The financial blog calls offering experiences to strangers on Vayable the #1 way to earn extra cash when money is tight. Here’s a snippet:
[Vayable] allows people with specialized knowledge and talents, local info, and time on their hands to create experiences that others can purchase. It’s basically a touring and activity company without the company. Anyone can join the site and set up an experience.
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The Vayable Ambassador Program is a unique opportunity for connectors, trend-spotters, and organizers in the community to be a part of the Vayable team. As an Ambassador, you will play a pivotal role in a global movement to change the way people experience the world, while representing Vayable in your hometown and enjoying unique privileges as a Vayable insider.
Um…YES! If you are are a passionate Vayable user, with a strong local network and demonstrated passion for leadership and organizing, then you would make a perfect Ambassador. You are also creative, proactive, and enjoy creating your own initiatives in your free time. If you want to help lead a global movement and be a part of a world-class team, then we want to hear from you!
Vayable Ambassadors are liaisons between the Vayable team and the community-at-large. Roles may vary, as we all have different strengths and interests, but here’s a general overview of what being a Vayable Ambassador looks like:
Discover unique, exclusive off-the-beaten-path experiences to list on Vayable and help on-board great new guides.
Spread the Vayable love. Share best practices with guides, represent Vayable at community events, maintain a dialogue with local users, connect with local bloggers and press, and help make Vayable the best it can be by sharing your insights with the Vayable team.
Go on Vayable experiences for free, take video and photographs for guides, and write official Vayable reviews.
Participate in exclusive monthly webinars with the Vayable founders, team, and global community. Enjoy discounts for friends and family, VIP status at Vayable events, free Vayable gear, profit-sharing, invitation to our annual San Francisco Vayable retreat, and more. Exclusive access to a strong network of world explorers, entrepreneurs, and community leaders.
If this all sounds good to you and you want to join us as an Ambassador in your city, just shoot us an email with your name, location, and why you want to be an ambassador to ambassadors@vayable.com and someone from our team will be in touch. We look forward to hearing from all of you!
Kevin is a new member of the Vayable community and offers a symphonic orchestra experience on Vayable in Paris. He’s a web entrepreneur working on Backpackmojo, a wanderluster (obviously), Vayable fan, and classical music lover! We sat down with him to talk about all things travel, tech, and Paris!
Why do you want to be a Vayable guide? It’s really about meeting people. It’s very hard sometimes to find people that like what you do. It’s hard for me to find people that like classical music, for instance, so I decided to share it worldwide. It’s a broader audience, so I might find someone that would really appreciate going on this amazing experience with me. Also, I’d like to practice my English.
How did you get into classical music? It started when I was very young because my father only had classical music CDs. When I was a boy, I used to listen to Mozart when my friends were listening to rap music and rock. I’m from Lyon, and it’s not as culturally intense as Paris, so I came to Paris and wanted to to take advantage of the symphony orchestra. Listening to one pianist playing solo in a room full of 500 people (with not a sound) is just amazing.
Who’s your favorite composer? For piano music, Chopin. For symphonies, Mozart.
What’s the must-see thing when people go to Paris? You have to walk for two hours Saturday morning at 8 AM when there is no one on the street and the sun is just coming up. I find it very all-inspiring. What’s impressive about Paris is not so much what you’ll see in a particular place. It’s about the ambiance - it’s about having a coffee in the morning in a busy corner, it’s about seeing the sun rise while watching people going to work, it’s full of history and stories wherever you go. You can go running in the morning and nothing is ugly there.
What’s the most unexpected or unique thing about Paris? People don’t know that Parisians are absolutely… how can I say it politely…. not very nice. In France, people in Paris are known to never be smiling, so I’m quite an exception here. A couple weeks ago I actually realized that the place my office is actually on the street where the fictional character d’Artagnan from the Three Musketeers used to live. So everything in Paris has a piece of history because it’s so full of culture.
What’s your favorite restaurant? There is a little Italian restaurant named I Golosi at Rue de la Grange Batelière. I also like a take-out place called Casa della PASTA in la Rue Montorgueil; it’s the best Italian food I’ve eaten in my life. For cafes, Lézard Café is my headquarters - where I work, where I have a nice coffee with friends, and for everything.
