Frequently Asked Questions
We appreciate your reading through Tipsiti! We've outlined a few FAQs below, but if there's anything we might have missed, feel free to shoot us an email at hello@tipsiti.com.
Products
How do I get a brand listed?
Easy! Fill out this form or 👾 DM us on Discord 👾 for us to review. Information on who's behind it, what it is, where it's from, why it's great 💫, and any social links you think we would appreciate as well. It has to have a connection to one of the cities 🌉 we have listed on our site.
If it's a product you yourself make, you can send us a test copy to review which we will forward to our curator in that city. We will send it back after they're done playing around with it. We are bad at snail (🐌) mail and this will take a while.
Do people or companies pay you to list products?
Nope. If you like a product and buy it through our site, sometimes we might make an affiliate dollar or two (probably cents, but still). We're playing with potentially having "premium" pages, but this would only happen on products we already like and have listed. We just list stuff we love ❤️.
Are you biased in any way? How can I trust you?
Yes, we are biased. No, we do not know how. We try to avoid it, but we're not perfect and make mistakes regularly 😔. If you think we're being biased in any way that is hurting you (or anybody else), send us an email at hello@tipsiti.com ⚰️. Some things take nuance. We try.
Where can I buy products from Tipsiti?
We usually link out to sites that make it as easy as possible for our readers to buy what they're looking for. Sometimes it's the product maker's own online shop, sometimes it's a boutique marketplace, and sometimes it's one of the larger e-commerce behemoths 👹.
One of my products is listed and the information is wrong, please fix?
Whoops, sorry. Please send us an email at hello@tipsiti.com or 👾 DM us on Discord 👾 with a link to the product we messed up.
Places
How does your rating system work?
We tried to do something a little different with how we recommend places to visit. If a place (🥃 bar, ☕️ cafe, 🍊 market, etc) is listed on Tipsiti, it means we recommend it and actually go there. Regarding ratings, we chose to quantify them based on how urgently we would go to a place based on how much time is available.
The ranking works as follows:
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ - 5 Stars: If you have one DAY in a city, this is where you should go. Usually only a few places per city in each category get a five star rating. As an example, if you're in New York City and like Michelin star restaurants (there are 68 of them), we won't give all of them 5 stars, just the ones that interchangeably could claim to be the one spot you'd have to go to were you visiting.
⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ - 4 Stars: If you have WEEKEND in a city, this is where you should go. Once you've cleared out all the 5 star rated places, everything with 4 stars is worth packing into a one week trip. Think about it like this... a week has 7 days. So if you go out for breakfast every day, and eat at a different breakfast place every day, that means you need 7 different breakfast places to eat at. The 4 stars have you covered, with a bit to spare.
⭐️⭐️⭐️ - 3 Stars: If you have one WEEK in a city, this is where you should go. Conceptually the same time scale as the 5 star and 4 star concept, but just with one month. One month = 30 days, so we try to list (ballpark) 30 places per category you'd be happy going to at least once or repeat.
⭐️⭐️️ - 2 Stars: If you have one MONTH in a city. This is where it starts to get tricky. 2 star places are spots that locals go to frequently, but might not take an acquaintance to if they're visiting. You'll still have a great time if you go, but keep in mind that this isn't going to be life-changing. Again, if we list something, we still highly recommend it, but a 2 star places is not a 5 star place.
⭐️ - 1 Star: If you have one SEASON in a city. Like 2 stars, but even more locals. Here we put things like a boutique grocery store that you can only get specific things at and as a visitor, would be fine at, but you won't necessarily write home about it. A local would still take friends here, but probably not on their first visit to a city. Again, if we list something, we still highly recommend it, but again, a 1 star places is not a 5 star place.
It's a little confusing, but it works.
I disagree with a place that you rated badly. I disagree with a place that you rated strongly. What do I do?
Oooof, we probably won't change our rating because of the aforementioned no bias, no influence, no payment thing, but if you really feel strongly, send us a one page (250 words, double spaced, size 11 font) essay 📝 to hello@tipsiti.com.
Why rate places in the first place? Doesn't that make everybody mad?
Because we are not afraid. We are not afraid!!!!
How do I get a place listed?
Easy! Fill out this form or 👾 DM us on Discord 👾 for us to review. Information on who's behind it, why it's great 💫, and any social links you think we would appreciate as well. We'll send a curator out to take a look. National Parks, rural monuments, off-the-beaten-path trips aren't really our focus, because we're city people 🌃. Day trips are fine, but it has to be related to a city close by. Urbanization is good ♻️!
Do people or companies pay you to list places?
