In Your Pocket City Guides

In Your Pocket (IYP) is a European city guide publisher and online tourist information provider. As of April 2013, it publishes city guides to 75 destinations and provides free online information to over 100 cities in 23 countries in Europe, from Athens to Zürich, Belfast to Bucharest, Tallinn to Tirana and St. Petersburg to Sofia.

Distributed locally, mainly in hotels and newsstands, the entire content of most guides can also be downloaded from the website free of charge as a PDF document which allows travellers to read and print out the full guide before departure.

The first In Your Pocket city guide, Vilnius In Your Pocket was written in late 1991 by German journalist Matthias Lüfkens and Belgian brothers George, Oliver and Nicolas Ortiz in Vilnius, Lithuania.

Since then, the four founders have franchised the In Your Pocket guides, which cover key tourist cities as well as obscure off-beat destinations such as Athens, Belfast, Berlin, Brașov, Bucharest, Cagliari, Český Krumlov, Derry, Dubrovnik, Frankfurt, Gdańsk, Gdynia, Haapsalu, Kaliningrad, Kaunas, Kiev, Klaipėda, Korça, Kraków, Leipzig, Liepāja, Ljubljana, Łódź, Lviv, Milan, Minsk, Moscow, Narva, Odessa, Oristano, Palanga, Pärnu, Peć, Poiana Brașov, Poznań, Prague, Pristina, Prizren, Riga, Rijeka, 's-Hertogenbosch, Shkodra, Šiauliai, Sofia, Sopot, St Petersburg, Tallinn, Tarnów, Tartu, Tirana, Trieste, Utrecht, Venice, Vilnius, Warsaw, Wrocław, Zadar, Zagreb and Zürich.

In June 2006 In Your Pocket published print and online city guides to all the Football World Cup venues in Germany and in June 2012 is published bespoke guides for all Euro2012 venues in Poland.

In September 2010 In Your Pocket published its first iPhone applications. They are currently available in 40 cities.

The guidebooks have received much praise in the international media. The Wall Street Journal described the style as "tongue-in-cheek advice" with "brutal honesty".[1] The International Herald Tribune described them as "an Eastern European publishing phenomenon"[2] and The Times wrote that they are "The best guides to Eastern Europe",[3] adding that "the website is a (literally) priceless first stop before your holiday".[4] The New York Times notes it is "a good all-around information site"[5] and The Independent lists their website among the "ten best travel websites" because "the writers/compilers live locally and the guides are frequently updated".[6] The Guardian observes that "InYourPocket.com was the first online travel guide to come up with the idea of offering free downloadable city guides in printable (PDF) format".[7] noting that it "is a brilliant resource written by excellent writers whose slant is always 'off the trail'."[8] and The Observer says it is "the most reliable source".[9] The guides are frequently mentioned in traditional guidebooks such as Lonely Planet, Let's Go Travel Guides or Rough Guides.

Notes

  1. ↑ "Visitors Beware: Lithuania’s Unorthodox Approach to Tourism", Wall Street Journal, September 14, 2013. Accessed September 15, 2013.
  2. ↑ "A pocketful of tips on Eastern Europe", International Herald Tribune, May 6, 2005. Accessed March 20, 2008.
  3. ↑ "Alternative city guidebooks and websites", The Times, September 1, 2007. Accessed March 20, 2008.
  4. ↑ "Inside information", The Times, July 17, 2007. Accessed March 20, 2008.
  5. ↑ "Cultured Traveler", The New York Times, July 16, 2006. Accessed March 20, 2008.
  6. ↑
  7. ↑ "Best of the net: Essential sites", The Guardian, May 14, 2005. Accessed March 20, 2008.
  8. ↑ "Blog by blog guide to … art in Europe", The Guardian, February 28, 2008. Accessed March 20, 2008.
  9. ↑ "What is... a kert?", The Observer, May 20, 2007. Accessed March 20, 2008.

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