Hey, everyone, Derek Johnson with tatango.com.
I know a lot of people next week, especially in mobile messaging and mobile marketing,
are headed to Barcelona for Mobile World Congress 2019.
Now, while the event, the trade show, the conference is gonna be jam-packed with vendors,
sessions, just so much information, what's really cool is it's hosted in Barcelona, and
Barcelona is one of my favorite cities.
I've spent a lot of time there.
So what I wanna do is I want to give you my top four things to do, especially if you're
going to Mobile World Congress, and maybe you don't have a lot of time, but you kinda
wanna see the city as quickly as possible.
I'm going to list off my top four things to do.
So number one is going to the Mercado de La Boqueria.
And I'm not that good at Spanish.
Most of the time, people refer to it as La Boqueria.
It is a crazy market.
I don't know if you have ever been to Pike Place Market in Seattle, it is like 5, 10
times bigger, it has way more food.
You can get cheese and salami and drinks that are made, like a custom with fruit in them.
It's just an amazing market, definitely worth going to check out, go for lunch, go for a
snack, like 3:00, 4:00, go for dinner.
Check the times, obviously.
But it's something that you can just go by yourself, just walk through.
You don't need a guide for that one.
Number two is I've always found that hopping on a tour bus, and there's these buses that
just kinda spin around the city, some are like 45 minutes, some are a couple hours.
But you put on little headphones, you get on the bus, it costs money, but you get to
see pretty much everything really, really quickly in a city.
That was actually my buddy, Ryan Allis, he taught me this.
Whenever he went on a business trip, he always got on one of those hop-on/hop-off buses just
to see the kind of city that he was in.
So that always stuck with me, and I always do that if I have time whenever I'm in a city.
Number three is the Sagrada Familia.
So this is that big, crazy church that has been under construction for tens or hundreds
of years.
It's still under construction, but you can go and see it.
And it is just crazy.
On the outside, it's crazy.
So, if you have like zero time, go check it out.
Just go look at it.
And you can see it a lot in the city from different places, but go as close as you can
and see it.
If you have a little bit more time, get a quick guided tour.
I think it takes maybe 45 minutes.
Because you wanna go inside.
And also, the guided tours, you get to, I think, skip majority of the lines, so you
don't have to wait.
So the guided tour is amazing.
It's like 45 minutes.
It points out a lot of things.
But once you walk inside the church, it is like mind-blowing, what they've built and
what they are building.
So definitely another one.
I'd schedule maybe an hour to two hours and just make sure the timing, you know, is right.
But definitely get a tour guide if you have the time, because you get to skip the line,
and then they point out a lot of stuff that maybe you wouldn't recognize or you won't
see if you're just kinda walking in by yourself.
So, number four, this one, if you have a little more time and you're looking to be a little
more adventurous, lately, we've really been loving Airbnb tours.
So, what you actually do is get out your phone and go to Airbnb on your phone or on your
computer, and you'll see homes.
But now, you'll see a thing called Experiences.
So this is kinda the Airbnb tours, and their experience is led by people that are kind
of locals in Barcelona or wherever you are.
Most cities now have Airbnb Experiences.
There's a ton of experiences.
You can go running with the locals.
Maybe if you're a runner in the morning, you wanna go run around Barcelona, you can check
that out.
There's tours, there's go to somebody's house for a, you know, Spanish tapas dinner.
There are so many interesting experiences that are highly recommended.
Some are 45 minutes, some are 9 hours.
So you can kinda set your time there.
Anyway, that is my top four things to do.
Now, if you're gonna be spending a lot of time in Barcelona, outside the conference,
there's so much more to do, so many cool things to see.
But if you're only in town for three days for Mobile World Congress 2019, you wanna
kinda get a flavor of the area, definitely hit up those four things.
First is the market, La Boqueria, the quick tour on a hop-on/hop-off bus, Sagrada Familia,
and then Airbnb tours for kind of the rest of the stuff, all right, Airbnb Experiences.
So, anyway, my name is Derek Johnson.
I will be at Mobile World Congress 2019.
Definitely look for us.
We'll be mostly in the innovation center, the GSMA Innovation Center, Hall 4, and where
most of the mobile messaging companies are, that is Hall 8.1.
Anyway, thanks, everyone, and have a great time in Barcelona.