Daisy, a former TikTok staffer, guides a free Shanghai walking tour. Photo / Ash Jurberg
Free walking tours offer a cheap and easy way to explore a city like a local, but there is another version you can try – and it’s even better, writes Ash Jurberg.
Daisy, our guide, is a former TikTok employee. She mentions this casually as we gather at People’s Square Metro Station in Shanghai, 15 strangers from a handful of countries standing around with coffees and cameras.
Within minutes she is walking us through the city’s transformation from fishing village to megacity, mixing historical detail with personal stories about working for one of China’s biggest tech companies, what the culture is really like, and how young people in modern China live and work. Not the kind of thing you find in a guidebook.
The tour runs for nearly four hours. And it costs nothing.
I do free walking tours everywhere I travel. They are the first thing I book in any new city. A good free walking tour covers more ground than you expect, orients you in a place you have never been, and gives you something no app or website delivers. A local who tells you which tourist traps to skip, what things should actually cost, and where they go to eat.
Finding one is simple. Google “free walking tour” and the city name. The bigger cities will have several operators, so I look for ones with strong reviews. Once I find a company I like, I tend to use them in other cities too. You show up, you walk, you learn, and at the end you tip what you feel the experience was worth. Tipping $5 to $20 per person is common. I usually tip $10.
For families, the savings add up quickly. A paid walking tour for four people in Europe can cost a few hundred dollars. A free one costs whatever you choose to tip, and the guides know it. Their income depends on being good, which means they usually are.
But there is another version of this that most travellers have never heard of, and it is even better.
Greeter programmes pair you with a local volunteer for a private, tailored experience. You fill out a form with your interests and who you are travelling with. They match you with a volunteer who becomes your guide for the day. And yes, it is also free.
In New York, we are matched with Anthony, a 21-year-old New York University student. Before we even arrive, he is messaging us on WhatsApp, asking follow-up questions about what we like.
Anthony meets us outside Red Rooster in Harlem after our Sunday gospel brunch and spends the day walking us through his city. Not the tourist version. His version. Harlem, Greenwich Village, the Meatpacking District. He takes us past his NYU campus and tells us what it is like to study there.
When my son Thomas mentions he loves basketball, Anthony walks us to outdoor courts where he has spotted NBA players before. We joke that the odds of seeing one in a city this size are ridiculous. Then we see Ben Simmons, the Australian who was playing for Brooklyn at the time. Thomas gets a photo with him and it becomes a highlight of his trip.
On our Chicago trip, we are matched with Bill, a 78-year-old neighbourhood historian. He has lived in the city his whole life. When my son Charlie mentions he loves chocolate, Bill walks us to the birthplace of the brownie. Even with the temperature well below zero, our teenagers do not want the day to end. Perhaps it’s the brownies.
Greeter programmes operate in cities worldwide and you can find them through internationalgreeter.org. Apply as far in advance as possible. And here is the detail that surprises everyone. You cannot tip. The volunteers will not accept money. They show strangers their city purely because they love it.
Thomas is the best argument for free tours. When he and his mate Brad went on a month-long trip across Europe earlier this year, I helped with the itinerary and suggested they book free walking tours in each city. They were unconvinced. Tours are for old people, and they can figure cities out on their own.
After a few days wandering Rome without context, walking aimlessly around the Colosseum, through the Roman Forum, past the Pantheon and knowing nothing about any of it, Thomas agreed to try a free walking tour in Munich. I understood the resistance. I wandered cities the same way 30 years ago. But back then the tours were not free.
They love it. The guide is young, gives them the back stories to landmarks they had been walking past without a second glance, and tells them which bars to hit and where the happy hours are. Exactly the kind of detail two 19-year-olds on a budget actually want. Thomas texts me two days later. “Munich tour was cool.” From a teenage boy, that is the highest of praise. They book another one in Prague. Then Amsterdam. Then Paris, Bruges and Berlin.
Six free walking tours across Europe. From the kid who said tours were for old people.