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Excursions in 300 cities from Trypster.ru

I, like most modern people, prefer to make the most of the Internet system. With it, you can order and pay online, or call a taxi. And from time to time I use the service of ordering and paying for online excursions. If I go to a country with a huge number of attractions, then in order to use my free time effectively, I use the service . Therefore, we will consider all its advantages and capabilities in more detail.

Features and Benefits of Tripster

The site has been operating since 2013, but in this relatively short time, it was able to earn the trust of a huge number of travelers. Most interestingly, the people who created it decided to take a completely different approach to organizing excursions. It involves the organization of non-standard excursions, according to the preferences of each client. This is rare.

Features of the Trypster.ru company:

• Guides who themselves are delighted with their excursions. These people themselves develop the route in such a way that every guest of the city will be delighted. So that it will take your breath away, from new amazing places and facts. There are people of different specialties among the guides. These are architects, journalists, art critics, historians and so on;
• Originality. The company uses standard approaches. Her motto is “No to standard excursions”. Each walk is unique and unrepeatable, regardless of whether it is a visit to museum complexes, or "walks on the roofs";
• Individuality. The unusual excursion service does not work with crowds of tourists. There are exclusively individual programs designed for one traveler and his companions. That is why I personally liked the system, I don't like platitudes.

Capabilities:

1. Independent choice of the author's excursion. That is, you yourself get acquainted with all the excursion programs of this or that guide, compiled by him independently. Read the reviews of people who have already used this excursion program. And only then you decide whether this option suits you or not.
2. Advance booking online. Personally, I am very pleased with this service. Booked a convenient day and hour, arrived in a country or city, rested. And then you can go on excursions.
3. Payment. Here is generally a chic option. To make an advance payment, you have the option of only 16% of the total cost. You give the rest of the money to the guide directly at the meeting. But that's not all - if, for any reason, you cannot attend the excursion, the money will be returned.

In my opinion, excellent conditions, a unique service of individual excursions. You can learn more about all the offers on the official Tripster portal - experience.tripster.ru.

Benefits of online booking excursions

The list of advantages of online booking excursions to Tripster is quite impressive. But I would like to focus on the most important points:

• Complete freedom of choice (independence from tour operators, ideal for people who want to plan their time on their own);
• Saving time. There is no longer any need to spend hours on the Internet, choosing the most suitable excursion option. Everything is in one place;
• Calmness. The tourist can be sure that he will not be deceived, will not sell tickets for excursions at inflated prices, and so on.

The portal is really unique, you will not find this in any tour operator in the whole world.

How to order and pay

The process of finding a suitable option, booking and paying on the official portal is quite simple. For example, I do this:

• I enter the Tripster portal - excursions from local residents;
• I enter the desired city or country into the search engine;
• I choose the excursion I like;
• I decide on a suitable day and time;
• I contact the guide and clarify all the points of interest;
• I enter personal data (last name and first name, e-mail, phone number);
• I pay, sometimes I pay only 16%, and the rest of the calculation is already in place, to the guide.

There are a few more interesting points here. As soon as you make the payment (with a Visa or Mastercard - it doesn't matter), your phone number will open to the guide, and you will see it. Now it is possible to contact the guide at any time, before the appointed day of the tour. But until you make the payment, communication is possible exclusively on the portal. Well, as you can see, everything is simple, easy and accessible to the point of banality.

In recent years, startups have been rapidly conquering the travel market: Uber has long won a niche from the traditional taxi, and vacation rentals are replacing the usual hotels. But that's not all - with the help of online platforms, travelers can easily find a guide among locals who will willingly introduce the country from the inside. We have selected seven of the most interesting online services and applications.

Tours by Locals

Online platform Tours by Locals over the nine years of its existence, it has managed to unite more than 2,000 guides and cover 159 countries. Only very small areas of shallow lagoons remain undeveloped, for example, Crooked Island, an island that is part of the Bahamas.

Here travelers can either suggest their own route to the guide or choose an existing one. For example, for those who prefer quiet and secluded places, the service offers an eight-hour excursion to the picturesque edges of the South Island of New Zealand. The journey begins at Akaroa Cruise Port with a meeting with a local guide. The program includes a tour of almost all the picturesque landscapes of the Canterbury region - in eight hours, tourists will see the Rakaia Gorge, Coleridge Lake, Porter Pass and Crustchurch, the third largest city in New Zealand. In addition to exploring the Southern Region, the program also includes a traditional dinner. The national cuisine of the country is represented by exotic Maori dishes - fried scorpions and larvae, snails and sheep's eyes.

