We are big fans of the “free” walking tour and over the past few years we have done about 15 tours in cities large and small around the world.
Sofia Bulgaria
I never even knew about “free” walking tours until we arrived in Sofia Bulgaria. Sofia has a wonderful Free Walking Tour company offering several different kinds of tours at different times of the day. Our very first Free Walking Tour in Sofia was amazing. Our guide was outstanding, and from then on we
Jewish Ghetto Tour Krakow
were hooked. In fact we enjoyed our first tour of Sofia so much (the Culture Tour), we went back the next day and did the Communist Tour.
Since then we have done Free Walking Tours in Veliko Tarnova Bulgaria, Plovdiv Bulgaria, Cape Town South Africa (both the Walk to Freedom and the Bo Kapp Tour), Brussels Belgium, Brugge Belgium, Berlin Germany (our best guide ever), Poznan Poland, Wroclaw Poland, Kracow Poland (both the Old Town and the Jewish Quarter tour) and have a tour scheduled in Warsaw Poland.
I expect we will be hitting several in our next country of Romania.
Brugge Belgium
Capetown South Africa
So what exactly is a Free Walking Tour? Independent guides work under the umbrella of an organization in each city. The guides pay a stipend to the organized tour office who does all the promotion for the tours. The guide does not earn a salary, but rather is paid by the people on the tour, who “tip” whatever amount they feel the guide and the tour was worth. The guide is responsible to pay the taxes then in the individual city or region.
Our standard tip is about 10 euro or 10 dollars per person. We did more for our guide in Berlin, who was absolutely amazing. It was almost like a performance. We loved every minute of it.
Brussels Belgium
But sometimes you have a guide who is maybe not so enthusiastic, or perhaps a bit disorganized. Sometimes the accent is difficult to understand. But most of the time it’s a five-star experience.
Free Walking Tours fall under different company names depending on the city and country you are in. Tours are usually available in English, German, Spanish and occasionally other languages. Just google Free Walking Tours and the name of the city you want and it will pop up. And give it a whirl if you haven’t yet. What do you have to lose? If you hate it, its free! But I bet you will love it as much as we do.
That’s my Fabulous Tip! Go Travel!!
9 Comments
I love a free walking tour. I have done them in Melbourne and Sydney and looking at doing one in Porto Portugal. Rain hail and shine they just are brilliant.
August 31, 2018 at 11:26 pmI agree!
September 1, 2018 at 12:05 amI always enjoy these walking tours. We had a fabulous guide in Paris years ago and it made the trip extra memorable. Great travel tip!! Have shared #wbps
September 1, 2018 at 3:28 amI love free walking tours too. Just recently did one in Budapest. Also in Sevilla which was one of the best. I like th name of your blog as a fellow 50s traveler.
September 1, 2018 at 7:46 amI love free walking tours too! I actually did a paid tour in Jerusalem and it was awful, so the next day I did a free walking tour and it was SO much better!
September 1, 2018 at 6:03 pmHaha. Well you never know but I always try the feee one first!
September 1, 2018 at 9:18 pmLove free walking tours…find them a great way to get oriented in a new city or town. Our most recent one was in Gdansk Poland and we loved every minute!
September 2, 2018 at 5:28 amI just love free walking tours! I find the guides so much more interesting and enthusiastic than paid tours. I’ve done them all through Europe, the Middle East and Asia. It’s a hard call, but I think my favourite was in Edinburgh. We had a fantastic guide that put on what could only be described as a performance rather than just describing what we were seeing. I also loved the Free Food Tour in Sofia.
September 2, 2018 at 5:51 pmI totally agree!!
September 2, 2018 at 10:12 pm