How to Stay in the Know

There is always something to do, especially in a place like Orlando. I’ve been here for 4 years and there is always something to do and believe it or not, it doesn’t always involve going to Disney or Universal. I like to consider myself as a girl about town. I love to get out and explore. When I moved here I made that my number one goal so much so that my friends would often ask me, “How do I constantly find events?” I really love this question so I am going answer it right here on the Curious Gal blog.  Below, are just a few methods I use to stay in the know.

1. Pick Up the Weekly Local Event Paper

I believe that you can find one in every city. The one I pick up is called the Orlando Weekly. It is a FREE event newspaper that comes out every Wednesday, just in time for the weekend. It covers some local stories but most importantly, it lets you know about the events going on in the city and surrounding areas. They cover music, art and culture, film, learning opportunities, and my personal favorite Food and Drink. Yes I’m a big foodie. They also provide a calendar of upcoming events for the week. What’s really cool about this paper and something that I look forward to reading a couple times a year is their Annual Manual and Holiday Editions.

2. I Read a Good Number of Local Blogs

Every city has slew of local bloggers and they are always in the know. Why is this? They get previews to almost everything that’s opening, that’s new, that’s tasty, you name it. It definitely is a good idea to follow and read some of these blogs, so you too can know what’s new in your city and I guarantee it will at least give you some new ideas on what you can do.  One way I keep up with these blogs is that I put them in a reader called Feedly. I have a category called Orlando and another called Orlando Food Bloggers.  I also follow a good number of these bloggers on Instagram, which leads me to my next point.

3. I Use Instagram and Hashtags to Find Events

There is such a thrill, I get when I find things and Instagram gives me lots of thrills. I started out mostly following local bloggers that I knew of but that grew to me following local city accounts, local organizations, businesses, food places (lots of food places), accounts that host events, and local hashtags. If you’re wanting to find out unique things to do I highly recommend that you find out your city’s local hashtag. I do believe most cities have them. I know when I lived in Michigan, the city where I lived used the hashtag #lovelansing and it was used at most of the events I attended. Here in Orlando, one of the hashtags is #orlandodoesntsuck. Using hashtags, I found out about a lot of cool events this way. One event in particular that I went on recently was a bike tour of the city and it was because of Instagram. On the tour, we stopped at various places and took pictures and posted them to Instagram, got some great exercise, and I got to meet some really cool people. So go out and do it for the Gram and find some cool things to do in your city.

How do you stay in the know? Do you currently do any of the things above? If not, will you try any of the above?