Anyone use toursbylocals.com?

[Scuba]

DH and I normally like to explore on our own, but on our upcoming trip to Greece, we’re considering hiring local guides in a few of the areas we’re going so we will learn more about local culture, history, etc.

For those of you who hire local guides, did you use a service such as toursbylocals.com, or did you find your guide some other way? Do you think it enhanced your experience to have a local guide?

We are very comfortable driving ourselves around in different countries and enjoy serendipitous experiences, so we’re a little hesitant to do this but maybe it’s a good idea?

 

[DrRoy]

I used Tours By Locals one time. Typically I do all of our trip planning, and we self drive in the US or abroad. We were on a Caribbean cruise, and for most of the islands I got a rental car and drove around looking for good spots for landscape/seascape photography. For Martinique, I did not have a good feel for where I wanted to go, so I got a guide through TBL. It worked great. The guide did the driving, was good company, and made good use of our time. I would say give it a try.

 

[OldShooter]

... For those of you who hire local guides, did you use a service such as toursbylocals.com, or did you find your guide some other way? Do you think it enhanced your experience to have a local guide? ...

The only place we've been recently wherre we didn't hire a local guide is Norway, because they were hideously expensive. Recent trips to Ethiopia, East Africa, Myanmar and Vietnam -- all local guides.

Our preference is to have a guide that travels with us, like having a local nephew, niece, or uncle. We prefer older guides, too. The kids know the dates on all the paintings and the height of all the statues, but the older guides have life experience in the countries and can give us a historical and political perspective. We once had a guide in Panama who was a retired bank executive and who had testified at the Noriega trial in Florida. Fascinating guy! The best time to talk to these people is over a nice dinner; it takes a day or three for them to get us calibrated and to open up but it is worth the investment. it's not uncommon for this type of guide to invite us to his/her home for a visit or a meal.

What you get from a good nephew/niece/uncle guide simply cannot be had by driving around and looking out the car windows. You don't waste time on stupid things. You don't get lost. You don't worry about finding a good restaurant. And you learn a ton.

A distant second-best option is to have a different guide every day or two. With this approach you tend to get mostly the tourist sites and tourist facts. Much less valuable than having a local friend for the whole trip. But with planning you can steer the day guides. For example, we spotted the "Park of Fallen Heroes" in Moscow (https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/fallen-monument-park) in a guide book and had our guide-for-the-day take us there. Fascinating place!

I have looked at toursbylocals.com but mostly to identify guides to google. I'd rather have 100% of my money go to a guide than to force him/her to pay a big commission for the business. Not fair to touorsbylocals, I know, but that is the way I feel.

How to find the guides to travel with is another whole post. It takes a fair amount of time on the internet but that is part of the fun of planning a trip.

 

[Bestwifeever]

We are using an outfit called mydaytrip.com in Spain next month for private transport and touring between cities for our group of six. Not the same concept as toursbylocals as they apparently only go between cities (I see they go between Athens and Budapest, I think) but putting it out here in case it’s helpful to someone. Will report back on if I’d recommend them.

Toursbylocals sounds very interesting—will compare their suggestions with what DH has arranged for sightseeing through our hotels and general googling.

 

[Peter]

We used toursbylocals.com for a one-day tour of the old mining villages outside Taipei. It worked out well, and we would do something similar again. But I think the experience is going to depend very much on the particular person you get as a guide.