If you’d rather stick a fork in your eye than go on a guided tour — of any kind, anywhere — I understand completely.
So I’d like to introduce you to our friend the travel agent. He’s a passionate traveller, which makes him fantastic at his job. And he always recommends a private guided tour when you arrive in a new city. Most of his clients are well-travelled too — and like me, they resist. But he charms, cajoles and bullies, in the nicest possible way.
And the irritating thing is, he’s right. But to make it work for you, here are a few things to keep in mind.
Do it on day one.
That way you’ll start your visit with a good working knowledge of the place and a better understanding of what makes it tick. And the rest of your stay will be much more rewarding.
Spend the money on the best guide you can find…
As the Passionate Travel Agent says (over and over again) the right guide makes all the difference. A mediocre guide fills you with misinformation, tap dances when he doesn’t know the answers, and eventually turns mere tedium into slow torture.
A good one will open your eyes, and your mind.
So don’t just pick up some tout who’s loitering round the ruins — do your research, go to a reputable agency, and don’t expect to pay peanuts (if you do, you know what you’ll get).
…and a private tour.
Group tours, unless they’re special-interest groups (more below), will always be pitched at the lowest common denominator. That’s not you. So spend the money: just a few hours will expand your horizons and deepen your understanding.
Consider half a day.
Enough’s enough, already. You’ll find all the major tourist attractions in any good guidebook, so use your personal guide to gain insights into what really interests you — before you’re too hot, footsore and exhausted to see straight.
Make your particular interests clear.
You may want to skip government buildings and statues of generals on horseback, and focus on what’s special, old or unique. Maybe it’s the opera house, or the wet markets, or the bull ring. Well, say so. You’re paying for the time, so make sure you see what you want to see.
(If you’ve planned your trip around a serious passion, whether it’s Cajun cooking or Islamic architecture, you’ll almost certainly be able to find a local tour — or a whole trip — with that focus. Go for it. Repeat after me: you do not have to see everything just because it’s there. Life’s too short to trudge through sixteen cathedrals when what you’re really dying to see is a tango school.)
Ask questions.
That’s what your guide is for. You didn’t sign up for the one-size-fits-all tour.
What is that? How do they cook it? What are those people doing? What happened during the war? Where were the dungeons? How much did a slave cost? Who lived in there? When did it fall down?
Good guides waste a lot of their time dealing with the deeply ignorant, which you’re not. You’re curious, and curiosity is a virtue.
Get some private time.
Invite your guide for a coffee during the tour, and a drink afterward. Ask more questions, and get an insider’s view that no guidebook can give you. You’ll be surprised.
Even in most totalitarian countries (and we’ve visited a lot of them), you may be surprised to find your guide will happily chat about how much people earn, what’s going to happen after the dictator dies, why someone with a medical degree is driving a taxi, and whether or not the police are corrupt.
TRAVEL ADVISORY: Whatever you pay, this sort of insight is priceless. And it will help you put everything else you see into a real-world perspective. (Thanks for the memories, Vladimir, and Marta, and Thien, and Judith.)
Great advice. We’ve had a few guides in our travels and they are definitely enhanced the experience. Website is looking great!