Hiring a Guide

[SarahS]

When you travel, do you prefer to spend your entire trip exploring on your own or to hire a guide to help you find your way around -- or a mix of both? Let us know when you use a guide and when you go it alone.

Related Story:
When Do You Need a Tour Guide?

[cpmac]

Further to you post on when you need a guide, I'd add "when the essential is in what you can't see". A good example of that is the d-Day beaches. With out a guide you are just looking blocks of concrete and sandy beaches.

[LSKahn]

I have a guide license in both DC & NYC. Good guides can help you navigate your way around and tell you stories you would not learn if you just try and do the sites yourself. When I go to a new city I always do some sort of one day guided tour or hop on/hop off bus to get oriented. I also sometimes do walking tours for special interests. For example, in Vienna, Austria, I took a couple of tours focussed on Jewish Vienna.

Most tours cover the same things (e.g., in DC, the usual monuments, exteriors of the Whte House and Capitol building, etc.). Sometimes private tours can be customized for your interests.

Plan ahead and realize that good guides charge for their services. Do not always choose the cheapest guide. Choose the one with knowledge. They are usually not one and the same.

[shellyf]

There are certain ski locations in the world which are so vast that to truly appreciate the slope and area diversity demands the services of a guide. One such place is the 3 Valleys of the French Alps. The 3 Valleys comprise the resorts of Courchevel, La Tania, Méribel, Brides-Les-Bains, Les Menuires – Saint Martin, Val Thorens and Orelle:The largest ski area in the world, linked together by ski runs and ski lifts, with 600 kms of interconnected slopes and 180 ski lifts.
Another is Cortina D'Ampezzo in Italy. The Cortina Ski World is one of the most beautiful settings in the Alps and offers a total of 120 kilometers of ski trails and 52 lifts, all of which are inserted into the grand Dolomiti Superski circuit. This area is in addition to the close-by slopes of Cortina but extend more than 20 miles into the Dolomite valley. A guide will take you throughout these areas and you will experience breathtaking views and skiing that have no match here in the USA.

[longhorns]

Cruise line excursions are all ripoffs. Do you really want to be in a mob of 50-60 people on a bus?

[BKKTours]

I would like to add "To avoid the tourist scams" as a very good reason to hire a private guide. I live and work in beautiful Bangkok, and many first time visitors end up visiting jewelry shops where they are taken by touts. I took one guest out last night for a night tour, a very smart person from US. He never believed it would happen to him, but he did. Luckily he got his money back, but he is one of the few who manage to get it back.

[jocap]

It depends....we've used guides, and researched ourselves. There's nothing quite like being with a guide who has a passion for their subject. We have a ruined abbey close by, and I thought I knew most things about it. Last year, we were all invited to have a tour with a passionate, local person, who's looked up all the historical documents, and has studied the period the abbey was in use. Her comments about that time in history, and her knowledge of almost every stone in the building has made a great difference to my understanding.
Jo.

[iGuide]

Great article, you listed some great reasons to hire a local, knowledgeable guide. Here in Israel guides are educated and trained to guide and then licensed by the Ministry of Tourism. Guides are experienced and up-to-date (your guide book can't know traffic conditions and that after taking an extra hour to get there that the site is closed for renovations). A guide is your personal resource, answering your questions and able to suggest things that match your interests. Enjoy your travels.

Shmuel

[shellyf]

Yes, Schmuel, the guides in Israel are truly outstanding. I've been there several times and each time we take a tour of another place and the guides are as knowledgeable as any I have ever experienced.