Everyone wants to visit New York at least once. The Big Apple is a global tourist destination with a dizzying array of attractions throughout the five boroughs. The only problem is figuring out where to start—and that’s where the city’s tour guides come in. These guides are a vital part of New York’s raucous sidewalk culture, and, as The Tour Guide reveals, the tours they offer are as fascinatingly diverse—and eccentric—as the city itself. Visitors can take tours that cover Manhattan before the arrival of European settlers, the nineteenth-century Irish gangs of Five Points, the culinary traditions of Queens, the culture of Harlem, or even the surveillance cameras of Chelsea—in short, there are tours to satisfy anyone’s curiosity about the city’s past or present. And the guides are as intriguing as the subjects, we learn, as Jonathan R. Wynn explores the lives of the people behind the tours, introducing us to office workers looking for a diversion from their desk jobs, unemployed actors honing their vocal skills, and struggling retirees searching for a second calling. Matching years of research with his own experiences as a guide, Wynn also lays bare the grueling process of acquiring an official license and offers a how-to guide to designing and leading a tour. Touching on the long history of tour-giving across the globe as well as the ups and downs of New York’s tour guide industry in the wake of 9/11, The Tour Guide is as informative and insightful as the chatty, charming, and colorful characters at its heart.

Guides are tourism professionals who lead their guests through the most interesting parts of their region. It is their task to engage visitors and to help interpret the sights that they visit. They please tourists by telling interesting but relevant narratives and respond in proactive ways to their complaints and requests. Guides are trained to always have enough knowledge and insight about the subject of the tour and ensure the safety and satisfaction of their guests. In this handy resource book, two seasoned practitioners have combined their working experience of a lifetime. What makes this book priceless is that it is enriched by over two decades of guide training experience as well as engagements with colleague guides, tourism professionals and a cross-section of tourists. "The scope of coverage is vast and will be very useful as a general guidebook for any reader seeking access to our history, geography and our rich cultural heritage." Mrs. Stella W. Appenteng, CEO, Apstar Tours Limited "Tour guiding is a bridging process around which the tourism experience revolves. This book comes to edify our tour guides on the substance and mechanics of their profession. It comes at a time when the industry has become more dynamic and in need of accurate, adequate, culture-nuanced interpretations." Tata Nkunu Akyea, Tourism Consultant & Tour Guide Extraordinaire

Have you ever wanted to become a Tour Guide but not known where to start? Do you yearn to travel the world, explore exotic locations and lead groups of people around unfamiliar places like it's your own backyard?This book can help you become a Tour Guide. It will teach you what you need to say, how to advertise your services and even how to get paid. It will teach you how to start your first tour, how to get repeat business after you've finished it and even what life is really like 'out there on the road'.Written by a Tour Guide with experience in guided tours across 15 countries and with contributions from experts all across the world, there's no better place to start one of the best careers in the world than this book.Nick Manning's How to be a tour guide: the essential training manual for tour managers and tour guides is the ultimate reference book and training tool, as used and proved by Tour Guides across the world every day."Nick Manning lets you know just how big the world is and how many different rules there are while taking you under his wings and navigating you through the aspects of successful tour managing and guiding. This book tells you how to become a GREAT tour manager/guide and is written in a way that will connect with you". - Kristene Murphy"Quite simply the best product available to aspiring tour guides on the market today. No industry professional should be without it." - Industry Insider

The Year of Magical Thinking meets Salvation Creek in a powerful memoir of love, loss and discovery – the third act in an extraordinary life. Mary Moody’s bestselling memoirs about her adventures in France, Au Revoir and Last Tango in Toulouse, inspired thousands of women. The Accidental Tour Guide completes the circle by sharing another major turning point in her life. When Mary loses her beloved husband, her world is turned upside down. Part of her journey to reignite her passion for living is to boldly go where she has never been before – in her travels and in her everyday life. A powerful, moving and inspiring true story about how to rebuild your life without the people who matter most.

Terezin guide, historian and writer Pavel Batel survived a violent childhood in communist Czechoslovakia. In the chaotic post-communist period he graduated from a military academy, and then entered the world of elite protection services, where he often had to save his clients from the kind of violence they were inflicting upon others. In surprising turns of events, Pavel discovered and identified with his Jewish roots during a visit to the Terezin concentration camp. This opened his eyes to the problems of ethnic bigotry, and he vowed to do his part in opposing the nationalist groups that were growing to prominence in the former eastern block countries in the 1990s. He truly makes the past come to life through his gift for storytelling. In the Tour Guide's Tale, Pavel tells the story of his past, and brings forth some of the most dramatic - and little known - historical events that played out in Terezin.The Tour Guide story is told as a personal awakening, with the use of fictional bridges to past times and places, and elements of magical realism to heighten the drama. It is the author's hope that this work will not only entertain readers, but will bring greater awareness of the threat that hatred and intolerance still pose to our societies. It has been recognized by Philosophical faculty of Charles university as an exceptional and unique work of art.

Ranging from riot-torn Cincinnati, Ohio, where the nation's racial and police issues have boiled over into the streets, to illuminating community concerns from coast to coast, Kathy Y. Wilson writes with a fusion of well-honed fury and captivating irreverance. Wilson will suprise you with her insight and move you with her honesty.