Service for guides. How to find a good guide abroad. Where to look for tour guides

IN independent travel Finding a guide is considered by many to be an optional and even unnecessary task, because you can get a map of the city at any hotel, and you can find out the history of the Colosseum on Wikipedia. And guidebooks, after all, have not stopped publishing, now even in the form of applications for smartphones. But a tour is not necessarily the old-fashioned movement from cathedral to museum and from museum to cathedral. A good guide will allow you to correctly prioritize when planning a visit to a city or country, look into places that guidebooks don’t write about, and simply learn more about the place you’re visiting. Editorial incidentally I tested from my own experience several ways to get on an excursion in Russian and English in unfamiliar city, and here are our recommendations.

Where can you find a good guide?

  • on a free group tour of the city;
  • on the Internet on online excursion booking sites;
  • on a paid group or individual excursion, which can be purchased directly on site.

1. Participation in a free group tour of the city

Almost any city that attracts a more or less stable tourist flow offers free group excursions in local, English and sometimes other languages ​​popular in the region (in case you know them better than English). In some places, pre-registration online is required to participate in them, but often it is enough to come to right place at the right time, which can easily be suggested by Google and its colleagues for the query “city” + “free tours”. So, for example, every day at 11 am a man with an orange umbrella will be waiting for you in London at the Churchill monument for an excursion to royal palaces, and every Saturday at 10 am you can join a tour of New York's Greenwich Village, where the beatniks and rock stars of the 60s lived, drank and created. At the end of the tour, participants are usually asked to independently evaluate the guide’s work and determine the cost of the tour.

In addition to the obvious economic attractiveness, it is also worth noting high quality such excursions. As a rule, the guides are really in love with the city and conduct extremely exciting tours. The organizers are also interested in ensuring that free excursions do not disappoint tourists, since such tours are an excellent marketing tool.

The downside of free excursions is the lack of flexibility. If the tour time or route does not suit you, you will have to choose another option for exploring the city. Also, you will not be able to enjoy the excursion if you do not speak English at a fairly high level.

2. Booking an excursion on an online service

Over the past few years, several platforms have emerged that act as intermediaries in finding a guide. When organizing a trip, we recommend studying and comparing the offer in the city you need on several sites. If you are interested in an excursion to English language, you can use international resources:

We will look at the main services focused on finding a Russian-speaking guide:

  • Experts.Tourist.

The slogan of the Tripster project: “Unusual excursions from local residents" In fact, on the site you can find both quite standard sightseeing tours and truly extraordinary offers for travelers who are no longer interested in walking around the main attractions. At the time of publication of the article (June 2015), the site offered more than 2 thousand excursions in 307 cities. Tripster is simple and easy to use. To organize a trip you need:

  • select a city;
  • choose a tour (tour description and reviews from other travelers are available);
  • place an order indicating the date and any additional questions to the guide;
  • receive confirmation and answers to questions from the guide;
  • Pre-pay 16% of the tour cost.

After confirming the order, it becomes possible to communicate with the guide by phone or email. We also note the availability of special projects and offers. We were especially captivated by the Moscow course “Six meetings on architecture for people who are not used to being interested in it.” There is also a “Travel Community” section, where you can get answers to questions from local residents and other tourists.

Editorial incidentally I used Tripster services on one of my recent trips and was pleased with both the service and the guide. At the time of preparation of the material, the service had only one drawback that we noticed - small coverage.

Experts.Tourist

The “Experts” project is part of the multifunctional resource Tourist, where you can find everything on the topic of travel: from traveler blogs to taxi ordering services from the airport. According to the creators of the service, the “Experts” project allows you to find not only a guide, but also simply “your person in Havana”: a translator, a shopping guide, an expert. According to information on the website as of February 2015, the service offers more than 12.5 thousand excursions in 114 countries. Verification by the editors incidentally in selected areas raises doubts about the realism of these figures. For example, the service says there are 32 excursions in Zagreb, although not a single company or private guide from this city is registered on the site. However, some destinations are actually represented much better than on Tripster - for example, countries South-East Asia(Thailand, Indonesia, Cambodia).

