Guiding Better with Nikki Padilla Rivera: Season 2 Replay

In this special replay episode, we revisit one of Season 2: Voices of Women’s most popular episodes! Christine hosts a soulful conversation with Nikki Padilla Rivera, Co-Founder of The Global Guide Alliance. After a career of guiding of her own in NYC, Nikki created and ran the Guide Program for Intrepid’s Urban Adventures, creating a community amongst 1500+ guides in 160+ cities around the world. She believes that travel should benefit a local place and that guides are in the perfect position to educate travelers on how to protect and appreciate their destinations.

Christine and Nikki discuss:

• How travel guides continue to be left out of the conversation of moving the travel industry forward
• How guides are the perfect people to educate travelers on connecting with and caring for destinations and communities
• Travel guides taking ownership of the travel experience
• Bringing the female perspective into guides and travel leadership

Join Christine now for this soulful conversation with Nikki Padilla Rivera.

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To read our episode blog post, access a complete transcript, see full show notes, and find resources and links mentioned in this episode, head to the Soul of Travel Website. 

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Guide Together - ShareTheLove

Check out the Global Guide Alliance and TripKinetics!

Visit Atlas Obscura to find trips designed by experienced travelers, including Nikki.

Connect with Nikki on Instagram, LinkedIn, and visit The Global Guide Alliance on Instagram.

Listen to Christine’s Season 2 interview with Rosette Dekool & Hannah Bamwerinde of Adventures With Locals on the Soul of Travel Podcast.

Looking for ways to be a part of the Lotus Sojourns community? Learn more here!

Find Lotus Sojourns on Facebook, or join the Lotus Sojourns Collective, our FB community for like-hearted women. Find solo travel trips for women over 50 on JourneyWoman.

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Credits. Christine Winebrenner Irick (Host, creator, editor). Nikki Padilla Rivera (Guest). Original music by Clark Adams. Editing, production, and content writing by

Transcript

Christine: Welcome to the Soul of Travel podcast. I'm your host, Christine Wine Runner Irik. We are wrapping up season four of the Soul of Travel Podcast. In the meantime, we want to celebrate our soul of travel community and share some of the most listened to episodes of the past four seasons. In these best of replays, you'll hear from the guests who were interviewed on the most popular episodes from each of the past seasons. They'll give us a quick update on where they are now and share some of their favorite soul of travel moments. It is so great to be able to reflect back and reconnect with these guests. If you missed their episodes, I know you'll love hearing from them, and if you already listened in the past, I think you're going to love hearing their updates and listening again to learn new insights from these women creating a positive impact in travel. I cannot wait to be back with all new episodes in November. Until then, enjoy this soulful replay.

Nikki: Hey, I am Nikki Padilla Rivera, co-founder of The Global Guide Alliance, and apparently a lot of you listened to my episode about tour guides on season two, which is pretty cool. Christine and I had a really great conversation on how make or break a tour guide really is to a travel experience and how that unfortunately doesn't really translate in terms of how guides are treated in the industry, where they're still really left out of the conversation, seen as low level interchangeable customer facing employees. Since my episode is aired, there has been a trend of guides becoming more entrepreneurial, running their own tours as opposed to just freelancing for bigger companies. And in doing so, they're really taking ownership of the guest experience, challenging the status quo of what the common narrative tends to be in their destination, which often isn't from a female perspective. For example, the Women Behind Adventures with Locals in Uganda, which is another great episode you might want to catch on season two.

If you're a tour guide or we're thinking about getting into tour guiding, I'm actually running a guide conference in Vienna in two weeks. If you're listening to this in October, called Guide Together and listeners can grab 50% off tickets with the code, share the Love, you can see more information as well as future guide events. We'll be running@globalguidealliance.com. Thanks again for listening to this conversation on guides and to other conversations happening in Sold Travel. While women continue to be the number one purchasers of travel experiences, we're still sorely underrepresented at decision-making levels, and the industry can often feel like this old school boys club if

Nikki: You're not forging your own way, which takes energy. So listening to and sharing these stories, supporting these change makers gives us that energy to keep pushing forward. Thanks for listening.

Christine: Nikki Padilla Rivera is the founder of Trip Kinetics and works to empower guides through training and advocacy. She bridges the communication gap between tour operators and their teams to result in consistently branded high quality experiences that generate word of mouth marketing. Previously, after a career of guiding in New York City, Nikki created and ran the guide program for Intrepids Urban Adventures, creating a community amongst over 15,000 guides and 160 cities around the world. She believes that travel should benefit a local place and that guides are the perfect people to educate travelers on how to protect and appreciate their destinations. In our conversation, we focus on the often overlooked topic of guides in tourism, the importance and value of our guides in our travel experiences, and how we can empower them to step more fully into this role. We share about some of her experiences as a guide as well as times we were really inspired by the person leading our trips. This is a place she and I can spend a long time thinking and speaking, and I love diving deeper into this topic and look forward to hearing how it inspires you. Join me now for my soulful conversation with Nikki Padilla

Christine: Rivera. I am really excited to be bringing this conversation to the table and to this audience and for people just to gain a little bit more of an understanding of what it looks like in the space of being a tour operator in the travel industry. Sorry, a travel guide in the travel industry. So Nikki, I'm going to turn it over to you and give you the opportunity to introduce yourself. Tell us a little bit about Trip Kinetics and the work that you're doing.

