Our turbulent 21st century dictates its own rules. A generation of people is growing before our eyes, which prefers to order everything directly to their home. Whether it's food from the supermarket or paying for plane or train tickets. Every year there are fewer queues at the ticket offices of airports and railway stations, because all tickets can be ordered and paid online, the same happens with excursions.

At the moment, there are several services with which you can order and pay for excursions online without leaving your home. And in this note, as it is not difficult to guess from the title, we will tell you about one of the most popular excursion services -.

Trypster.ru - a project that has been conducting individual excursions in 300 cities of the world since 2013. During this time, the site has earned a solid reputation and literally overgrown with positive reviews from enthusiastic customers. The creators of the project conceived it as a service of unusual excursions with an individual approach to each traveler.

Tripster is ready to offer you:

  • Guides who have eyes on their own tours... Among them are only interesting and enthusiastic people: historians, art historians, architects, journalists. They themselves, "from and to", specially develop their routes so that you will be breathtaking with impressions!
  • Original excursions... “No banal excursions” - this is the motto of the Trypster.ru team. Each path contains mystery and adventure. Whether traveling through the rooftops of the city or museums of modern art.
  • Individual approach... The service does not conduct tours for a crowd of tourists with a banal memorized historical background. Everything is different here. All the attention of the guide is only for you and your companions.

Tripster News: Black Friday with Tripster

From November 23 to November 26, 2017, Tripster offers discounts on numerous destinations, including almost all European capitals and not only!

You can find out more about the promotion.

Official site of the Tripster

Official site Tripster.ru (Tripster.ru) -. Answers to fAQ and customer reviews -.

The Trypster.ru service allows you to:

  • Choose on the website a unique author's excursion, which was invented by the guide himself. Read everything about it and the guide in more detail, get acquainted with the reviews of those who have already visited it.
  • In advance, online, book a date and time convenient for you.
  • Talk to your guide before paying for the tour without leaving your home.
  • Pay not the entire amount at once, but only 16% of the cost of the tour. The rest is paid already on the spot to the guide. Moreover, if your excursion does not take place for one reason or another, the money will be returned to you in full.

As you can see, the terms of the site are transparent and very simple, and the services are designed to provide an individual approach to each customer.

Pros of booking excursions online at Tripster.ru

If we talk in a broad sense about the benefits of buying excursions online, we will highlight the following:

  • it gives you freedom, which is very suitable for people who like to plan their trip themselves and not depend on tour operators.
  • it saves you time - you no longer need to surf the Internet for hours collecting information about excursions, the entire list with a description and cost is already on the site in front of your eyes.
  • it keeps your nerves in peace - you no longer need to bargain with local ticket sellers for excursions and worry that you can be deceived (whoever bought a tour from the hands of local residents at least once knows what it is about).

In the case of the Tripster, it is also important to understand one more thing - the site presents a unique product that you simply will not find from tour operators!

More about ordering and paying for excursions on Trypster.ru

I was really captivated by the idea of \u200b\u200beverything free in this world and especially such opportunities in travel! Only if recently I myself "ate free cheese", now I decided to return the favor to the dear Universe and do something good, of course, for free!

Get approval from above and beyond by email follow the news in a group where announcements of applications for gritters periodically appear;

The first "Catch" an interesting foreigner for you (not forgetting to correlate your language and other possibilities with the wishes of the guest) and declare your desire to become a grinder for him at certain days and hours;

From the project coordinator get guest contacts, promptly contact him and arrange a meeting, not forgetting about feedback with the coordinator, so that he is aware of what is happening;

meet the guest, take a walk, chat, enjoy mutual acquaintance, as well as take a joint photo (even a selfie) and ask for feedback about the trip on the Tripadvisor website: link for St. Petersburg and for Moscow;

continue hunting for new foreign guests in your city!

