Your trip is only as good as the person walking beside you
A specialist plans your trip. A guide is who you're actually with in Rome on a Tuesday morning. In 2025–26 we worked with 792 of them across 180 destinations — 689 guides and 103 guide-drivers — and choosing them is most of what makes a good day different from an average one.
How a guide gets on our list
Most operators book whoever the local agency sends that morning. We don't, and this is what we do instead.
In the Highlands, the west of Ireland and much of the countryside, your guide is also your driver — one person for the whole day, in a car that goes where a coach can't. A hundred and three of the 792 work that way, and they're chosen the same way.
We find them locally
Usually through a specialist who works the destination, or a recommendation from a guide we already use. In most places we book them directly; where local licensing requires it, we work through a guiding agency we've used for years. Either way, we choose the guide — not whoever happens to be free.
We interview them
A conversation about the place, not a CV check. What they know, how they work with people who tire easily, what they'd do if a site were closed.
We check the licence
Italy, Greece, Egypt and many others require licensed guides at major sites. We verify it, and we keep verifying it.
We keep score, quietly
Travelers rate their guide after every tour. Ratings decide who gets more work, and who stops getting it.
What "well rated" actually means
Our guides tell us what's changed on the ground
Guides have an app. They send us photographs, short videos and notes on what's actually happening in their city — and that goes straight to the specialists planning trips there.
A guide notices something
A wing of the museum closed for restoration. A new pedestrian route that saves fifteen minutes. A restaurant that has changed hands.
They put it in the app
A photo, a short video, a line of context. From the ground, the same week.
The specialist sees it while planning
So the itinerary reflects the city as it is now, not as it was when the page was written.
Your trip is built on it
Which is why a specialist can tell you the Vatican's northern entrance is quieter in the afternoon, and be right about it this month.
A few of them
Eight of 792. Your specialist picks whoever fits the trip and the people taking it.
Mayako
Licensed in English and Spanish across Kyoto and Nara — confident, quick-paced, comfortable with groups.
Ivan
Guides in Lisbon, two years of experience introducing the city to travelers.
Karyna
Guides in Vienna, three years of experience with visitors in the city.
Jonathan
Weaves Scotland's architecture, art and food scene into one story — less about dates and dynasties, more about how people actually lived.
Adonay
Twenty years guiding Paris and Cyprus — an archaeologist who treats ruins like a story, not a lecture. Small groups only, max 6.
Charlotte
Guides in London, drawing on three years of experience showing the city.
Eddie
Runs guiding operations out of Galway — connecting travelers with local guides across the region.
Agustin
Guides across San Sebastián with ten years on the ground.
Three things that happened
What this means for your trip
Your specialist doesn't book a guide. They pick one — for the city, for what you want to see, and for how you like to spend a day. Their name is in your itinerary before you go.
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