No doubt there are thousands of people on this forum who have thought, "Hey, I could do this for a living".

But who actually has ?

I know a couple of professional guides who work for one of the best known companies. They enjoy it but also report that it's incredibly hard work and not a holiday one little bit. They always say "This is my last trip. I can't handle it anymore". Then they sign up for another.

I pondered this career many years ago in my youth but I told myself I wasn't patient or mature enough to put up with a group of whining rich tossers without the balls to do it alone. And with that attitude, I probably wasn't.

Now wiser and more balanced in middle age, financially secure and considering a career change, I'm thinking that maybe this could be the job for me.

I have a lot of travel experience. Hundreds of thousands of riding miles under my belt (on and off-road), I'm in the best physical shape of my life, I speak half decent Spanish and I'm a professional motorcycle tech with twenty years of experience with all ages and flavours of motorcycles.

Perfect candidate ? I think so

I know it's not going to make me rich. Or be a job to retire with. But it's something I think I want to try for a few years.

Any advice out there ?

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Did some trips.
Rode some bikes.
Fix them for a living.
Can't say anymore.

I've spoken about this to quite a few motorcycle guides, plus an almost infinite number of climbing guides, river-running guides, college field trip guides, parasailing guides, trekking guides, Antarctic cruiseship guides, overland truck guides....you name it.

My conclusion: it takes a very special kind of person to put up with the crap that they put up with and come back for more, even on a daily basis. I personally wouldn't last more than a day or two (except with kids, with whom I've often lasted longer--even a week or two). As for you, well, you sure never know until you try, but the guides I've known all possess an ability to modulate tone and reactivity, even in the face of severe provocation. Does that sound like you?

I was once on a river trip in the arctic when one of my boatmates took offense at something, turned around without warning, and slugged our guide with his paddle. We were still four or five days from anyplace in particular, so she continued to pilot, cook for us, load and unload, and offer insights into our surroundings. I couldn't have done that.

Hope that's helpful.

Mark

Point taken but they are not all like that. If you ever go ahead and start writing your brochure, you might want to adapt the words I use to describe 4x4 tour companies, "Tour companies offer an excellent service where people are either too busy with work to take the time to plan a trip, are concerned about driving in a foreign country, or want a 'buffer' between them and strangers.*"

But yes, I agree with the difficulty in handling awkward customers. More than ten years ago I spent six weeks in Azrou, northern Morocco, looking for land to build a biking base. I had some great ideas on both services that could be offered and also differing types and prices of accommodation. I spent some time negotiating on one piece of land but then decided I probably wouldn't enjoy some of the interactions with difficult biking customers. So I bought a second home (cave) in Spain instead!

As far as being a tour guide is concerned, here's two different modus operandi from two UK tour companies...

Wildcat Adventures is run by John Fulton and Brigitte Lucas who plan and lead the various tours. I've known them for years, have met up several times whilst in Morocco, and think they are a great. Their trips are carefully planned, small groups, and they are very protective of their customers' wellbeing. Once when we were in Tafraoute I offered to John to lead some of their party on a route detour the next day and was told very firmly that he didn't want that to happen. In retrospect I can understand the reasons why he wanted to remain in control. I did a couple of trekking tours with Explore Worldwide and it was similar. We were in the Greek Islands for Easter and the weather was appalling with snow. We told the guide we wanted to go lower and he made us sign out of the tour! But later that day as the snow got worse he appeared at our lower altitude with the rest of the group and seemed willing to overlook our truancy.

The other extreme was (and maybe still is) BMW World of Adventures tours where on the all-tarmac routes they would have up to 25 bikes, some two up. The participants were told where they would be spending the next night and offered the choice of riding ahead in groups of their own making, at speeds of their choice, or following on behind with the tour guide and sweeper truck. At first I thought this might be dangerously laissez-faire, but later changed my mind.

I don't think I would enjoy being a 'herding of cats' guide for Wildcat (this is ME personally, not Wildcat), but I think the approach of the World of BMW tour could be rather fun. Each night give the participants loads of detailed information for the following day and let them do their thing. Each group can decide where to stop for lunch rather than trying to find somewhere that can feed 25 bikers.

Of course off road tours are slightly different, but Peter Buitelaar of Bikerhome used to provide bikes for his tours with inexpensive GPS units. He would download the routes, all the customers had to do was follow the route line. Peter then trailed behind by a couple of km in his 4x4 so they had the experience of doing this by themselves.

Let's hope the world soon gets back to normal.

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"For sheer delight there is nothing like altitude; it gives one the thrill of adventure
and enlarges the world in which you live," Irving Mather (1892-1966)

Hello Ted:

I think that all of the skills that you listed that you think make you well suited for the job (knowledge of motorcycle mechanical systems, extensive touring experience, familiarity with a second language) are not necessarily the skills that you will be called on to apply if you are leading motorcycle tours.