Directly about your experience of participating in this project I can tell you a little for now, as my gritting debut took place quite recently. I was going to show Dostoevsky's Petersburg to an aspiring Italian photographer, but in the end we walked around, it seems, the entire historical center of the city, since the weather and free time allowed it. In addition to traditional conversations about Russian culture (vodka-girls-bears), during the walk I took my new acquaintance to the famous Pyshechnaya on Bolshaya Konyushennaya, and the end of the excursion was a delicious dinner, which I got as a "thank you" for the hospitality. Frankly, it was nice)

She shared with me a much richer experience of "hospitality" one of the most active Moscow gritters Vera Kukoleva…

Vera, tell us, please, what curious cases happened to your excursionists in Russia?

It is very touching to observe how foreigners diligently try to learn to read in Russian and memorize basic expressions. Instead of a long and terribly difficult “hello”, sometimes we get a familiar “hello!”, Which tourists intend to demonstrate their politeness in shops and hotels. Well, and "Pestopach" instead of "Restaurant" - everyone knows the story.

Once excursionists from America asked "where do I usually buy nesting dolls." Immediately I imagined how every weekend I go to the sales of Russian folk toys at a student discount. I had to tell that almost only tourists buy nesting dolls.

What negative emotions can you get from gritting?

Negative impressions from excursions are extremely rare. Rather, they are the exceptions, confirming the rule that gritting always brings only joy. Sometimes it is a shame when guests are not at all interested in anything related to the history of the city, its architecture. Such people just want to “chat for life,” and the preparation of the excursion turns out to be useless. And for each walk I thoroughly prepare in advance: I select material, try to find something new and interesting.

The project is free, but it's always nice to get a "thank you" for your work. In what ways did foreign guests thank you?

It is very pleasant when guests bring me souvenirs from their country. Once a group from Brussels presented a box of real Belgian chocolate (tasty, tasty!), And tourists from Italy brought a traditional Neapolitan pendant for luck. Some foreigners, knowing that the program is free, want to express their gratitude with a tip and pay for the excursion, but I never take money: for me it spoils the beauty of the walk.

Grieter's meeting with tourists is like meeting good friends. We communicate at ease, exchange stories about life in Russia and abroad. I give my guests advice on how best to spend time in Moscow, where to go, how not to get lost in the metro. Often we stay in touch after a walk and really stay friends for a long time. Who would think of taking money from friends? Therefore, I refuse to "pay" on principle.

I thank Vera for a piece of her experience, which she shared with us, and I hasten to torment you with questions. the creator of the Moscow gritting community Alexei Sotskov…

Alexey, please tell us about how the idea of \u200b\u200bcreating such a project was born?

Several years ago, I was planning to travel to New York and was looking for free guided tours there by the residents themselves. Stumbled upon the Big Apple Greeter community, created to combat the stereotype that New York is a gang city. Local volunteers showed the guests not famous sights, but the real life of the American metropolis, which turned out to be not so dangerous.

I really liked the idea of \u200b\u200bthis project and decided to organize something similar in Moscow. The focus was on linguistic students who lack language practice. There are many speaking clubs and thematic lectures in foreign languages, but you usually have to pay to participate in them. And excursions for foreign guests are free conversational practice, and even in an extremely informal atmosphere. In many cities, gritters are mostly aged people who have a lot of free time, while in Russia, on the contrary, there are more youth.

To what extent is this an official organization and does it have some kind of "head unit" in charge of all regional ones?

So far, everything is run by the virtual Global Greeter Network, which, however, has its own real president and even several departments responsible for marketing, admitting new members, etc. Meetings of the worldwide guitar community are held annually in various cities. There are plans to transfer the activities of the organization into an "official channel", but so far this is all at the design stage. It's funny, but some members of the Global Greeter Network, for example, all the same Big Apple Greeter exist in a completely official form and are even sponsored by the city hall.

With this kind of support, I suspect the New York Gritters community is the most developed among its international counterparts.

That's right, Big Apple Greeters are the most advanced, because they stood at the origins of the movement, which originated already in 1992, while their "official bosses" of the Global Greeter Network appeared only in 2005. At the moment, the New York Gritters Association has more than 70 people who conduct about 150 excursions per month. True, it should be noted that such a high figure is achieved at the expense of domestic tourists, that is, Americans from other states. We, unlike Big Apple Greeter, are more focused on working with guests from abroad.

Then let's just move on to the Russian gratter movement, tell us a little about its performance.