There are also less intricate routes on the online platform - for example, excursions to the main attractions of Western Europe. On the site it is possible to order both a group tour and an individual one. Accordingly, the price will depend on the choice - usually it does not exceed $ 100 per person.

Show around

The Show Around online platform is considered one of the leading travel startups: the service has gathered more than 80 thousand local residents under its wing and is already available in 204 countries.

Unlike a number of other similar services, Show Around performs only one function - it finds a guide. The route of the excursion is planned after choosing a temporary companion, there are no ready-made options here.

Perhaps the main advantage of the platform is the business cards of local guides. Here you can find literally everything - detailed information about the interests and knowledge of the culture of the region of each registered guide.

The tourist can rate his guide, as well as write a comment. “It keeps the guides on their toes and creates conditions for healthy competition that motivate people to work hard,” says Show Around founder Linas Sablowski.

The average price of a tour is about $ 15 per hour.

Show Around has had an iOS app for a long time, and recently a mobile service has become available to Android users as well.

Shiroube

The approach of the Japanese online service Shiroube is somewhat different from the others - first of all, a tourist chooses a section of interest, for example, "Art and History", "Nature and Adventure", "Food and Wine", and only then starts looking for a guide. Using the site is very simple: there is an advanced search that allows you to select the language, age and even gender of the guide. Each guide has its own profile, where tourists can see photos, main interests and suggestions.

There is no base of ready-made excursions here - the local guide comes up with a personal route for each client. However, the developers of the service still collect some statistics, for example, the site regularly updates lists with the most common locations and recommendations. So, during a trip to Shanghai, locals offer to walk along Nanjing Street and try dumplings - a dish similar to dumplings, but cooked according to an old Chinese recipe.

The service is focused on a fun pastime with visiting nightclubs, various workshops and non-tourist pubs, and the price of a tour usually does not exceed $ 400 for a group of four.

The creators of Embark.org have chosen a narrower niche for themselves - the service is suitable for lovers of outdoor activities and extreme sports. As the developers note, the platform is more focused on building a community with one common interest - a passion for active travel. As a result, the creators managed to combine business with pleasure - to unite fans of extreme tourism and give an opportunity for non-professional guides to earn money.

This platform is good in that it gives you the opportunity to find a person who will organize your outdoor activities even in the center of a big city. For example, together with a guide, you can try yourself in rock climbing in the Fontainebleau forest, the road to which from Paris will take no more than 40 minutes. Half of all offers are excursions for several days. The service offers extreme activities such as three days rafting in India, kayaking in Croatia and an eight day hike to the peak on the border of Valle d'Aosta and Piedmont in Italy, all in the company of a local guide who knows his business.

The site also has a blog where travelers share their experiences, which will help you choose from a variety of options what is right for you.

Guide prices start at $ 80 per person per day.

The online platform Vayable, launched just last year, has already earned the attention of The New York Times, CNN and The Wall Street Journal.

The service is focused on the central cities of Western Europe and Great Britain. The developers approached the project thoroughly: local guides will not only tell, but also teach. For example, one of the proposals is a course on photography of Paris at night. The guide will guide tourists around the Latin Quarter and the Seine River, as well as how to take good night portraits.

Rent a Guide

Rent a Guide, a German startup, offers guide services for all kinds of vacation activities, from dining in the best national traditions on the 123rd floor of the Burj Khalifa to a hot air balloon ride or jeep safari in the Arabian deserts. For those who love walking, Rent a Guide will prepare tourist excursions to the capital cities of Western and Eastern Europe.

The hot air balloon ride will cost $ 300, and the jeep safari will cost $ 45.

Airbnb, an online rental platform, launched the Trips project relatively recently - last fall. At the moment, the service operates in 12 cities and offers more than 500 excursions. The startup is more focused on recreational activities that locals can talk about. For example, you can visit a violin workshop in Paris, drive vintage cars, and even take part in a marathon in Kenya.

"We want to return to travel an element of magic, in the center of which are people," - said the head of the company Brian Chesky.

In addition, you can try yourself in charity and take part in socially significant events such as helping stray dogs and a master class on creating art from garbage.

Unlike other online platforms, Trips has a highly functional app, so with Airbnb and its new service, you can plan your trip from start to finish.

In our advanced age, it has become possible to find excursions in almost any country in the world in Russian without leaving home. In this article I will consider how this business works and how it all works, how you can find your excursion with a minimum of cost and maximum pleasure.

