Travel Guide

How can you become a travel guide?

Being a travel or tour guide these days has become a very promising career because the tourism industry is growing rapidly in some areas.

Though it counts to have all the facts about the location and having language abilities, guiding tours is more about managing and directing the people on the tours.

Travel guiding is a way of life for some people.

The job of tour guides or tour directors is to manage the tour group. Travel guides coordinate the activities involved in the trip. It is rather essential to have an outgoing personality so you can make tours fun for the clients. Travel guides should at least have these qualifications to become effective in their work.

Applying for travel guide positions is rather easy. All you have to do is find travel and tour agencies. Travel directing and guiding can be categorized into different branches.

When you think of tour guides, this is usually what comes to mind. These guides specialize in showing scenery and landscape.

These tour guides specialize in big and populated cities.

Use travel guides to get a general feel for the area that you will be visiting; take your time and read a few travelogues about the region. If possible, look for well written, engaging pieces about the place you'll be traveling too. Usually, travel guides do offer general overviews that describe the basic features of an area, including its climate, currency, culture and general statistics. After getting a basic idea about your destination, start honing in on a couple of key places or attractions. Like many things, it's never wise to base the things you'll see during your trip on a single travel guide's opinion. Where one guide may downplay the fun of a particular attraction, another might give it rave reviews. The best way to get a well-rounded idea about what to see on your vacation is by consulting more than one travel guide.

Watch Out For Outdated Information

The only major caveat to bear in mind when using a travel guide is that - even in today's digital age - information can become outdated. If you're visiting a foreign country, its currency - or even its ruling government - could be completely different compared with what you read in a travel guide. Use travel guides as basic outlines for your trip, but never rely completely on them; remember that situations can change in the blink of an eye.