I think of myself as being very anti-tour, but I also know from experience (and sometimes that was a negative experience) that the best way to get to know a foreign city is with someone who already knows and loves it. If you don't already know that person, how do you find them? A tour... It never occurred to me to look on Airbnb for this kind of person, and I love that idea! Keeping it in my back pocket now.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts and this is exactly what I'm trying to do with Pied À Terre Life in writing about these experiences as the polar opposite of what people generally know tours to be (big, impersonal, generic locales). Having passionate locals who have crafted a unique and specific tour/experience around their city/region/culture is just life-changing! I will be writing more about this as I have looked into other platforms such as 'Get Your Guide' and Viator and found them severely lacking in many areas but most especially VALUE. I just had a person who gave me a tour tell me that Viator charges 50% on top of what the actual tour guide/experience host gets! That is insane to me. I have found right now that Airbnb is the best resource. More to come!
Get Your Guide comes up a lot when I just do random internet searches, and I've found it confusing enough to navigate (mainly in terms of getting any kind of idea how reputable and qualified and interesting, etc, this person or 'experience' actually is) that I just close the site in disgust. And exhaustion.
I think of myself as being very anti-tour, but I also know from experience (and sometimes that was a negative experience) that the best way to get to know a foreign city is with someone who already knows and loves it. If you don't already know that person, how do you find them? A tour... It never occurred to me to look on Airbnb for this kind of person, and I love that idea! Keeping it in my back pocket now.
Thank you for sharing your thoughts and this is exactly what I'm trying to do with Pied À Terre Life in writing about these experiences as the polar opposite of what people generally know tours to be (big, impersonal, generic locales). Having passionate locals who have crafted a unique and specific tour/experience around their city/region/culture is just life-changing! I will be writing more about this as I have looked into other platforms such as 'Get Your Guide' and Viator and found them severely lacking in many areas but most especially VALUE. I just had a person who gave me a tour tell me that Viator charges 50% on top of what the actual tour guide/experience host gets! That is insane to me. I have found right now that Airbnb is the best resource. More to come!
Get Your Guide comes up a lot when I just do random internet searches, and I've found it confusing enough to navigate (mainly in terms of getting any kind of idea how reputable and qualified and interesting, etc, this person or 'experience' actually is) that I just close the site in disgust. And exhaustion.
50%! That's WILD.