Would you jump off a cliff if just anyone told you to? Well, maybe you would! But even the most adventurous of us might hesitate unless someone we really trusted suggested it.

Adventure travel planning carries a lot of questions and stress. Especially if you want to travel abroad and activity websites aren’t in your language. Can you trust Google Translate to accurately convey important details about exciting, but potentially dangerous activities? You have to do so much more research to find reliable and trusted service providers.

Particularly when planning family travel, you want to make sure your adventure vacation is fun, but also safe.

Adventure Travel

Even if you prefer luxury travel or plan to stay at an all-inclusive resort over your summer holidays, you still might want to get out for some excitement. Which, of course, doesn’t have to mean cliff diving.

Adventure travel comes in all shapes and sizes. You could go on hiking and walking tours. Take snorkeling or diving lessons while sailing the turquoise waters of the Aegean. Or maybe cycling holidays with stopovers at glampsites is more your speed.

Regardless of what kind of adventure travel you choose, you want to be sure of two things: that you’re having a great time, and that you are safe. This is where having an expert guide comes in.

Expert Guides

Have you ever visited a popular tourist site and been mobbed by people at the entrance asking if you want a tour guide? It can be overwhelming…and annoying. Maybe you do want a guide, but how can you tell which one of them is good?

One of the best things about travel Turkey, is that guiding tours is a protected industry. Guides have to pass rigorous tests for each area in the country where they’re active. Similarly, if you’re planning Greece travel, a tourism bill passed in 2024 requires certification of tourist guides.

But, just because someone passed all the tests and knows all the facts, are they a good tour guide? Not necessarily.

What Makes a Good Tour Guide?

A tour guide might have all the information in his head, but he needs more than that to be a good tour guide. So, what makes a good tour guide?

• Being a good storyteller – He has to be able to do something with all that information! Not just give you the facts, but create a story (without embellishing the facts!) that include anecdotes and humor to draw you in.
• Taking a personal interest in guests – He talks to you, not just at you. Hopefully by the end of a tour, you and your guide know more about one another than your names.
• Being a good communicator – This is more than just telling stories. It’s about giving concise information about tour details: when, where, and how long? Making sure you know that you should wear comfortable shoes, bring extra sunscreen, that there’s no water available or bathroom facilities where you’re going, etc.
• Offer personal recommendations – These might not have anything to do with the actual tour you’re taking. It’s such an easy and simple little extra thing for a guide to do, but it means so much to travelers.
• Being flexible – Yes there’s an itinerary, but sometimes circumstances change. How easily can he pivot or offer an alternate plan when a booking doesn’t work out?
• Passion! – Most importantly, he’s passionate about what he does. He’s not just there for the paycheck or reciting facts like Wikipedia. He loves his job, his city, his activity, and wants you to love it as well.
  

Why Good Guides Matter

If the qualities above don’t already give you an idea of why having a good guide matters, here are a few more reasons:

• Reduced stress – A good guide to help with or even do all the logistics planning takes a lot of the burden off your shoulders.
• Safety – Say you’re planning a cycling holiday. You Googled, found some routes, and saved them on Google Maps. What happens when there’s no service on the mountain? Your bike chain breaks? You injure yourself on the trail? A good guide knows the trails without Google, carries extra bike chains, and can help tend to your injury, and/or has a way to get you from the middle of nowhere to a hospital.
• Trust – Your guide wants you to have the best trip possible. As such, he’s ensuring he’s working with vendors and service providers he trusts, and that he knows are safe and reliable. Which means you can safely jump off that metaphoric cliff.
• Value – Is working with an agency and a tour guide more expensive than doing things yourself? Often, yes. However, as with anything in life, you get what you pay for and spending a little extra for expert guides on an adventure holiday can help you have the trip of a lifetime.

Finding a good guide

So now that you know what makes a good guide and why they’re so important, how do you find one? It’s unlikely you’d be able to spot the one or two guides in a crowd and hire the right one off the street. Customer testimonials and online reviews are a good way. Also, never be afraid to ask questions before you book and get a feel for how many of those ‘good guide’ boxes people tick!

If you’re ready to get some help with your adventure travel planning, reach out to us and find out about our expert guides and how we can help you have the most incredible adventure vacation ever.