Aggregators conquer the world. Probably almost everyone knows that it is most convenient to search for air tickets on aggregator sites, but the service sector does not stand still. In our post-industrial time, services come to the fore.

Yes, in major European cities you can find a tour in Russian right on the street or in your hotel, but as a rule the range will be very limited to 2-5 excursions in Prague. And just one of the aggregator sites offers 168 excursions in Prague and the surrounding area at once, and the choice is huge. I here mention Prague just for specifics, in fact, excursions to a hundred or more cities of the world are presented on aggregators. Before a trip, you usually want to understand how much excursions cost in the city of your destination; excursion aggregator sites will easily sort you by prices.

You can join group tours or book an individual excursion. If you are traveling with a family or a company, in many cases an individual excursion will not become more expensive for you, but it will become more pleasant many times over. It's one thing to ride a huge bus as part of a group of 20-60 people, and quite another thing to go in a small minibus and listen to a guide in a group of 4-5 people. In such conditions, there are many more opportunities for easy communication and new discoveries.

On the site-aggregator of excursions, you can choose for yourself both standard sightseeing tours around the city and the nearest suburbs, as well as something unusual and exotic such as "Secrets of Prague Brewers" or "Prague: In the Footsteps of Blockbusters". Agree that such excursions are not sold on every corner.

I'll tell you more about the four tour aggregator sites so that you can choose the best options. It often happens that the same tour is sold on different sites at different prices, you will have the opportunity to buy it at the best price. Plus, the range of excursions on different sites is different. If you want to immediately start choosing, see the excursions on the following sites:

Tez Tour is a very well-known, well-established company in the Russian market. They offer excursions at reasonable prices, but the range of countries is not great, but these are the favorite countries of Russians. Tez Tour has its own guides and companies with whom they work abroad. It is not necessary to print the voucher, it is enough to show the ticket in your smartphone.

Sputnik8 and Weatlas offer standard options: city sightseeing tours, day trips out of town, guided museum visits. But you need to go to Tripster to get creative, their offers are significantly different from the usual set. You need to look for an excursion in this order. First on Tez Tour, check the same on Weatlas and Sputnik8.

All sites-aggregators of excursions, except for Tez Tour, work on the same principle. They invite private guides to register on the site and post descriptions of their excursions. The site is an intermediary and guarantor of the quality of the provision of services between you and the guide. Travelers can leave reviews about the excursions and guides they visited, which allows the next tourists to make their choice more consciously.

You should only trust reviews on sites that real consumers of services can leave. Usually, the site on which the excursion was ordered sends a letter to the client with a request to leave a review (the well-known booking and hotel booking works in the same way). This scheme allows you to collect truthful reviews about excursions. On all sites where anyone who registered can leave a review, all reviews are written by copywriters who have never used the service they leave a review about. I have been working as a webmaster for 15 years, I know this whole kitchen firsthand.

Most excursions must be booked at least 36 hours in advance. But if you have serious intentions, I would advise you to start interested in excursions at least a week before your intended trip. Some excursions are held only 2-3 times a week, i.e. planning will keep you from missing out.

Find excursions from Sputnik8

Sputnik8 is a St. Petersburg project, headquartered on Vasilievsky Island, so Petersburgers can support a local manufacturer and book excursions on their website. Only the Sputnik8 website will show you their schedule by days of the week, the time of the tour, the number of reviews right on the page of the list of excursions. The site contains a large number of group excursions to which you can join, this is the cheapest and most proven format.

Find Tripster Tours

Tripster stands apart from the first three sites. The first three sites offer excursions from certified professional guides, while they offer excursions from Russian-speaking locals. Only these people will be able to guide you through the ruin-pubs of Budapest, show you flamenco in Barcelona not in a theater for tourists, but in bars for local residents and provide the most informal communication. What could be more interesting than gossip from locals. Moreover, non-professionals tend to try very hard, this more than compensates for the lack of experience.

Our compatriots, coming out from behind the Iron Curtain, conquered the whole world. Many of those who left found themselves in a new place of residence in the field of tourism and offer their own programs that will allow you not only to see the sights declared in the excursion, but also to talk about life outside the burg with the direct participants in this life, to receive invaluable advice on further independent exploration of the city.

All Tripster tours are individual, group tours are not featured on this website.