Nikki: Yeah, so I'm so excited to be talking about this. It is how we connected, right? It was like, oh, someone else who's interested in talking about tour guides. I call myself a tour guide educator and advocate recently is what I've been using because I feel like in my job I work with tour guides, training tour guides, I work with tour operators. I basically translate between tour operators and tour guides because there's such a huge gap between those two worlds and it leads to a lot of friction. And I firmly believe that any challenge a tour operator can be solved with a happy guide team. So I usually work on that end with through the tour guides to help their guides. But I also put out through trip kinetic tons of free resources for guides as well, just kind empowering guides to really understand the importance of their job and encouraging them to have constant evolution.

I think so often guides, we get used to what we're doing, we get into our flow and we kind of repeat that again and again, but it's better for everyone. The guide included to just keep learning and growing. And then on the industry side, just constantly reminding people that guides are the most important piece. We cannot have tours without guides, the best marketing, the best tours useless. At the end of the day, it is just the guide and the customers and just so many decisions are made, which I'm sure we'll get into, but without guides really in mind. They're made for business purposes or for marketing purposes, but then it trickles down the guides, the one who kind of has to bear the brunt of these new technologies that are being used or new systems. And so I'm always kind of there, but remember the guides in the background.

Christine: Yeah, I think it's such an interesting discussion and a way at looking at the industry because as you said, from a business perspective, we're always worried about all these other things. We have to get the travelers on the trip. And so then we have to market, we have to create these itineraries, we have to create these products. And it almost feels like at the end of the day, once all that's done, you're like, we did it. But then a month later is when your guide is meeting your travelers wherever they are. And really it's where it all begins from that perspective. And so I can see the disconnect, and I was thinking about this as I was preparing to speak with you today about where some of that disconnect can happen, and is it the interpretation of the value of a guide based on maybe a mindset of, I'm trying to think of if you just show up at some destination as an independent traveler, and there's the person that gets assigned to your group as you walk through some museum or themed area or something like that, and they are a guide, but they're also maybe likely hired to work for the summer and aren't really invested fully in the experience.

And so we have that connotation of a guide, and I think that's even the one that's maybe mainstream in media, the ones we poke fun at, the ones that we have this social conception of a travel guide, or maybe even lumping that in with the funny stereotypes of flight attendants, or there's this conception of people who don't really necessarily have a lot of skill or education or value that are just taking this job, which is not true. And we know being in this industry both for a flight attendant or for a tour guide, none of that is true, but it's like this weird media perception that sometimes gets carried over. And then for you and I, we were talking about being really lucky to work with companies where guides are known as the critical linchpin to the success of their businesses in educational travel or experiential travel where the guides are fully shaping your experience. So there's this huge spectrum of what part guides play or shown to play in the industry. So I was just wondering how that resonates with you and where you think that spins this conversation.

Nikki: Yeah, I mean, wow, that's really well said. And it's interesting to think about that. What is the perception of guides? And to be clear, we're going to probably use that word generically, but we could be talking about everything from a museum Dawson to a tour leader that's the host for a multi-day trip. But I think there is, it's that picture I have in my head at least of the guide with the orange flag trailing a bus full of whoever. And it's true in that we think of them, I don't know necessarily that there's a betrayal that they are low skilled because we can acknowledge that they have knowledge to give that tour, but low skilled in the sense that they're treated as an unskilled laborer and that they're replaceable, which is really interesting to me. They're definitely, yes, for the most part, they're freelance with very few exceptions, but they're very much seen by companies as replaceable.

You get them in, hopefully keep the good ones, but if not more are going to come in. And I think that's the real disconnect to the job isn't treated as this highly educated job when in fact it is the most skilled job. And even those two extremes, the museum Dawson, obviously we're talking PhD level often, and then to the tour leader, the trip leader, tour director, maybe they're not giving information per se, but they also have to have a general knowledge of a lot of places and they have to have the most incredible people skills. I come from a tour guiding background, and I did a little bit of tour directing, not my cup of tea. I found it horrible. You're just on call 24 hours, you're dealing with lots of, and you're just responsible basically for everything that you have no control over, be it the weather or the way servers treat your group or that one annoying person on a trip.