The Moscow community of gritters will soon be 4 years old, and the St. Petersburg community has been operating for only 10 months. 70 participants are registered in the capital, Northern capital - about 40. As for the number of excursions, it very much depends on the time of year. During the season in Moscow, about 50 walks with foreign guests are held per month, and in winter - only 20. In St. Petersburg, the figures are still quite modest: only 40 excursions since the creation of the community. However, it should be noted that the number of interested tourists is increasing every year, so we hope that we will continue to grow and develop!

I can only thank Alexey for the interesting conversation and wish the gritters of both capitals more interesting guests from all over the world!

Standard excursions are becoming a thing of the past, when a crowd of tourists tries to keep up with the guide at the same time, take a picture, remember at least something from a speech full of numbers, dates, historical references... In the 21st century, an individual approach that takes into account the needs of each client wins, which it can boast of. Clients are offered an exclusive, created by a person who knows everything about his city and is able to captivate and intrigue the traveler.

Who conducts the tour

In places where tourists gather, both in megalopolises and in small towns, there will certainly be people of a creative mind who have a considerable store of knowledge. Among them may be professional historians and ethnographers, library workers, journalists and architects, teachers and art historians. The main thing is that these are caring, enthusiastic, sociable people with whom it is very interesting to spend time.

The future guide registers on the Tripster.ru website, undergoes an interview, introduces a topic, gets help in creating a unique project. The authors set their own prices, but the competition is very high, so it is not in their interests to overcharge the service.

People's comments on excursion trips are full of gratitude and appreciation, allowing you to better understand the specifics of the project.

Features of the project

Created in 2013, the Tripster project began as a social club where tourists exchanged experiences and shared valuable tips. As the community grew, it turned into a regime of autonomy, and in a few years it turned into a kind of travel club. Customers who have registered on the site are offered unusual excursions, sponsored by local residents.

Indeed, who else will be able to tell about the history, customs, curious facts from the life of the city and its inhabitants so captivatingly, competently? The walk, organized according to the author's script, will show local sights from an unexpected perspective. From local residents, a tourist learns information about which guides from hotels or tour agencies never tell.

The first experiences of amateur excursions were successful and brought new customers. Russian-speaking guides, well versed in various fields, from wine and coffee to high art, were sought in all corners of the world. If you have something to tell about your city, you can try your hand and earn extra money.

In addition to the standard trips to iconic places, tourists:

  • explore the hidden corners of the city;
  • go up to rooftops and sink into the ground;
  • taste different types of coffee and tea;
  • get acquainted with the technology of wine production;
  • try their hand at pottery and painting;
  • attend master classes in national dances;
  • go backstage theatrical.

Family excursions, interesting to all family members, regardless of age, turned out to be in great demand. These are walks for curious why, the wonders of the Moscow Kremlin, the skyscrapers of Moscow City. For children from 14 years old, exciting quests with treasure hunt, riddles and prizes are offered.

The tripster provides the client with new opportunities:

  • non-standard approach;
  • individual programs;
  • an extensive selection of excursions around the world (409 cities);
  • preliminary online booking;
  • payment on the spot;
  • security guarantee.

Service designed for independent travelers... Mass excursions with a large number of people are not provided. Everything is purely individual. The group includes only you and your companions. The guide himself sets the maximum number of wards, as a rule, no more than 10 people.

© evergreenkamal / flickr.com / CC BY 2.0

How to choose and book an excursion

So you've decided on a trip and want to make it interesting and meaningful. Your actions:

  • go to the official website;
  • enter the selected city or country in the window;
  • read the offers and mark the option you like - look at the number of stars and read the reviews;
  • select a free day in the calendar and set a convenient time;
  • contact the guide and discuss the details;
  • enter your data (last name, first name, phone number, email address);
  • pay 16-20% of the total cost;
  • the rest of the amount you give personally to the guide.

Users highly appreciated the benefits of shopping tours online. You get freedom of action, do not depend on the tour operator, save time and save your nerves. The agreement, which is concluded between the client and the site administration, guarantees security and is legally binding.

Payment details

People don't like paying in advance for services. The service provides the user with the opportunity to first get acquainted with the future guide and make sure that the excursion program suits him.

