On stage in Berlin

Most foreign visitors to Germany’s capital city limit their activities to sightseeing, eating, drinking and partying. Visiting theatre shows has always been difficult as German-language productions dominate. In recent years there has been something of a shift, and increasingly stage productions are suitable for casual visitors as well. In Berlin In Your Pocket we highlight the various mime and acrobatic dinner shows and the English Theatre, and we hope to review more performances here in future.

If you’re visiting Berlin this winter season, a great show to visit is Gayle Tufts’ Let it Show! at the Tipi dinner theatre in the central Tiergarten park. Gayle is an American Berliner, and an entertainer who presents a cockle-warming winter show with new versions of songs by artists like Madonna, Prince, Paul Simon, The Beatles, as well as her own work. The songs are interspersed by banter in her trademark ‘denglish’ language, which foreigners would have difficulty understanding, but the music makes up for that. This is no Christmas show although Wham does slip in at the end; Gayle uses her two hours on stage for a passionate plea to embrace the dark cold days of winter, and make the most of it. On our visit this week, the crowd loved the show and the artist, her backing vocalists and rocking band all visibly enjoyed performing.

Gayle Tufts performs Let it Show until 25 December, and from 2-15 January. For tickets and information see www.tipi-am-kanzleramt.de.

maps.inyourpocket.com

It’s been all go these past few months at In Your Pocket offices across Europe, as researchers and editors have been feverishly plotting GPS coordinates for the more than 50,000 hotels, restaurants, bars, clubs, cafes, embassies and such like that we have in our database.

The result was made available to the public at large today: maps.inyourpocket.com

Every city we cover (and the list is growing all the time) is now available as a map-led guide, with seamless links to our main website inyourpocket.com (which, recently named by the Guardian as one of the world’s best 50 travel websites, has been upgraded and given a bit of a facelift to incorporate the maps) and back again.

To all intents and purposes you can now choose how you want your In Your Pocket online city guide: text-led or map-led.

We hope you like it.

When villains get lost in layout

Any of our readers who happen to be in Poland this week and who have a habit of watching the evening news might have seen us hauled over the proverbial coals on Wednesday night, where you could have seen us all but accused of having Nazi sympathies.

The problem arose from this article published in the latest issue of Poznan In Your Pocket, which appeared under the headline Local Heroes instead of Local Heroes & Villains.

Here is the (offending) article:

Local Heroes & Villains

Now, call us biased, but we think that even if the headline was Local Heroes there is no suggestion of us liking Nazis.

No, what happened was a mistake. An error. When taking a title from one place and transferring it to another, part was lost. It happens. That really ought to be the end of it.

Besides, do we really need to point to the other features we have written about Poznan over the years?

For those who fell
The Great Escape
World War II Poznan

Or what about our extensive report on the role of Poles in cracking the Enigma code?

We leave readers to make up their own minds as to whether we have Nazi sympathies or not.

In Your Pocket in Finanz und Wirtschaft

The Editor-in-chief was in Switzerland’s top financial publication Finanz und Wirtschaft on Saturday, talking all things In Your Pocket.

Click on the image for the full page/article:

We’re hiring

In Your Pocket is looking for two writers to fill vacancies in Poland. The jobs are full-time, with one writer based in Warsaw, the other in Krakow.

You will be writing for a number of In Your Pocket guides in Poland, as well as the inyourpocket.com website and our new iPhone apps. A highly competitive local salary is offered in exchange.

Candidates must be native English speakers, and would ideally already be living in Poland, or at least be familiar with the country. Speaking Polish is a bonus but not obligatory; nor is it an advantage.

All that matters to us is how you write in English.

If you are interested and want to take our editorial assessment, please contact the Editor-in-chief, Craig Turp, at editor@inyourpocket.com.

Video Highlights of Zagreb

Zagreb In Your Pocket editor Kristina Kovač tours the main highlights of Croatia’s capital Zagreb.

In Your Pocket comes to the iPhone

In Your Pocket city guides are now on your iPhone. The first cities: Athens, Berlin, Bucharest and Dublin have just been released into the iTunes store, with many more to follow over the next few days. They cost just £3.49 each, and – like the print guides – will be updated every two months.

All updates will be free!

In Your Pocket’s iPhone apps have been exclusively developed by Meta4Labs, a Geneva-based start-up specialising in bespoke apps for publishers.

Our apps preserve the best features of In Your Pocket city guides, from reliability and accuracy of information to our witty writing style, while incorporating the latest technology offered by the iPhone.

In Your Pocket apps include thorough hotel, restaurant, bar, club, transport and directory listings, as well as video and location data. They are all fully searchable.

We think they are the best travel apps available on the market right now. Buy one now and see, or take advantage of our introductory offer: you can download the Berlin app for free for a limited time.

In Your Pocket Goes Dutch

With all of the many interesting cities that the Netherlands has to offer, you might be puzzled why we chose ’s-Hertogenbosch (the city also known as Den Bosch) as the first Dutch city to add to the growing In Your Pocket European publishing empire.

We’re certain that once you see ’s-Hertogenbosch you’ll understand why we selected this little jewel, that the Dutch visit in droves and that foreigners are only now discovering.

We have our usual full guide to the city – updated every three months – which you can pick up locally in Den Bosch, or download for free here.

We have video over at our You Tube channel, including a tour of the city’s canals: the canal tour Dutch people (who would not be seen dead on Amsterdam’s canals) take.

We have a chapter devoted to Coffeeshops, as well as a rundown of the dos and don’ts when it comes to high times in Den Bosch.

There is a word form the mayor, a bit about the city’s most famous son, and everything else you have come to expect from Europe’s leading publisher of locally produced city guides.

No wonder they call us essential.

Sunday Times Travel Magazine

Article on local alternatives to hefty guidebooks in April’s Sunday Times Travel Magazine.

In Your Pocket present and correct, of course. Click on the image to download the full article as a PDF.

In Your Pocket Readership Survey: Preliminary Results

We recently carried out a pretty major survey of our readership here at In Your Pocket. We thank those people who took part, and we will be announcing the winner of the draw (23 great prizes will be heading somebody’s way) right here, very soon.

A team of well-trained monkeys is currently hunkered down scanning, analyzing and deciphering all your answers, but in anticipation of the full findings, we thought we would share a few nuggets we have mined from the result so far…

- More than 52 per cent of our readers chose In Your Pocket because it is more up to date than the competition

- 95 per cent of our readers would recommend In Your Pocket guides to friends

- The restaurant chapter is the most popular; sightseeing is a close second

- An incredible 98 per cent of readers said that In Your Pocket guides had helped them make a decision about spending money in a city

We also note with glee that a large number of readers find the adverts in In Your Pocket guides to be ‘a useful addition to the editorial content.’

Stand by for more details. In the spirit of transparency we intend making the full results open to our readership.