Is Touring For You?

Remember that even though tour guiding offers great travel opportunities, it is, after all, still a job, and like all jobs there are downsides. Only you can decide if the responsibilities, duties, and occasional restrictions are right for you.

Work Schedules

Surprisingly, the biggest source of complaints from tour guides is the very thing that makes the job exciting, the travel itself.

Some guides complain that the hectic travel schedule leaves them no time to care for things on the home front.

"During the busy season, I would sometimes have only two days off in an entire month. I would come in from a weeklong tour, and within a day turn around and leave for another one. I was home so little that it was a real pain getting and keeping a place to live. You also definitely sacrifice some of your social life when you travel that much. I was out of town so often that I ended up losing my network of friends back home. People will only call so often, and when you're never home they tend to stop calling altogether. Also, guiding tours around the country is a pretty exciting job, especially to someone who's filing insurance claims or answering phones all day long. As a result, I found that when I came home and wanted to talk about my travels, people really didn't want to hear about it (except for my mom, of course)."

Tour schedules can be quite sporadic, and tour guides may have to be "on call," waiting for periods of a week or more between returning from one tour and departing on the next. One tour guide described her work schedule like this:

"The amount of work varied a lot depending on the season. During the busy season, which for us was October, we would get two days off during the entire month, at most. We would come in from one tour and within a day we'd turn around and head out on another. In January, though, we might actually get two or three weeks off, which was really more free time than I wanted."

Living Arrangements

Despite the fact that tour guides often don't spend much time near the tour company's headquarters, most tour companies require their guides to have a permanent residence somewhere near the main office. In addition, many tour companies expect their guides to assist in the office during slow periods, helping with reservations and future tour arrangements. It's a good idea to clearly state in your application that you intend to take up residence near the company's headquarters. In fact, one of the most common reasons for rejection of an applicant is a belief by the personnel manager that he or she isn't close enough to effectively be "on call."

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