Let’s hear it for tour guides.
They deserve a lot of respect. The job demands many skills — organizer, storyteller, entertainer, mediator, babysitter, crisis manager, historian and herder. Guides also must know how to handle the difficult traveler.
I know this because I was a tour guide for a few years. One memorable difficult traveler was a woman who joined my City of San Diego tour. She was attending a conference at the convention center, and the first clue that she was trouble was her appearance 10 minutes after the bus was supposed to depart. She was unhappy, had missed breakfast and requested that the bus stop at a restaurant so she could get food to-go.
I was incredulous… and said no.
She was late again after our stop at the Hotel del Coronado. Excuse: She was hunting for breakfast.
Throughout the day, as we visited San Diego’s landmarks, I distributed photos of people important to the city’s development and scenes from the early 1900s. When the photos did not return to me, I inquired. You can guess who had them and insisted that I let her keep them.
“I need the photos for future tours,” I said. “It takes a lot of time to research, print and organize them.”
“Then you can do it again,” she said.
When I’m the tourist, I sympathize with guides who must deal with difficult travelers.
In 1999, my husband and I were on a walking tour of Tuscany in central Italy. Our guide, an Aussie who had grown up in Italy, was excellent. So were the weather, scenery and walking routes. Most of our co-travelers were curious, interested and enthusiastic, but a half-dozen women from Texas demonstrated how to be the consummate Ugly Americans.
They were boisterous; wore beanies with propellers, which they foisted on a monk at an ancient hill-town church; complained about the lack of McDonald’s; wanted only to shop; and objected to the amount of walking on the walking tour.
The next year, we traveled to Turkey with a group of 11 that included an older woman who had undergone double-knee-replacement surgery only a month before. She was accompanied by a considerably younger man who we assumed to be her son but later learned was her husband.
He was quite devoted, pushing her wheelchair over rocky ground at various ruins. He fetched her meals, washed her clothes and styled her hair. Our guide, Akin (Ah-KUHN), was more than accommodating, doing what he could for this couple while still fulfilling his obligation to the rest of us.
Akin was a five-star guide. He spoke multiple languages, provided detailed running commentaries as we drove through the countryside and stopped at historic sites. He had a great sense of humor and always had a plan B.
One afternoon, Akin approached us, distraught. He’d found a journal left open on the front seat of the bus. Written by the husband, the journal detailed complaints about Akin via a diatribe that sounded like the ramblings of a 13-year-old.
Once we assured Akin that he was not a selfish, uncaring, smug know-it-all, he had the grace to continue to treat the husband and wife with consideration — even when the rotund husband got stuck in an ancient, narrow tunnel that once served as protection against invading marauders.
In 2022, we traveled to Denmark and Norway. Our guide, Christiaan, was top-notch. She was amazing at accommodating a kind, older man who had some mobility issues. He was always grateful; not so his wife. She complained repeatedly about hotel rooms, demanding to be moved a second and third time; said the food was subpar (it was not); and demanded three times during the two-week trip that Christiaan make appointments at local hair salons.
Our guide kept her cool, and our group was incensed when this ungrateful traveler left Christiaan a meager gratuity. And when the problem woman complained to the tour company, many of us sent letters of support for our excellent guide.
Have an adventure to share? Contact me at [email protected].
