What’s to do in Brighton? Well, quite a lot, if our recent readers’ guide is anything to go by. With cool bars, hotels and restaurants-a-plenty, as well as fantastic beachside vistas, it’s little wonder Brighton remains one of Britain’s best-loved seascapes … or does it?

One tip that didn’t make it on the site hissed: “Brighton is where UK's sediment settles to congratulate itself on its use of obscure organic products.” But for this one detractor there were many more supporters. “Why can’t the London guys learn from this?” asked memellypee in her tip on the Hotel du Vin; “Everything a great chippie should be” remarked mattleys in his tip on Bardsley’s fish and chips; “The best vegetarian restaurant I have ever visited” gushed cuzco5 in a tip on Terre a Terre, before lamenting: “A great shame we don’t have one in LA.”

Most popular Brighton tip so far is one for The Lanes and the Laine, with a positive rating of 93% among the 31 people who have agreed or disagreed with it. Be sure to register your opinions on any of the other tips on the site using the agree/disagree function, which appears at the bottom of tips. And if you have a factual amendment, such as a change of address or telephone number for a venue, you can let us know by way of an update. Read more about them here.

For this week, we want your tips on San Francisco. If you’ve been there (whether with a flower in your hair, or not) post your tips on what no visitor should miss for our readers' guide. A selection of the best tips will be published in this Saturday’s Guardian Travel section.

Last week, with your help, we compiled a guide to gay travel, which is a tricky thing to do, really. How can you define a travel guide around something as indefinable as sexuality? Do all gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender men and women head to Mykonos in summer, and the clubs of New York in winter, like migrating birds? Methinks not. But the fact that people of same-sex persuasions can still encounter problems when booking a room shows that their travel needs still require some attention, no matter how varied they are.

And the tips that you sent in were definitely varied. We had Tranny Lip Synching, an alternative refuge from the mainstream gay scene in London, and The Cosmopolitan, an alternative refuge from the mainstream straight scene on the island of Jersey. Femo Women's Camp in Denmark also made an appearance in the guide, as did Crew, a gay sports bar in Chicago, and there is a smattering of gay-friendly hotels and B&Bs too. Hopefully you will continue to add your gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender travel tips to the guide, and make it as all-encompassing as the title suggests.

This week we want your tips on Brighton, or London-sur-Mer as some like to call it. Share with us your insider knowledge on one of Britain’s best-loved seascapes, whether it’s a great chippy, or a great place to eat your chippies (and possibly feed the seagulls at the same time).

I’ll leave you with news of tense times on our top tippers page, where PhilSen and barenib are neck-and-neck in top place, both with 105 tips. Meanwhile new user dawndevil has made an audacious entrance by going straight to the top spot in the weekly list, and barenib has picked up some extra brownie points by being the first in our weekly top tippers list to have a personlised profile.

To join in on the action and see your name on the page, keep your tips on the places you know and love coming. And if you would like to follow in barenib’s footsteps and personalise your profile, it’s easy – read here to find out how.

Where’s the best place to go and sweat in a field with strangers? Glastonbury? Reading? Or somewhere more intimate?

We asked for your festival tips last week on Been there, and the results reveal some eclectic tastes, from the Whitby World Music Festival to Wacken Open Air, a weekend of heavy metal in Hamburg. In fact, the tips that make up our festivals guide are characterised more by their all-embracing nature than by any particular musical or artistic preference. Other highlights include the East Neuk Classical Music Festival in Scotland, the Trains, Planes and Automobiles Film Festival in Swindon, Exit Festival (with Morrissey and Franz Ferdinand on the bill) in Serbia, and my personal favourite, Tomatina, which is basically a big food fight with tomatoes in Spain.

This week we're sticking with the all-embracing theme by focusing on a global guide to gay travel. It may no longer be the love that dare not speak its name, but gay travel can still present the occasional challenge (just look at the case of Stephen Nock and his partner, who were refused a room in Scotland on the grounds of their sexuality only two years ago). We want your tips on the best gay and lesbian bars, beaches B&Bs and more, whether they’re in a big city or a tiny town. Either post them on the site or email them to been.there@guardian.co.uk. A selection will be published in this Saturday’s Guardian Travel section.

We’re also featuring your tips on the World Cup host cities this week, with particular attention to Gelsenkirchen (the venue for England’s next match against Portugal). And lastly, thanks to everyone who sent in their British travel tips for our Rough Guide reader offer. Check out the winning tips for ideas on some of the best things to do and see in the UK.

Like a bird that first learns to fly from the nest, Been there has left its beta status behind. For the non-techies among you, this simply means that we’ve tested the site, and we’re happy to present it to the world as it is – kind of like a debut in cyberworld. Essentially Been there remains the same, but with a few extra frills.

We now have two new pages, which you can get to using the top navigation. Top tags is a list of the 100 most popular tags on Been there, and Top tippers is our very own hall of fame, a constantly updated list of who’s been tipping the most on the site, both for the past week and for all time. PhilSen is currently at the top of our all time list, but competition is fierce, with barenib and ColvilleAndersen hot on his heels.

In addition, you can now book flights, hotels and car hire on Been there, just in case you’re struck by inspiration after reading a tip. The service is brought to you by Guardian Unlimited Travelshop and powered by Travel Supermarket, a price comparison site that searches across a range of sites to save you having to visit each one.

Hopefully these changes will make Been there more fun to use, but as always we want to know what you think. If you have any thoughts, or any photos or tips that you want to add to the site, email us at been.there@guardian.co.uk. And don’t forget that you can now share more of yourself on Been there by personalising your profile page with text and a photo.

Finally, a big thanks to everybody who sent in Greek island tips last week, and all other tips too. We’re featuring festivals this week, as well as the World Cup host cities (of course!), so keep ‘em coming: Who knows – you could even find yourself on our Top tippers page.

Until next week, happy travelling.

Some weeks here at Been there give you a serious case of must-get-away syndrome, and last week was one of them.

We asked for your tips on the best beaches in Europe, and the good news is that they’re not all in Spain, France and Italy (although many good ones are). If you’re heading to Cologne for the World Cup, take a tip from inselaffe and head to the Cologne Beach Club by the Rhine, and if you ever happen to be in Belgrade check out noelito’s tip on Ada Ciganlija – an island in the middle of a river that the locals have dubbed “Hawaii of Belgrade”, with a beach, cycle paths, cafes and cocktail bars. There are many more tips in the guide, spanning the Balearics to the Black Sea, but personally, it’s a tip on the Golfo di Orosei in Sardinia that stirs my summer yearnings the most. As iwishiwasstillatuni says: “The water has to be seen to be believed. Bright blue, green, turquoise and even purple.”

Still, we here at Been there soldier on, and this week is only likely to intensify our desire to escape to exotic destinations, because we are featuring your tips on the Greek islands. We want you to tell us where to find the top tavernas, the best beaches, the most romantic hideaways and anything else worth doing on the islands off the coast of Greece.

And if you’re thinking of heading out there, check out the guide for some inspiration. But be careful: this must-get-away syndrome can be contagious.