There are so many local guides, sharing really important information about places they visit every day… As a local guide, I also love sharing my opinions about restaurants, tourist attractions, landmarks etc. However, the most exciting thing about being a local guide is revealing the hidden gems and smart tricks in your county to the world.
I’m from Turkey and most of tourists come and visit my country with touristic tours, which is an affordable but probably may not going to be an unforgettable experience. Touristic tours may be fine if it is the first time you visit somewhere, or you prefer thematic holidays.
Let me be more concise. if you visit Istanbul, the first place the tours take you is the historical peninsula, where Hagia Sophia, Blue mosque, Topkapi Palace and many of the historical places exist. This is a fascinating place being the capital of Byzantine and Ottoman Empires for centuries and I also agree it is a must see. However, they will take you in rush hours and you should wait on long lines for hours to enter the buildings.
Instead I suggest you to have a delicious Turkish breakfast in a local restaurant until historical peninsula becomes less crowded or prefer to visit there early in the weekdays. One of the best things about Istanbul for me is the sunset, and if you are at the historical peninsula at the sunset, you will see nothing. Very best places to watch the sunset are either Salacak Shore in Üsküdar, or while taking the ferry from Karakoy or Eminonu to Kadikoy.
Oh by the way, let me show you what does a Turkish breakfast like !
If you check out the other local guides in Istanbul, you can find many fancy restaurants for just breakfast…
Let me give another example. Erzurum is not a well known city by tourists. People coming from other countries generally visit Palandöken Mountain and enjoy skiing or snowboarding. I’m going to introduce two places that you can visit by renting a car in an hour trip or two.
First of all I want to start with Narman. A lot of tourist visit Cappadocia each year, but do you know that there are also fairy chimneys exist in Narman? Whats more, the fairy chimneys in Narman are red. When I first visited there I felt myself like walking on Mars. The nature is really nice and there are so few people that you can spend so many time taking nice pictures not caring about people appearing on the frame.
Also very close to Narman, there exists Tortum Lake, where you can see one of the best sunset views and do kayaking during the day. Its so close to Narman but the earth is so different both in color and type.
Erzurum is not a quite touristic place except for skiers and snowboarders. Very few tourist visit those hidden gems also who visit Erzurum. There are a lot of places like these secret treasures and the thing I like the most is telling people about these lovely places and let them experience also.
These are just a couple of examples about Turkey and it is the most exciting part of being a local guide. I share these hidden gems with people on Google Maps and hope to help somebody to enjoy a lot as I did.