Recommendations for day tour providers Madrid and Sevilla

The Rick Steves guide always has suggestions for local guides.

Indeed and I have used those guides in other cities. I'm looking for recommendations from people on the board who've used guides (or even day tours), whether the RS recommended or others.

I highly recommend Pepe: https://www.gaidoapp.com/tours/city/41af163d-c992-4ab1-8a67-2ad48df3bd21/54dbe54e-fda8-492a-b0da-e23c9b902067

We used him in Madrid and he was excellent. I believe Gaido also offers Seville, but we like their offerings as they are less generic than Viator, AirBNB, etc. I'm sure there are some other great rec's by steve, but Pepe was great.

@Jensen, Viator, AirBnB, Get your guide do not provide tours, they are a 3rd party and sell other peoples tours. They will cost more that going directly to the provider, and there have been frequent complaints of last minute cancellations.

Kimberly, are you open to doing city bike tours? We did them in Sevilla & Madrid. I can look up the ones we used, if you’re interested.

For Sevilla, purchase your tickets for the Alcazar and Cathedral far in advance. They are both very popular. And Toledo is an easy half-day trip from Madrid, although we stayed in Toledo for a couple of nights as our first Spain city. I will be back to Spain in February, and I am planning to go out to Segovia from Madrid this time.

@jules m of course, thats why I find they are more generic. They do list tours, but they mostly provide experiences from agencies as opposed to local guides. I never recommended them.

@jensen: thank you for the recommendations! I will look them up.
@Jean: we LOVE bike tours and have done them in a number of cities but, for some reason, didn't consider for these two. If the information for your bike tours is handy, I'd love the company names.

Thank you!

I booked a private 2-3 hr general Madrid tour with Kraft Tours Spain and asked them for a couple of normally unrelated things. It might not be exactly what you are looking for but it worked really well for us. The company shows up as a free walking tour when you google, which they do provide - but I booked a private tour. Guide was really good.

I also used VPT Travel For All for a day trip. While it was fine, I was less impressed. It wasn’t much more than the bus, which might be useful for you. They do have half and full day big bus “excursions” from Madrid.

@TexasTravelMom: Thanks for the information! I will check them out.

Hi Kimberly, the two bike tours:

Sevilla - SeeByBike. It’s a 3-hr regular bike tour. (Sevilla is flat.)
Madrid - Essential Madrid Bike tour with Wonder Tours. It’s a 3-hour e-bike tour.

I’m planning to do the Sevilla one again next February.

Federico Barroso at Spainfred.com is a Madrid guide. I run out of superlatives describing his excellence. A tour of The Prado with Federico is a life changing experience. Of course he is a Rick Steves guide…..Mr. Rick knows the best.

Concepcion in Sevilla. Federico in Madrid. They are in the RS Spain guidebook.

I’m planning two tours with Concepcion Delgado in Seville next week. I’ll try to remember to come back and let you know. Or you could pm me on Sunday.

Just back we were on a RS tour so didn’t do private tours but the local guides we had were all amazing and most are in his book.

You mentioned Eating Europe tours & wanted to mention our experience this past week. We loved our two tours with them in Rome. They are Rome based. We booked tours with them in Barcelona, Madrid, and Seville. A few days before we left they asked if we could change our date for Barcelona. We could not because of our RS tour.
We were three but I guess not enough to run the tour? No reason was given they cancelled. Luckily we were able to get one with Devour tours. Spain based company originally

Then mid tour they emailed me about Seville. I asked them to text but they did not. Asking if I could change dates. Same story we had only one night after our tour we could not. They never got back to me till for the Madrid tour I asked what about Seville? Confusion from them what Seville your? Took a day to hear back. First told me it was a go then said no actually it is cancelled.
Unfortunately at that late date we were unable to find another food tour open.

They are new to Spain and don’t seem to quite have their act together there yet. The Madrid tour was good. If you are flexible with dates and times you should be ok. We were disappointed since we scheduled our limited time in Seville around them.
Enjoy

Thank you SA for sharing your experience with Eating Europe in Spain. I'll take a look at the Devour Tours.

Thank you to everyone for your recommendations! I now have a great list to start putting the trip together.