Spotted by Locals City Guides

Name: Spotted by Locals City Guides
Rating: 3.8 (107 reviews)
Author: Spotted B.V.

Explore 85+ Cities as a Local!

Only for iPhone

Free · In‑App Purchases

107 Ratings
Ages

13+
Years
Category

Travel
Developer

Spotted B.V.
Language

EN
English
Size

59.6
MB

iPhone

Discover cities through the eyes of locals. Skip the tourist traps and explore authentic spots recommended by people who actually live there. > Insider tips and hidden gems, handpicked by locals > Support sustainable, community-driven tourism > Find authentic cafés, bars, art, and culture beyond the guidebooks > Travel responsibly, support local culture, and make every trip more meaningful. Don’t just visit a city, live it. Download Spotted by Locals today.

Ratings & Reviews

3.8

out of 5

107 Ratings

South Seattle Doesn’t Exist
07/01/2018

Call Me Ted
Imagine my disappointment, $3.99 for an App that reviews less than half of Seattle. If it’s South of I-90, there’s virtually no reviews. Undoubtedly the Northern half is the easy pickings for reviewers, but what about the rest of the city? There’s all sorts of great & quirky places around Seatac, Georgetown and Black Diamond, to name a few. Nearby small towns like Enumclaw-a mini Telluride- go completely ignored. It’s lazy reporting, and it’s dishonest to charge for an App that is only focused on one small part of the city. There’s a lot more to Seattle than what’s in Spotted By.

Developer Response
Dear Ted, you're absolutely right and we're sorry about this. Our locals write about their favorite spots, and probably most of them are located in the North. 2 new Spotters in Seattle just started - we will make sure they will cover South Seattle too. Georgetown could use more tips for sure! Our Spotters only write about the *city of Seattle*, so Seatac, Black Diamond and the other towns and cities you mentioned that are not in Seattle will never be included.Thanks for your comment. Bart - Co-founder Spottted by Locals
South Seattle Doesn’t Exist
07/01/2018

Call Me Ted

Imagine my disappointment, $3.99 for an App that reviews less than half of Seattle. If it’s South of I-90, there’s virtually no reviews. Undoubtedly the Northern half is the easy pickings for reviewers, but what about the rest of the city? There’s all sorts of great & quirky places around Seatac, Georgetown and Black Diamond, to name a few. Nearby small towns like Enumclaw-a mini Telluride- go completely ignored. It’s lazy reporting, and it’s dishonest to charge for an App that is only focused on one small part of the city. There’s a lot more to Seattle than what’s in Spotted By.
Developer Response 07/04/2018
Dear Ted, you're absolutely right and we're sorry about this. Our locals write about their favorite spots, and probably most of them are located in the North. 2 new Spotters in Seattle just started - we will make sure they will cover South Seattle too. Georgetown could use more tips for sure! Our Spotters only write about the *city of Seattle*, so Seatac, Black Diamond and the other towns and cities you mentioned that are not in Seattle will never be included.Thanks for your comment. Bart - Co-founder Spottted by Locals
Perfect way to explore a city
02/21/2018

L-tone
I first heard about SpottedbyLocals when I was studying abroad in Paris in 2009. I usually like to collect recommendations from friends before visiting a new city but in this day and age with social media, people end up seeing certain places on Instagram and Facebook and then just go where they see their friends go. This works sometimes but the problem is that you end up being directed to the same place that all the other people are going to which in effect ends up being touristy. If you’re like me and want to explore a city as someone who lives there would, then this is the app for you. The app itself is nothing special. Basic map with some highlighted spots but the content and curation is what is so key. We went to at least 10 of the recommended places in Mexico City and they were all spot on. You can’t get fair assessments of where to go on sites like Yelp and TripAdvisor anymore because their ranking systems have become biased towards the places that pay them. SpottedByLocals is a neutral assessment of amazing places in cities by the people who are proudest to live in them.
Perfect way to explore a city
02/21/2018

L-tone

I first heard about SpottedbyLocals when I was studying abroad in Paris in 2009. I usually like to collect recommendations from friends before visiting a new city but in this day and age with social media, people end up seeing certain places on Instagram and Facebook and then just go where they see their friends go. This works sometimes but the problem is that you end up being directed to the same place that all the other people are going to which in effect ends up being touristy. If you’re like me and want to explore a city as someone who lives there would, then this is the app for you. The app itself is nothing special. Basic map with some highlighted spots but the content and curation is what is so key. We went to at least 10 of the recommended places in Mexico City and they were all spot on. You can’t get fair assessments of where to go on sites like Yelp and TripAdvisor anymore because their ranking systems have become biased towards the places that pay them. SpottedByLocals is a neutral assessment of amazing places in cities by the people who are proudest to live in them.
Money well spent!
10/15/2019

craigmische
For less than the cost of one beer (if you know a fun spot with good beer for less than $3.99, let me know...or buy a city in this app and you will find one) you are guaranteed to find at least one good tip in a city you are going to spend time in. Like most everyone, I enjoy travel and feel that part of the enjoyment of travel is the planning and anticipation. I am always on the lookout for articles about cities I will be visiting. So far I have purchased 5 cities (NYC, DC, Paris, Florence, & Stockholm) and at a minimum have found at least one Spotted recommendation in each of the cities that I wasn't aware of and made my visit better. It is like having an in the know, cool, virtual friend in your pocket. Updates for each city are pushed out frequently. So frequently that it is my only suggestion. I wish the option to update was more in the background instead of having an alert right away after opening the app. But, it is a minor thing. The takeaway, $3.99 per city is money well spent and it will pay dividends when you travel. Plus, it is fun to use prior to your trip, dreaming and planning.