Unlike Tripster, which is aimed primarily at travelers interested in unusual excursions, the Experts.Tourist project is organized to become an attractive promotion tool for travel agencies and private guides. Each guide has its own page, as in social network, which contains a list of excursions, reviews of other tourists, the guide’s story about himself, Contact Information, copies of licenses and certificates. Having chosen a direction, the user sees a list of guides and travel companies offering services in a given city, and a short information about each guide: the number of excursions and reviews, knowledge of languages, availability of documents confirming professional suitability. Descriptions of excursions can only be seen after going to the guide page. You can send a message to the guide through the website or contact directly - the contact phone number and email address are usually listed on the guides' pages. The service also allows you not to choose a guide right away, but to place a request for an excursion, indicating the city, date and number of participants.


The advantages of the Experts.Tourist service include a large selection of standard sightseeing tours, a large amount of information about guides, and the ability to immediately contact the guide directly by phone or email.

In our opinion, Experts.Tourist is less attractive for experienced travelers, interested in non-standard excursions, but will definitely not let you get lost in a foreign city.

In addition to these sites, there are several more similar ones with Russian-language excursions: , .

3. Purchasing an individual or group excursion on site

For those who do not like to plan every day of travel in advance, there is always the option of purchasing a tour on the spot. Booklets advertising excursions can almost always be found in hotels and hostels, the main tourist spots in the city. Travel agency offices are often located on the main streets of the city and near attractions. As a rule, sign up for group excursion maybe in a day or two. Editorial incidentally thus I went on one-day excursions both around the city and in neighboring cities, and even in neighboring countries. Sometimes, with the help of booklets in the hotel, you can find unusual offers - for example, cycling or themed tours. If you refuse to pre-plan excursions, you should consider the following risks:

  • a small number of tours in Russian (except for destinations with a large flow of tourists from CIS countries);
  • low availability of private tours during high periods tourist season due to the large number of preliminary applications;
  • the incomprehensible situation with the quality of such tours - the guides are not motivated either by reviews on the Internet or by payment based on the “like it or not like it” principle; In fact, there is no one to ask about quality.

To summarize, we note that none of the options considered is better or worse than the others. Choose the one that is most convenient for you.

Affiliate links:
  • Look for non-standard excursions on;
  • Book accommodation on Booking;
  • Book your tickets on the UIA website;
  • Order ready-made tours on ;
  • Rent bikes on.

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Finding a good and inexpensive guide abroad is not an easy task and last stronghold travel agencies in individual sightseeing tours. Finding a ticket and a number in search engines is cheaper than taking it from an agency; visas are already administered by visa centers. If you know how to make the right trip route, all you have to do is find suitable guides and your exclusive trip is ready.

You can search for a guide in the desired city using the Yandex or Google search engine. But the results will be irrelevant, there will be a lot of garbage and outdated information. It will take a lot of time to sift through the results. You will need to call or wait for a response by mail, for a long time, sometimes to no avail. In the end, all your efforts may be in vain. It is better to use modern guide search services, a review of which is ahead.

If a guide in one of the European languages ​​suits you

www.contexttravel.com. The service offers guided tours with scientists and experts in various fields, including archaeology, art history, cuisine, urban planning, history, and environmental sciences. Docents, as the service calls them, combine their day jobs as scientists and researchers and teach in-depth walking workshops to small groups of intellectually curious travelers. If you want to get an expert perspective on a specific area of ​​knowledge, this is the service for you.

Cons: this service does not offer Russian-speaking guides. The territory is limited to several dozen cities.

Minus: you can’t find Russian-speaking guides here yet.

If you are looking for a Russian-speaking guide or “our resident” abroad

www.localguiding.com. This service also offers contact with a local guide, so you can find the right guide very inexpensively, literally for a few dollars or euros. The service is convenient and well-functioning. Very quickly finds by area and chosen language, immediately offering excursions, cost and prompt communication with the guide. In addition to guides and various excursions, the site offers short tours for several days, hiking, cycling, and so on.