Find excursions from Weatlas

Weatlas is a Moscow project, the main office is located in the capital. Now the database of excursions on the site is larger than that of competitors, and much more. Therefore, the site has a convenient search system for excursions by topic, mode of transport, price and even user ratings. The first page shows only the most popular excursions, use the search, you will find much more.

Weatlas signed contracts with City Sightseeing Tour buses in 18 cities around the world, where there is a translation into Russian. This is a popular way to get to know an unfamiliar city in a short time. As a rule, these buses offer an unlimited number of entrances and exits during the day for which you bought a ticket, they will take you past all the significant sights of the city, and through headphones you can listen to a city tour in Russian.

Find excursions on GetYourGuide

This is a German office with headquarters in Berlin and Zurich. On the GetYourGuide website, you can find not only excursions, but also buy tickets to museums, parks and other tourist attractions around the world. Prices in Europe there can be significantly lower than on Russian sites. The interface has been translated into Russian, tickets for excursions are not required to be printed, you can display them from the smartphone screen. But you need to be careful, many excursions are conducted only in English, always pay attention to the language.

In some countries with expensive public transport, such as the Netherlands, it is sometimes cheaper to take a tour on GetYourGuide in English than to pay for a trip on your own, and that's it.

Standard excursions are becoming a thing of the past, when a crowd of tourists tries to keep up with the guide at the same time, take a picture, remember at least something from a speech, full of numbers, dates, historical references. In the 21st century, an individual approach wins, taking into account the needs of each client, which it can boast of. Clients are offered an exclusive, created by a person who knows everything about his city and is able to captivate and intrigue the traveler.

Who conducts the tour

In places where tourists gather, both in megalopolises and in small towns, there will certainly be people of a creative mind who have a considerable store of knowledge. Among them can be professional historians and local historians, library workers, journalists and architects, teachers and art historians. The main thing is that these are caring, enthusiastic, sociable people with whom it is very interesting to spend time.

The future guide registers on the Tripster.ru website, undergoes an interview, introduces a topic, and gets help in creating a unique project. The authors set their own prices, but the competition is very high, so it is not in their interests to overcharge the service.

People's comments on excursion trips are full of gratitude and appreciation, and help to better understand the specifics of the project.

Features of the project

Created in 2013, the Tripster project began as a social club, where tourists exchanged experiences and shared valuable advice. As the community grew, it became autonomous, and within a few years it became a kind of travel club. Customers who register on the site are offered unusual excursions sponsored by local residents.

Indeed, who else will be able to tell about the history, customs, curious facts from the life of the city and its inhabitants so captivatingly, competently? The walk, organized according to the author's script, will show local sights from an unexpected perspective. From local residents, a tourist learns information about which guides from hotels or tour agencies never tell.

The first experiences of amateur excursions were successful and brought new clients. In all corners of the world, Russian-speaking guides were sought, well versed in various fields - from wine and coffee to high art. If you have something to tell about your city, you can try your hand and earn extra money.

In addition to standard trips to cult places, tourists:

• explore the hidden corners of the city;
• go up to rooftops and sink into the ground;
• taste different sorts of coffee and tea;
• get acquainted with the technology of wine production;
• try their hand at pottery and painting;
• attend master classes in national dances;
• go backstage theatrical.

Family excursions, interesting to all family members, regardless of age, turned out to be in great demand. These are walks for curious why, the wonders of the Moscow Kremlin, the skyscrapers of Moscow City. For children from 14 years old, exciting quests with treasure hunt, riddles and prizes are offered.

The tripster provides the client with new opportunities:

• non-standard approach;
• individual programs;
• an extensive selection of excursions around the world (409 cities);
• preliminary online booking;
• payment on the spot;
• security guarantee.

Service designed for independent travelers... Mass excursions with a large number of people are not provided. Everything is purely individual. The group includes only you and your companions. The guide himself sets the maximum number of wards, as a rule, no more than 10 people.

© evergreenkamal / flickr.com / CC BY 2.0

How to choose and book an excursion

So you've decided on a trip and want to make it interesting and meaningful. Your actions:

• go to the official website;
• enter the selected city or country in the window;
• read the offers and mark the option you like - look at the number of stars and read the reviews;
• select a free day in the calendar and set a convenient time;
• contact the guide and discuss the details;
• enter your data (last name, first name, phone number, email address);
• pay 16-20% of the total cost;
• the rest of the amount you give personally to the guide.

Users highly appreciated the benefits of online shopping for excursions. You get freedom of action, do not depend on the tour operator, save time and save your nerves. The agreement, which is concluded between the client and the site administration, guarantees security and is legally binding.

