"The idea behind Plus One Berlin is simply to make travelling more beneficial, fun and authentic by offering guests an inspiring and stylish place to stay, along with the opportunity to have one-off experiences." “People are looking for travel that teaches, travel that is driven by experience and authenticity.  And because Berlin is so vast and constantly changing, local knowledge is all the more important,” says Plus One Berlin’s Clare Freeman.
Drawing on both personal experience and her years spent with Condé Nast Johansens and Design Hotels, 30-year-old Clare Freeman pieced together the wonderfully simple and timely concept of Plus One Berlin.
<p>“I’ve always travelled on my own and lived in different cities,” she says. “But when I was staying in Buenos Aires, I thought to myself that the city would be so much more amazing if only I had a real connection to the local scene. Plus One Berlin is merely a way of giving people access to all the cool stuff they wouldn’t be able to get to otherwise.”</p>
<p>It works like this: visitors to the city become the ‘plus one’ of a culturally-engaged local whilst staying in a hotel-apartment in the burgeoning but slightly rough around the edges neighbourhood of Kreuzkölln (so-called because of its location between Kreuzberg and Neukölln). Guests get to pick one of a growing group of locals prior to their stay and, depending on individual preference, book them for up to an hour to get a tailored low-down on where it’s all at, or opt for the longer experience and hang out with their local for 3-5 hours or longer. It’s not unknown for the tryst to evolve into entire days and nights…</p>So who are these locals? “They’re a total mix of nationalities and professions,” says Clare, “and are really reflective of the melting-pot nature of Berlin. There’s Maria, a Serbian astro-physicist; Antonio, a Spanish DJ; Claudia, who owns a vintage shop and knows all the gallery owners; Ingo, founder of the street art collective, Klub7; my Italian friend, Christina is an expert on coffee and Berlin’s cafés.”
<p>The recruitment process is relaxed, to say the least. There are no official criteria. Instead Clare meets with individuals who are interested in becoming a local partner, and “we just have a chat. As long as they’ve lived in Berlin for a while, and know lots about the city, it’s fine. But that may need to change that if the project continues to grow,” she laughs. Apart from the obvious gratification involved in showing a wide-eyed new-comer the pleasures of the city you call home, locals also often benefit from making contacts that are willing to reciprocate the hospitality.</p>
<p>Plus One Berlin is very much Clare’s baby. In addition to operating the business single-handedly, she can often be found rummaging through architectural salvage warehouses for materials for the hotel-apartment, or sanding down various pieces of wood in a carpenter’s workshop. Plus there are plans to extend the concept to other cities (Barcelona and London are top of the list), but not before cementing its foundations in Berlin a little more. “Someone who’s really big in travel in the UK was interested in getting involved – but they had huge plans to take it everywhere. I felt like it was trying to run before it had really learned to walk.”</p>
<p>Simple ideas are often the best and those things worth knowing about generally don’t require profligate promotion: “I used to work in PR,” Clare adds, “so people that’s all my doing. But it’s really all happened very organically. I only pitched it a little. People have just heard about it through blogs and word of mouth.”</p>
<p>Plus One Berlin isn’t the first idea Clare’s had. “I’ve always been entrepreneurial and had different business ideas – a gelataria in London; a location-based dating website called Eye Candy; a greasy spoon in Berlin called Bubble and Squeak; a website selling design-focused gadgets for the elderly. But Plus One Berlin got really strong feedback from my friends so that’s why I decided to pursue it… I still think the gadgets for the elderly has potential, though.”</p>
<p>Her fondness for concepts rooted in going back-to-basics extends to an intrigue with farm hotels, too. “I’m from a farming family so I’m always interested to see where farming culture is going. In the future, we’re going to increasingly look for places where we can totally disconnect and switch off from technology. And I think farm hotels have a unique place in that.”</p>
<p>Beyond getting a thumbs-up from friends, Clare instinctively felt that the Plus One model had particular relevance in Berlin at this point in time. There’s a duality in the way the openness of Berlin and its inhabitants facilitates the concept’s success whilst at the same time, Plus One captures Berlin’s zeitgeist. “There are so many creative people, and so many new initiatives popping up because it’s so easy to bring an idea to life here. The idea behind Plus One Berlin is simply to make travelling more beneficial, fun and authentic by offering guests an inspiring and stylish place to stay, along with the opportunity to have one-off experiences and make new friends and contacts.”</p>
<small>Photographer: Grey Hutton</small>http://www.plusoneberlin.com