Free excursions from locals or how I "worked" as a guide. Free excursions from locals or how I "worked" as a guide Unusual excursions from locals

V last years Startups are rapidly conquering the travel market: Uber has long won a niche from the traditional taxi, and vacation rentals are replacing the usual hotels. But that's not all - with the help of online platforms, travelers can easily find a guide among local residents who will gladly introduce you to the country from the inside. We have selected seven of the most interesting online services and applications.

Tours by Locals

Online platform Tours by Locals over the nine years of its existence, it has managed to unite more than 2,000 guides and cover 159 countries. Only very small areas of shallow lagoons remain undeveloped, for example, Crooked Island, an island that is part of the Bahamas.

Here travelers can either propose their own route to the guide or choose an existing one. For example, for those who prefer quiet and secluded places, the service offers an eight-hour excursion to picturesque regions. South Island New Zealand. The journey will start at cruise port Akaroa by meeting a local guide. The program includes a tour of almost all the picturesque landscapes of the Canterbury region - in eight hours, tourists will see the Rakaia Gorge, Coleridge Lake, Porter Pass and Crustchurch, the third largest city in New Zealand. In addition to exploring the Southern Region, the program also includes a traditional dinner. The national cuisine of the country is represented by exotic Maori dishes - fried scorpions and larvae, snails and sheep's eyes.

There are also less intricate routes on the online platform, for example, excursions to the main attractions Western Europe... The site has the opportunity to order both a group tour and an individual one. Accordingly, the price will depend on the choice - usually it does not exceed $ 100 per person.

Show around

The Show Around online platform is considered one of the leading travel startups: the service has gathered more than 80 thousand local residents under its wing and is already available in 204 countries.

Unlike a number of other similar services, Show Around performs only one function - it finds a guide. The route of the excursion is planned after choosing a temporary companion, there are no ready-made options here.

Perhaps the main advantage of the platform is Business Cards local guides. Here you can find literally everything - detailed information about the interests and knowledge of the culture of the region of each registered guide.

The tourist can rate his guide, as well as write a comment. “It keeps the guides on their toes and creates conditions for healthy competition that motivate people to work hard,” says Show Around founder Linas Sablowski.

The average price of a tour is about $ 15 per hour.

Show Around has had an iOS app for a long time and recently mobile service became available for Android users as well.

Shiroube

The approach of the Japanese online service Shiroube is somewhat different from the others - first of all a tourist chooses a section of interest, for example, "Art and History", "Nature and Adventure", "Food and Wine", and only then begins to look for a guide. Using the site is very simple: there is an advanced search that allows you to select the language, age and even gender of the guide. Each guide has its own profile, where tourists can see photos, main interests and suggestions.

There is no base of ready-made excursions here - the local guide comes up with a personal route for each client. However, the developers of the service still collect some statistics, for example, the site regularly updates lists with the most common locations and recommendations. So, during a trip to Shanghai, locals suggest walking along Nanjing Street and trying dumplings - a dish similar to dumplings, but cooked according to an old Chinese recipe.

The service is focused on a fun pastime with a visit to nightclubs, various workshops and non-tourist pubs, and the price of an excursion usually does not exceed $ 400 for a group of four.

The creators of Embark.org have chosen a narrower niche for themselves - the service is suitable for lovers of outdoor activities and extreme sports. As noted by the developers, the platform is more focused on building a community with one common interest - a passion for active travel. As a result, the creators managed to combine business with pleasure - to unite fans of extreme tourism and give an opportunity for non-professional guides to earn money.

This platform is good because it gives you the opportunity to find a person who organizes you leisure even in the center big city... For example, together with a guide, you can try yourself in rock climbing in the forest of Fontainebleau, the road to which from Paris will take no more than 40 minutes. Half of all offers are excursions for several days. The service offers extreme activities such as three days of rafting in India, kayaking in Croatia and an eight-day hike to the peak on the border of Valle d'Aosta and Piedmont in Italy, all in the company of a local guide who knows his business.

The site also has a blog where travelers share their experiences, which will help you choose from a variety of options what is right for you.

Guide prices start at $ 80 per person per day.

The online platform Vayable, launched just last year, has already garnered the attention of The New York Times, CNN and The Wall Street Journal.

The service is focused on the central cities of Western Europe and Great Britain. The developers approached the project thoroughly: local guides will not only tell, but also teach. For example, one of the proposals is a course on photography of Paris at night. The guide will lead tourists around the Latin Quarter and the Seine River, and also tell you how to take good night portraits.

Rent a guide

Rent a Guide, a German startup, offers guide services for all kinds of holiday activities - from dining in the best national traditions on the 123rd floor of the Burj Khalifa to flying to hot-air balloon or jeep safari in the Arabian deserts. For those who love hiking, Rent a Guide will prepare tourist excursions on capital cities Western and Eastern Europe.

