“This was my family’s first time taking a personalized tour and working with RoughGuides. We choose RoughGuides after reading reviews on multiple travel-related sights. RoughGuides has direct staff and contracted guides in many countries. Our trip planner was based in Ecuador although our trip was to Chile. RoughGuides utilizes a web chat system to manage planning staff and traveler communications. The traveler provides an initial summary of trip goals and the RoughGuides planner starts building a plan/itinerary for the trip. The process was straightforward but would be easier and more efficient if RoughGuides had a detailed “traveler profile questionnaire.” For example, our family prefers quiet mornings until about 10 AM. This fact didn’t seem relevant until draft plans/itineraries continued to have touring activities start between 8 and 9 AM. Overall our family was impressed by the quality of the RoughGuides team and the local travel guides/drivers who RoughGuides employs. All of our guides spoke understandable to excellent English and were well-versed in local facts, histories, and culture. One of the ways our family enjoys the local flavor of destinations is via food tours. We usually include at least one food tour in our itinerary. This experience sold our family on personalized touring. We’ll continue using personalized touring when traveling to destinations where our native language, English, is less common.”
