Facebook recently began rolling out a new feature that further positions the platform as a travel planning tool: City Guides. Available on the mobile app, City Guides serve as Facebook-curated destination guides, complete with recommendations of places to go and things to do. This functionality was first launched back in December, but is now being rolled out on a larger scale.
How Do Facebook City Guides Work?
There are two ways to access a City Guide: by tapping “City Guides” in the app menu or by searching for a particular city in the search bar. When you access City Guides through the app’s menu, you will see various cities listed and friends who have been there. At this time, only some major international cities have a City Guide, but this could change if Facebook continues to build out the feature.
When you tap a City Guide, you will see at the top an image of the city with the current temperature, weather, and time. Next you will see a list of places within the city that your friends have visited, along with their star rating and reviews. For some places, Facebook also highlights a few key attributes and features that many people mention regarding the place. For example, next to a restaurant it might say “People talk about best place for oyster, friendly service and happy hour.”
Beneath “Places Your Friends Have Been” is a section called “Places The Locals Go,” which offers popular, highly rated spots. Here users can also see at a glance if any of their friends have visited. The last section of each City Guide is “Popular Attractions,” which showcases things like famous landmarks and tourist attractions. With City Guides, you can easily save a city or a specific place to reference later by tapping the bookmark icon to the right.
