Jaunted Embedded Travel Guides: East End Football Photo Tour

April 19, 2007 at 12:06 PM | by benji | 2 Comments

We are constantly searching for the most timely and useful travel information on locations around the world. We have always found that boots on the ground is a great way to sift through the marketing clutter and bring you the travel tips, information, and opinions you crave. However, now it is time to kick it up a notch. First, we are searching the world for folks who can take you on a field trip of their "backyard." When we find these folks, we then embed them into their local travel scene and ask them to be our eyes and ears out in the field.

We are expecting the same sort of grainy video, choppy sentences, and snapshot photos that you are use to seeing from embeds. The rub is, at the end of the day we should be left with a backyard travel guidebook like no other.

Our first embed is Benji Lanyado of London, UK. He is a budget travel columnist for the Guardian Newspaper in the UK. He also is the fearless leader of Youngin Europe, so expect his guide to skew young, but not that young, we intend to keep this thing legal. He lives in London and enjoys ranting about football.

Now that you have all the particulars, sit back and enjoy the trip.

London :: Football
Pie, mash, and jellied eels along the way.

For our penultimate jaunt round London, I'm taking you all to the footy. My relationship with the beautiful game, or soccer as the yanks would have it, borders on obsession. But there is method to my madness. Football is, and always has been a cultural vehicle, offering real, local experiences beyond the scope of any usual tourist experiences. In fact, I try to catch a game every time I travel.

READ MORE / VIEW PHOTOS

In London you're spoilt for choice for Premiership (the top division) teams to see, yet my vice of choice is West Ham. West Ham is in the `East End' of London; not the trendy trendy inner-city bit, but the bit currently well beyond the gentrification tide. This is where traditional grub is pie, mash, eels and liquor, and the vernacular is well and truly cockney.

So...here's a quick picture tour of what to expect:

Escape the scrum at the tube station

Queue up for your pie, mash and eels

Quick pint before the game (West Ham memorabilia on walls a prerequisite)

Leg it to the stadium

..past the geezers who stand on the local garages for a free view

Then into the stadium for the match

[Photos: benjilanyado]

Specific questions about London? Ask away in the comments area below.

Think you have what it takes to be an embed? Send us an email and pitch us.

ourman

So let's get this right..

You write: "West Ham is...not the trendy trendy inner-city bit, but the bit currently well beyond the gentrification tide. This is where traditional grub is pie, mash, eels and liquor, and the vernacular is well and truly cockney."

Then you write:

"Football is, and always has been a cultural vehicle"

Here's me thinking it was a sport.

So come on then, posing aside, which one are you trendy trendy cultural vehicle man or pie and mash eating Happy Hammer?

PS You're going down.

Up the Toon, Hoa Phat Hanoi and Granada FC who I am yet to find the ground of.

April 19, 2007 at 3:10 PM

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Tags: Embedded Travel Guides / London Tour / Sports / Soccer / → All Tags