In addition to feeding themselves, dressing themselves in the morning and actually having to learn a word or two in a foreign language, independent travelers face an even greater encumbrance in getting around an alien land than does the tour-bus crowd.
Once in a while, they’ll need to find an impromptu, local guide. Package tourists get off easy, lounging aboard a rainbow-splashed tour-coach caught in gridlock on the road to Luxor while being pummeled with local history broadcast by some guy strangled by a two-dollar tie whose English sounds like a phone number you requested from information. Who cares? The talking head, as well as the two cocktails per day, are inclusive!
But some places in the world you just can’t get to on the E Train or the Marriott shuttle. The Sea World tram doesn’t stop in the Dasht-e-Kavir Desert, Chiapas or Uttar Pradesh. Sometimes you hop off a bus/train/plane/camel/donkey/goat and don’t have the slightest idea how you’re going to do those last 30 klicks to those lost Guarani petroglyphs in Paraguay. Nor how to explain what you see when you get there.
Independent tourists have the luxury of choosing from among the dozens of guides/touts/moto drivers who camp out at arrivals halls across the globe like lounge lizards on a moped, but it’s a crap-shoot.
If you can arrange for a trustworthy guide before your trip to a developing country, do it. Most guidebook Web sites offer reader bulletin boards. Post repeated messages inquiring about local guides with a good track record.
But this story is for the budget traveler without a stone-inscribed itinerary. You’re quite prepared to show up some place on a whim and need someone fast and cheap to show you the ropes.
The airport (bus station, et al) is dicey, but it’s a one-stop, tour-guide wholesale outlet — and the talent pool is broad, if not particularly weaned in tact. Keep in mind, however, that most of these young entrepreneurs are merely glorified taxi drivers, whose only qualifications as “guides” are a dogeared English dictionary and a bootleg copy of the local Lonely Planet book.
Women travelers, especially solo wanderers, may want to consider other options. Like the hotel. Usually, you can get referrals to the region’s best — and most honest — independent guides through your hotel.
You want an escort, of course, with an excellent command of English. But here’s a tip: Check out his French. If it’s better than his English, hire the dude. It means he’s gotten a lot of practice with the most demanding tourists on the planet.
Find out if he keeps a scrapbook, and ask to see it. A scrapbook? Yep. The first letter of thanks an aspiring tour guide gets from a satisfied customer, the man starts up his own corporate portfolio. Guaranteed. And if he’s packing a business card, he’s relatively dedicated to the task at hand, and not simply some seasonal bloke new in town after the rice harvest up-country.
Before settling on a daily rate, agree on a price to a single destination. A short jaunt to a nearby attraction will be a pretty good indicator of things to come.
In countries with developing tourism sectors, $10 a day is the maximum you should be paying for someone you met by chance, like at the airport or outside your hotel. (A tip is always in order if you’ve been pleasantly surprised by your guide’s capabilities.) If he or she is partnered with a car and driver, $30 to $50 a day is the going rate. Most pickup guides with a car work in pairs. Moped skippers are lone gypsies.
If on your own and visiting cultural relics, ancient monuments, etc., consider the brief employment of one of the legions of apparently destitute child-guides who often swarm these sites.
In any case, keep in mind that what you’re really doing at these sites is not hiring a guide but, instead, a bodyguard. You’re renting a little security in an unknown, unpredictable environment.
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Wink Dulles, a prior contributor to these pages, has written eight guidebooks for Fielding Worldwide and is co-author of “The World’s Most Dangerous Places.” He lives in Thailand.