Minus: there are not many Russian-speaking guides, but you can find them. In Europe there are almost no problems.

www.getyourguide.com. This service does not specialize only in guides; in addition to excursions, you can find here: tours, cooking courses, cruises, buses hop-on hop-off and much more. But there are guides too, some setup will be required. First, in the top search line, set the country or city. Then scroll the window a little down and set the language to Russian in the left column. We receive all service options in Russian. Now we go up, in the left column we specify what we need: transfers, excursions, tours or movie tickets.

Cons: the service enters into contracts with companies, not with private guides, so the range includes many multilingual excursions and tours. As a result, either excursions are issued at a higher cost or excursions with headphones.

tourguides.viator.com. Part of the large viator.com service is the search for tours and entertainment; it’s easy to get lost in it. If you only need a guide, tourguides.viator.com makes it quick and easy to find the right person in the right place. The service offers both licensed and unlicensed guides. Searching is very convenient and fast, first enter the direction or city, then the language and you get all the profiles. Some guides offer discounts on their excursions.

Minus: finding a Russian-speaking guide in Asia is difficult.

www.excursiopedia.com Russian-language service created by our compatriots. Convenient, understandable, fast. Allows you to search for excursions and guides at once. It offers other ground service options, sports, adventure, and educational.

Cons: the cost of excursions and services includes the commission of the Internet service itself. In case of some entertainment attraction, cruise or surf camp, this fee is included in the price of the service package. But if you only need a guide, it will cost you more.

www.shiroube.com. The service is currently in beta testing mode. In the center of the page we set the language and country. The search engine finds our compatriots working as guides in all parts of the world: and on Canary Islands both in Thailand and China. It also sorts guides by gender, age, interests and allows you to contact them through its interface.

Minus: the search engine still works with a slight creak.

www.privateguide.com. More like a bulletin board with contact information for guides. The contact base is decent. There are many guides, and not only in Europe. Here you will find a guide in both Varanasi and Casablanca.

Disadvantage: the service is not perfectly debugged; it does not immediately understand what is needed from it.

8 November 2018, 16:44

All independent travelers different, but they have the same problems - judging by the tourism forums. There wasn’t enough time, it turned out to be uninteresting, we got lost, we didn’t know... The questions are also the same: how to find, how to get there, is it expensive or not, is it worth wasting time? And half of these problems can be solved if you find a good private guide. Where to look for it and how to recognize it?

To some, a personal guide will seem like a whim - after all, there is the Internet, with it you can create your own route and find out details about the city or country. However, there are important advantages to having a private guide. For example:

  • there is no need to sift through a mountain of literature and websites so as not to get lost in a foreign city;
  • no language barrier with local residents;
  • the guide knows local peculiarities- prices, tricks and potential dangers;
  • private tour may be cheaper organized tour;
  • access is provided to places where people are not allowed without an accredited guide;
  • individual approach - the route will be tailored to your desires and interests;
  • escorting not only tourists, but also those who came to the city for work or treatment.

In short, a good guide will turn a looking-around tourist into an expert on the city, make sure you have a tasty lunch and don’t get exhausted looking for decent souvenirs.

Where can you find such a guide?

1. Through word of mouth

It’s trite, but - contact your friends, ask on forums and thematic groups on social networks; good specialists are usually well known.

2. On translator exchanges

It would seem that the professions are different, but on such sites there are always people ready to introduce clients to the city (they charge an hourly fee for services).

3. On specialized resources

In the catalogs of excursions and guides you will find unique routes in hundreds of cities - sightseeing, museum, gastronomic, extreme - as well as the people who create them. Often, registering a guide on such a site is a paid pleasure, which allows the resource to weed out people with frivolous intentions. On the guide’s personal page you can see what services he provides and where, descriptions and prices of excursions, as well as reviews. The disadvantage of this method is that the price of the excursions will include a resource commission.

