Footprints on the Mountainside

Heh. This is an easy one for me to write, and if you really think about it, it is all stuff you know anyway. How many points for betting that you may not have thought of things like that?

One of the best ways of knowing if the promotion material’s claims and the experience match is hindsight. *ducks under the table*

Ok. I’m serious now. What follows are the real ways to tell.

1. Count the number of destinations offered, deduct 2 and divide by the number of days of your tour. If the number you get is greater than one, your tour is going to be too hectic to really see anything. The lower the number, the better. I like 0.7ish
2. Sleeping in a new hill station every night is not seeing the Himalaya. If you don’t have the time to do something special in each place, the pace is too fast.
3. Does your guide love the place he is showing you? If he doesn’t, you’re missing out on insights collected over years of experience - which is something you are paying for when you ask for a guide.
4. Ask to meet the guide before you pay. If your guide doesn’t go all enthusiastic about the place in ways not mentioned on the brouchre, you might as well save the money and travel with a road map and brouchre.
5. Does your guide speak the language of the place - even a little is good - but do you have someone handy to communicate with the locals?
6. Read what is being offered in the tour carefully. How much of it is statistics and luxury descriptions and how much is local information? You can be sure that the same will be reflected in your tour most of the time. So, if you want luxury, or if you want interesting stuff, or something else, reading up befopre paying up can be a good idea.
7. Ask questions. Before you pay, make an effort to read up about the place and ask questions in the meeting. Knowledge shows - even if it means admitting ignorance, but having a good idea on where to find out.
8. Do the people have a sense of fun? Self-explanatory.
9. Find out about other people on the tour and ideally, attend a group meeting to make your payments to get a good idea of whether you will gel with the group or not.
10. To find out if an operator is reliable - simply show an interest in an unlikely variety of tours anthropology and pilgrimage, for example. If they want to sell you anything you point at, get out fast. They don’t really care what your interests are, as long as you buy a tour.

Or come to Wide Aware