Withlocals – Connecting travelers with locals through food and experiences – Celine Chiam | Singapore Lifestyle, Beauty and Travel Blogger
What comes to your mind when you have to settle your meals while you’re overseas? For me, like how you’ve read my Bangkok guide, I always strongly encourage people to try local culinary prepared authentically, by the locals. I dislike patronizing restaurants or any types of eateries that are catered to tourists, simply because the authenticity was never retained.
 |
| A bowl of tomyum soup from Bangkok Street Stalls |
Give you an example. I’ve been to Thailand several times and I’ve eaten at both restaurants and street side stalls. The food, the taste and the whole experience are just incomparable. For a posh restaurant, your tomyum soup will never be as spicy as the one sold by a street stall. Any idea why? Simple, they have catered their food to tourists, whom they think aren’t able to take too much spicy (which is true for some people).
I love local food. I advocate going all the way to find out and taste what the locals in that particular country eat. But for places like bangkok, it can be a little dirty sometimes. Finally, there’s a channel to get to authentic local food, without compromising the hygiene!
Introducing – Withlocals!
Just like how the name suggests, Withlocals is the peer-to-peer marketplace where local people offer experiences and their skills to travelers. This is the very first initiative in Asia to bring together travellers and local families for a meal of home cooked food. Through this, travellers can benefit by receiving travelling tips, exchanging stories with the families and making new friends, all on top of having a nice heartwarming home cooked meal! Hosting families on the other hand are able to earn quick cash by doing what they love – cooking!
In fact, Withlocals not only has culinary options, there are also options like doing activities with the locals or tour the country with the locals.
So what’s stopping you? I think this is a really ingenious idea to bring together different people and allow them to make new friends of different nationality. I personally love meeting new people, which is why I chose to be a blogger. I like meeting new challenges too!
Withlocals.com sounds like a mini version of couchsurfing. Instead of needing a couch for a few nights stay, Withlocals pretty much present the same idea for you to exchange culinary experience and make new friends over a simple home cooked meal. I may even try out this service when I’m in Bangkok next time!
If you’re feeling dubious about Withlocals, fret not. It now has over 50,000 Facebook fans and more than 100,000 site visitors per month. Though based in Netherlands, Withlocals focuses completely in Asia region only. Right now, it has more than 70 local staff working as ambassadors and more than 10,000 locals applied to be hosts for tourists on withlocals.
How it works:
Visit http://www.withlocals.com/
Decide if you want to Eat Withlocals, Tour Withlocals or do Activities Withlocals.
Book a date and make payment
And wait for that exciting day to come!
I find the prices really affordable and I really wouldn’t mind participating in activites with the locals. But it would be better if Withlocals are equipped with more options for us to choose. After all, being less than a year old, they have been doing really well so far! Withlocals has also been featured on Techcrunch, TechinAsia, Jakarta Post, Telegraaf and many more media sites. Let’s join in the fun!
 |
| Home Dinner in Singapore |
 |
| Saigon’s Best Party Tour |
Go out and make friends with the locals to experience a whole new level of fun!
Love,
Celine