What’s Backpackmojo? It’s something I made for backpackers to take everything you do on a trip and put it into a professional looking guide for all your friends, your “travel tribe” that follows you.
What was your favorite travel experience? I would say Indonesia. I’ve gone there for a month backpacking there with no more than six hours of sleep a night. Trekking to volcanoes at 2 AM in the morning, waiting until the sun rises at the top, and seeing the cover of clouds. It’s a sight you will never forget. I also love Japan. Kyoto is my favorite city in the world - it’s peaceful, there are temples everywhere, it’s full of history and things to see. It’s amazing.
You love the idea of offering an experience on Vayable but don’t know what to offer or how to offer it. We wrote this to help you craft the perfect experience to share with others. Anyone can list an experience on Vayable, all you need is an interest or knowledge.
You are already an expert in your own town. Think about what you enjoy doing the most or what you know the most about. Some of the most popular experiences on Vayable fall into one of the below six categories below:
Example: Williamsburg Past & Present (New York)
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Example: Scout for Street Art (San Francisco)
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Example: Create a Farmer’s Market Feast (San Francisco)
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Example: Practice Yoga in Hyde Park (London)
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Example: Montmartre Classic Tour (Paris)
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Example: Enjoy a Private Piano Concert (New York)
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The most important thing is for your experience to be something that you’re passionate about. It’s something that really reflects who you are, what you know, and your relationship with the city you live in.
Once you have an idea of what you want to offer, the listing it is fast, easy, and free! Simply go to vayable.com/offer and enter the information necessary (location, a short description, etc) and don’t forget to add videos and photos.
Don’t worry, you can always save a draft of your listing and come back to it later! And as always, our friendly editorial team is here to help you make it great. Just email us at support@vayable.com for help.
People want to book your experience because it’s yours. Help them learn more about who you are by adding a smiling profile photo, a short bio, and any other information that would help people get a feel for your personality.
Once you’ve submitted your experience and our editorial team approves it to go live, you can share it with the world! Tweet it, share it on Facebook, email it to friends, and even embed it in your blog or website with our widgets.
by Jamie Wong, founder of Vayable. This post is part of our European tour series.
There’s a reason I had never before been to Athens. It gets a bad rap. As far as European capitals go, travelers typically omit it from must-see list, despite its historical prowess. Unlike Rome or Paris, Athen’s glory days have not translated into a modern wonder. In fact, the most common travel tip I get about Athens is to leave it. The arrival of Starbucks and McDonalds coupled with an economic downturn have caused the city to lose its 400 BC luster, to be sure. But as it turns out, there’s more than just the Acropolis worth seeing in this town.
After an overpriced meal in the tourist center and a walking stroll through Athen’s largest construction site, the Pantheon, my friend Emilie and I met Andreas, a computer science student, outside the Monastri metro. He was a friendly face amid a sea of visitors and pushy restaurant owners on the main tourist strip.
We said hello as if we already knew one another, and in a way, corresponding ahead of time on Vayable warmed our introduction. Andreas led us down a bustling tourist strip and down a smaller alley to what appeared to be a boarded-up warehouse. He gasped as if his tour had been foiled and our destination had been shut down. But as it turned out, even he had been fooled by the city’s hidden treasures. Sure enough, once we pushed passed the graffiti-laden door, we entered into a world of art, serenity and smiling faces.
Athens boasts an an art scene circa now akin to what most associate with Berlin or Brooklyn. But in Athens, you have to know where to look for it. Like many young people in the Greek capital, Andreas had his finger to the pulse of not only what was happening in art and tech in Greece, but in the world. It was a humbling reminder to an American and a European, that while we may sometimes forget about the Greek, they have not forgotten about us.
One frappe, a cocktail and two secret gardens later, I felt like I had finally gotten to know Athens a little bit better, thanks to Andreas, his knowledge and the beautiful people and places that lie just below the surface of Athens.
