A long time ago, when we first started traveling to Europe, we discovered an excellent tour guide company, Context Travel. Their guides were people who weren’t just passionate about the material they presented, but usually had an advanced degree or extensive experience. So, the guide who took us through Central Park in New York City was a Ph.D. candidate in Landscape Architecture with a dissertation on the effect of the Park on the city’s history. The tour we did of the “back stage” of the New York Met was led by someone who’d been an archivist for the Met for 30 years. Needless to say, they were outstanding tours, albeit about twice as expensive as other guides and companies.

Fast forward a few decades and Context has become (to our mind) outrageously expensive. We’re all for paying people well for their time and expertise, but when a 4-hour tour costs nearly $1,000 that is well over our comfort level. Tours from aggregate companies like GetYourGuide are utterly hit or miss in our experience (we tell you when we have a good one, and there have been very few over the years.)

This trip (Spain, Winter Holiday 2025) we decided to try and maximize our learning and exploration and booked several tours through the same company: Tours by Locals. As the name implies, the guides are all people who live in the city/ region and have deep knowledge from years of direct, personal experience. In our experience, they are also passionate about imparting their knowledge and affection for the area. Our first tour was a full day excursion to Toledo from Madrid with Paul, a longtime resident of Madrid. The tour cost included his renting a car and door-to-door service from our hotel. It was a full day, and Paul was happy to incorporate a visit to the Royal Palace of Aranjuez. Our second tour was with Sandra, a lifelong resident of Seville. She showed us many non-typical places full of history and shared anecdotes that imparted a lot of Spanish history and culture. Finally, we spent an afternoon with Mirian, thoroughly exploring The Alhambra in Granada. Her degrees in Archeology, Art, and History all combined in powerful journey through Spanish history through various viewpoints.

Each guide was unique, and outstanding. It was holiday time and many typical sites were unavailable (overbooked or closed for religious reasons). Each did an excellent job of finding alternatives which were as interesting (or more so) than what would have been on a typical tour. Moreover, the places we saw and visited were squarely placed within appropriate context, making it an incredible learning experience. Each also did a great job of introducing (or extending) local knowledge of culture, whether through food or wine recommendations, or specific places to see on our own.

We don’t use tour guides much, but will actively look for Tours By Locals in the future.