The Foursquare City Guide App is closing on Dec 15th

10/23/24

Getting ready to say goodbye to Foursquare, an app I’ve used almost daily since its earlier form back in 2009 between my time studying and working and living in the UK, then in San Francisco, Paris, and my native French Riviera. Back then I used to check-in to places I visited from the mobile browser of my Nokia blackberry knockoff (E63) (2009-2011), then an Android phone (2011-2013), and finally from the dedicated iPhone apps (2013+). During that time the Foursquare app (and later Swarm) has almost always been on my phone’s Home Screen.

I’m feeling genuinely sad about this, truly the end of an era for a formative time in my life, the late 2000’s-early 2010s “SoLoMo” (Social Local Mobile) apps.

4SQ has been invaluable, not just for memorizing/logging/remembering places I’ve been to, but also to discover new places.

I traveled the world by myself for most of 2017, but Foursquare was my guide to discover new favorites while visiting cities all around Asia or America for the very first time. The amount of time I’ve spent on this app is immeasurable and I have a hard time wondering how I’ll get by the next time I explore a new city in the world.

As I start looking at substitutes, it seems that Superlocal could be an option. Otherwise North.Industries which I need to look into. But I need to do a lot more research!