Developer Response
Dear Craig, what a super nice review. It is really very helpful for us to get a good review of our app and motivating to read this to continue what we love doing. It makes our day :)
Money well spent!
10/15/2019

craigmische

For less than the cost of one beer (if you know a fun spot with good beer for less than $3.99, let me know...or buy a city in this app and you will find one) you are guaranteed to find at least one good tip in a city you are going to spend time in. Like most everyone, I enjoy travel and feel that part of the enjoyment of travel is the planning and anticipation. I am always on the lookout for articles about cities I will be visiting. So far I have purchased 5 cities (NYC, DC, Paris, Florence, & Stockholm) and at a minimum have found at least one Spotted recommendation in each of the cities that I wasn't aware of and made my visit better. It is like having an in the know, cool, virtual friend in your pocket. Updates for each city are pushed out frequently. So frequently that it is my only suggestion. I wish the option to update was more in the background instead of having an alert right away after opening the app. But, it is a minor thing. The takeaway, $3.99 per city is money well spent and it will pay dividends when you travel. Plus, it is fun to use prior to your trip, dreaming and planning.
Developer Response 11/13/2019
Dear Craig, what a super nice review. It is really very helpful for us to get a good review of our app and motivating to read this to continue what we love doing. It makes our day :)
*UPDATED* annoyed
05/01/2018

Roroirene
I wrote a review about a month ago about this app and how it didn’t work while I was on vacation. Their response team sent me back an email with a handful of excuses how it was my fault because I downloaded it wrong and asked if I would remove my review. I asked for a refund and he told me the only way I could get a refund was if I had PayPal. I received a total of SIX EMAILS from this guy asking me to remove my review. Not once did he take ownership for the app not working or gave me any other resolution other than to re-download it again (pay for it) and hope it works on my next vacation. He continually blamed me for downloading it incorrectly. By the last email this morning, it felt like harassment and I am so annoyed with this guy I could scream. Don’t download this app unless you are fully confident in your skills to DOWNLOAD AN APP or have the extreme patience and extra time to deal write emails back and forth for over a month about a $4 product and a bad review.

Developer Response
We do not understand why this customer is so angry. It truly saddens us we have not been able to reach our goal to make an unhappy customer into a happy one! The customer asked for a refund and wrote they would "consider removing my review after I received a refund". We recommended trying re-installing the app - in 99.6% of the cases the issue such as described by our customer is a connection issue, resolved by a reinstallation. The App Store does not offer us (or any publisher) the option to refund directly, so we refunded via Paypal. We asked her to try our resolution (re-install) and offered free access to customer's next city trip, to which customer did not respond. We have still not heard if the resolution was successful - we think it would have been. We also asked them in a nice way if they would consider removing their review as mentioned in customer's email. Obviously, we triggered something that made our customer very angry, which we still don't understand. We are truly sorry about this - it's the last thing we wanted. What we realise in hindsight is that sending 3 emails after a customer has not replied is too much even though our only goal was to help and check if the issue was resolved and if our email has not ended up in a spam folder or so. We apologized a few times in our emails, before receiving this final angry review. We still hope our customer can forgive us for this, and we hope for a permanent peace agreement and all the very best in life for our customer! Bart van Poll - Co-founder Spotted by Locals
*UPDATED* annoyed
05/01/2018

Roroirene

I wrote a review about a month ago about this app and how it didn’t work while I was on vacation. Their response team sent me back an email with a handful of excuses how it was my fault because I downloaded it wrong and asked if I would remove my review. I asked for a refund and he told me the only way I could get a refund was if I had PayPal. I received a total of SIX EMAILS from this guy asking me to remove my review. Not once did he take ownership for the app not working or gave me any other resolution other than to re-download it again (pay for it) and hope it works on my next vacation. He continually blamed me for downloading it incorrectly. By the last email this morning, it felt like harassment and I am so annoyed with this guy I could scream. Don’t download this app unless you are fully confident in your skills to DOWNLOAD AN APP or have the extreme patience and extra time to deal write emails back and forth for over a month about a $4 product and a bad review.
Developer Response 05/02/2018
We do not understand why this customer is so angry. It truly saddens us we have not been able to reach our goal to make an unhappy customer into a happy one! The customer asked for a refund and wrote they would "consider removing my review after I received a refund". We recommended trying re-installing the app - in 99.6% of the cases the issue such as described by our customer is a connection issue, resolved by a reinstallation. The App Store does not offer us (or any publisher) the option to refund directly, so we refunded via Paypal. We asked her to try our resolution (re-install) and offered free access to customer's next city trip, to which customer did not respond. We have still not heard if the resolution was successful - we think it would have been. We also asked them in a nice way if they would consider removing their review as mentioned in customer's email. Obviously, we triggered something that made our customer very angry, which we still don't understand. We are truly sorry about this - it's the last thing we wanted. What we realise in hindsight is that sending 3 emails after a customer has not replied is too much even though our only goal was to help and check if the issue was resolved and if our email has not ended up in a spam folder or so. We apologized a few times in our emails, before receiving this final angry review. We still hope our customer can forgive us for this, and we hope for a permanent peace agreement and all the very best in life for our customer! Bart van Poll - Co-founder Spotted by Locals

Bugfix: Fixed city guide purchase error

Version 7.0.30534

Oct 21

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Spotted by Locals City Guides

Explore 85+ Cities as a Local!

Ratings & Reviews

What’s New

Version 7.0.30534

App Privacy

Data Used to Track You

Data Not Linked to You

Accessibility

Information

Supports

Family Sharing

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