I do a lot of traveling. My experience improved dramatically when I stopped using TripAdvisor and similar apps. I just go with the flow. Talk to real people. Like a bunch of American tourists (insert any country here) would know what, say, authentic Thai food is supposed to taste like. It all comes down to a bunch of -at best- uninformed people ranking stuff, at worst fake reviewers, bots and scammers. Why would I want that?
The worst part is that now if I don't want to look at their stupid logo, it's not enough to uninstall the app. They are everywhere. Restaurants and hotels begging for you to rank them positively, lest you enrage the child gods and send their business into ruin. Beautifully serene temples disgraced by a 15 foot high real life Tripadvisor logo to commemorate that they made it into the top 10 that year. A temple going back more than one thousand years, with trees and rock and the shitty green and black TripAdvisor logo ruining everything. It made me very sad.
The trick which hasn't failed me yet is to look at exclusively 1-star reviews. I've been using Google Maps, and I'm assuming this trick will work with other services also. First, look at the ratio of 1-star to other reviews - do the 1-star reviews create a "hockey stick"? What's the ratio of 1-star to 2-star? 1-star to all reviews?
Second, see what people are complaining about, for example, these 2 1-star reviews reveal vastly different experiences:
Cafe: Horrible staff and horrible food. The owners wife argues with the customers, over charges and makes sure to let you know shes overworked and exhausted. We paid over a 100 dollars on lunch for 4 people. One of those orders was on a childs menu. The resturant is very neat looking and has the potential to be successful. They need a new cook and new staff. Its clear everyone hates their jobs.
Pub: We picked this place based on the high reviews. I specifically wanted to dine here for the crab cakes. I'm fairly certain there wasn't crab in them since they where mostly batter. The flavor was lacking and the aoli was gross. I didn't say anything and should have. I just left and I'm still hungry. Price is extremely high too. Needs new menu.
These restaurants are within 5 miles of each other. As the second review was entirely about the food, it's safe to say there were no service, billing, parking, or other issues - especially since other reviews back this up. And food ratings frequently reflect preference - maybe I would enjoy the crab cakes. So the second establishment would get my business.
But yes, there's no source quite like the opinion of a local, directly from their mouth. Even better than the above system is to find a bar/pub/coffee shop/etc where the locals go, and ask them how things are going in the area.
I agree that Tripadvisor is useless for restaurants, but how do you find/book hotels? In general hotels are more expensive when booked directly and not through an aggregator, however, how do you even find them without sites like Tripadvisor?
I'm fed up with TripAdvisor, Yelp and similar review sites. Too many of the negative reviews are off topic and they bring down the overall ratings (similar issue for positive reviews as well... people tend to rate things they love or hate, but not things in the middle). For example, Amazon is loaded with one-star reviews from people complaining that they received counterfeit items. This has nothing to do with the product itself and everything to do with a supply chain issue at Amazon (and more so its 3rd party merchants). Similarly, on TripAdvisor and Yelp, I regularly see one star reviews from people who have a specific issue and don't review hotels/restaurants on their own terms. For example, if you are a health nut, you really aught to not post a review of a BBQ joint to complain about lack of healthy options. Family taking a vacation? Don't post reviews of a hotel in the financial district that caters to business travelers because you are upset that they lack good facilities for kids. I highly prefer professional reviewers who have a breadth of experience and also know to review movies on their own terms. That's why I find the aggregated professional movie reviews on Rotten Tomatoes more helpful than the crowd-sourced reviews on IMDB.
I think there's a solution that would help the problem a bit though. Have two tiers of reviewers. For example, on TripAdvisor, the first tier would include everyone, similar to what you have right now. Second tier would be an aggregated number by "gold" reviewers. To qualify, a gold reviewer would need to have:
- More than N number of reviews
- An individual review would only count if it was more than a minimum number of words
- Let users mark reviews as helpful or not helpful. A gold user will need to be above a threshold for percentage of helpful vs not helpful reviews, with a minimum number of helpful reviews.
Amazon already marks some reviewers as being, for example, a "top 1000 reviewer". What I'd like to see is for those top tier reviewers' reviews to be broken out as a separate score.
They aggregate professional reviews for hotels, restaurants, and things-to-do. The list, however, does skew heavily towards Michelin-star establishments, so it's not the site to find excellent hole-in-the-wall places.