The hot air balloon ride will cost $ 300, and the jeep safari will cost $ 45.

The online rental platform Airbnb launched the Trips project relatively recently - last fall. On this moment the service operates in 12 cities and offers over 500 excursions. The startup is more focused on recreational activities that locals can talk about. For example, you can visit a violin workshop in Paris, drive vintage cars, and even take part in a marathon in Kenya.

“We want to return to travel an element of magic, in the center of which are people,” - said the head of the company Brian Chesky.

In addition, here you can try yourself in charity and take part in socially significant events such as helping stray dogs and a master class on creating art from garbage.

Unlike other online platforms, Trips has a highly functional app, so Airbnb and its new service can help you plan your trip from start to finish.

In this post:

Excursions in 300 cities from Trypster.ru

I, like most modern people, prefer to make the most of the Internet system. It can be used to order and pay online, or call a taxi. And from time to time I use the service of ordering and paying for online excursions. If I go to a country with a huge number of attractions, then in order to use my free time effectively, I use the service . Therefore, we will consider all its advantages and capabilities in more detail.

Features and merits of Tripster

The site has been operating since 2013, but in this relatively short time, it was able to earn the trust of a huge number of travelers. Most interestingly, the people who created it decided to take a completely different approach to organizing excursions. It involves the organization of non-standard excursions, according to the preferences of each client. This is rare.

Features of the Trypster.ru company:

Guides who themselves are delighted with their excursions. These people themselves develop the route in such a way that every guest of the city will be delighted. So, that will take your breath away, from new amazing places and facts. There are people of different specialties among the guides. These are architects, journalists, art critics, historians and so on;
Originality. The company uses standard approaches. Her motto is "No to standard excursions." Each walk is unique and unrepeatable, regardless of whether the visit is museum complexes, or "walks on the roofs";
Individuality. The unusual excursion service does not work with crowds of tourists. There are exclusively individual programs designed for one traveler and his companions. That is why I personally liked the system, I do not like platitudes.

Possibilities:

Independent choice of the author's excursion. That is, you yourself get acquainted with all the excursion programs of this or that guide, compiled by him independently. Read reviews of people who have already used this excursion program... And only then you decide whether this option suits you or not.
Advance booking online. Personally, I am very pleased with this service. Booked a convenient day and hour, arrived in a country or city, rested. And then you can go on excursions.
Payment. Here is generally a chic option. To make an advance payment, you have the option of only 16% of the total cost. You give the rest of the money to the guide, right at the meeting. But that's not all - if, for any reason, you cannot attend the excursion, the money will be returned.

In my opinion, excellent conditions, unique service individual excursions... You can learn more about all the offers on the official Tripster portal - experience.tripster.ru.

Benefits of online booking excursions

List of merits online booking excursions to Tripster are quite impressive. But I would like to dwell on the most important points:

Complete freedom of choice (independence from tour operators, ideal for people who want to plan their time on their own);
Saving time. There is no more need to spend hours on the Internet, choosing the most suitable excursion option. Everything is in one place;
Calmness. A tourist can be sure that he will not be deceived, will not sell tickets for excursions at overpriced prices, and so on.

The portal is really unique, you will not find this in any tour operator in the whole world.

How to order and pay

The process of finding a suitable option, booking and paying on the official portal is quite simple. For example, I do this:

I enter the Tripster portal - excursions from local residents;
I enter the desired city or country into the search engine;
I choose the excursion I like;
I decide on a suitable day and time;
I contact the guide and clarify all the points of interest;
I enter personal data (last name and first name, e-mail, phone number);
I pay, sometimes I pay only 16%, and the rest of the calculation is already in place, to the guide.

There are a few more interesting points here. As soon as you make the payment (with a Visa or Mastercard - it doesn't matter), your phone number will open to the guide, and you will see it. Now it is possible to contact the guide at any time, before the appointed day of the excursion. But until you make the payment, communication is possible exclusively on the portal. Well, as you can see, everything is simple, easy and accessible to the point of banality.

Many independent travelers have long mastered the skill self-organization excursions, however, such events do not always take place in the most informative manner. Sightseeing tours bought from agencies can result in a fairly large amount, and walking in a crowd of tourists trying to grasp at least a fraction of the information is not always comfortable. Therefore, excursions from local residents are gaining more and more popularity today. This option is very convenient, because it assumes an individual approach, takes into account all the wishes of the tourist and, in general, can carry much more interesting information rather than a standard guided tour. Where to find local residents who know everything about their city, and how to order a tour from them, we will tell you in detail in our article.

What is Tripster?