At the first stage, communication takes place in the form of correspondence on the site. Having finally decided, you transfer the advance payment to the guide. This can be done using Visa or Mastercard.

After this operation, you will receive the guide's phone number. He, in turn, opens your number, and you can keep in touch until the appointed time.

The main payment is made immediately before the tour. If for some reason the meeting does not take place, the money will be returned to the card in full.

© [email protected] / flickr.com / CC BY 2.0

Tripster promotions

To get back some of the money spent on the purchase of the excursion, Authorization on the site allows you to use promotions, discounts, often timed to coincide with some significant date or before the holidays.

The site contains promotional codes of both periodic and permanent action.

If you set a goal and track discount information, you can save from 5% to 10%. To use a nice gift:

  • go in;
  • select an excursion by clicking the "Order" button;
  • specify the date and time;
  • enter the current, not currently, promotional code in the box at the bottom of the page.

The decision must be made quickly. Short promotional codes are valid for a short period of time - from 2 days to a week. Long-term promotions are an exception, but the discount percentage will be lower.

The project continues to develop, covering new, unknown corners of the planet. As a result, you will fill your vacation with new experiences and meet smart, passionate people. You won't be bored!

Many independent travelers have long mastered the skill of organizing excursions on their own, but such events do not always take place in the most informative manner. Sightseeing tours bought from agencies can result in a fairly large amount, and walking in a crowd of tourists, trying to catch at least a fraction of the information, is not always comfortable. Therefore, today excursions from local residents are gaining more and more popularity. This option is very convenient, because it assumes an individual approach, takes into account all the wishes of the tourist and, in general, can carry much more interesting information than a standard excursion from a guide. Where to find local residents who know everything about their city, and how to order a tour from them, we will tell you in detail in our article.

What is Tripster?

In 2013, an interesting resource appeared on the Internet under the name, which was originally a kind of platform for those who like to travel, within which tourists exchanged their opinions and gave recommendations on visiting a particular attraction. But in just a few months the site has transformed into a real travel club, where an opportunity has opened up to negotiate with local residents about organizing excursions.

Today on the site you can order individual tours attractions in 485 cities around the world. More than 210 thousand people used the services of the service in 2018 alone, most of whom were satisfied with the service they received. And there is nothing to be surprised at: after all, the guides are local residents, very creative and enthusiastic people who know much more about their city than employees of travel agencies.

Who will be interested in the service?

Tripster is primarily aimed at solo travelers, not package travelers. The site provides an opportunity to find unusual excursions from local residents who, in addition to standard sightseeing walks, will show you secret corners, organize tasting tours and allow you to plunge into the cultural life of the city.



Curious and active tourists who are bored with monotonous excursions will find Tripster especially attractive. As part of these events, travelers manage to climb lesser-known rooftops for the best views of the city and descend underground, test their creativity in pottery, art and dance, track winemaking technology, and sample various teas and coffees. As a rule, excursions from Russian-speaking local residents are as rich as possible and fully meet the interests of tourists.

Benefits and Features

The Tripster website services have a number of important benefits, including:


  1. Wide range of excursions. As we mentioned above, Tripster organizes tours to 433 cities around the world. Several guides can work at one facility at once, so it will not be difficult to find a suitable option here. And in addition to the most popular destinations on the site, you can also find little-known cities, the locals of which are ready to create all the conditions for tourists to get the most complete significant places... It is noteworthy that today excursions from local to local are in great demand. So, for example, residents of Moscow often go to a company with a guide who combines a story about objects with exciting quests, puzzles and prizes.
  2. Taking into account individual requirements. This is one of the most important advantages of Tripster. Firstly, the excursion will be formed exclusively for you and your companions, and you will not find outsiders at the event. Many guides from local residents recruit a group where the maximum number of people does not exceed 10. If there are more of you, then this issue is discussed individually with the guide. Secondly, the tour will be organized according to your interests. To understand how important this is, it is worth remembering at least the guides from Turkey or Egypt, with whom the main part of the excursion takes place at the factories of textiles, leather and carpets, rather than at the sight itself.
  3. Possibility to book a tour in advance. If you know the exact dates of your trip, you can use Tripster to book your tour in advance. And this is very convenient, because you do not have to look for the right person on your own, spending precious time on this. A good guide will take care of all the nuances of the walk and will try to do it in the best possible way.
  4. Possibility to speak with a tour guide before booking a tour. The site provides for communication with local residents providing their services. You can ask them any questions you are interested in and only then make a decision on the reservation. And after making an advance payment, you will be provided with the contact number of the guide. Thus, you will have the opportunity to contact him and discuss all the details in more detail.
  5. Small amount of an advance payment. After you agree with a local about an excursion, you need to pay 20% of the total cost of the service. This is done so that the guide is sure of the seriousness of your intentions: after all, you are booking a certain time in which other customers will be refused. You give the rest of the amount to the guide in person.
  6. Promotions and discounts. Tripster often offers discounts to its users. To take full advantage of the promotions, you must register on the site. You can often find various promotional codes here: some of them are valid for only a few days, but provide a good discount (up to 10%), others are longer, but the discount amount in this case will be small (up to 5%).