Alternate.de, Amazon.de,… no idea how it is for the US equivalents, but on German sites I regularly see information about how bad or good the shipping was. Seriously? You are reviewing the product, not the store, your review is literally useless.
Really strange to see the negative comments. My favorite thing about TripAdvisor is that I feel empowered when I have a terrible experience at a venue. I can just go leave them a crappy review. It's very cathartic.
Also, I find most of the reviews to be generally accurate. It sounds like other people disagree with that which is strange. I've never used TripAdvisor to find a restaurant or a hotel and then felt like the reviews were faked.
Maybe not faked, but they are curated. I had $400 USD stolen from a mechanic that worked at an establishment with an extremely high Trip Advisor rating. I didn't realize until days later and 1000's of miles away. I got on all the review sites and left reviews with my experience. Sure enough, within a week Trip Advisor had removed my post after initially approving it.
i think your story is a great example of why open review aggregation sites are a broken model.
these reviews are not comprehensive. a lot of people only go there to post about a shitty experience or out-of-this-world experience. it's also broken in situations where reviewers are not familiar with the culture or standards of the place they're visiting, i.e. critiquing the service/cleanliness/decor of an authentic hole-in-the-wall chinese restaurant.
I look at TripAdvisor, Yelp, and other regional restaurant review sites. Tablelog is the only one with overall ratings that seem to reflect reality, but that's Japan only. Even though the big two are more noise than signal as far as reviews go, at least I can see pictures. Often I use these sites while sitting in the place to decide what to order. I'm starting to use Google Maps more because TripAdvisor and Yelp sites suck so bad and I refuse to install their low quality, spammy apps. What I wish existed:
- NO reviews. I want facts not opinions.
- Food photos only. No useless photos of people, random interiors, drinks, etc. Delete those and ban the idiots who upload them.
- Ruthlessly curate the photos. I want a couple of photos of each dish, only the best quality ones that are recent.
- Caption the photos and tag the food. I want the exact string on the menu neatly displayed on each photo. I want to be able to search "pizza" and get a stream of photos of the food.
- A clean set of photos of the menu so I can see the prices. OCR that into searchable text.
- Let me privately rate the food.
I guess what I'm describing is kind of Tinder for food. And no ads of course. Not gonna happen.. but hey I can dream.
> Food photos only. No useless photos of people, random interiors, drinks, etc.
I agree that photos of people are ridiculous, but I want photos of the interior. The ambiance of a place is even more important than the quality of the food (to me), and it's one of the attributes hardest to portray in reviews (mostly because people who review are not professional reviewers). Good photos help here.
1) Don't go to a "destination" city. Don't go to a city that derives too much of its income from tourism.
2) Trip length: not too long, not too short.
3) Make a loose itinerary, but rip it up occasionally.
4) Bring a phone, but no laptop. Don't use TripAdvisor/Yelp/etc. Ask around. Walk around. Have strange conversations. Don't be afraid to stay in non-traditional lodging.
5) Invest in a place before you go: learn some of the language, read a great book from the place, etc. This will make it much more interesting and memorable.
6) Don't go on trips just because your friends posted about their "amazing" vacations and you feel like you have to go, too. Travel sucks if the excitement doesn't come from within.
7) If you're on a limited budget, don't go to expensive cities and scrimp. It's no fun. Go to cheaper cities and splurge. Or have a blast and go camping with your friends a short drive away.
8) Get fit and dress nicely. Whether you like it or not, this is how people judge you. It's easier to be a good-looking guy/gal in a new place.
| 1) Don't go to a "destination" city. Don't go to a city that derives too much of its income from tourism.
This is good advice. Generally the "second cities" of a country gives a better experience. More open borders and intermixing has been wonderful, but it does mean that a lot of capital/primary cities feel very similar.
Great list; I would only add which kinda goes with (3), don't set your expectations too high - go with an open and exploratory mind, you might even discover new unexpected experiences.
At times we plan a trip based on what we've read or seen and have this picturesque and dreamlike state concocted in our mind and then when reality doesn't meet expectations we spiral down ward and see everything else negatively.
Go with an open mind, don't let minor things upset you, and try to make the best of everything.
I've seen a lot of cases here in SE Asia of restaurants and hotels posting fake bad reviews of their competitors' businesses. It's commonplace enough now that I generally disregard TripAdvisor ratings.
