Free greeter programs around the world encourage locals to welcome you to their hometown
Greeters are not licensed guides.
Greeters don't work for the tourist office.
Greeters are just outgoing locals in a particular city—9 in Italy alone, from Milan to Naples, Torino to Bologna (and, for that matter, Paris to London to New York to Melbourne)—who have banded together to offer their services, free of charge, as sort of free-ranging tourism ambassadors.
Sign up for a greeter program, and you will be paired with one of these local volunteers when you hit town.
Sometimes, their help is limited to a short session (15 minutes to half an hour) in which they show you the ropes: how the transit system works, where the best local place to grab a bite are, what's a good neighborhood just for strolling around, where can you find the best deals.
Sometimes, particularly gung-ho greeters will give you a two-hour guided tour.
Best of all, it's all entirely free.
- Globalgreeternetwork.info - links all over
- internationalgreeter.org - links all over
- Rome.greeters.info - Rome greeters
- Milan.greeters.info - Milan greeters
- Siena.greeters.info - Siena greeters
- Turin.greeters.info - Turin greeters
- Bologna.greeters.info - Bologna greeters
- Ravenna.greeters.info - Ravenna greeters
- Genova.greeters.info - Genova greeters
- Bergamo.greeters.info - Bergamo greeters
- Viator.com - Best one-stop shopping site for all sorts of activities, walking tours, bus tours, escorted day trips, and other excursions. It is actually a clearinghouse for many local tour companies and outfitters, and since it gets a bulk-rate deal on pricing (and takes only a token fee for itself), you can actually sometimes book an activity through Viator for less than it would cost to buy the same exact tour from the tour company itself. (I once booked a Dublin pub crawl via Viator and later discovered that I saved about $1.50; also, the tour turned out to be sold-out, and they were turning away the folks in front of me in line, but since I had a pre-booked voucher I got in.)Partner
- Contexttravel.com - This bespoke walking tour company doesn't even call its 200 tour leaders "guides." It calls them "docents"—perhaps because most guides are academics and specialists in their fields: history professors, archeologists, PhDs, art historians, artists, etc. Groups are miniscule (often six people maximum), and most docents can be booked for private guiding sessions as well. They aren't always the cheapest tours, but they are invariably the best. People rave about Context.Partner
- Veltra.com - Chief rival to Viator, representing fewer tours but also offering some you won't find on Viator.Partner
- Freewalkingtouritalia.com - Basic walking tours that cost... "name your own price." The guides work for "tips," much of which is turned over to their boss, so you end up "tipping" them €15 to €20 per person anyway, meaning the tours aren't actually free (though, given their incentive, most guides put on a good show and give a good tour) .
- Freetoursbyfoot.com - Basic walking tours of popular Roman neighborhoods that costs... "name your own price." The guides work for "tips," much of which is turned over to their boss, so you end up "tipping" them €15 to €20 per person anyway, meaning the tours aren't actually free (though, given their incentive, most guides put on a good show and give a good tour) .
- Venicefreewalkingtour.com - Basic walking tours of Venice that costs... "name your own price." The guides work for "tips," much of which is turned over to their boss, so you end up "tipping" them €15 to €20 per person anyway, meaning the tours aren't actually free (though, given their incentive, most guides put on a good show and give a good tour) .
