The Guide to Guides: Should I Get One, or No?

One of my favorite things about traveling is all of the wonderful places that you can visit. All across the world, there are famous parks, museums, ruins, and more just sprinkled across the map like candy. Each of these places is different and unique, but they all have a couple of things in common, too.

Each place has things to teach you. Perhaps it’s all about the way nails were made in the early 18th century. Or maybe it’s the biodiversity of a natural cloud forest. No matter what or where it is, there are things to learn.

Each place has the ability to break you out from the ordinary. These places are not just an extension of your school or work. They are completely unique and wonderful places to be enjoyed.

And, most likely, each place has guides.

To Guide or Not to Guide?

Granted, there are some great reasons for having a guide along with you, and you may very well want one. After all, if each place is unique, it makes sense to find someone that can tell you how it’s unique. But also, there are plenty of times when you wouldn’t want a guide.

Either way, as soon as you pass into the gates of whatever wonder you’re about to explore, you have to make the decision.

Do I want a guide or no?

Reasons for Wanting a Guide

Although you may not have imagined sharing that special stroll through a world wonder with some random guy in a brown vest, guides actually have a lot going for them. In general, the main reasons you would want to hire a guide are for getting specific knowledge about a place, staying safe while touring, or for getting access to places that you wouldn’t otherwise be allowed.

Knowledge

The main reason for getting a guide is for all the things they can teach you! A guide will typically be able to teach you information about a location that you may not be able to find anywhere else. This can be especially true with parks and monuments that aren’t as famous since there are often not as many people writing about them.

Guides spend a ton of time in these special locations and are often invested in making sure that you have an enjoyable experience. If you have any questions at all, they want to be the one to answer them. After all, tips are appreciated.

Because of that, they want to make sure that they know as much as they can about their niche, and they become experts. So, if you want to know specific tidbits about an area, getting a guide is almost always the best way to learn them.

Safety

Another great reason for getting a guide is the safety that they can provide.

Most places that have tour guides for hire are already relatively safe. There won’t be a ton of pickpockets in places that you have to pay to get into, and if they’re letting tourists walk around on their own it’s almost certainly because the danger levels are minimal.

Still, there are some safety benefits that come along with having a guide to show you around.

For one thing, accidents do happen, even in safe places. Perhaps you sprain an ankle walking down the steps of a national monument. Having a guide there to get help when you’ve hurt yourself can be invaluable since hobbling out on your own doesn’t seem particularly fun.

Or maybe there’s some poison ivy that sprang up next to the trail and hasn’t been cleared. Since guides know the area so well, they will often keep an eye out for dangerous plants and animals. I myself have had a guide point at a plant not 3ft from the trail that would cause some pretty significant pain if touched. To my untrained eyes, it looked just like every other plant out there.

Access

Of course, there are some areas where guides aren’t optional at all. For those times, the choice isn’t really up to you. It’s either get the guide or miss out on the adventure.

For instance, when my family hiked Pacaya volcano in Guatemala, we were required to hire a guide to get access to the volcano. Obviously, it can be dangerous to hike on an active volcano when you don’t know what you are doing, so it made a lot of sense to limit their guests in this way. The guide’s job was to keep us safe.

Likewise, when we visited the Mayan ruins in Copan Ruinas, there were tunnels that led under one of the pyramids. Without a guide, you could go anywhere in the park above ground, but the tunnels were restricted to only the guests with a guide. That’s because the tunnels were part of an active archaeological study and people brushing up against the sides of the tunnel, or touching things they shouldn’t could have an impact on the ruins.

In both cases, getting a guide was the only way in.

Reasons for Not Wanting a Guide

Of course, while getting a guide can often be a great idea, sometimes you’re not going to want one. And that’s ok! There can be plenty of reasons for not wanting a guide, and it doesn’t mean that your experience in a place is somehow less. In fact, my family generally prefers not to have a guide when we explore, although we definitely make exceptions. Typically though, the freedom to move at our own pace and the money saved are enough of a reason for us to skip getting a guide.

Freedom to move at own pace

One of our first trips as a digital nomad family was to check out some of the Mayan ruins in Mexico. Specifically, I wanted to see Chichén-Itzá, which had been on my list of places to go since I was a kid.

I loved it! The iconic Mayan architecture, the myths and legends surrounding the place, and just the overall ambiance of the place all made it a trip to remember. But, if I were to change anything about that trip, I would probably skip getting a guide.

Our kids were young, at 4 and 6, and they just weren’t all that interested in what the guide had to say. Yes, it was interesting to me, and yes I learned some great stuff, but my kids got pretty bored at a few different points, and that took a bit away from the whole experience.

In contrast, when we went to Ek Balam ruins, we purposefully didn’t get a guide. The kids explored the whole morning, peeking into each and every room, and climbing every staircase. I was still able to talk with them about some of the architecture and culture, but the kids had a way better time.

Cost/value proposition

Sometimes, getting a guide just doesn’t add enough value to a place to make it worth it.

On my family’s trip to the Grand Canyon, it didn’t make sense for us to hire a guide. It’s not that the guides there don’t have great insights into places to go and things to see. It’s that most of those places were out of reach for a family with two kids under 6 years old.

Instead, we figured out a couple of places that we definitely wanted to check out, and we went on our own. We took a short hike down into the canyon, and we turned around when we wanted to, without worrying about cutting the hike short. It was great!

Adding a guide into that mix would have been a bad choice. The value that a guide can add is amazing in some situations, but for us, at that time, it just wasn’t worth it.

Already been

Another big reason for not getting a guide is simply because you’ve already been. Maybe you’re introducing your family to a favorite place, and you already know it like the back of your hand. Sure, the guide still probably knows the place better, but that still doesn’t mean you want to hear the same information all over again.

So do I get a guide?

Ultimately, it comes down to what you want.

In many places, a guide can be an invaluable asset, providing information that you otherwise wouldn’t even know that you were missing out on. They know their locations and can make sure that the places you see are the places worth seeing while skipping what’s not. But it’s definitely a trade-off. The freedom to wander around at your own pace, explore what you find interesting, and not having to worry about taking the “best” route is really nice, too.

In the end, it comes down to preference.

Do you prefer to travel with a guide, or to go your own way? Do you have any tips for deciding?

Let me know at neverendingfieldtrip@gmail.com!