Jeffrey is a Vayable Ambassador and urban explorer that loves all things food. He publishes a food blog and writes restaurant critiques in New York Magazine’s Grub Street. He believes that food is the greatest medium to communicate and connect. On Vayable, he offers a Queens Midnight Street Crawl and Queens Tastes of the World.
We sat down with him and asked him a some questions! We also had the pleasure of sharing some meals with him when we were in New York City, and believe us… this guy knows his food.
Neighborhood in NYC: I live on the border of Woodside, Jackson Heights, and Elmhurst in Queens. It’s an amazing cross-section of culture.
Day gig: I work nights doing television news production. That means everything behind the scenes from editing and playing tapes to weather graphics and putting the words on the screen.
What do you like doing in your spare time? I’m usually investigating or exposing something. Mostly having to do with food and culture in Queens.
What are your favorite food events in NYC? Once in a while, Baron Ambrosia will put on an event, he IS an experience. I do many of my own events that satisfy my ultimate food and cultural fantasies, from massive food crawls to bike tours to dinners with my food ambassadors. I prefer not to stand in line with most of the lemmings at big food events, so I guess the answer is that I prefer my own.
How did you find out about Vayable? My friend, Francisco Bello, told me about it. He knows I’ve been involved in showing people what’s good, and thought this would be a good fit. Thanks, Francisco!
Why did you want to become a Vayable Ambassador? This is a great opportunity for people who wouldn’t normally be able to share their experiences. Creating experiences is an art, and for many people on Vayable it’s a raw expression of something they personally feel is awesome and want to share. That’s like folk art. I love folk art.
What kinds of experiences do you think you’ll bring on? I’m hoping to go beyond food and help create some experiences that are waayyy atypical. I’m going to contact my homeless poet friends right now, actually…
How was the first tour you led? The Aussies loved it. They couldn’t believe how good the food was too. We had tacos, tamales, patacon, Ecuadorian sausage. We did a Mexican coke vs American coke taste test, and more. It gave me a lot of confidence actually, and I now see that there are so many street carts that it’s hard to find the best ones, and I can tell them about the neighborhood and history. It definitely over-delivered.
[From Socialistic.com]
The idea of travel of course has an enduring romance. We leave on trips with the idea in the backs of our minds that perhaps, if we’re lucky, we will show up in Paris or San Francisco or Buenos Aires and immediately be engulfed in a grand adventure, guided by knowledgeable locals to secret parties and unique experiences. But those kinds of touism serendipities can often be elusive — as any sad-eyed family from Nebraska wandering listlessly around New York’s Times Square can tell you.
Vayable, a company that launched earlier this year, aims to help you avoid tourist malaise by setting you up with quirky, vetted local guides for unique takes on the tourist experience. Socialistic recently caught up with the company’s CEO, Jamie Wong, to learn more about how the company finds and vets prospective local guides.
Q: Explain a little about where the idea for Vayable came from.
A: I have spent the past 15 years traveling to more than 30 countries as a student and journalist and was always looking great things to do at my destinations that were both unique and affordable. It’s always been a passion of mine to access the heart of the new places and people I visit, and I found that this represented a gaping hole in the travel space. I would spend months planning a single trip–emailing friends for recommendations and personal contacts, reading guidebooks, and researching online. All I wanted was a way to directly access the people themselves who were passionate and knowledgeable about their hometown and would be able to act as a liaison for me. Since nothing like this existed, I starting building these relationships and acted as travel agent of sort for my friends and family. When they would come visit me in New York or San Francisco, I would act as a tour guide. When they wanted to go to Cambodia, where I spent some time, I would refer them to the people I knew there. After planning dozens of trips and honeymoons for others, I wanted to find a way to scale this vision into something accessible and open to more people. That’s how Vayable was born.
Q: With so much information available online about places (and so many ways to connect with them), why do you think people still go on tours? Why is it important for people to connect with locals when they are traveling.
