in your hometown on tripadvisor? I sure haven’t.
Double-check other sources:
Also, I often use Tripadvisor to double-check other sources. In my experience, locals use Google to rate the restaurants or bars in their town. And what locals suggest is usually the best choice. That’s why I often open google maps and type in “bar” and see what pops up. You can then filter the results so that Google only shows you the bars with the best ranking. I then mark the nicest-looking ones with a star and then search these on Tripadvisor.
Be aware of who is rating the place:
Always keep in mind that tastes differ a lot: If you are a student with a very low budget you might rate a hotel that is super cheap but very basic with 5 stars. Yet if your budget for travelling is a bit higher, you probably should not go to this hotel because it will not be what you expect of a 5 star rating. So if you see a very well-rated hotel or restaurant you should read the comments in order to find out what kind of people visited that place.
It also works the other way around, by the way: I have read some 1-star ratings where people complained that the drinks they ordered came only after 15 minutes which was way too long. And apparently reason enough to give a 1-star rating. Always be aware that there are plenty spoiled folks out there.
Stay posted!
These three tipps will hopefully help you find the places you are looking for. In my next blogpost I will be talking about how to find and see the nicest places without spending too much money. You will learn how you can find beautiful spots which are in no travel guide (for example this B&B in Sinio, Piedmonte, which we visited last summer). So stay posted!
