A tour guide takes visitors on guided tours at historical or culturally relevant sites that are unfamiliar to them. Guides share interesting information and entertaining insight into the places to provide tourists with a more in-depth experience. Following the lead of a tour guide in a foreign place usually guarantees that you will not get lost, and you will find the best spot to see and have a great meal, or a fun night out.
Guides sometimes obtain vocational training in travel or tourism, but they are not required to have a degree to hold this position. Language skills are great to have, and experience in the service industry, such as hotels or travel trades, can also be useful.
You will be walking around a lot as a guide, so make sure you are at least more fit than the average tourist if you take on this job. You should not shy away from speaking in public. Unless you advertise yourself as a Zen guide, you will be expected to keep the info and fun titbits coming all day long.
Tour Guide Overview
Tour Guide Careers
There is more than meets the eye when it comes to being a tour guide. For example, did you know that they make an average of $14.19 an hour? That's $29,507 a year!
What Does a Tour Guide Do
When it comes to the most important skills required to be a tour guide, we found that a lot of resumes listed 17.6% of tour guides included local history, while 14.8% of resumes included customer service, and 12.8% of resumes included safety rules. Hard skills like these are helpful to have when it comes to performing essential job responsibilities.
When it comes to searching for a job, many search for a key term or phrase. Instead, it might be more helpful to search by industry, as you might be missing jobs that you never thought about in industries that you didn't even think offered positions related to the tour guide job title. But what industry to start with? Most tour guides actually find jobs in the education and hospitality industries.
How To Become a Tour Guide
If you're interested in becoming a tour guide, one of the first things to consider is how much education you need. We've determined that 65.7% of tour guides have a bachelor's degree. In terms of higher education levels, we found that 6.7% of tour guides have master's degrees. Even though most tour guides have a college degree, it's possible to become one with only a high school degree or GED.
Choosing the right major is always an important step when researching how to become a tour guide. When we researched the most common majors for a tour guide, we found that they most commonly earn bachelor's degree degrees or high school diploma degrees. Other degrees that we often see on tour guide resumes include associate degree degrees or master's degree degrees.
You may find that experience in other jobs will help you become a tour guide. In fact, many tour guide jobs require experience in a role such as internship. Meanwhile, many tour guides also have previous career experience in roles such as sales associate or volunteer.
What is the right job for my career path?
Tell us your goals and we'll match you with the right jobs to get there.
Tour Guide Career Paths
In addition to switching up your job search, it might prove helpful to look at a career path for your specific job. Now, what's a career path you ask? Well, it's practically a map that shows how you might advance from one job title to another. Our career paths are especially detailed with salary changes. So, for example, if you started out with the role of teacher you might progress to a role such as consultant eventually. Later on in your career, you could end up with the title general manager.
What is the right job for my career path?
Tell us your goals and we'll match you with the rights job to get there.
Average Salary for a Tour Guide
Best Paying Cities
Recently Added Salaries
Job TitleCompany  | Company | Start Date | Salary |
|---|---|---|---|
Alterra Mountain Co Guide Snowcat Tours-Winter Season Guide Snowcat Tours-Winter Season | Alterra Mountain Co Alterra Mountain Co | 01/29/2021 01/29/2021 | $26,08801/29/2021 $26,088 |
Steamboat Ski & Resort Corp. Guide Snowcat Tours-Winter Season Guide Snowcat Tours-Winter Season | Steamboat Ski & Resort Corp. Steamboat Ski & Resort Corp. | 01/29/2021 01/29/2021 | $26,08801/29/2021 $26,088 |
Hobart and William Smith Colleges Job Title: O'Laughlin Ambassador-Tour Guide Job Title: O'Laughlin Ambassador-Tour Guide | Hobart and William Smith Colleges Hobart and William Smith Colleges | 01/29/2021 01/29/2021 | $26,08801/29/2021 $26,088 |
San Diego Zoo Walking Tour Guide-Seasonal-SAN Diego Zoo Safari Park Walking Tour Guide-Seasonal-SAN Diego Zoo Safari Park | San Diego Zoo San Diego Zoo | 01/28/2021 01/28/2021 | $39,52801/28/2021 $39,528 |
Student Conservation Association Visitor Services/Tour Guide Crew Visitor Services/Tour Guide Crew | Student Conservation Association Student Conservation Association | 01/15/2021 01/15/2021 | $57,39301/15/2021 $57,393 |
Calculate your salary
Use Zippia's Salary Calculator to see how your pay matches up.
Tour Guide Resumes
Designing and figuring out what to include on your resume can be tough, not to mention time-consuming. That's why we put together a guide that is designed to help you craft the perfect resume for becoming a Tour Guide. If you're needing extra inspiration, take a look through our selection of templates that are specific to your job.
Learn How To Write a Tour Guide Resume
At Zippia, we went through countless Tour Guide resumes and compiled some information about how best to optimize them. Here are some suggestions based on what we found, divided by the individual sections of the resume itself.
View Detailed InformationTop Colleges for Tour Guides
1. Stanford University
Stanford, CA • Private
2. University of Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, PA • Private
3. University of Southern California
Los Angeles, CA • Private
4. Boston University
Boston, MA • Private
5. New York University
New York, NY • Private
6. George Washington University, The
Washington, DC • Private
7. Pennsylvania State University
University Park, PA • Public
8. Harvard University
Cambridge, MA • Private
9. Yale University
New Haven, CT • Private
10. Cornell University
Ithaca, NY • Private
Top Skills For a Tour Guide
- Local History, 17.6%
- Customer Service, 14.8%
- Safety Rules, 12.8%
- Public Speaking, 6.0%
- Large Groups, 5.8%
- Other Skills, 43.0% See All Tour Guide Skills
Best States For a Tour Guide
Some places are better than others when it comes to starting a career as a tour guide. The best states for people in this position are Hawaii, California, Alaska, and Maryland. Tour guides make the most in Hawaii with an average salary of $47,890. Whereas in California and Alaska, they would average $43,612 and $41,189, respectively. While tour guides would only make an average of $37,592 in Maryland, you would still make more there than in the rest of the country. We determined these as the best states based on job availability and pay. By finding the median salary, cost of living, and using the Bureau of Labor Statistics' Location Quotient, we narrowed down our list of states to these four.
1. California
$43,612
Avg. Salary
2. Alaska
$41,189
Avg. Salary
3. Ohio
$35,440
Avg. Salary
How Do Tour Guide Rate Their Jobs?
Top Tour Guide Employers
Tour Guide Videos