Payment details

People don't like to pay in advance for services. The service provides the user with the opportunity to first get acquainted with the future guide and make sure that the excursion program suits him.

At the first stage, communication takes place in the form of correspondence on the site. Having finally decided, you transfer the advance payment to the guide. This can be done using Visa or Mastercard.

After this operation you will receive the guide's phone number. He, in turn, opens your number, and you can keep in touch until the appointed time.

The main payment is made immediately before the excursion. If for some reason the meeting does not take place, the money will be returned to the card in full.

© [email protected] / flickr.com / CC BY 2.0

Tripster promotions

To get back some of the money spent on the purchase of the excursion, Authorization on the site allows you to use promotions, discounts, often timed to coincide with any significant date or before the holidays.

The site contains promotional codes of both periodic and permanent action.

By setting a goal and tracking discount information, you can save 5% to 10%. To use a nice gift:

• go in;
• select an excursion by clicking the "Order" button;
• specify the date and time;
• enter the current, not currently, promotional code in the box at the bottom of the page.

The decision must be made quickly. Short promotional codes are valid for a short period of time - from 2 days to a week. Long-term promotions are an exception, but the discount percentage will be lower.

The project continues to develop, covering new, unknown corners of the planet. As a result, you will fill your vacation with new experiences and meet smart, passionate people. You won't be bored!

Excursions for independent travelers and vacationers on the official website of the Tripster agency. Book unusual excursions and walks from locals and make your trip unique and unforgettable. Tours are held in almost 400 cities around the world.

Tripster and unusual excursions

The Tripster service offers 2.5 thousand unusual excursions from local residents in 340 cities around the world. They are organized and carried out mainly by our former compatriots who currently live in these countries. Russia is also very well represented. In addition to individual excursions, the Tripster website, in the "Trips" section, offers whole unique trips around the home country and in Bali.

Tripster is a meeting place for guides - locals and travelers. The guide offers the service the option of an excursion or a thematic walk in his place of residence, and Tripster posts it on his website. Before placing the service, the service can give the local resident its suggestions on how to improve his unusual excursion and make it truly unique and attractive for the tourist.

The tourist, in turn, finds an offer of an unusual excursion or a themed walk from a local on the Tripster website and books it.

All the unusual excursions offered on the site were invented by local guides, sometimes with improvements made on the advice of the Tripster service, but always proven and reliable. On this site you will not find bus tours for large groups of tourists with boring rote guides. You will plunge into a world inaccessible to ordinary travelers who order standard excursions "for everyone", get a unique, unforgettable experience during your trip and personal communication with your guide - a local resident.

Choosing and booking excursions online

After clicking on, answer the question "Where are you going?" In the search form by choosing a place from the drop-down list or by entering it manually. As a result, all offers of local residents for unusual excursions and walks will be displayed, indicating their name and price. By clicking on the selected offer, you will be taken to a page with a detailed description of the tour, a widget with a booking button and a link to contact the local guide.

All the excursions offered on the Tripster website are unique, and before you book the one that interests you, contact the guide using the link on the website and ask him about all the questions you are interested in related to the topic and the conduct of the event. If you have received answers to all your questions, go to the "Book" tab, select the date, start time of the excursion, the number of tourists, your name, contact information and click the "Send" button.

After the guide confirms the conduct of the selected excursion, his contact information will become available to you: phone and e-mail, by which you can contact him directly to clarify individual details.

The uniqueness of the unusual excursions and walks booked on the Tripster website also lies in the fact that, together with a local guide, you can make adjustments to the event so that it best suits your desires: change the route, add or exclude visited places, change the time of stay in them and so on.

After all questions about the event are resolved, you pay 16% of the cost of the excursion on the Tripster website, and transfer the rest of the amount to the guide - a local resident after an unusual excursion or walk.

If your trip does not take place, the Tripster service will refund the prepayment.

Cancellation of the ordered excursion

If you decide to cancel your booked unusual tour, then

• firstly, inform the local guide about it;
• secondly, cancel the order on the Tripster website.

If you cancel 6 days or more in advance, the prepayment will be refunded in full. If the excursion is canceled 5 days or less in advance, the decision to refund the prepayment depends on the guide.

For a refund to be made, send a request to the e-mail specified in the "Return Policy" section of the Tripster website. The prepayment will be refunded to the same card from which it was received.

Visit and make your trip unique and memorable with unusual excursions and walks from locals.