Picking a Tour That Fits Your Personality

Gone are the days when the only types of tours available are the booze bus kind. Travellers are getting savvy to the fact that travel is about having a unique experience, not setting foot in every famous cathedral in Europe while hungover, and eating horrible “European style” breakfasts at 6.30am in the morning so you can sit on a bus all day.

You can think of tours as just outsourcing some of your travel planning. If you pick wisely they can be more fun than doing everything on your own.

Here are some types of specialist tours to consider. I generally prefer the half day variety of tour since I like to laze around for parts of the day, rather than be on the go all day.

Foodie tours.

Foodie tours in places like Vietnam can be phenomenal if you have the right guide who knows that you want to be adventurous, not be taken to the tourist traps. One option is to try to find a food blogger who lives in city you’re visiting and ask them if they’ll take you on a tour of their favorite hot spots while you’re in town. Don’t be afraid to ask, even if they don’t currently offer tours. Just indicate a price you’re willing to pay. Remember you’re paying for their knowledge as well as their time, so I wouldn’t offer anything less than $100.

Some bloggers offer tours as standard. For example, super popular food & travel blogger Jodi Ettenberg offers food tours based on wherever she happens to be.

City tours by bike.

City tours by bike a just a variation on walking tours but they add an extra fun dimension and make it quicker to get around. Taking a city tour by bike is a great way to both get orientated to a city and to the traffic patterns, if you plan to do more cycling in that city on a independent basis.

Artists’ haunts tours.

I love to see where famous people used to hang out when they lived in a particular city. A good tour will link where the artist lived and played to their work. The best ones are artists who lived in the city recently where their haunts are still open.

Comedic tours.

Comedic tours are so much more up my alley than the straight laced variety. For example, the famous unauthorized “Hahvahd” tours of, you guessed it, the Harvard campus near Boston.

Spooky tours.

Spooky tours like the Jack the Ripper tour in London are a great fun way to spend your evening. Stuff like this usually works out cheaper than whatever else you might’ve planned to do for the evening e.g., spend it drinking.

Where to find cool tours.

Once you start thinking along the lines of “there will be a tour for anything I could possibly want to do” then it’s really easy to just get Googling. However, as I said, don’t be afraid to approach local experts who aren’t necessarily advertising themselves as professional tour guides.

photo credit: Nomadic Lass via photopin cc