I travel quite often. My 2 cents are: look at the 1 star reviews. If the one star reviews are less than 1:500 and the pictures are that of a well designed restaurant, it should be good with a 99% chance. Obviously, that’s kinda hard to find - but that should be the threshold.
Regarding hotels/apartments:
On Booking it should be 9.1+ And it should have an amazingly curated breakfast (check the pics too).
On Airbnb it should be either a “plus” or a “super host” with 5 star reviews only. Read the reviews tho. They often mention noises or lack of hot water. Those might be considered red flags.
And as a general rule of thumb, when you think you’re getting a great deal because it’s cheap, you’re not. Trust me, you’re not. Following the above advice, I never ever had a bad experience - but it definitely costed above average.
If you're the kind of person who likes unstructured travel instead of a checklist to get all those instagram pics, TripAdvisor really isn't the place you should be going. I recently used Yelp/TA in Jamaica and it put us at Rick's Cafe, one of the most highly rated and visited places in all of Jamaica. They had a gift shop and their $25 "jerk chicken" was literally baked chicken breast covered in barbecue sauce. Absolutely embarrassing and I felt shame for even giving them my money. I could have gone across the street to any jerk center and got something an order of magnitude better for 5 bucks.
this is why I agree with panoramix comment; ditch yelp and travel advisor and talk to the locals. It's like using Waze during rush hour, it steers everyone to the same route and in this case tourists trap. Not that the locals are always right either, as tastes differ, but it sets you off in the right direction.
... and yeah Rick's Cafe is overrated. You want to find the places before they become the "it" place to be put on the 'gram.
Highlights the larger problem that reviews have become untrustworthy and overwhelming for all but the most gullible and most discerning. The middle is stuck in roughly the same place they’d be without any reviews at all.
Simple rule for using TripAdvisor in any even vaguely touristy place: Ignore the top ~20 or so restaurants/hotels when sorted by rating. You can pretty much guarantee that at a minimum, they're soliciting reviews from a pool of satisfied customers, and a good chunk of them are just flat out buying reviews. This rule doesn't work as well for attractions, since the big ones tend to make their way to the top regardless, but the attraction list is pretty useful on its own if you dig down a ways. I've found lots of interesting small places that I'd have never otherwise found down in the sub-50th percentile rated attractions.
I do generally like the trick mentioned below of only looking at bad reviews, but I'm fairly relaxed about certain things. Bad neighborhood, overpriced food, poor valet service? Meh, don't care. Room smells of smoke? Not staying there. Most of my hotel research is based on filtering out unacceptable things, rather than optimizing the positive aspects.
For hotels, I have vaguely more trust in booking.com reviews, since in theory you have to stay at a hotel to leave a review there. (I do mention every time in these threads that the booking.com review scale is wack, and the median score was actually something like 8.1/10 when I scraped a lot of them, so take those 7.0 "Good" ratings with a grain of salt). In theory in the US Opentable ratings would work the same way for restaurants, but that's restricting the pool of restaurants to those that take reservations, and I don't use those ratings myself, so I'm not totally sure how accurate it is. Still probably beats Yelp, and definitely beats TripAdvisor.
The Guardian has fairly decent journalists working for them. I don't always agree with their politics, and the writing isn't as good as it was, say, 10 years ago but pieces like this show it is still of a high quality.
Based on previous posts I feel comfortable sharing a project with the HN community in this thread. It's a web app with for anyone to post travel related tips/thoughts. I'm open to honest feedback. www.worldpeer.com Thanks!
The main problem I have with tripadvisor ratings is that they don't actually give you a quality guide.
A 5 star tripadvisor rating doesn't mean the 2 star hotel under review is actually a 5 star property, merely that most people enjoyed themselves and got what they expected. Which also means that allegedly 4 and 5 star properties that are crap can get great reviews if their customers are ignorant but leave happy...
And that's before you get into the area of honesty, competing motives etc etc
I hope that many reviews help having a better idea of the place before going, but I don't trust them too much, for they can be not authentic, or driven by personal feelings. I rely more on qualified reviews like lonely planet guides, 8 out of 10 times they work well for me, and the remaining times are just average, nothing too bad.
I use wikitravel and buy books from publishers like lonely planet. If I rent a car, i always try to find some smart-phone app that can do narration based on location. A lot of these apps are done by a local person/company and provide information on what their favorite places are.
