About Us

ToursByLocals connects travelers with local tour guides who are keen to share their knowledge, experience and expertise.

We serve two customer groups – travelers and the local tour guides (or local tour guiding companies) who actually deliver travel services.

Our travelers want to do unique things, experience the reality of a place and see its culture through the eyes of a local person. They have a sense of adventure, are socially conscious and want to see their travel spending directly benefit the people who live in the communities they visit.

Our tour guides want to earn income by providing the experiences travelers seek. They are entrepreneurial, passionate people who are proud of the place they live. They offer a variety of tours, including unusual tours that reflect differing interests.

We link these two customer groups through ToursByLocals.com. We search out and qualify potential tour guides and companies and help them get set up on the system and develop their tours. We handle the marketing, booking and payment processing, customer service and forwarding of money they've earned.

For travelers, the website offers a convenient way to search for interesting tours and find out how other travelers rated them. The system provides for consistent elements between tour offerings – pricing is per tour, not per person and policies are standardized. ToursByLocals is also on hand to help, in case problems arise.

Unlike other tour companies, our tour guides are independent contractors, not employees. ToursByLocal's role is to offer the venue and the systems to facilitate a sound business relationship between traveler and tour guide.