This Is My City is an independent travel show about what cities mean to the people who live in them.
In each episode, we (Thomas Beug and Tim Kafalas) find a local host in a city somewhere in the world who is willing to show us what life is really like in their hometown. Season 1 is out now and over the next six weeks we're going to be premiering a new episode every Monday for your viewing pleasure at www.thisismycity.tv. This here blog is where you'll find some candid, behind-the-scenes commentary on each episode as well as 'must do' recommendations and other interesting bits and bobs. But first, here's the season trailer:
Tim and I met in New York City in 2004 at an SVA screen-printing class. We were both sort of interested in screen-printing but really more interested in mass-producing our own t-shirts. So we used the class as our own personal printing factory. Like most our subsequent endeavors, it proved to be fun but not particularly lucrative.
In the last class, we exchanged original tees and so began a beautiful friendship. We bonded over pints and live music and a shared love for losing ourselves in foreign lands. We were also both serious about filmmaking: I was working as a producer/director at advertising agency Droga5 and Tim was a video editor at MTV.
When Tim and I traveled together we realized that the quickest and most exciting way into the heart and soul of a place was through the people who lived there. If we left the guidebooks at home and went out and chatted to everyone we could, we interacted with a place on a much deeper level. Tapping into the knowledge and of locals let us find the hidden gems that define a city's soul.
Wanting to share this way of traveling with the world, we bought a couple of HD handycams and headed to Reykjavik, Iceland. That weekend in Reykjavik (with local Viking legend Vidar) still counts as one of the best weekends of our lives and I suppose the rest is This Is My City history. You can see that Reykjavik pilot here.
Convinced that we had stumbled upon most fun way to travel as well as a promising format for a travel show, we decided we needed to do more of it as soon as possible. So we scraped together some change, quit our day jobs and embarked on the trip of a lifetime.
Now, after an amazing world-trip, a couple of liver transplants and a lengthy and grueling edit, we are delighted to announce that Season 1 has launched and you can follow our adventures through Lisbon, Beirut, Beijing and five other global metropolises on www.thisismycity.tv.
On our website, you'll also find itineraries and maps for each episode as well as bios of each local host. Music plays a very important part in our show so we've also included links to all the tracks that feature in each episode. The first two episodes (Lisbon and Berlin) are out now! If you like what you see, share it with your friends and enemies and check back every Monday for a new adventure on www.thisismycity.tv or on the This Is My City Youtube channel.