Just because you want to get the most out of your travel budget and take advantage of cheap travel, be it cheap airplane tickets, discount hotel rooms, or cheap vacation packages that does not necessarily mean that you should avoid tour guides.
An experienced, knowledgeable and outgoing tour guide can enhance a vacation by lowering language barriers and recommending the best local spots to check out that are not tourist traps.
The following factors should be considered when trying to decide whether to hire a tour guide:
When your time is short, a knowledgeable guide can help you see the key sights that you might otherwise miss.
When visiting ports of call on a cruise you can either follow the hordes coming off the ship to all of the same shops or hire a tour guide in advance who will take you to off the beaten track and maybe take in a really good local eatery along the way.
When coming back to a location you have visited several times, hiring a guide with substantial local knowledge can expose you to new facets of your destination you never knew were there.
When visiting dangerous or chaotic places such as Tangier, hiring a competent guide can save you time and keep you safe.
When visiting very popular destinations a good tour guide will know the ideal hours to visit attractions, when prices are their lowest, which places to pass on, and various tricks and tactics that will help you get the most out of visiting a heavily trafficked location.
When staying somewhere more than a couple of days, a tour guide can help you keep your bearings and if desired share a more intimate, informed knowledge of a location.
When visiting historic destinations, an educated tour guide can share experience and knowledge which no guidebook can come close to offering. A good guide can explain the stories behind the sites you are seeing.
When on an adventure trip such as a safari, mountain climbing, scuba diving, deep sea fishing or white water rafting, enlisting a guide may even make the difference between life and death.
When you do not speak the language and the locals are unlikely to speak yours, a local tour guide who speaks your language can be invaluable. Simply by speaking to a guide on the phone or in person prior to hiring the person will allow you to determine how strong his or her command of your language is.
When facing hassles in obtaining tickets, making reservations, checking operating hours, and figuring out solutions to problems you run into, a good tour guide comes in handy.
When you dont want to drive and your destination requires driving a guide is invaluable.
www.cheapfares.com