Do you want to read about some lost ballerina shoes in London? How about the latest testimony in a sexual harassment suit in New York City? And, oh yes, there's a free Earth Day block party in Washington, D.C.
You can find out about all of these things in blog posts on Travel Onion, an aggregator of local travel-blog content, which announced its launch April 15.
Emphasizing local content -- as so many are doing on the Web these days -- the idea behind Travel Onion is to make it easier for consumers to find this local expert content by picking the best blogs and plunking them down on one Web site.
Travel Onion is launching with aggregated blogs from New York, London, Washington, D.C., Tokyo and Paris, but hopes to feature blogs from 50 cities soon. The idea is for the content to be hip, expertly written, informative and entertaining.
Sometimes, the content's usefulness for travelers is open to question, but, at the least, the content enables readers to absorb the local vibe.
The aggregated blog posts appear in their entirety on Travel Onion. At the top of each Travel Onion post is a small link back to the original post on the aggregated blog.
Curiously, the aggegated blog posts on Travel Onion have no other links within the text.
Travel Onion Managing Editor Dana Rosenzweig says the website doesn't display blogs' images or links via its aggregated RSS feeds.
"This is something we will be adding in the very near future for those featured blogs that do provide HTML-rich RSS feeds -- not all blogs do," Rosenzweig says.
There is no commercial relationship between Travel Onion and the local bloggers.
And, Travel Onion's current revenue model is based on advertising and sponsors, Rosenzweig says.
Meanwhile, NileGuide, which has been building its Local Expert content for more than a year, gave local editorial contributors a little more star power with the launch of a Local Flavor blog.
For example, here's Tokyo Local Flavor by NileGuide local expert Jmon Sonmiller.
The Local Flavor posts are integrated into Snapshot pages within the NileGuidance blog.
"We've been building out our Local Expert program for the last year or more, recruiting and training a bunch of great people around the world," says NileGuide CEO Josh Steinitz. "However, we've really ramped our efforts here since the start of the year and we're actively looking to hire 50-100 more Local Experts in many of the world's top cities and regions."