Today, I’m very excited to share with you something that I’ve been working on for a while now, It’s a brand new Byteful Travel feature called “Choose a City”.

Basically, Choose A City makes it easy for you find articles about the best free and inexpensive things to do in a given city. Occasionally a city page will highlight a more expensive attraction if it’s something that I strongly suggest you consider seeing (i.e., it’s a once in a lifetime experience type of thing), but it’s all locations I’ve personally visited and vetted myself.

I’ve created this feature because I’ve recently realized that, while I may have been providing an abundance of free information (and photography) about attractions in these cities before, it wasn’t necessarily organized in a convenient or easy to use way. Perhaps worst of all, the information wasn’t consolidated or easily referenced. That all changes today, though.

How to Use “Choose a City”

To use Choose a City, click the “Choose a City” tab in the navigation bar above. On that page is a USA map which highlights the cities which currently have pages written for them. You can either choose a city by clicking on a blue pin in the map or choosing a city from the list below the map.

When you arrive at a city-specific page, you’ll see a map with color-coded pins which represent how much it costs to visit that location or take part in an activity at that location. So, for example, on Chicago’s city page there are pins in four different colors. Green pins mean that the attraction is free; Cyan (or light blue) pins mean the attraction is free on certain days (indicated on the attraction’s website); Yellow pins mean that the attraction’s cost is under $20; and Red pins mean that the attraction’s cost is over $20. I feel that this traffic light color scheme will be especially useful for budget-sensitive travellers. (And although I haven’t been to an attraction that cost over $40 yet, I’ll consider making a new color if the need presents itself.)

Upon clicking on a pin, a bubble will come up with a photo of the attraction and a link to an in-depth article that I’ve written about it. And because I’m fully aware that not all users prefer finding an article with a map and some (such as blind users) can’t even use the embedded Google maps, I’ve created a list of the same locations below the map, as well. And since all of my experience with a particular city is now listed in one place, it’s easy to design a trip that’s custom-fit for your budget.

Never before has it been this easy navigate Byteful Travel’s archives; and since these pages will be updated as new articles are written, they will continue to improve. In fact, I intend that they be living, breathing documents.

Use this to Explore for Yourself

Choose a City is launching with seven city-specific pages today with more to follow. For now, this feature only covers US cities, but I know that will change in the future. (Hint: I’m headed to a country that rhymes with “Banada” on Saturday.)

I’ve spent a lot of time creating these custom-tailored city pages (as well as programming all of the maps associated with each page), and I hope it makes using Byteful Travel much more convenient for you.

In many ways, I see this as the natural evolution of years of hard work that I’ve put into writing about these cities. And now that all of this information is organized both visually and in an index, it will be much easier to use Byteful Travel to plan a trip than it ever was before. And I truly hope that you do. As I’ve written about before, travel is one of the most powerful ways to grow, and if I can be of any service in encouraging you to explore and helping you grow, then I feel I’ve done my job.

If you feel there’s any way I can improve Choose a City or make it easier for you to find what you’re looking for, please let me know. I’m listening. 🙂