5 Fun Ways To Explore A New City

When you get off the plane at a new destination it can be hard to know where to start! Obviously, you want to see the best each city has to offer, but your trip shouldn’t be a regimented march from museum to museum. To really experience the local culture, we suggest you look for some fun ways to explore a new city.

If you want an overview of the area, especially a large city, you may want to hop on a bus rather than trying to see everything on foot. During the drive, you can take photos from the open-topped, double-decker bus and listen to commentary from local guides. But most importantly, you have the freedom to get off at any attraction that interests you, and hop on a later tour bus when you are ready to move on.

These handy bus tours can help you familiarize yourself with a city and explore at your own pace. The majority of cities offer hop-on, hop-off sightseeing tours, and in some cases you will have different bus or trolley companies to choose from.

If you want to turn your travel experience into a fun game, we suggest you try a scavenger hunt. You will visit all the key landmarks that you would on a regular walking tour, but you can find clues or complete tasks at each location. Scavenger hunts often have a spy or murder mystery theme, and many of them have a competitive element that pits you against other teams of travelers. 

You can find a variety of outdoor scavenger hunts organized by large companies such as Let’s Roam or myCityHunt. They operate smart-phone based scavenger hunts in multiple cities worldwide. 

In some places, you may even find indoor scavenger hunts set in a particular museum or art gallery. For example, in Los Angeles, we participated in a Watson Adventures whodunit game that made us examine particular works of art at the Getty Center.

One of the best ways to experience a place is to try the local delicacies. To eat your way around a city, we suggest booking a food tour. You can meet fellow foodies and dine in some fantastic restaurants.

Most tours will introduce you to a country’s national dish, and let you sample savory and sweet foods that are popular in the region. Other tours help you compare how a single dish is prepared at different restaurants. We recently went on a pizza tour in Chicago, and sampled deep-dish, stuffed, tavern, Sicilian, and Neapolitan styles of pizza.

Food-focussed companies such as Secret Food Tours and Culinary Backstreets offer tours in multiple cities around the world. You can also check out generic tourist websites such as Viator, and Groupon. Another option is to browse “Airbnb Experiences” in your chosen city to find food tours, pub crawls, wine tastings, etc. 

If you would rather design your own culinary experience, we suggest finding venues with different price points. For fine dining, you may want to consult the Michelin Guide, the World’s 50 Best list, or search for restaurants that have been awarded a AA Rosette. On the other end, we recommend reading food blogs and following social media influencers to locate hip food markets, street food stalls, and other cheap eats.

To scare yourself silly (and learn about a new place), sign up for a local ghost tour. You will have the chance to see the city at night and hear some spooky stories. Most cities have famous “haunted” buildings or a legendary villain. On our last trip to London, we enjoyed a Jack The Ripper tour. Our costumed guide shared details from the historical case, as well as popular theories about the serial killer’s identity. 

Unless you are afraid of heights, we highly recommend seeing a city from above! Whether you visit a touristy observation deck, have a drink at a rooftop bar, or jump off a tall building, you can’t beat panoramic views. 

Famous skyscrapers such as the Empire State Building, Taipei 101, and Burj Khalifa have observation decks open to the public. You can find elegant eating and drinking establishments at the CN Tower, atop the Space Needle, in the Petronas Towers, and more. If you are brave enough for extreme sports, you should consider bungee jumping off Macau Tower, Las Vegas’ Stratosphere Casino, or the Sky Tower in Auckland.  

We hope you keep traveling and finding unique ways to enhance your trips! If you are looking for more travel tips and inspiration, check out our articles Destinations For Thrill-Seekers and Famous Filming Locations You Should Visit.