[+] [-] Panoramix|7 years ago|reply
The worst part is that now if I don't want to look at their stupid logo, it's not enough to uninstall the app. They are everywhere. Restaurants and hotels begging for you to rank them positively, lest you enrage the child gods and send their business into ruin. Beautifully serene temples disgraced by a 15 foot high real life Tripadvisor logo to commemorate that they made it into the top 10 that year. A temple going back more than one thousand years, with trees and rock and the shitty green and black TripAdvisor logo ruining everything. It made me very sad.
[+] [-] stephengillie|7 years ago|reply
Second, see what people are complaining about, for example, these 2 1-star reviews reveal vastly different experiences:
Cafe: Horrible staff and horrible food. The owners wife argues with the customers, over charges and makes sure to let you know shes overworked and exhausted. We paid over a 100 dollars on lunch for 4 people. One of those orders was on a childs menu. The resturant is very neat looking and has the potential to be successful. They need a new cook and new staff. Its clear everyone hates their jobs.
Pub: We picked this place based on the high reviews. I specifically wanted to dine here for the crab cakes. I'm fairly certain there wasn't crab in them since they where mostly batter. The flavor was lacking and the aoli was gross. I didn't say anything and should have. I just left and I'm still hungry. Price is extremely high too. Needs new menu.
These restaurants are within 5 miles of each other. As the second review was entirely about the food, it's safe to say there were no service, billing, parking, or other issues - especially since other reviews back this up. And food ratings frequently reflect preference - maybe I would enjoy the crab cakes. So the second establishment would get my business.
But yes, there's no source quite like the opinion of a local, directly from their mouth. Even better than the above system is to find a bar/pub/coffee shop/etc where the locals go, and ask them how things are going in the area.
[+] [-] 4ad|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] puranjay|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chadash|7 years ago|reply
I think there's a solution that would help the problem a bit though. Have two tiers of reviewers. For example, on TripAdvisor, the first tier would include everyone, similar to what you have right now. Second tier would be an aggregated number by "gold" reviewers. To qualify, a gold reviewer would need to have:
- More than N number of reviews
- An individual review would only count if it was more than a minimum number of words
- Let users mark reviews as helpful or not helpful. A gold user will need to be above a threshold for percentage of helpful vs not helpful reviews, with a minimum number of helpful reviews.
Amazon already marks some reviewers as being, for example, a "top 1000 reviewer". What I'd like to see is for those top tier reviewers' reviews to be broken out as a separate score.
[+] [-] chrisaycock|7 years ago|reply
That's exactly the analogy I thought of when I first saw TripExpert:
https://www.tripexpert.com
They aggregate professional reviews for hotels, restaurants, and things-to-do. The list, however, does skew heavily towards Michelin-star establishments, so it's not the site to find excellent hole-in-the-wall places.
[+] [-] agumonkey|7 years ago|reply
when myspace et al started to pop, web 2.0, dynamic webpage interactions was the fastest way to heaven, now it seems we read the map upside down.
ps: maybe we're rediscovering how mobs are bad
[+] [-] mtgx|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Semaphor|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] philliphaydon|7 years ago|reply
Wow really? I stopped using RT and moved to IMDB, because critic reviews on RT are so bad.
[+] [-] agupta4138|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ryanackley|7 years ago|reply
Also, I find most of the reviews to be generally accurate. It sounds like other people disagree with that which is strange. I've never used TripAdvisor to find a restaurant or a hotel and then felt like the reviews were faked.
[+] [-] altec3|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kbar13|7 years ago|reply
these reviews are not comprehensive. a lot of people only go there to post about a shitty experience or out-of-this-world experience. it's also broken in situations where reviewers are not familiar with the culture or standards of the place they're visiting, i.e. critiquing the service/cleanliness/decor of an authentic hole-in-the-wall chinese restaurant.
[+] [-] Canada|7 years ago|reply
- NO reviews. I want facts not opinions.
- Food photos only. No useless photos of people, random interiors, drinks, etc. Delete those and ban the idiots who upload them.
- Ruthlessly curate the photos. I want a couple of photos of each dish, only the best quality ones that are recent.
- Caption the photos and tag the food. I want the exact string on the menu neatly displayed on each photo. I want to be able to search "pizza" and get a stream of photos of the food.
- A clean set of photos of the menu so I can see the prices. OCR that into searchable text.
- Let me privately rate the food.