My guess is that the primary skill required to lead tours is not familiarity with motorcycling, but familiarity with the hospitality industry.

I suspect that the majority of your work would be sorting out logistical problems with travel & accommodation (clients dissatisfied with hotel arrangements, promised hotel arrangements not matching up with what was delivered by the vendors, dissatisfaction with food), and trying to mitigate errors and omissions made by the tour participants (inappropriate clothing, participant forgot to bring something essential, participant selected wrong type of motorcycle for rental and can't operate it satisfactorily).

On top of that, there will be all the other "tour related" problems such as latecomers, folks sleeping in, folks wanting to take a different route and meet up later, etc.

I think it would be best if you could somehow get in touch with others who have led motorcycle tours in the past and seek advice from them.

Michael

My other half is good friends with a couple who gave up the rat race to become paragliding instructors ... these were people who lived and breathed for the experience of flying.

It very quickly went from being a passion, to being just a job, to being a chore that didn't pay very well.

I think there's a very very tiny proportion of people who can enjoy making money from their most loved activity.

I have.

Haha! Balanced enough to not have a tantrum and block people on social media for pointing out the obvious?

Don't make something you have a genuine passion for into a (badly paid) job. A sure way of quickly taking up golf or tiddlywinks instead. Some of your clients will end up as good friends and of others you'll want to murder without getting caught, before deciding that 25 years in a Peruvian jail is worth not having to hear that whining voice again.

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I think it depends on what your comfortable with. Most people that pay for services think they own a part of you and your service provided and it is wildly misinterpreted depending on the the culture they were brought up in. That being said they never fully read or understand the disclaimer that is written up by a law firm before they sign the waiver .
Another issue I can see is the Work Visa if you are off to some foreign land to make a living there are plenty of hoops to jump thru and who is paying for it
I know there are many guides working on foreign lands that work under the table
This is a issue with operators because they don't know if you will pan out so they just pay cash and give you the boot it things don't work out
I know of a operator in Santa Marta that uses the Work Away platform that hires Foreigners and doesn't pay them they supply accommodation and meals and a few free s this may be a good bet if you want to get a work visa if your in it for the long run And its a Young Crowd Every thing to Gain and nothing to lose.
Im sure the big operators had a bucket full of resumes and when Covid Hit you can imagine what they went thru to survive Many did Not They would have to survive on local help and pay a lot less.
But there is nothing wrong with that Hell they deserve the money more then the foreign worker. My opinion is if you want a career change being in your fifties Be careful what you wish for Make sure your piggy bank is full

I've worked in hospitality for 28 years (God help me) as an accommodation provider, and because the place that we owned for most of that time had a single room we used to see quite a few guides and drivers. I always thought that many of them seemed slightly haunted, like their responsibilities weighed very heavily on them.



I thought of doing motorcycle guiding myself. Given my background I could probably do the job just fine, but I'd only work in desert areas so when I snap and kill some whining pillock with a tyre iron upside their head, I can bury the body in the sand easily.

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If you buried your punters in the sand head first, they could still be useful: as a bike rack: the remaining guests could park their bikes without the need to put the stand down

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Hi Ted,

Two quick comments from me. Firstly thanks. Whatever you decide this thread has given me a couple of laugh out loud moments, between your whinging rich guys with no balls to go it alone, and the tour guide who copped for a paddle strike and kept on smiling.

Secondly, while lots of comments ring true here, if you fancy trying it what have you got to lose? If you love it great; if its not for you at least you’ll have scratched the itch and it might help you decide what next. After all none of us would have done the travel we have if we’d listened to all the sage ‘don’t do it’ advice we inevitably got when we told our nearest and dearest about our plans :-)

Good luck with the decision!

I still remember my mum’s horror when i told her i was off to Thailand on holiday as a 20 year old. “What do you mean you are off to Thailand. You can’t do that, you haven’t bought a washing machine yet….”

lol, my Mum (83 years old now) confessed to me that if it weren't for me and my sister she's have never left England, never mind the UK ... when I was young I figured out the best course of action was to never tell her what was going on to avoid getting my ear bent over every little thing.

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FreeBSD fan since before it was cool ...

I was talking with a tour guide some years ago.
River cruises, not bikes.
He said the cause of their biggest problems is something they have no control over - the weather.

This is a motorcycle travel forum. The op asked about motorcycle guiding. Apart from that, your contribution is excellent. Thank you

Could you rig a sail on your land yacht and if travelling down wind you'd save a lot of gas

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Maybe it's a cultural thing, and I just don't get the joke, Chris?

Seems to me that @Hustler added something thoughtful to the conversation. I can see that weather could cause major problems for both river guides and motorcycle guides and that that could be something to consider when thinking about guiding, no?




..............shu