There is an online platform that simply “connects” you with a guide: you only see his photo and the cost of services, and you will learn the rest during communication. The startup from Airbnb is focused on leisure activities and various local events where locals will take you. And on this site, guides offer not only excursions, but also master classes.

4. On the spot

The method is suitable for popular tourist cities and travelers willing to take risks. You need to go to the most tourist place, find a Russian group with a guide and ask him for recommendations - you will probably immediately be offered a familiar specialist. The disadvantage of this method is that you do not choose your guide, so there is a higher chance that your ideas about the ideal excursion will differ from him.

How to find a good guide on the Internet?

So, you have looked for a guide in the right city, went to his website, blog or page and are trying to determine from his greetings and publications whether you will find a common language with him. Here are some criteria for a good guide:

  • having a license (in itself does not promise an excellent excursion, but it opens access to some castles, palaces and parks, and adds professional points to the guide);
  • prices are not lower than average (too small amounts should alert you);
  • politeness, literacy and neatness;
  • the guide has video and photo reports about the excursions;
  • talks interestingly;
  • can meet you at the airport or train station;
  • does not ask for advance payment;
  • offers non-standard excursions and non-tourist routes;
  • knows local prices and cuisine and can tell you where it’s tastier and cheaper;
  • offers excursions to different types transport - by water, by tram, bicycle or even Segway;
  • shares reviews of tourists and photographs with them;
  • tells not only about the beauties that you will see, but also about how to dress for the excursion and what to take with you;
  • works with a microphone.

Compliance with all these points does not guarantee that you have found a good guide, but it does indicate that the person loves his job and knows the needs of tourists. Good luck with your dating and interesting travels!

05.02.18 48 358 0

And ride around the world at someone else's expense

Four years ago I became a tour guide and went to work in the Indian state of Goa.

I am a journalist by training and never planned to develop in tourism. In Moscow, I led excursions for foreigners, but it was a part-time job. One day, a friend told me that she was flying to Goa as a guide, and I realized that I wanted to do the same. I sent my resume, had an interview, and then a training course in Moscow. Two months later I was already leading excursions in India. I had never been there before.

After two seasons in Goa, I worked as a tour guide in two more companies: in Crete and in the Dominican Republic. Every place has its own nuances, but the work and conditions are similar.


The main task of the guide

The guide conducts excursions for clients travel company. His the main objective- make sure everyone survives and is happy.

Depending on the number of people, excursions are divided into group and individual, depending on the route and theme - into historical and entertainment. The ideal guide can handle any excursion. He can make 60 people laugh on a bus and connect with a family with small children on a solo trip. He knows all the Hindu gods and the chronology of Columbus's voyages and will colorfully talk about how a starfish dines.

A guide is a teacher, an entertainer, a reliable guide and a patient mentor. Tourists want their trip to be worth the money and time spent. But everyone needs their own: someone wants to have fun, and someone wants to learn in detail the history of the country. A good guide will find a balance and conduct the excursion in such a way that everyone in the group will be satisfied.


How to Maintain Discipline

Tourists are interested in different things: some want to take a longer walk around the museum, others - around the store. They often get carried away and lose track of time. And when there are several stops on an excursion and there is a clear schedule, even a ten-minute delay can disrupt the program.

In Greece, I took excursions from Crete to the romantic island of Santorini. We got there by catamaran with 1000 seats, which sailed once a day. There was a program in Santorini, and then free time. Each time I was nervous and prayed that no one would be late or get lost. Once people were delayed for a long time and the driver had to drive along the serpentine road, and almost had to jump over the water onto the catamaran: the gangplank had already been removed.


Sometimes you want to yell at tourists and even punish the entire group for someone’s bad behavior, like in a pioneer camp. But if you do this to adults who paid for the excursion, everyone’s mood will be ruined. I used financial arguments: I told tourists in advance how much it would cost them to be late. Ticket for tomorrow's catamaran - 60 €, a night in a normal hotel in Santorini - 100 €, taxi from the port to the hotel in Crete - another 50 €. Everyone immediately became punctual.

