Planning your next trip as a coffee enthusiast or crate-digging fanatic? You’ve come to the right place. I’ve covered many corners of the world and have integrated my passion for coffee and records into a routine that’s pretty much automatic at this point.

If you’re looking for the best coffee spots and record shops to complete your collection, I’ve got you covered. In this blog, I strive to give you my authentic experiences at locations that are worthy of my writing time.

This is a two-way conversation, so feel free to reach out if I missed your favourite spot. For now, brew your favourite cup, play your favourite album on wax, and enjoy the read!

How to find the best coffee shops in a city

“Best” coffee shops mean something different to everyone, but I believe these methods will work for all types of coffee lovers.

Google Maps

This is what ignites the momentum when planning for a city trip. As a specialty coffee lover, I simply search ‘specialty coffee’ and filter for top-rated. This allows me to get a feel for where the ‘hip’ areas of the neighbourhood are and how to plan my overall trip.

Youtube

For a deeper look into the coffee scene, I head on over to Youtube and search ‘coffee x-city’ to see if any vloggers have highlighted the coffee scene. If the search results are subpar, odds are the coffee scene has not yet developed.

Tiktok

For a bite-sized, rapid-fire view of the coffee scene in the city, Tiktok is my go-to. From my experience, the range of coffee shops can vary, but I typically see coffee shops that tailor towards Gen Z/early millenials who focus on the aesthetic rather than the coffee quality. Nevertheless, I have found some true gems here.

Blogs

Yep, a good ol’ fashioned blog article. This is where you get the impressions from true fanatics. Someone who is willing to write about the coffee scene in the city, truly has a passion for coffee. I start with a ‘top coffee shops in x-city’ search and peruse through various articles to see which coffee shops tend to appear the most often.

Apps

Two that I’ve personally used and rely on are European Coffee Trip (who also have an excellent Youtube channel) and Beany (who, at the date of this writing opened up their popup in Berlin, and might have opened up a full-time location by now).

European Coffee Trip has built their community on Youtube and, as the title suggests, focuses on the European coffee scene. Their UX has improved over the years and does a great job of keeping the city guides up-to-date.

Download the app (App Store | Google Play)

Beany prides itself in finding the best specialty coffee in the world and boasts listings in over 100 countries. I personally like how they highlight types of brew methods you can expect as well as featured roasters.

Download the app (App Store | Google Play)