How to book a tour?

So, if the dates of the trip are determined, and the travel plan is drawn up, it's time to take care of the main part of the tour - excursions. Using the Tripster website is quite simple, but we decided to compile for you detailed instructions on how to work with the system.

Step 1. Finding a suitable option

We are on the main page of the site, where you can see two search boxes at once: one "Where are you going" - in the middle at the top and the second "Where are you going" - in the center. Both lines serve the same function. We enter the direction we need in any of them (in our case it will be) and click on the "Find" button.

At our request, the system was able to find 28 offers. To clarify the parameters of our search, we will use the form above, in which we indicate the dates we need, the number of people and the price range. Then we click on the "Find" tab.

After adjusting the parameters, the number of offers was reduced to 3. In order to familiarize yourself with the excursions presented by local residents, click on the photos.

A new window opens in front of us, where you can see information about the guide, information about the excursion itself, as well as a booking calendar. Busy days are highlighted in pink, free days in green. Below, under the calendar, there are reviews of tourists who have already used the services of this local resident. Be sure to read other travelers' opinions on the guide and his organizing skills. Having studied the information on all three proposals, we opted for the most budgetary option with a large number of positive reviews. Now we click on the date we need in the presented calendar and go to the next step.

After we clicked on the planned date, a form appeared in front of us. It is important to indicate the day of the proposed excursion, the number of tourists, name and surname, e-mail address and telephone number. Below is a field in which you can ask the guide all your questions. We draw your attention to the fact that by filling out this form, you are not yet booking an excursion, but only declare your intention. You can make a final reservation after the guide answers the questions.

When you make the final decision on booking an excursion, you need to make a prepayment for the service. It is 20% of the total amount of the tour. Payment can be made using a bank card or bank transfer. We choose a convenient method in the appropriate form. Here you can ask a question to the organizers and cancel the order if you are not satisfied with the guide's answers.

After payment, you will receive a notification of the completed operation on your email. You will pay the rest at a personal meeting with the guide. This is how the site works with excursions from local residents.

Can I cancel my reservation

If you made an advance payment, but suddenly the trip is interrupted, I am ready to return the funds to you. The main thing in this situation is to contact the guide as soon as possible and inform him about the cancellation of the reservation. After that, it is important to notify the site support service by writing a letter to the administration to the address [email protected] Funds will be refunded according to the system's return policy:

  1. money will be refunded in full if you inform about the cancellation of the reservation at least 5 days before the scheduled excursion
  2. if the cancellation occurs less than 5 days before the agreed meeting, then the site is ready to refund the prepayment only if the trip is interrupted for reasons beyond the tourist's control (for example, flight cancellation)

It is also important to consider that if a local resident, having agreed with you, spent his own money on the purchase of entrance tickets or made other expenses that cannot be compensated for when canceling the tour, the prepayment will be refunded minus the amount spent by him.

Output

Guided tours by locals are a tempting alternative to the standard tourist walks. On the one hand, they provide an opportunity to enjoy the sights of interest to you in an individual format, on the other hand, they reveal much more interesting information about the objects. At the same time, the organization of the walk takes place on a convenient day for you, taking into account only your interests.

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