The time has come to wrap up our 12 websites of Christmas series.  The final three recommendations are all alternative travel blogs that tend to write about 'local' or 'authentic' travel:

Spottedbylocals.com: Take the juiciest scraps of information from The Lonely Planet and Time Out, strip out all the noise and you have spottedbylocals.  This is a network of bloggers who pick out their favourite places in their home city.  The London collection includes over 100 tips.  As a Londoner myself, I wouldn't go so far as to say they are picking out the latest underground hits.  Rather the collection consists of tried and trusted favourites that most Londoners would know about but few visitors would have the good fortune to stumble upon.  I'd wholeheartedly recommend checking out spottedbylocals next time you are heading to a major city and you are looking for somewhere 'local' to eat.

Goinglocaltravel.com: A passionate personal blog from travel writer Vicky Baker about travelling 'locally', which to all extents and purposes is the pursuit of meeting local people when you travel.  Her blogs covers couchsurfing (staying in locals homes for free), accommodation networks (paying to stay in locals' homes) and the freeconomy (not paying for anything at all :-)

Intelligent travel blog: Finally, the grand-daddy of them all, The National Geographic.  There are more NG blogs than you can shake a stick at, but this is my favourite.  With a focus on culture, authentic and sustainable travel and the incredibly slick multimedia content, this is hard to beat.  Yes, The NG has a bit of a US bias, but look past that and enjoy the writing.  Generally it is more of a news style blog, but there are thought provoking pieces too.

So to recap the whole list, in no particular order of merit except to say they are all fantastic.  Merry Christmas everyone.

1. The Lonely Planet
2. World Reviewer
3. 101 Holidays
4. Benji's blog
5. Cool travel guide
6. Travel blather
7. Hostelworld / Hostelbookers
8. Airbnb
9. I-escape

View other posts in this series: The best online travel agents, The best travel blogs,  Travel inspiration sites.