You have to understand that these are only outwardly mature and conscious people. Inside, they are all children who came to rest.

The guide saves everyone

In tropical countries, things often go wrong. Cars break down, boats are late, the weather turns bad, and the rum runs out. Tourists blame the guide for all their troubles: there is no one else. You need to be on the side of people and try to turn a problem into an adventure.

One day our bus was stopped by the police and we stood in the mountains for two hours while they checked our documents. I did not hide from tourists that all this upsets me too, but I explained that we cannot influence anything. Funny stories about the country and the mentality of local residents helped out, and I used the situation as a clear example. This calmed the situation. Within two hours, the guests and I became friends, and they bought other excursions from the company.

Sometimes tourists themselves create difficulties. If a conflict arose within the group, I reminded that we were on vacation in another country and the police here were unforgiving. In the event of a fight, they will not figure out who is to blame.

If guests make complaints to the tour guide, the most important thing is to remain calm. You learn this quickly. No matter what strange questions people ask, no matter what they demand, not a single muscle on the face of a professional guide will flinch. Girls like to be asked if they have already married a local. Sometimes I said that yes, we already have five children.


The guide solves organizational issues

The guide communicates not only with tourists, but also with contractors - drivers of cars and boats, cafe employees, event coordinators. He makes sure everyone gets their tasks done and on time: calling ahead for the driver to come out of the parking lot and meet the group at the square, or rushing the waiters at lunch. The contractors do not speak Russian, so English or the local language is indispensable.

Sometimes the group is accompanied by a local guide. This is a cover in case of a meeting with the police. According to the laws of many countries, foreigners are not allowed to work in this position. When meeting with the police, the local guide pretends that this is his group. And the rest of the time he goes about his business.

After each excursion, you need to report on how it went: did all the guests return to the hotels, how did the contractors work, were there any force majeures. The report is submitted in paper or electronic form. The management evaluates the work of the guide himself based on questionnaires that tourists fill out. Usually the guide is rated excellent, but this is not an indicator. Tourists are embarrassed to give a low score, because they hand over the questionnaires to the guide personally.

The real assessment of the guide's work is in the remaining points of the questionnaire. Formally, the guide is not responsible for the variety of the menu and the beauty of the attractions. But if everything is presented correctly, tourists will receive more positive emotions and give higher ratings.

For example, my colleague arranged quests for guests in boring ancient ruins: he asked riddles, created an ancient atmosphere with stories, and even scared them by portraying a mythical monster. His excursions were the most popular in the company.


Working hours and conditions

90% of excursions begin before dawn and end after sunset. A guide's working day lasts 12-14 hours. Of this time, an hour or two is spent visiting all the hotels in the morning and collecting guests. Another hour to take everyone back in the evening.

The number of working days depends on how many excursions tourists bought. Typically a tour guide works 5-6 days a week. During the peak season there are 10-15 excursions without days off - until the body and psyche break down. In other months, for example at the end of December, you sit without work for weeks. It hurts.

Income depends on the company. Some pay a fixed salary and bonuses for each excursion, others - only bonuses. My employers paid 400-500 dollars or euros per month and 30-100 $ from each excursion. It was $1000-1500 a month.

A comparable amount can be earned from commissions in stores that are official partners of the travel company. There prices are inflated, but there is a large selection, and the employees speak Russian. You cannot fail to visit them during the excursion; you will be fined for this. To give tour guides a personal motivation to advertise the store, the owners pay them a percentage of sales or give them gifts - a bottle of good wine, natural shampoo or a cashmere shawl.

There are other bonuses too. Often the company pays for rent - a villa or apartment where 1-2 people live in a room. Sometimes tour guides can eat for free in hotels. I once ate all season at one of the best hotels the island where she lived.