A: There has been tremendous innovation in the past decade in how we book flights, accommodations and access information through our social networks. But there has not been any way for explorers to directly access people providing local experiences. Recommendation sites and online guides provide excellent crowdsourced information, but they do not provide a way to directly access the people and experiences themselves. Right now the only options for direct booking of things to do are double-decker bus tour-type of experiences. But what about the concert pianist in New York who wants to offer explorers an affordable and more special alternative to Carnegie Hall? Or the Banksy aficionado in San Francisco who wants to share his passion for street art with visitors? Until us, there had been no way for these providers and explorers to access one another. People want to access the heart of a culture. They want to feel like insiders. They want to feel like they want to create memories and feel a part of the places they visit. We are enabling a marketplace that empowers people to finally access the experiences they want.
Q: How do you find people to provide “experiences,” and what is the revenue split with them?
A: We are very engaged with our communities and listen and watch for the people who are movers, shakers and passionate in what they do. Anyone can offer an experience on Vayable, not just professionals. We take a 15% commission from each booking.
Q: What are some of the more unusual experiences that people have offered so far? Obviously there are people giving lessons and tours everywhere in the world — do you have any specific criteria about what does and doesn’t fit into your scope? How do you ensure that all of the local people you work with adhere to a general set of quality standards?
A: We are an open platform and largely let our community dictate what they want to experience and what they want to offer. So far there’s been significant demand for tours that experiences around food, culture and the arts. These creative communities are historically on the margin of mainstream markets, and the exciting thing about our platform is that it places them in the center, because it turns out, these are the kind of experiences people want. Quality is extremely important to us. We work closely with our guides to help them craft excellent experiences and convey them through good storytelling.
Q: Have you changed your strategy or vetting process at all in light of the AirBnB crisis in July?
A: Safety and trust has always been at the forefront for us. We carefully vet every single provider on our site and provide tools for both guides and explorers to ensure safety, accountability and peace of mind.
http://www.socialistic.com/2011/09/the-socialistic-interview-vayable-ceo-jami…
Anyone who’s ever been in New York City during Fashion Week knows the exciting buzz in the air, the overwhelming selection of events you can go to, and maybe even the best ways to sneak into some shows. So stop combing through event listings, and do Fashion Week the Vayable way.
All of the following guides are in the fashion industry and involved in Fashion Week in some way, whether it’s styling, purchasing, or designing. This week, with New York Fashion Week starting Thursday, you can ask our guides about how they can give their experiences a Fashion Week twist to show you the most awesome events, hottest designer shows, and best sample sales.
A couple weeks ago, we had the pleasure of going along on the Midtown Food Cart tour, led by our guides at Urban Oyster. The experience went beyond just any food tasting tour. We got to meet the chefs, learn about the regulatory history of food carts, and taste some delicious food! Our guide was Brian, a food blogger and actor / web series producer. Check out our interview with him below!
Neighborhood in NYC: Astoria, Queens
What’s your favorite area of New York City? There are so many unique and diverse neighborhoods in this city. It’s hard to pick just one area. I love spending time downtown in the Village (both the east and west) because of the amount of culture and interesting people you’ll encounter; also, the Lower East Side and the Financial District because of all the rich history; and I love traveling to some of the ethnic enclaves in the outer boroughs, like Flushing and Greenpoint to taste eclectic, authentic, and affordable cuisines.
What is the one thing people must try when they go to NYC? The Food! People should really try to get a sense of the food of “old New York”, like pizza, pastrami and oysters, but also try some of the innovative and affordable restaurant options that are popping up all over the city.
What’s your favorite under-the-radar restaurant? There are so many. I can say that my favorite eating establishment is Chikalicious, which is a Japanese dessert bar in the East Village. You get a 3 course dessert for $15 and each course is so delicate, complex, and delicious. It’s a really wonderful experience and the owners are so gracious and friendly.
What would you eat for your last meal on earth? It’d have to be a high end gourmet all you can eat buffet. That way I wouldn’t have to choose just one thing and I can just keep on eating.
What’s special about your tours? Our tours are much more than just a food or beer tour. Sure, you get plenty of amazing food and drink to taste, but you also learn the in’s and out’s of the industry, meet the chefs behind the businesses, and get a true sense of each neighborhood. Learning goes down much easier with a pint of beer or a bowl of falafel.
You can also check out one of his very educational and entertaining web series shows below about bagels in NYC!
