What’s this site all about?
Who am I to tell you what the best Barcelona attractions are?
In simple terms, because of the enshitification (read Cory Doctorow’s excellent description here) of everything online, I was struggling to find the best stuff to see and do, and eat or find the genuinely good places to stay in Barcelona.
If I want somewhere that makes the most photogenic food there are plenty of places social media influenzas are pushing. But if I wanted to eat something that tasted good? That wasn’t full of copy-cats more interested in photographing their plates than enjoying the ambience?
Fresh out of luck.
If, like me, you increasingly struggle to find genuine information about the best Barcelona attractions online, this site’s for you.
I spent most of my career in the magazine business. Yes, it had its flaws, but its biggest was its reliance on advertising for survival. Tech bros saw an opportunity to disrupt this model (curiously, making themselves fabulously wealthy in the process) and everything moved online. For free.
And then the enshittification process began.
Clicks over quality. (Just wait until you clock what they have in store for democracy…)
Long live the internet
The world has given us an unending stream of self-appointed experts. Why am I different?
I’ve written and taken photographs for magazines around the world. I’ve done the junkets, and I know how that industry works (and seen its flaws).
I’m here, in part, because Spain Tourism brought me here on a junket. I wondered how a place with this much culture and history could be so ignored. It also has amazing wine and gastronomy and is still cheaper compared with its neighbours.
I pay my own way these days.
And I’m too old and wear too many clothes to be a social media influenza.
Like influencers, too many lifestyle magazines earned themselves well-deserved reputations for providing unqualified recommendations that are bought.
Not all of them are guilty, but an awful lot are.
And even 1.5 decades after Instagram launched we’re still suckers for pretty things, as opposed to things with substance. Sometimes I wonder whether we deserve better (maybe we don’t).
But I think we can do better.
What do I know about the best Barcelona attractions?
That’s a good question. And I’m going to admit I don’t actually live here, but I have been coming for three to six months a year for 10 years now.
Do I know everything? Of course not. But I do experience a lot. And the best Barcelona attractions, restaurants and hotels I recommend. Simple.
Nobody pays me for it…I guess I do it out of habit.
I originally started this site because friends continually asked me what they should do when they visited Barcelona. And it just got bigger from there.
When I do something here that makes me go “I’d do that again,” it appears on these pages.
I really do love it here in Barcelona.
And I hope you do too.
Money Matters
As an Agoda partner I make a small commission if you book on Agoda through this site. Nobody pays to be here, so you get unvarnished opinions. Just like the good old days!