On excursions, everything that is included for tourists is also included for the guide. Helicopters, yachts, elephant and donkey rides, tasting local sweets, grilled lobsters, massages with aromatic oils, corporate parties in luxury hotels, even bungee flying - an experienced guide will not be surprised by the entertainment. Guides are given discounts in stores, and club cards are given to guides in restaurants.

There are regulations that the guide must follow: for example, he must wear a uniform and not swim in front of guests. But usually no one monitors this. On trips to the islands, most guides sunbathe quietly on sun loungers next to their groups.

But for being late for an excursion, absenteeism, or working part-time on the side, you can be fined and even fired.


Where to look for work in tourism

The easiest way to find a job in tourism is through friends: they will share the email of the HR manager in the desired company and say a few words. This does not guarantee success, but it significantly increases the chances. You can also ask students of tourism universities, but they themselves are usually not offered Better conditions: one room for four and a total income of $300 per month.

If there are no acquaintances, they stay traditional ways. I got my first job as a tour guide by responding to an ad on Headhunter. In order not to miss tour operator vacancies on this site, subscribe to the “Vacancies Abroad” newsletter.

It is useful to follow the vacancies section on the websites of the tour operators themselves, for example, Pegasus, Coral-Travel, Anex-Tour, Tez-Tour, Biblio-Globus. Many tour operators work with the receiving party: in Russia, the client buys a tour from one company, and in the country of arrival he is met by employees of another - local one. Then you should look for vacancies in the welcoming company.

There are closed groups on Facebook, for example


A good guide is rare luck. It is not so easy to meet him in a halo of temporary habitat, among ancient ruins or highlands with heather. You can, of course, walk on your own, but with a competent guide it is much more fun and interesting. And sometimes a guide is simply necessary - there are places where you can’t get to without one. Olga Rastegaeva, founder of the travel blog "Orange Traveler", understands what kind of guides there are and where they live.

Guide-Bayun

This narrator’s special gift is the monotonous “mumbling” to which all tourists of any nationality fall asleep after the third phrase he says. It seems that he is familiar with the ancient spells that he found among the manuscripts in the archive while studying excursion business. The rare ability to be stable intonation leads to the fact that everyone sleeps well in any uncomfortable position on a bus or car and falls into a strange stupor at the door of another Gothic church.

Information: 1-2%.

Fatigue level: 0%.

Where they live: in countries with high social responsibility, where everyone has to learn by heart.

Bore guide

What, you don’t know the Count of Barcelona, ​​Jofre Shaggy? Well, the one whom Lubb ibn Muhammad killed on August 11, 897 with his spear? You don't know him either? Well, at least you also don’t know Charles II the Bald, the one who dipped his fingers in Shaggy’s blood and painted the coat of arms on his shield?

A pile of dates, a description of the family tree up to the twentieth generation, with a detailed description of each family member, details of military operations, legends about saints, told on a particularly hot, sultry day in the sun, can turn an excursion with such a guide into real torture.

Some of the tourists perk up when it comes to the king’s betrayals, but quickly lose interest due to the complete absence of any intrigue. How come you don’t know the niece of the monarch’s mistress, the one who was a nun?

Information: 150%

Fatigue level: 80%.

Where they live: in major European cities.

Local guide

“Oh, what pyramids, pasmatri, what pyramids! Very beautiful pyramids, the largest in the world!” According to the first phrases, any tourist who gets caught up in such an excursion will try to escape, but that’s not the case. The local guide keeps his finger on the pulse and does not allow you to escape.

His vocabulary, slightly larger than that of many locals, easily allows him to lead excursions and tell the history of the Ancient Egypt. This is what he, his mother and his relatives, who own a travel agency, think. You won't learn anything on a tour like this. But you will fight off numerous friendly offers to buy a hookah, aromatic oils, latex pillows, spices and much more.

Information: 0%.

Fatigue level: 100%. The degree of rejection of local merchants for all unnecessary things is maximum.

