ESO: Show me around your town!

Hellooo! I just came to visit your area! Remember, you promised to show me around if I came?

Not really, but let's pretend that that's what just happened - your swap partner came to visit your town/county/country and you are meeting up for, say, half a day. What would you do (besides chatting about swap-bot)? Where would you bring them? What would you want to show them?

You may plan for your partner a very touristy excursion around Old Town, you may also take them to small cafes that local people like - but there should be something unusual for your friend, something they can't get back at home, even if it's just a specialty food from local farmers. The attractions may be free, or you can use this swap as an excuse to go to that really fancy place you have long dreamed to go to - it doesn't matter, as long as your partner learns something new about your area!

I keep talking about "your area"... what is it? To put it shortly, it is whatever corner of world that is "yours" but not "your partner's". If you live in different countries, you can take them anywhere in your country. If you live in different parts of the same country, try to show the places nearby you, and better don't take them to a day out in capital city, no matter how beautiful Old Town it has. If your partner lives next town, well, that's tough - you'll need to advertise why your own hometown is such a cool destination for a holiday even if not particularly exotic.

Get a map of the area you are visiting (a free from an information centre, or print-out from internet, may be black-and-white if clear enough), mark on it the places you went to. Take at least ten photos of the day, keep also all kind of ephemera you create during it. Send your partner a letter describing their "visit", together with photos and ephemera. ("This is where we took a cable car across the river, remember? See, that's your ticket! And here's a brochure of it as well so you can freshen your memory when telling about it to folks back at home. But then we had lunch in this cafe - here's your receipt.") If you are really low on ephemera (a walk around a nature park that has free entrance and where you brought your own picnic lunch can do that), perhaps add a postcard (or a well-dried leaf of a famous tree).

So to recap:

• a letter describing your imaginary half-day out
• a map with places you visited marked on it
• ten or more photos
• ephemera (tickets, brochures, business cards, etc)

Be warned that it's going to be a rather heavy letter requiring more postage than usual.