Guide Me Local is a curated travel platform that brings together passionate local guides, artisans, hosts, and storytellers to create meaningful travel experiences.
We move beyond checklists and crowded itineraries focusing instead on culture, people, stories, and slow discovery. Every experience is thoughtfully designed, locally hosted, and deeply rooted in its place.
Guide Me Local was founded by two college friends who travelled together, discovered the world together and eventually built a life together.
In their 20s, they began to believe travel should mean more than ticking boxes. Drawn to art, culture, and local cuisine, they often found themselves stuck in unfamiliar cities — not because there was nothing to see, but because the right people were missing. Local guides were unavailable, monuments stood impressive yet unexplained, and beautiful handicrafts were admired without knowing who made them, whether they were truly local, or why they mattered.
So they did what curious travellers naturally do — they started asking. Shopkeepers pointed them to hidden eateries, artisans opened doors to workshops, and locals shared stories no guidebook mentioned. Piece by piece, the city began to reveal itself.
That’s when they noticed the gap: for travellers who genuinely care about art, culture, and authenticity, reaching these experiences required effort, luck, and countless conversations.
Guide Me Local was created to bring those moments together — and make them easier to find.
Not a tour marketplace.
A community built around local stories, meaningful connections, and travel that leaves places — and people — richer than before.
Aisha meets Tiago. The idea for a guide network "of locals, by locals" is scribbled on a napkin that still hangs in our first office.
Twelve locals across three cities — Lisbon, Porto, and Seville — sign on. Every single booking is still arranged by hand, over WhatsApp.
With travel paused, we spend the year building vetting standards, fair pay structures, and the matching system that powers every trip today.
We open across Europe and South-East Asia. Our 1,000th trip is guided by Tiago — the same fisherman who started it all.
Guide Me Local crosses into the Americas and East Africa. Guides start hosting themed trails: food, craft, music, dawn markets.
Over 2,400 local guides, a fair-pay guarantee, and one rule that hasn't changed since the napkin: every trail is led by someone who actually lives there.
Every place has something special to offer. We simply help travellers experience it well.
A trip is more than a list of places. It's the version of yourself that shows up to meet them — a little slower, a little more open, paying attention in a way that ordinary life rarely allows. That's what we're really designing for.