Where they live: mainly in Arab countries- Egypt, Jordan, meet in Vietnam, Thailand, China and Sri Lanka.

Guide named after Patrice Lumumba

Perhaps he was included in this rating in vain. Because he knows how to imitate his boyfriend and has an excellent understanding that something has gone wrong - at the level of facial expressions of tourists. He mastered this art perfectly during his years of studying in Russia, living in a hostel. Sometimes he makes quite funny jokes based on the contrast of the area he talks about. Knows where to get alcohol if everything is suddenly closed. The excursion usually turns into detailed answers to numerous questions: “What was it like when you studied with us? Why did you leave and do you want to return to Moscow?”

Information: 50%.

Fatigue level: 0%.

Where they live: where you are surprised to hear Russian speech - in Laos or Zanzibar.

The tongue-tied guide

Information: 20%.

Fatigue level: 70%.

Where they live: unfortunately, wherever the activities of guides are not strictly licensed.

Guide answering machine

The weakest and most driven of all those present, who is instantly taken advantage of by tourists. First, for show (it’s an excursion), they will carefully ask whether the king’s wife was beautiful, whether her scoundrel husband cheated on her, and, upset, not caring about museums, they will go shopping to cheer up the queen. Having abandoned the plan for conducting an excursion, bashfully hiding the outline of the speech in a briefcase with the logo of the local host company, such a guide will begin to explain in detail where and what to buy cheaper. Medicine for the dog is over there, dentures for the mother-in-law are here. If the excursion runs too long, he will be sad to watch his tourists loudly sing karaoke in the local language while he guards the shopping bag.

Information: 2%.

Fatigue level: 2%.

Where they live: everywhere, in places of mass recreation. Especially the beach one.

Wizard guide

This guide doesn't know the word no. He is smiling, friendly and fantastically sociable. He seems to know everyone and everything and can organize anything you ask for. And do they really sell unicorn eggs in markets? And love potions? And can you arrange a meeting with the witch? And can you get local topazes? Directly from your hands and cheaper? Five times? And so you, inspired, get into the car, polish your camera lenses until they shine, in anticipation of a unique report.

But you come to an authentic fish market to meet fishermen, and they already checked in a couple of hours ago, and now it’s deserted. The wizard's shop didn't deliver unicorn parts today and didn't stock rat tails or dried toads. The topazes were all sold. Right here in front of you. And a representative of an ancient tribe’s phone breaks under his loincloth, and he is late for a briefing at a local company.

Information: 2%.

Fatigue level: 2%.

Degree of disappointment: 99%.

Where they live: Africa, Asia.


The best guide

He is a bit of an actor and, being carried away, tells the story almost in person. He is an excellent playwright and director of his excursion - he knows how to effectively amaze the group at the end of the story. He is an excellent speaker - he knows how to hold attention. He is a true storyteller and knows the facts for which he spent dozens of hours in local libraries and pubs.

His broad outlook makes it easy to switch to other topics. He is an extrovert and is known by a variety of personalities - from an ice cream seller to a museum director. He is spontaneous, positive and easy-going: if he sees that tourists are fascinated by some topic, he will turn off the intended path and show something interesting outside the plan. He has a good sense of humor, and unlike bores, he does not forget to joke. His literate speech is a delight for the ears. He keeps track of time perfectly, and with him it is impossible to bury your nose in closed doors. And most importantly, a good guide must love people.

Information: 200%.

Fatigue level: 0%.

Where they live: mainly in Europe, but isolated representatives can be found all over the world.

Where to look for guides for excursions?

The second method is groups and associations of guides on Facebook. You just need to type into the search and you will immediately be able to select several sites, for example, guides in Budapest, exclusive excursions in Paris, photo walks in Vienna. Take a quick look around, read posts and comments.

Method three is to ask the hotel concierge to find a guide.

Method four is to find a guide locally, in museums or national parks.

Method five - aggregator platforms. The chances of meeting representatives of our seven are high, but if you try, you can find your diamond.

 

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