In 2013, an interesting resource appeared on the Internet under the name, which was originally a kind of platform for those who like to travel, within which tourists exchanged their opinions and gave recommendations on visiting a particular attraction. But in just a few months the site has transformed into a real travel club, where an opportunity has opened up to negotiate with local residents about organizing excursions.

Today on the site you can order individual tours attractions in 485 cities around the world. More than 210 thousand people used the services of the service in 2018 alone, most of whom were satisfied with the service they received. And there is nothing to be surprised at: after all, the guides are local residents, very creative and enthusiastic people who know much more about their city than employees of travel agencies.

Who will be interested in the service?

Tripster is primarily aimed at solo travelers, not package travelers. The site provides an opportunity to find unusual excursions from local residents who, in addition to standard sightseeing walks, will show you secret corners, organize tasting tours and allow you to plunge into the cultural life of the city.

Curious and active tourists who are bored with monotonous excursions will find Tripster especially attractive. As part of such events, travelers manage to climb the little-known rooftops, from where they open best views to the city, and go underground, test your creativity in pottery, art and dance, trace the technology of wine production and taste different varieties of tea and coffee. As a rule, excursions from Russian-speaking local residents are as rich as possible and fully meet the interests of tourists.

Benefits and Features

The Tripster website services have a number of important benefits, including:

A wide range of excursions. As we mentioned above, Tripster organizes tours to 433 cities around the world. Several guides can work at one facility at once, so it will not be difficult to find a suitable option here. And besides the most popular destinations on the site you can also find little-known cities, the locals of which are ready to create all the conditions for tourists for the most complete acquaintance with significant places... It is noteworthy that today excursions from local to local are in great demand. So, for example, residents of Moscow often go to a company with a guide who combines a story about objects with exciting quests, puzzles and prizes.
Taking into account individual requirements. This is one of the greatest strengths of the Tripster. Firstly, the excursion will be formed exclusively for you and your companions, and you will not find outsiders at the event. Many guides from local residents recruit a group where the maximum number of people does not exceed 10. If there are more of you, then this issue is discussed individually with the guide. Secondly, the tour will be organized according to your interests. To understand how important this is, it is worth remembering at least the guides from Turkey or Egypt, with whom the main part of the excursion takes place at the factories of textiles, leather and carpets, rather than at the sight itself.
Possibility to book an excursion in advance. If you know the exact travel dates, you can pre-book your tour using Tripster's system. And this is very convenient, because you do not have to look for the right person on your own, spending precious time on this. Good guide will take care of all the nuances of the walk and will try to do it in the best possible way.
Possibility to speak with the tour guide before booking the excursion. The site provides for communication with local residents who provide their services. You can ask them any questions you are interested in and only then make a decision on the reservation. And after making an advance payment, you will be provided with the contact number of the guide. Thus, you will have the opportunity to contact him and discuss all the details in more detail.
Small amount of prepayment. After you agree with a local about an excursion, you need to pay 20% of the total cost of the service. This is done so that the guide is sure of the seriousness of your intentions: after all, you are booking a certain time, which will be denied to other customers. You give the rest of the amount to the guide in person.
Promotions and discounts. Tripster often offers discounts to its users. To take full advantage of the promotions, you must register on the site. You can often find various promo codes here: some of them are valid for only a few days, but provide good discount(up to 10%), others are longer, but the size of the discount in this case will be small (up to 5%).

How to book an excursion?

So, if the dates of the trip are determined, and the travel plan is drawn up, it's time to take care of the main part of the tour - excursions. Using Tripster's website is pretty straightforward, but we've decided to compile for you detailed instructions on working with the system.

Step 1. Finding a suitable option

We are on home page site, where you can see two search columns at once: one "Where are you going" - in the middle at the top and the second "Where are you going" - in the center. Both lines serve the same function. We enter in any of them the direction we need (in our case it will be) and click on the "Find" button.

At our request, the system was able to find 28 offers. To clarify the parameters of our search, we will use the form above, in which we indicate the dates we need, the number of people and the price range. Then we click on the "Find" tab.

After adjusting the parameters, the number of offers was reduced to 3. In order to get acquainted with the excursions presented by local residents, click on the photo.

A new window opens in front of us, where you can see information about the guide, information about the excursion itself, as well as a booking calendar. Busy days are highlighted in pink, free days in green. Below the calendar are reviews of tourists who have already used the services of this local resident. Be sure to read what other travelers say about the guide and his organizing skills. Having studied the information on all three proposals, we opted for the most budget option with a large number of positive reviews. Now we click on the date we need in the presented calendar and go to the next step.

After we clicked on the planned date, a form appeared in front of us. Here it is important to indicate the day of the proposed excursion, the number of tourists, name and surname, e-mail address and telephone number. Below is a field in which you can ask the guide all your questions. We draw your attention to the fact that by filling out this form, you are not yet booking an excursion, but only declare your intention. You can make a final reservation after the guide answers the questions.

