As many of us who like our travels to be a personal and original experience, Maria Martinez discovered that recommendations by word-of-mouth from friends and fellow travellers often hit the spot much better than those from traditional paper travel guides.  So she, along with Blat and Manuel Muñoz, decided to create iwannagothere.com, a new site which brings people together to exchange travel tips, experiences and gather information to plan their next trip.

I do a lot of travel research on the web and on iwannagothere.com I find it particularly helpful that you can cross-reference the recommendations and the profile of the people writing them – you can see other places they have been to and liked.  This way you can check if they are genuine and find the best match for your interests and tastes.

They also have a growing team of local contributors willing to share their gems and help you to stay away from tourist traps.

I’ll be posting on Sao Paulo soon.