FAQ

Keets — rhymes with "beats". The tz is soft. You might also hear keetz in Berlin; both are fine.

A Kiez is the Berlin word for the kind of neighbourhood you don't just pass through — you belong to it. It has its own baker, its own bench where the same person has sat every morning for thirty years. A small world inside a bigger one.

Every city has a version of this: Mahalle in Istanbul, Shotengai in Tokyo, Barrio in Buenos Aires, Quartier in Paris. Kiez Traveller uses the Berlin word because that's where it started — but the idea travels.

Free: The first 4 Monday nature episodes and the first 4 Friday urban episodes — enough to get a feel for the whole guide. The meal prep concept page, safety guide, and how it works.

Subscriber (€4.99/month): All remaining Monday and Friday episodes — the full 30 weeks. Full workability notes. The recipe library. Location workouts. The Kiez Kat community.

The first four weeks are free on both days. After that, a subscription unlocks everything — the rest of the nature episodes, the full urban layer, the deeper research.

It's the per-portion cost when you batch prep — not what you spend at the shop each time.

Most recipes make 4 portions from one shop. A bag of red lentils makes four wraps. A pack of oats makes eight energy balls. A jar of tahini lasts weeks. The first time you make a recipe you might spend €6–8 on ingredients. The fourth time, almost nothing — because the pantry builds up and most ingredients reappear across different recipes.

In more expensive cities — London, Tokyo, Zurich, Sydney — ingredient costs run higher, so the per-portion cost is closer to the local equivalent shown on each city card (around £1.70 in London, ¥350 in Tokyo). The maths are the same; the currency and baseline cost differ.

The honest summary: your first week costs more than €2. By week four, you're well under it.

You don't have to make it. The recipe system is designed for people who can prep at home the night before. If you're in a hotel, the spirit is exactly the same — just skip the cooking.

Instead: find a local supermarket, bakery, or market stall near your hotel. Grab bread, a piece of cheese or some hummus, a piece of fruit, and something small and sweet. In most cities that comes to €2–4 per person and takes ten minutes. No equipment, no prep, no fuss.

If you're travelling with friends, split a shop — a bag of wraps and a tin of chickpeas between two or three people is a very cheap lunch each, and the per-person cost drops well below €2.

In an Airbnb or somewhere with a kitchen? The standard recipes work exactly as written.

No. The workout is completely optional. Getting there, walking around, finding somewhere good to sit with your packed lunch — that's already the whole thing. The workout is there if you want structure; ignore it if you don't. There are no requirements here.

Yes. The cardio part of every workout is your choice — run, walk, cycle, or swim. Walking is always an option, and walking slowly through a neighbourhood you've never been to is a perfectly good use of a morning. The strength exercises are bodyweight and a resistance band; every one has an easier variation. Start where you are. The idea is to keep going, not to go fast.

That's part of it. The Google Translate button is built into every page. Episode notes include enough context — history, character, what to look for — that language barriers don't stop you from exploring. Getting a little lost, pointing at things, getting things wrong: that's Kiez Traveller working as intended.

Most locations are safe at any time of day. A few episodes take you to quieter industrial or rural areas — use common sense, let someone know where you're going, and trust your instincts. If something feels off, leave.

The Safety page covers open water swimming, local wildlife, weather, cycling, and what to do in an emergency. Worth a read before your first nature episode.

Each episode is written for a specific location — the transit directions, the café recommendations, the walking route. Those are city-specific. But the four layers — the people, the history, how to read a place, the rhythm — work as a framework anywhere. The curiosity habit you build doing this in one city travels with you everywhere else.

The My progress page lets you mark locations as visited, add your own notes, and upload photos from each visit. You build a personal map and journal of everywhere you've been.

Everything saves directly on your device — no account, no login, no server. Your progress is stored in your browser's local storage, which means it stays private, loads instantly, and works offline. The tradeoff: if you clear your browser data or switch to a different device, your progress doesn't carry over. We recommend exporting your notes occasionally if they matter to you.

Cloud sync across devices is on the roadmap.

Subscribers get access to the private Kiez Kat Telegram group — share where you've been, what you found, what surprised you. Ask questions, swap local tips, connect with people exploring the same parallel map in their own city.

Kiez Boards (city-specific community threads), Kiez Meets (in-person meetups for local explorers), and a global community layer connecting Kiez Travellers across all 117 cities are all in development. They'll roll out as the community grows.

Progress and preferences are stored locally on your device only — your browser's local storage. Nothing is sent to any server. Kiez Traveller never sees your notes, photos, or visited locations.

Subscription is handled through a third-party payment processor. We receive your email address for billing and access purposes only — it is never sold, shared, or used for anything beyond your subscription. You can request deletion at any time by contacting us.

Google Translate is built into every page. When you use it, Google's own privacy policy applies to that interaction. We have no access to what gets translated.

We do not use tracking cookies, ad networks, or analytics that identify individual users. The site is designed to be as private as possible by default.

Yes, any time. No contract, no commitment. Cancel from your account and you won't be charged again. You keep access until the end of your current billing period.