About
How The Standing List Works: Insider City Guides, Built Differently
There is no shortage of travel content on the internet. There is, however, a shortage of travel content worth trusting.
Most guides are written by people who spent a long weekend somewhere, ate at the places everyone already knows about, and filed a list. Some are written by algorithms. Some are written by people who have never been at all.
The Standing List is built on a different premise: that the best guide to a city is the person who actually lives there.
What an Insider is — and isn't
Every city on The Standing List has one Insider. Not a panel of contributors, not a rotating roster of freelancers, not a crowdsourced database. One person who knows the city the way most visitors never will.
Our Insiders are locals, long-term residents, and people who have spent enough time in a place to understand its rhythms — when to go, where to eat on a Tuesday versus a Saturday, which neighbourhoods are worth the detour and which ones are better skipped.
They are not influencers. They are not sponsored. They are not writing for an audience of millions. They are writing for the kind of traveller who wants to know what is actually good.
What the guides contain
Each city guide on The Standing List is built around the Insider's perspective. That means:
- Specific recommendations — not "there are great restaurants in this neighbourhood" but the actual restaurant, the actual dish, and the actual reason it is worth your time
- Context — the kind of background that makes a place make sense, not just a list of things to do
- Honest omissions — we do not include things because they are famous or because someone paid to be listed. We include things because they are worth including.
The guides are not exhaustive. They are edited. That is the point.
The itinerary layer
Beyond the guides, The Standing List builds custom itineraries. This is where the Insider relationship becomes something more practical.
When you book an itinerary with us, you are not getting a template with your name dropped in. You are getting a day-by-day plan built around how you actually travel — your pace, your interests, your tolerance for early mornings and late nights.
We offer three formats:
- Occasion itineraries — built around a specific event, celebration, or reason for the trip
- Single-city itineraries — a deep dive into one destination
- Multi-city itineraries — for trips that cover two or three cities in sequence
Each one is built by hand, informed by the Insider's knowledge of the city, and delivered as a document you can actually use.
Why we built it this way
The honest answer is that we were frustrated with the alternative.
The travel content that exists online is mostly noise. It is optimised for search engines, not for travellers. It is written to rank, not to inform. It tells you the same ten things about every city, in the same order, with the same caveats.
We wanted something that felt like getting a recommendation from a friend who actually knows — the kind of advice you cannot find by searching, because it lives in someone's head and not on a website.
The Standing List is an attempt to put that kind of knowledge somewhere useful.
The cities we cover
Right now, The Standing List covers eight cities: Las Vegas, Ibiza, Bangkok, Tokyo, Rio de Janeiro, Mexico City, Buenos Aires, and Canada. Each one has an Insider. Each one has a guide. Each one is available for custom itineraries.
We are not trying to cover everywhere. We are trying to cover the places we can cover well.
Where to start
If you are new to The Standing List, the best place to start is the destination guides. Pick a city you are curious about — or one you are planning to visit — and read what the Insider has to say.
If you are planning a trip and want something more structured, the itinerary page has everything you need to get started.