Post: #1

Spikes thread from back in the day didnt give much info and went onto a lot of side tangents.

It's likely I'll have a lot of free time during both the day and night. This summer.
Ill also be living in a pretty popular city sightseeing and party wise.

Has anyone ever been a tour guide? OR have experience doing tours.
In a professional for pay manner.

I've done campus tours in two languages in the past.
Memorized short books of information to regurgitate in two different languages.
When I was gaming a lot..I would take girls on the same date path. Meet them in one place and then bounce them to the same shops,sights,food stop and end up at a bar for drinks.
I literally had a typed document on my phone that had information on stuff..so when I met up with a chick I would have fun history on the location.
I was a tourist once upon a time in the city, so I know all the "tour" things along with many hidden gems associated with living in the city.

I use to host couch surfers often and take them around the city. promising that, if they wanted to go out..they would party till 5am if they came with me.


I figured if I am gonna be on vacation for up to 2 months with a lot of free time... I might as well find a way to subsidize my day stroll and night bar hops.

How hard would it be to get a name out and advertise private small tours? 1-10 people during the day and night.
Charging 10euro a person could possibly give you a nice 70-140 dollars a night.
*Time schedules aren't really an issue. Im often free. An Im a people person.

Do things like this have to be actual companies? or is freelance fine?

Post: #2

http://freewalkingtour.com/

I went on their tours in Wroclaw and Krakow. It was free but everyone tips.

I have never done this obviously, but wanted to share this link.

In NYC, when I hit my favorite pizza shop, I see tours going through to grab a slice.

I think every city has their licensing requirements, I would check the city you plan to do it in.

If it is for tips maybe you don't need the licensing, you are doing it as a nice gesture and not for profit - maybe you can get away with it.

Post: #3

My friend ran one for stag (bachelor) parties. The trick is to get kickbacks from all the merchants. She'd take the crew to certain bars/restaurants, and they'd get a discount there, but also she'd show up the next day and get a nice envelope of cash from the merchant -- a cut of all her group spent. She'd even line up special access to clubs (line-skipping and so on). The merchants liked it because she brought in people ready to spend large sums, and the clients liked it because they got shown around and she also stayed sober to make sure no one got into too much trouble. I think at one point, she was offering a full tour experience, including arranging hotels, transportation, etc.

Another way to do it is to run bar crawls. Get in with your local tourist office and have them pass out flyers or give them a kickback for referrals.

Post: #4

So I did a little extra digging
http://www.neweuropetours.eu/work-with-us.html

This seems like something im looking towards.
But even under the freelance tour guys..It looks as if you need to have a permit to work in the EU. Which I could get..But don't have.

I feel like freelance..should mean..No taxes ,no paperwork..just cash

Post: #5

(03-07-2014 07:05 PM)Sourcecode Wrote:  Spikes thread from back in the day didnt give much info and went onto a lot of side tangents.

It's likely I'll have a lot of free time during both the day and night. This summer.
Ill also be living in a pretty popular city sightseeing and party wise.

Has anyone ever been a tour guide? OR have experience doing tours.
In a professional for pay manner.

I've done campus tours in two languages in the past.
Memorized short books of information to regurgitate in two different languages.
When I was gaming a lot..I would take girls on the same date path. Meet them in one place and then bounce them to the same shops,sights,food stop and end up at a bar for drinks.
I literally had a typed document on my phone that had information on stuff..so when I met up with a chick I would have fun history on the location.
I was a tourist once upon a time in the city, so I know all the "tour" things along with many hidden gems associated with living in the city.

I use to host couch surfers often and take them around the city. promising that, if they wanted to go out..they would party till 5am if they came with me.


I figured if I am gonna be on vacation for up to 2 months with a lot of free time... I might as well find a way to subsidize my day stroll and night bar hops.

How hard would it be to get a name out and advertise private small tours? 1-10 people during the day and night.
Charging 10euro a person could possibly give you a nice 70-140 dollars a night.
*Time schedules aren't really an issue. Im often free. An Im a people person.

Do things like this have to be actual companies? or is freelance fine?

Look for something unique or cool your city has to offer or a niche you can do tours for. Perfect example look at all these Pot tours in Colorado. Pretty low startup, buy a used hotel shuttle bus, throw some cool lights and some funky colors schemes in there and charge people a hundred bucks to drive them around showing them sights and getthing them high at dispenseries.

Another great example is in I think LA where some guys started doing ghetto tours, basically taking an area nobody would want to go and turning it into a tourist attraction making bank taking people there in teh safety of a bus.

In chicago we have a lot of al capone and gangster tours.

For some inspiration I would do some research on the walking tours in London. They have quite a few Jack the ripper tours with the leading expert on Jack the Ripper.

It's a great business idea, low startup, fun work environment and can have probably up to a dozen or more people on your tour charging a pretty penny to each. I think its all about finding the right niche.

Post: #6

I have known US guys do this in Europe on the sly, just ignoring the licensing requirements etc.

There is one major problem:
- Virtually every city in Europe already has free-but-you-tip tours, so charging for tours doesn't really pay (unless you are taking around pensioners, but I presume you want to be using the tour for gaming).


However, with a bit of hustle, a small amount of cash can be made:
Read up on the city.
Get a couple of T-shirts printed with the name of your notional tour company (maybe just City Tours or something like that if you're going to be in more then one place)
Hang around somewhere where people congregate (Cathedral square etc.) Or an area with a few hostels.
Approach and offer free tours.
Once you have a few people, wander round, spewing out the information and bullshitting the bits you forget or don't know.

Low startup costs, but the £/hour doesn't generally work out well.