When you make the final decision on booking an excursion, you need to make a prepayment for the service. It is 20% of the total amount of the tour. You can pay using bank card or bank transfer. We choose a convenient method in the appropriate form. Here you can ask a question to the organizers and cancel the order if you are not satisfied with the guide's answers.

After payment, you will receive a notification about the completed operation to your email inbox. You will pay the rest at a personal meeting with the guide. This is how the site works with excursions from local residents.

Can I cancel my reservation?

If you made an advance payment, but suddenly the trip is interrupted, I am ready to return the funds to you. The main thing in this situation is to contact the guide as soon as possible and inform him about the cancellation of the reservation. After that, it is important to notify the support service of the site by writing a letter to the administration to the address [email protected] Funds will be refunded in accordance with the system's return policy:

money will be refunded in full if you inform about the cancellation of the booking at least 5 days before the scheduled excursion
if the cancellation occurs less than 5 days before the agreed meeting, then the site is ready to refund the prepayment only if the trip is interrupted for reasons beyond the tourist's control (for example, flight cancellation)

It is also important to consider that if a local resident, having agreed with you, spent his own money on the purchase entrance tickets or made other expenses that cannot be compensated for when canceling the excursion, the prepayment will be refunded minus the amount spent by him.

Output

Guided tours by locals are a tempting alternative to the standard tourist walks. On the one hand, they make it possible to enjoy the sights of interest to you in an individual format, on the other hand, they reveal much more interesting information about the objects. At the same time, the organization of the walk takes place on a day convenient for you, taking into account only your interests.

Related entries:

Excursions for independent travelers and vacationers on the official website of the Tripster agency. Book unusual excursions and walks from locals and make your trip unique and unforgettable. Tours are held in almost 400 cities around the world.

Tripster and unusual excursions

The Tripster service offers 2,500 unusual excursions from local residents in 340 cities around the world. They are organized and conducted mainly by our former compatriots who currently live in these countries. Russia is also very well represented. In addition to individual excursions, the Tripster website, in the "Trips" section, offers whole unique trips around the home country and in Bali.

Tripster is a meeting place for guides - locals and travelers. The guide offers the service the option of an excursion or a thematic walk in his place of residence, and Tripster posts it on his website. Before placing the service, the service can express its suggestions to the local resident on how to improve his unusual excursion and make it truly unique and attractive for the tourist.

The tourist, in turn, finds an offer of an unusual excursion or a themed walk from a local on the Tripster website and books it.

All the unusual excursions offered on the site were invented by local guides, sometimes with improvements made on the advice of the Tripster service, but always proven and reliable. On this site you will not find Bus tours for large groups tourists with boring rote guides. You will plunge into a world inaccessible to ordinary travelers who order standard excursions "for everyone", get unique, unforgettable experience during your trip and personal communication with a guide - a local resident.

Choosing and booking excursions online

After clicking on, answer the question "Where are you going?" In the search form by choosing a place from the drop-down list or by entering it manually. As a result, all offers of local residents for unusual excursions and walks will be displayed, indicating their names and prices. By clicking on the selected offer, you will be taken to the page with detailed description excursions, a widget with a booking button and a link to contact a local guide.

All the excursions offered on the Tripster website are unique, and before you book the one you are interested in, contact the guide using the link on the website and ask him about all the questions you are interested in related to the topic and the conduct of the event. If you have received answers to all your questions, go to the "Book" tab, select the date, start time of the excursion, the number of tourists, your name, contact information and click the "Send" button.

After the guide confirms the conduct of the selected excursion, his contact information will become available to you: phone and e-mail, by which you can contact him directly to clarify individual details.

The uniqueness of the unusual excursions and walks booked on the Tripster website also lies in the fact that together with a local guide, you can make adjustments to the event so that it best suits your desires: change the route, add or exclude visited places, change the time of stay in them and so on.

After all the questions about the event are resolved, you pay 16% of the cost of the excursion on the Tripster website, and transfer the rest of the amount to the guide - a local resident after an unusual excursion or walk.

If your trip does not take place, the Tripster service will refund the prepayment.

Cancellation of the booked excursion

If you decide to cancel your booked unusual tour, then

firstly, inform the local guide about it;
secondly, cancel the order on the Tripster website.

If you cancel 6 days or more in advance, the prepayment will be refunded in full. In case of cancellation of the excursion 5 days or less in advance, the decision to refund the prepayment depends on the guide.

For a refund to be made, send a request to the email specified in the "Return Policy" section of the Tripster website. The prepayment will be refunded to the same card from which it was received.

Visit and make your trip unique and memorable with unusual excursions and walks from locals.