When Do You Need a Washington DC Tour Guide?
1. When you have very little time.
A knowledgeable guide can give a laser focus to any sightseeing visit, and this may never be so valuable as when you have very little time in one place. This is a very common occurrence in modern life — hence the popular “36 hours in…” features in the New York Times every week. If you don’t have a copy of the Times’ recommendations, or you want to go off the beaten path they have cleared, the right guide can give you a customized and thrilling blitz through the destination of your choice.2. When visiting ports on a cruise.
Talk about having very little time! After a recent cruise in South America, traveler Judie House wrote to tell me that rather than follow the hordes coming off the ship to the same shops, she hired a tour guide in advance, with instructions to get her and her companion away from large groups and into nature for their half-day stay in port. The guide showed up at the ship ahead of time with a comfortable car, and proceeded to drive her and her companion up into the hills to a remote and little-known waterfall, followed by a lunch at a village eatery, all with nary a fellow cruiser in sight. They were back at the port in plenty of time to reboard comfortably, and House said it felt like they had been away for days, not mere hours.3. When revisiting a place.
If you are visiting a location you have visited countless times before — like your in-laws’ home town or the same city you have been visiting since you were a kid — hire a guide who can give you an offbeat look at a familiar place. Even if you’ve visited New York, San Francisco or Paris countless times, a talented guide with a heap of local knowledge will have something to offer.
10 Hardcore Tips for Frequent Travelers4. When visiting dangerous or chaotic locations.If your destination has a reputation for dangerous or unpredictable street life — a trip I took to Tangier comes to mind — hiring a good tour guide can not only save you time, but also keep you safe and out of tight spots.
5. When visiting extremely popular locations.
A good tour guide will always know the best hours to visit attractions, when prices are best, which places you can skip, how to avoid rush hour, what is closed or under construction, and any number of tricks and tactics that will help you get the most out of travel to a heavily visited location. You can also inquire if the guide has special access or rates. A good guide might bring you to the Grand Canyon early in the morning before the crowds arrive, or arrange for a private, after-hours tour of the Vatican.
Why You Still Need a Travel Agent
6. On long stays.
When you are staying for more than a few days in the same location — let’s say you have a two-week vacation rental in London — consider hiring a tour guide for the first couple of days to help you get your bearings early in your trip … or perhaps merely to get all the touristy stuff out of the way. Alternately, you can hire a guide late in your stay when you have exhausted most of the obvious attractions and want to seek out a deeper, more informed or more intimate knowledge of a place.
7. When visiting historic destinations.
In places that are exceptionally rich in historical or cultural significance, an educated tour guide can offer a depth of experience and knowledge to which no guidebook, audio guide or plaque-reading will come even close. A good guide can explain the stories behind the complex carvings on an Indian temple, or veer away from the canned history of Thomas Jefferson to describe what life at Monticello was really like.
8. On an adventure trip.
Safaris, mountain climbing, scuba diving, deep-sea fishing, white-water rafting … unless you are an absolute expert at your chosen adventure, hiring a guide may be a matter of life and death. White-water rafting down the Colorado or piloting a fishing boat back to port in a storm are not like hiring a rowboat in Central Park, and no one should treat it as such. Even if you are an old hand at the particular skill in question, it’s still a good idea to hire a guide who knows the local area and can help you navigate an unfamiliar place.
9. When language barriers are likely to be severe.
When visiting a place where you do not speak the language and the locals are extremely unlikely to speak yours — for most of our readers, that will mean places where exposure to the English language is minimal — a local tour guide who does speak your language can be invaluable in countless ways. When choosing a guide, try to chat with the guide on the phone to determine how strong his or her command of your language really is.
10. To hand off the logistics of travel.
The hassles of obtaining tickets, making reservations, checking operating hours, figuring out options when you have problems — all of this is easy stuff to a good tour guide. If you are on vacation and don’t want to have these mundane tasks on your plate while traveling, a tour guide may be a good option.
Do You Hire a Guide When You Travel?
11. When you don’t want to drive.
There are any number of reasons not to want to drive while traveling — you don’t want to spend your vacation getting lost, you can’t read the road signs, you’re not confident driving on the opposite side of the road, your spouse is a terrible copilot and you just want to have fun instead of arguing — hiring a tour guide to do the driving for you can save you a lot of headaches and unwanted distractions.
12. On hikes or a nature trip.
On a boat trip in Costa Rica a few years ago, we took the launch into the jungle, where a guide who knew our captain was waiting for us. This guide could find quarter-inch-long camouflaged frogs in such abundance that it felt like a Disney World ride with planted robotic animals. To the uninformed eye, the forest around you can seem like a pleasant bunch of trees, but an experienced nature guide can point you to the teeny little poison dart frog on a branch, identify that raucous bird cry overhead or even keep you out of the way of poisonous animals and plants.
Independent Traveler.com
http://www.independenttraveler.com/travel-tips/travelers-ed/when-do-you-need-a-tour-guide