Let’s face it: even in the most beautiful and dramatic locations, bus tours can sometimes be a mixed bag. Everyone loads into a big, lumbering, wheezing vehicle and rolls past attractions, looking at them out the window while a guide drones on, feeding you facts through a microphone.
But that wasn’t the case on this day in the southern reaches of Japan. The content of the tour itself was rather interesting. During a half-day, a big bus would shuttle us around a shochu distillery, scenic overlook, and sacred shrine. And in this case, the guide made everything so much better.
Rolling out of Miyazaki, a port city on the southeast side of the island of Kyushu, we passed fishing boats in a little harbor. Soon, beaches appeared, with a few surfers out there on their boards, despite the fact that it was a regular Tuesday morning.
The guide was always in motion, standing at the front. She showed maps of the area when explaining its background and flashcards to illustrate the distilling process. On the way to the Shinto shrine, she discussed Japanese mythology, illustrated by a huge flow chart almost as tall as her.
She was funny, mixing in relevant personal stories and never letting a dull moment pass. On an industrial stretch of highway en route back to the ship, the attractions all behind us, she engaged the group with a trivia competition.
This question was written on a big card: Choosing from Shinto shrines, Buddhist temples, or convenience stores, what numbers the most in Japan? (I don’t remember the answer.) And finally, almost back to the ship, she played a traditional flute, a pursuit she had recently taken up. The tune was haunting and pretty, making an unusual but lovely end to the trip.
There’s no two ways about it: A tour guide can make, or break, your trip. The best ones bring everything along the way to life, creating context and making you see attractions in ways you had never imagined. And bad ones—well, when you have one of those, the tour can’t end soon enough. Here’s a little guide to which guides you’re going to want, the type that will make your next vacation even better.
Good Guides Tell Stories, Not Just Facts
We live in an age when literally every fact in the world is available on your phone. So don’t hire a guide who speaks like he’s reading a Wikipedia page. The best guides are storytellers, weaving often-personal narratives into their tour. Those stories stay with you every single time you think about your trip and the destination.Personality Matters
If you dislike your guide, it is very doubtful you’ll enjoy your excursion. Pick a guide who can tell a joke and whose warmth enhances the experience.Once, I took a tour to a perhaps less-than-stellar spot: a Bulgarian winery, with a few stops along the way, in a lesser-visited part of Eastern Europe. The guide, a woman in her 50s, was dressed in a 1980s jumpsuit.
Her passion for everything on the route was clearly evident—as was her pleasure in showing them to us. She related stories from her childhood about how every family in her village grew their own grapes. She took pride in presenting the wine from their micro-vineyards to visiting guests.
Her joy was infectious, engaging the group and compelling everyone to care about Bulgarian wine in a way I wouldn’t have guessed possible.
Bespoke Is Always Best
An adaptable guide is great. Even if your tour is themed, the person leading you should ask about your interests and then enhance the aspects that compel, intrigue, and fascinate their guests.Expertise matters. There are all sorts of guides. Archaeologists, ornithologists, geologists, historians, chefs, and lots more—all lead tours. Don’t hire a generalist if your interest is specific, or you might end up knowing more than them on the excursion.
Choose local. You really can’t replace local, lived experience. This was made clear on a recent trip to Norway’s Lofoten Islands, a subarctic archipelago of almost-mystical beauty. It’s a place home to fjords and forests and jagged, snowy peaks.
The first part of my day tour, on a bus, was handled by a nice young guy from France. He related all the facts well and even included a couple interesting stories.
But it has the back half of the tour that I’ll never forget. Boarding a boat, an older gentleman narrated. He grew up in a small town, right here on the fjord, and told the group about days when everyone was both a fisherman and a farmer. They worked the land under the midnight sun and the sea during a darkness that seemed interminable. News from the outside world rolled in on the coastal boat maybe a week after it happened—or not at all. Neighbors depended on each other, absolutely.
Filled with resonance and passion, each of his stories brought the little fishing villages we were passing along the fjord to life. He was the perfect guide for that truly sublime place.
