Packing List - Tour Guides

It's not really a packing list per se - you should already know what essentials to bring with you. What I've done here is list some things tour guides might want to pack to help them do their job even better. 

• A good daypack is essential for keeping your supplies and kit organized. A cheap bag is prone to ripping and a source of back pain. Function over form and quality over style every time. Make sure your bag has padded shoulder straps, waist and sternum straps to disperse the weight of the pack across your chest and onto your hips rather than onto only your shoulders. My favourite bag of all time right now is a Deuter Futura 28, which I bought at Mountain Equipment Co-op (MEC) in Toronto. For a tour guide, a great pack is second in importance only to comfortable walking shoes where gear is concerned.

• A quality clipboard is also a no-brainer for me, but I know a lot of guides that don't use one. I keep my itinerary, passenger list, and other papers I need to access again and again in it. It goes back into the pack when I'm not using it. I've seen some tour guides carry umbrellas or flags. You can use the clipboard instead. Don't get the cheapest, they won't last.

• Glow sticks help your group find you when meeting up at night. I do trips to the winter Carnaval in Quebec City most years and after the night parade, the glowsticks make it really easy for the students (and adults) to find me before we make our way to meet the bus. They also make good prizes for the students when the group has some kind of dance or evening boat cruise on their itinerary.

• Blank cue cards, (also known as "recipe cards" from the days when recipes were hand written and passed down from generaiton to generation) are great for jotting down notes, or summarizing your itinerary so it's all there at a glance. If you are going someplace new, having some cheat notes handy can make you look like a pro as long as - and this is important - you do not have the cue cards out in front of your group while you are talking. While training some tour guides I saw one from another company standing at the Canadian National War Memorial in Ottawa reading facts to their group off their clipboard. I pointed it out to my team and told them if I ever saw one of them do that I would run over and drop kick the clipboard or cue cards out of their hands. SO unprofessional!

• A portable GPS that I can lend to the motor coach driver if he doesn't have one... and use myself when I need to. On the coach you want to be able to concentrate on the group and a GPS like one made by Garmin or Tom Tom is something that will help inexperienced drivers immensely with getting your group to dinner at that out-of-the-way student-friendly restaurant with the big parking lot for the bus. Useful indeed unless you are someplace like Boston or Quebec City where the GPS could insist on sending the bus down streets too narrow for it to navigate or on roads with underpasses too low to clear without shearing the roof off. Make sure the driver knows to trust their own judgement and pay attention to signs first instead of trusting the GPS implicitly. It really is useful though, and most drivers carry their own. I've used a GPS on trips to find out when the next highway rest stop is, or estimate a time of arrival back home so parents can be told when to pick up little Johnny or Sally at the school.

• A headlamp like the kind made by Petzl. You might have to read or look at something in low light while walking or riding on a bus. A headlamp loses major points for dorkiness until you actually see it in use. Then it only loses a few points for dorkiness but you can see what you need to see... hands free!

• A cell phone is also a no-brainer, but I've had to do trips without one (in Europe a couple of years ago, and for several years in the 90s before they became common). I recommend never doing a trip without one now - EVER. The clients expect you to have one and you look like a tool if they wonder why you don't use it in situations that certainly require a phone call. Just don't walk around witha  bluetooth headset stuck in your ear. Your client should hardly ever see your phone or you using it. Phone calls are best done "behind the scenes" to make magic happen. "How did the driver know we would be on this street corner?" Magic, baby!

• DVDs that have general appeal and are set in your group's destination. Later posts will feature suggested movies and DVDs based on destination.

• An extra pair of socks for each day on tour. Trust me! Midway through the day, or at the end of a long stretch of walking and talking, putting on a fresh pair of quality breathable socks is a little slice of heaven for your feet. Take care of your feet. Spend a bit of money on good socks that will keep your feet dry by wicking moisture away. I love Smartwool socks. The last forever and minimize sweat on your skin. Sweat creates friction which causes blisters and stink, and you don't want either.

• Stainless steel or aluminum water bottle so you never ever, ever buy bottled water again. Bottled water is evil. The bottles are terrible for the environment and the water is less regulated and therefore no safer or healthier than tap water. You should encourage your group to get bottles of their own (that they love and like to drink from) and always drink tap water (it's free!) unless the tap water is unsafe in that country or region. I love my new Laken Futura 0.75ml. Hey, it's got the same name as my pack! Sweet.

• A really good pocket map is incredibly useful. My pocket maps have helped lost tourists (not in my group) in New York City and Toronto understand my directions better, and has been incredibly useful when dealing with motor coach drivers. Even if you know the city like the back of your hand, there are still many uses for a great map. I really like the Streetwise laminated maps. Paper just doesn't last and bigger maps can't be read in a subtle way no matter how you fold them.

• GLO (Games of Low Organization) are simple and fun activities or games that can be learned by a group in a very short period of time (think tag, or duck duck goose) and can be used to energize the group, entertain them while "killing time" (which I call "taking advantage of bonus time") or to inject some fun into your tour. Most simple camp games serve the purpose. I have my favourites, which will be in a future post. See if you can come up with a twist of your own to tie the game into your tour and be sure to tell me about it!
  

That's my list off the top of my head. Please feel free to write me with your own suggestions or links to products or sites you think can help tour guides be better prepared. Contribute to the discussion on facebook!