Sandemans Free Walking Tours in NYC, Europe, and the Middle East
Greetings from Barcelona! Yesterday, I went on a free walking tour of the city and wanted to share my thoughts on Sandemans Free Walking Tours. You may remember, I went on Sandemans tours in Hamburg, Germany and Copenhagen, Denmark in April (post).
Here is how Sandemans tours work:
- All tours are led by locals in English who also speak the local language (most guides are from English speaking countries who are now living in the local city).
- Tours last 2.5 to 3 hours with a small 15 minute break in the middle.
- You probably walk 3-4 miles total, so bring good tennis shoes or comfortable sandals.
- Average age of tourists are 22-30 years old, with some children, and some older adults.
- The guides know the streets and the history of the city like they grew up there.
- All tours are free, the tour guides rely on tips at the end of the tour. For my tour, there were probably 25-30 people and the average person tipped 2-3 Euros at the end of the tour, which results in 50-90 Euros for 3 hours of “work” for the tour guide.
- The tours promote their other paid tours and we decided to go on a Gaudi tour of Barcelona and a tapas tour of some of Barcelona’s best tapas restaurants.
Based on Trip Advisor reviews, Sandeman Tours are very popular:
Along with the three Sandemans Tours above, they have several similar tours in many major European and Middle Eastern cities, along with a NYC tour (link).
I recommend going on a free walking tour on your first day in the city, so you get a great overview of the city and you can return later to explore places that interest you.
There are other walking tour providers, but I have never had a bad experience with Sandemans. I am a bit bummer because I didn’t know they had tours in so many cities. I could have gone on one in Amsterdam, Berlin, Brussels, Dublin, London, Munich, and Paris.
If you have any questions, please leave a comment below.
Gaudi’s architecture is awesome – very Dr. Suess esque. My wife and I visited Barcelona last summer and Park Guell was one of our favorite parts of the trip.
Excellent, I only visited the Guell Palace, but hopefully I can visit the Park Guell today. Pics look awesome!
Hey Grant, can you do a story regarding the inability of cashing out the one vanilla and vanilla visas at walmart. That just hit last night.
I’m in France right now, I can’t really do much from here :(
I’ve been doing these for about 6-7 years now. They are great. Ive done them in about 10 cities. THIS is frugal travel and I always meet nice people on them.
You are the seasoned vet of Sandemans walking tours. Which tours/cities did you like the most? It’s hard to pick since they are all so well done.
I recently did their NY tour and it was one of the best I have taken in that city.
NYC sounds like a great place for a tour. I haven’t been to NYC since 1998 or so.
Hi Grant, do you mind to post a blog on how do you use miles and points for your current trip in Europe? like what kind of miles and points you used to cover this trip, what kind of credit cards and how did you earn it. I think it would be beneficial for some of us who have same or similar travel goal.
Sure, I can do that. I am pretty boring when it comes to Travel Bloggers, but this is a brief introduction to the trip. I am travelling with my parents and my brother, so we got 4 economy tickets on Air Berlin from LAX-DUS-BCN (30,000 AA miles each). Returning flight will be 4 economy tickets on Lufthansa from MAD-MUC-LAX (30,000 UA miles each). I will go into more depth regarding the credit cards and miles in the main post. The rental car is from Hertz and we are staying at 2 Airbnb apartments and 2 other apartments found on Booking.com. Are you more interested in the booking process or how we acquired the frequent flyer miles (credit cards)?