We have accomplished extensive travel in Western Europe thanks to Rick Steves' guidebooks. In October (2025), we spent the month in Spain. When planning our trip to Italy, Rick had recommended a lot of group tours in many of the popular sites such as the Colosseum, Vatican, Borghese Gallery, etc. As I was planning the Spain trip, I noticed that Rick was not recommending the group tours as much as the local guides. This was our first trip where I had decided to seek a local guide in various locations. In Rick's Spain (19th Edition), I found the following guides and I would highly recommend them. I have listed the page numbers and names from Rick's guide for your convenience: Toledo, pg 571, Adolfo Ferrero; Sevilla, pg 687, Carmen Martinez; Ronda, pg 824, Antonio Jesus Naranjo. Each of these guides wear a badge from GUIA which means that they are accredited tour guides in Spain. When we arrived at the Alhambra in Granada, we had not arranged for a private tour. We soon found out that we would benefit by hiring one (especially after the great experiences we had already had in the other locations). We were now armed with the information of looking for the GUIA badge. We found Carlos Moreno (sorry, I do not have his contact info) outside of the Alhambra along with other guides. We hired him on the spot and we were happy that we did. The Alhambra is massive and the guide was able to make sense of it and bring it to life for us. The experiences that we had with the local guides was particularly handy for our day trip locations. It helped us make the most of the hours that we had allocated for that particular location. We were very pleased that we took Rick's suggestion on these tour guides and we truly feel like they made our trip much more special. The local tour guides know their subject matter. Since I plan our trips (with Rick's books), I am essentially our tour guide for the whole trip. I really enjoyed turning the reigns over to these guides for those 3 hours that we spent with each of them. In future, I plan to look for these opportunities (Rick's recommendations of local guides) when planning our trips.
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