Hiring a local guide in Syria

What a guide actually sells is covered on another page in this section, where the question is travelling alone against travelling on a tour. This page picks up one step later: you have decided you want a guide, so where do you find one and what has to be settled first.

Guide, driver and keyholder

The three get confused, and when they do both money and daylight go missing. The driver moves you; he is the one who knows whether the road is open today and which hour the checkpoint backs up. The guide explains the building, sets the order of the day and carries the language. The keyholder does none of that — he has the key and opens the door.

One person can hold two of these roles, and often does. What goes wrong is buying one and assuming you bought the other: a day spent with a driver and no guide tends to pass in silence in front of the buildings.

Where to find one

The route that works best is the hotel. Small hotels and courtyard guesthouses have guides they work with, and once the hotel stands between you there is somebody to talk to if the day goes wrong. The second route is an agency; if you are already in touch with one about a visa letter or a car with a driver, ask for a guide there too. The third is museum ticket desks and site staff, who in Damascus, Aleppo or Palmyra will name the people who actually know the ground.

The route that does not work is equally clear. Agreeing the same day with somebody who approaches you at a bus station or at the gate of a monument resets the chain to nothing. Bad faith is not the issue; the issue is having nobody to call when something goes wrong.

Licence and references

Guiding is a licensed trade and asking to see the licence is not rude. What the permit covers and how it is administered keep changing, so do not treat it as sufficient on its own; add two things. A reference first — can you exchange messages with a traveller who used them in the past six months. Then their own ground, because a guide who is excellent on a castle can be ordinary in a market, and the reverse happens too.

Leave the name, the phone number and the agreed date with your hotel or with someone at home. That is not suspicion. It is the chain, written down.

How the fee is agreed

A guide is paid by the day, not by the head. The daily rate is the same for one person and for three, which means it gets cheaper as it is divided. A half day is priced separately, and a day outside the city runs higher than a day inside it even when the car is billed apart.

No page on this site prints a figure, and the reason is the exchange rate. Get the range locally: ask the hotel, ask a traveller who went before you, ask two different guides. When you talk, settle five things one by one — how many hours, who pays museum entry, whose account lunch goes on, whether transport is included, and what happens if the day runs long. Payment is cash in local currency, and it is handed over at the end of the day rather than the start.

The language question

Half of guiding is language. Guides who speak English exist, but the level varies a great deal and what worked on the phone may not work on site. Talk for five minutes before you agree; a voice message or a call is enough. French is still heard among the older generation, Russian and German more rarely.

The second question is vocabulary. If you are coming for architecture or archaeology, whether a guide knows in your language what he knows in his own is a separate matter, so ask about words such as muqarnas, apse and spolia in advance. Opening the architectural glossary on this site and running through two or three terms measures the level in ten minutes.

Volunteer companions and students

Somebody may offer to walk with you and refuse payment: a student who wants to practise English, the son of a shopkeeper you met in the market, a man who started a conversation in a mosque. These offers are usually genuine, and hospitality in Syria does work this way. Two things are still worth settling at the start.

Money first, because a day that began with “I want nothing” can end as an expectation. Paying their transport, lunch and tea is both courteous and a clear line. Direction second: if the day ends at a shop, at a relative’s workshop or at a carpet dealer, it has stopped being a walk and become a sale. Thanking them and leaving at that point is taken as normal.

Women travellers and families

Women guides are few but they exist, and asking for one raises no eyebrows; through a hotel or an agency one can usually be found. For a woman travelling alone the practical measures are these: book through the hotel, finish the day before dark, take the back seat in the car, and move anything in the evening to the next morning. The page in this section on women travellers sets out the wider frame.

With children the measure is different. Cut the number of stops, put a break in that ends the day early in the afternoon, and tell the guide in advance that a child is coming. On a day with children the walking distance sets the programme, not the material.

Setting up the day

A good guide arranges the order before he explains anything. Courtyards and markets early, interiors or a museum through the heat, west-facing facades in the late afternoon — light and crowds sort the day out on their own. Say something yourself as well: not what you want to see, but what you want to understand. Architecture and daily life build two completely different days.

Ask two questions before the day ends. Which road is open tomorrow, and which section is under repair. What your guide learned today is what changes your plan tomorrow.