SUPER TROUPER
A travel guide that's small enough to fit in your pocket, but big enough to know the cool bars.
Big travel guides are useful—until you start packing and realize you’d much rather fill your suitcase with shoes than with what amounts to a five-pound paperweight. Which explains part of the brilliance of the Superfuture travel guides: Instead of coming in book form, they’re completely digital and downloadable, so you can read it on your iPhone or just print out the pages you’ll need.
Of course, the guides have more than just functionality going for them. Each includes basic info on the city, the top neighborhoods to visit, the best new openings (and recent closings, so you’re not left searching for some café that closed three years ago), and a suggested itinerary for busy travelers. In fact, with their eye-pleasing design and easy-to-follow maps, the Superfuture series are practically pocket-size tour guides.
Right now, seven cities get the Superfuture treatment—Shanghai, New York, Tokyo, Paris, Sydney, Portland, and, most recently, Beijing—with Hong Kong and Singapore next up on the list. Since the guides are completely digital, they’re constantly updated, which means you won’t end up at a bar that’s well past its prime. But if for some reason you’re still overwhelmed by the prospect of visiting an unknown city, the design studio will arrange for a human guide to help you out.
With all the insider tips, you'll be glad you packed that extra pair of heels.
REBECCA WILLA DAVIS
$20 each at superfuture.com
NEED HELP WITH YOUR SUMMER VACATION?
Nina Persson takes you on a cross-country road trip.
Those Dancing Days pick out their favorite spots in Stockholm
Cryptacize spill their favorite vintage stores in San Francisco
Of course, the guides have more than just functionality going for them. Each includes basic info on the city, the top neighborhoods to visit, the best new openings (and recent closings, so you’re not left searching for some café that closed three years ago), and a suggested itinerary for busy travelers. In fact, with their eye-pleasing design and easy-to-follow maps, the Superfuture series are practically pocket-size tour guides.
Right now, seven cities get the Superfuture treatment—Shanghai, New York, Tokyo, Paris, Sydney, Portland, and, most recently, Beijing—with Hong Kong and Singapore next up on the list. Since the guides are completely digital, they’re constantly updated, which means you won’t end up at a bar that’s well past its prime. But if for some reason you’re still overwhelmed by the prospect of visiting an unknown city, the design studio will arrange for a human guide to help you out.
With all the insider tips, you'll be glad you packed that extra pair of heels.
REBECCA WILLA DAVIS
$20 each at superfuture.com
NEED HELP WITH YOUR SUMMER VACATION?
Nina Persson takes you on a cross-country road trip.
Those Dancing Days pick out their favorite spots in Stockholm
Cryptacize spill their favorite vintage stores in San Francisco
This story was published on August 6, 2009.
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