Private Tour Guides
 

I've recently travelled in both Iran and Poland.

I've never done it before, but in both countries at various times I hired private tour guides. And in both countries, the experience was really great. They, unsurprisingly, knew a whole lot about their home cities and the interesting things around it. In some cases they had cars and could drive me to places that I wouldn't have been able to get to otherwise. One was an official guide for a restricted forest.

It's definitely something I'll be doing in the future.

Can I ask if anyone else has experiences and/or general impressions of hiring private guides they'd like to share?

We did it in Rome. A woman from NC studied history and art history there. Ended up marrying an Italian. Fwd 15 years and she was doing private tours. The experience touring St Peters, the Sistine Chapel, the Forum and the Colosseum was incredible. She had so much superior knowledge to anything else we could have done. I remember it so well 10 years later. Since then, we've done similar things in Thailand and Tokyo. Never been sorry.

Any specific companies? I've never done, but I've heard it's hit or miss from others.

I hired a private tour guide in Bangkok. It was fantastic. My request was "I want a male guide who was well versed in Buddhist symbolisms and architecture to tour the temple complexes in Bangkok" I used a company called "Your Thai Guide". I was contacted and asked if I had specific temples in mind. I named 3. Obviously the big temples of Wat Arun and Wat Phra, but also a smaller temple nearby.

I remember sitting on the floor with him in the main Buddha in Wat Arun. He quietly explained everything that I was seeing from the significance of the statue and the features to the political reasons behind some of the architecture. The third temple happened to be where he went to High School. He was very excited to show me the grounds. The stupas were actually gothic 'to impress the French'. It was definitely the highlight of my trip to Bangkok and I was so happy I did it. He was a very interesting young man who went to college in the US, so his English was excellent. It was so worth it.

I hired a private guide at Chichen Itza once and it was the same thing. A degreed archeologist who was part of the private guide staff at the complex. He led us on a fascinating tour (we got there at 8 AM when it opened) and he kept it very interesting showing us the 'theatrics' of the architecture.

Private guides and small group tours are the way to go.

I've had private guides in Egypt, Jordan, Thailand, Vietnam, Bali and other Asian countries. 99% were totally enthusiastic and loved their country and it showed in how they explained everything. We didn't really like the Jordan guide/driver for some reason. He was boring and didn't really explain much. We did do 1 private tour in America many years ago. That ended badly with me asking to be returned to the hotel as this wasn't what I had paid for. The driver then came in to the hotel foyer yelling that Australians were cheaters and rip people off!

I have had two private guides that were not tour guides by profession but were local citizens that knew people that I knew. I suppose quality is potentially variable but both were good. One drove, the other did not.

This is basically how I met my guides. Not professional companies but being introduced by other people, or even just bumping into them. All that I have met have been good. One came from ShowAround.com but rather indirectly. (One guide had to leave her city on the day she was to guide me and recommended a friend.) All were good. I have heard reports of poor guides from others, but I haven't met such myself.

We always hire private guides when we travel because I am semi-disabled and can not keep up with an organized tour group. We just did three weeks in Peru and the guide we had for Machu Picchu, Cusco, and Lake Titicaca was fantastic. Not only did he know his stuff, he knew people everywhere and was able to get me in to places and sites that I otherwise would not have been able to access. The only poor experience I can think of was in Zambia where our private guide kept up a steady stream of political commentary, much of which I knew was not quite accurate from the extensive reading I had done before going. I didn't challenge him, though. Not worth the effort.

I have an upcoming trip to Cairo and I'm trying a private guide I found here www.toursbylocals.com

I have taken a couple 'small van' tours that turned out to almost be private tours. I took a small van tour of the Golden Circle in Iceland. Because the van was full and everyone else was coupled, I sat up front with the driver and we had a nice chat. The tour went badly for reasons out of his control (the other passengers in the group were really difficult to him and gave him a real hard time). He was visibly upset and not quite sure what to do about it. We stopped at some rest stop and he sought me out for advice on dealing with them. After that, it was practically a private guide as they went their way and we went ours on the tours.

Had a great experience with a small tour in Western Australia that lasted all day. Same situation about sitting up front and during the 3 hour return to Perth had long conversations about life in Western Australia and my travel experiences and his. I learned a lot about growing up in the middle of nowhere Western Australia. Very cool.

So, my point is, if you are a solo traveler and a good conversationalist, you can practically turn a small group tour into a private tour if you want. I just made sure I didn't 'monopolize' the commentary during the actual 'touring' part of the tour.

I'd like to hear how it goes.

I always try to use local tour guides - sometimes I just google to look for them. For Russia (St. Petersburg) I used a company with a New York office, redoctober.us, and for Israel I used Ariel Gabay, tourwithariel.weebly.com - I can highly recommend both.