Local small businesses are the backbone of great experiences. If you’ve ever visited any large multinational companies in any big city, and gotten that sense of “aw” from them being so cool and looking tight, you can owe it all to the small creative, hard-working business hidden in plain sight just around the corner from those big companies. The small one’s are the one’s who dare, who pushes limits, and are not afraid to greet customers with a smile and personal help.
While not everything in there might look perfectly sharp or though through. Sometimes even delivery boxes may lying around, they give you a real sense of dedicated passion. The passion of the city. This is where you’ll really get to know the cities you visit, because they’re the ones shaping the locals. Providing us with new ideas, and new products we otherwise wouldn’t know of, and therefore providing tourists with the thoughts of “oh, this city is so …” and “I love this area because …”.
Go explore the local and passionate, and get the true traveller out!
As a proud local guide, I love exploring the small unheard voices of my city of Copenhagen, and taking the quick and dirty authentic photos of small business. This way, new people will get to know the real version of my favourite places, and not the polished curated one. Small business should be proud to let the community show who they are. The community they’re a part of, and the community they help shape.
So, local guides of other cities, go out there and make the small voices heard, but do it in your way. This is what people want. Authenticity, your, as a local’s, point of view.
And small business, embrace this. Don’t polish everything. And stay a bit out of the way, and the way will be right in front of you.