Again, nope 🙅. At some point we might add a mechanism where if you like a place and book it through our site, we potentially could earn an affiliate dollar or two (probably cents, but still). We're playing with potentially having "premium" pages, but this would only happen on places we already like and have listed, and we know could afford it (ie the Empire State Building, not some mom and pop restaurant). We just list places we like ❤️.
My city is missing, when will it be added?
Assuming we have curators there (if you want to become a curator in a city we don't have listed, 🤜 please click here 🤛), we have a couple guidelines.
As a rule of thumb, we only publicly list cities that have over ~500,000 people, an international airport, and are culturally relevant.
What do you mean by relevant? Hot topic, good question.
Example #1, Germany 🇩🇪. Cities with ~500,000 people and an international airport: Berlin, Munich, Hamburg, Cologne, Frankfurt. Odd one out is Frankfurt. Sorry, Frankfurt.
Example #2, San Francisco Bay Area 🇺🇸. Cities with ~500,000 people and an international airport: San Francisco, Oakland, San Jose. Odd one out is San Jose. Sorry, San Jose.
If Frankfurt and San Jose had a baby, it would be beautifully culturally relevant, and we would include it 🗺.
Sometimes if it's a culturally relevant capital city in a small country, we look the other way and make an exception to the population and airport thing 👀. Some cities are hidden in the main feed and can be found through search.
How do you avoid turning places into tourist traps? I thought this site was for locals by locals?
This is an ethical dilemma that we deal with daily. It's the strongest reason for us not to do what we're doing. A place that used to be "good" but is now a tourist trap, sucks. If you're a place that would like to avoid this, please send us an email at hello@tipsiti.com with a link to your listing, and we will take it down. Not everyone can afford Berghain's bouncer.
We will have to verify you own the place because sometimes places get naughty and send in a competitors place asking to take it down. Bad. Internet time-out for you.
A place is listed and the information is wrong, please fix?
Whoops, sorry. Please send us an email at hello@tipsiti.com or 👾 DM us on Discord 👾 with a link to the place we messed up.
People
Where do you find your curators?
Friends, friends of friends, friends of friends of friends 👪, the internet 🧑💻. It's pretty fun meeting new people that love their cities, love what comes from them, love what's in them, and want to show everybody else why. It's great.
Do curators get paid?
Right now all the curators are doing it purely out of love 💞 for where they're from. Sometimes we get lucky and can hook them up with events or a few other little perks, but it's hit or miss. We'd like to think of a way to compensate them in some way and are playing with a couple ideas, but if you feel you have a golden goose 🔑 of an idea, please let us know at curators@tipsiti.com.
Your curators look super cool, can I be one too?
Do you live for your city? Are you 21+? Are you someone that likes new places, new products, new people? Then yes, sure, that'd be great 😸! Please fill out this form to apply.
Your curators look super cool, I want to meet them, how?
👾 DM us on Discord 👾.
Thank you.
Other
How do you pronounce "Tipsiti"?
Look, all the domains were taken. Some domain squatter in Bermuda 🇧🇲 was trying to charge us $30,000 for what we wanted, so we went for this. It was $10. Namecheap ftw.
Tipsiti = "tip" + "city" and we still say it wrong.
Why are you doing this?
We got tired of churning through Instagram, TripAdvisor, Reddit, and the thousands of listicles (BUZZFEED), that Google is always trying to sell us. We built this for us, and hoped that some other people might like it too 🤞.
Why are you doing this so badly?
Woof welp 🥴, if you have a thing that you think we should be doing, please make a suggestion by emailing us at hello@tipsiti.com or 👾 DM us on Discord 👾. There's a lot we'd like to do, but some things just capacity-wise, aren't doable (see below 👇). We are always hiring, send us your portfolio at hello@tipsiti.com 🤲.
How do you make money?
Right now, lol, we don't 💰🗑🚮. Maybe some day that would be nice. We're playing with some affiliate stuff, some newsletter stuff, maybe some premium membership or pages stuff, but it's all pretty low stakes. Ads are always an option but we'll try and keep it ad-free as long as possible. Maybe some tasteful ads? Maybe? Away luggage are you reading? We like your travel blog a lot (https://www.heremagazine.com/).
If you have a cool idea and want to partner with us (we pay you, or you pay us, either way), email us 📧 at hello@tipsiti.com 💸.
Are you going to raise money and sell-out?
Nope. We will burn it all down and run this... into. the. ground... before we compromise ourselves. If you decide you like what we're about and want to join the cause, send us an email at hello@tipsiti.com.
I like Tipsiti, I like you guys, how do I join?
Ah, a fellow masochist, nice. Send us an email at hello@tipsiti.com 🥰.