I guess what I'm describing is kind of Tinder for food. And no ads of course. Not gonna happen.. but hey I can dream.
[+] [-] 4ad|7 years ago|reply
I agree that photos of people are ridiculous, but I want photos of the interior. The ambiance of a place is even more important than the quality of the food (to me), and it's one of the attributes hardest to portray in reviews (mostly because people who review are not professional reviewers). Good photos help here.
[+] [-] whitepoplar|7 years ago|reply
1) Don't go to a "destination" city. Don't go to a city that derives too much of its income from tourism.
2) Trip length: not too long, not too short.
3) Make a loose itinerary, but rip it up occasionally.
4) Bring a phone, but no laptop. Don't use TripAdvisor/Yelp/etc. Ask around. Walk around. Have strange conversations. Don't be afraid to stay in non-traditional lodging.
5) Invest in a place before you go: learn some of the language, read a great book from the place, etc. This will make it much more interesting and memorable.
6) Don't go on trips just because your friends posted about their "amazing" vacations and you feel like you have to go, too. Travel sucks if the excitement doesn't come from within.
7) If you're on a limited budget, don't go to expensive cities and scrimp. It's no fun. Go to cheaper cities and splurge. Or have a blast and go camping with your friends a short drive away.
8) Get fit and dress nicely. Whether you like it or not, this is how people judge you. It's easier to be a good-looking guy/gal in a new place.
Happy travels! :-)
[+] [-] dpeck|7 years ago|reply
This is good advice. Generally the "second cities" of a country gives a better experience. More open borders and intermixing has been wonderful, but it does mean that a lot of capital/primary cities feel very similar.
[+] [-] ekovarski|7 years ago|reply
At times we plan a trip based on what we've read or seen and have this picturesque and dreamlike state concocted in our mind and then when reality doesn't meet expectations we spiral down ward and see everything else negatively.
Go with an open mind, don't let minor things upset you, and try to make the best of everything.
[+] [-] cageface|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] CaptainZapp|7 years ago|reply
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Shed_at_Dulwich
says everything you really need to know about TripAdvisor and their ilk.
[+] [-] eaenki|7 years ago|reply
Regarding hotels/apartments:
On Booking it should be 9.1+ And it should have an amazingly curated breakfast (check the pics too).
On Airbnb it should be either a “plus” or a “super host” with 5 star reviews only. Read the reviews tho. They often mention noises or lack of hot water. Those might be considered red flags.
And as a general rule of thumb, when you think you’re getting a great deal because it’s cheap, you’re not. Trust me, you’re not. Following the above advice, I never ever had a bad experience - but it definitely costed above average.
[+] [-] trophycase|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ekovarski|7 years ago|reply
... and yeah Rick's Cafe is overrated. You want to find the places before they become the "it" place to be put on the 'gram.
[+] [-] dpeck|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] splonk|7 years ago|reply
I do generally like the trick mentioned below of only looking at bad reviews, but I'm fairly relaxed about certain things. Bad neighborhood, overpriced food, poor valet service? Meh, don't care. Room smells of smoke? Not staying there. Most of my hotel research is based on filtering out unacceptable things, rather than optimizing the positive aspects.
For hotels, I have vaguely more trust in booking.com reviews, since in theory you have to stay at a hotel to leave a review there. (I do mention every time in these threads that the booking.com review scale is wack, and the median score was actually something like 8.1/10 when I scraped a lot of them, so take those 7.0 "Good" ratings with a grain of salt). In theory in the US Opentable ratings would work the same way for restaurants, but that's restricting the pool of restaurants to those that take reservations, and I don't use those ratings myself, so I'm not totally sure how accurate it is. Still probably beats Yelp, and definitely beats TripAdvisor.
[+] [-] ddelt|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kzzzznot|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rfvisuals|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Nursie|7 years ago|reply
A 5 star tripadvisor rating doesn't mean the 2 star hotel under review is actually a 5 star property, merely that most people enjoyed themselves and got what they expected. Which also means that allegedly 4 and 5 star properties that are crap can get great reviews if their customers are ignorant but leave happy...
And that's before you get into the area of honesty, competing motives etc etc
[+] [-] cesidio|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] CodeSheikh|7 years ago|reply
What about: - Conde Nast [www.condenast.com] - TripSavvy [www.tripsavvy.com]
[+] [-] adrr|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rglover|7 years ago|reply