Review: yogoguide Paris online city explorer and trip planner

I’ve just spend a good part of my evening playing around with yogoguide – one of the coolest new online city explorer tools I’ve seen in a long time. At the moment, their service only covers Paris, but since that is my all-time favorite city I’ve got nothing to complain about.

Using the site is a treat – the center of the interface is a very clear map of Paris, to the left are categories, and on the right is where you’ll save your favorites. you can browse the map on your own, or let yogoguide point out the various categories. Once you’ve selected a category, you can narrow things down even more. For example – the hotels category sorts properties into luxury, charming, under 90 Euros, B&B, short term apartment rentals and hostels/camping sites.

Once you pick a sub-section, they’ll all be presented on the map ,and when you select a specific location, you get a handy little window showing reviews, the website, photos and more.

One of the smarter options on the map is the ability to overlay the metro map, the arrondissements and more – making it extremely simple to combine locations with reviews and ease of access. End result is that you can pick shops, entertainment, food and other activities and see on the map how to actually get there. Once you’ve explored the map and added favorites, you can even access the site using your mobile phone, which is perfect when you are abroad, just be sure you add an international data plan!

All in all, this is one extremely well designed city guide, but it is also just plain fun to use. The best part is that all your browsing can result in a perfect plan for your visit to this amazing city. All sections can be printed and you can save favorites to your yogoguide account. The site is free, as is the creation of an account, so head on over to yoyoguide and take it for a spin.