So the amount of skills that a tour guide needs is actually incredible. But I agree with you that that perception is there, and I almost feel like that's why guides are treated as this very dismissed group because it's like, oh, but they'll float around or they won't be guides forever where that's just not the case. I mean, if you look at torqued education these places in Europe, India is like this. A lot of places in Asia where you literally have to go to school for six plus years to get that license. I mean, the training is incredible, but you're learning that very old school sense of facts. You learn facts, you learn some people's skills, but it's more about how to get out the architecture, how to get out second century Romans or whatever specifics it is. And on the other hand, you have what I'll call the Airbnb guide who has zero guide training at all. They're just a great personality and a host, and I would just love for all of us collectively to meet in the middle. There's a little bit we want to take from this guide. There's a little bit we want to take from this guide, but I think that in-between space is where I'd love to see all guides be. No matter where, if you're giving a big bus tour, that's fine, that pays the money. Or if you're giving a super niche cultural immersive tour, I think we should all have the same standard of guiding.

Christine: And I would think that the people who I recall as guides that really offered me a valuable experience, they had what you said, they had a lot of education. They could tell me what this flower was and this spider was and why they're important in this ecosystem, but they could also say, this is the fruit that my grandmother makes my favorite whatever out of. And then they have that friendly and approachable and knowledgeable, and they're also making sure so-and-so stepping on the thing that's poisonous. And obviously I'm traveling in places that people are, maybe not because that I just put myself in Paris and I'm like, well, they're not stepping on anything poisonous or whatever, but it shows how I travel, getting eaten or stuck. Poor guy, they have a really, really hard trip. But yeah, there's all of these skills and then you check into the hotel and then you're the person that is also making sure everybody is getting the room that they want. And when the heater doesn't work, who do they come to? And then when they order the vegan meal, that's not actually available because there was a miscommunication in the home office or it is, it's such a wide set

Skillset. And to be able to pull through that and to do it with ease and patience and confidence and likability, it's a mastery that it's really challenging.

Nikki: And when you see guides to do it well, I mean it literally brings tears to my eyes because that's something to think too. Not to say that the majority of guides are bad, but the level, I'm trying to be very careful how I word this, the level of quality and service that is currently demanded by the majority demographic of travelers, let's say it's pretty average. The average traveler is used to, as we're saying, the tour guide with the umbrella or the water bottle and the 50 people, that's what they expect. So the bar is pretty low, which is a good thing I think. But when you see that guide who is putting all their energy into it and has very thoughtfully crafted through how they're going to communicate something, but also has the skill to be flexible and read the room when you see that it's rare to be honest, because it's also going to maintain that during a high season tour after tour. It's just not realistic. But when you see it, it's like magic. And I mean, these are the experiences where people are going home, literally their life has been changed, and that's where the power comes in, right? Again, I'm not saying it's easy by any means, but when you can achieve that, you can literally change people's perception of the world, and that's crazy. What other job does that?

Christine: Yeah, and I know that was one thing that we landed on when we talked before when we were preparing for this call, is the opportunity for education for travel guides and how again, a skilled guide can really infuse this into your experience. So as a traveler, you're never feeling like unless it's the trip that you are taking where you want to feel like you're constantly being educated, but where you can travel and really learn about the culture and the ethics, the religion, all these things that you can bring to the table and the conversation and plant these seeds that then will be the thing that we take home and really are transformed by. And so it's like the holy grail of positions really for me, as someone who's passionate about creating community and education, awareness and connection, that's your person making all of that land. And I'm a one woman business, so I do all the things. So that is me at the end of the day. But when I think about bringing on someone eventually to help me, I'm like, who's going to do this with as much heart and conviction and passion as me? And so I'm ready to stand beside you and say, I want my tour guides to be empowered. I want them to know that they have this pivotal piece of the puzzle in their hands and to know that they really are valuable.

Nikki: It's giving that permission, which seems sad that we have to give it. But again, it's just it to be fair, it has not been built into guiding up until now. And that's I think where I need to do a lot of letting go. We know things now, overt tourism wasn't a thing decades ago, but with what we know now, if we can give guides permission to take on that education role because within hospitality, there's very much the sense of the customer's always right, and they definitely fall under that. But when you can tell a guide like, no, no, you can correct someone, whether it's a misconception that they have or whether they're doing something. I'm from New York City, so my example is always stopping in the middle of the sidewalk. It's so disruptive and everyone hates it, but you as a tour guide, you can teach them not to do that in a very fun way that the travelers will actually be very grateful for it. Everyone wants to learn how to blend in. And I think when you give the guides that permission, you can just see the mind chick. It's so powerful in that, wow, not only am I doing this job because it's fun, I get to meet new people and walk around my city, but I can actually have control over the way people treat my city. And in certain, if you're talking in the Venice and the Barcelonas, that's huge. That's a huge, huge power.

Christine: Yeah, I agree. And I love that idea of thinking of how to do it. And again, how we were saying sneaking the education in this playful way or where it is important,

Nikki: How

Christine: Crazy would it be if you left New York City and you didn't know that because someone else is going to talk to you about, isn't it crazy how people just never stop moving in New York? And you're like, oh, I don't know. But I kept getting mowed over every time I stopped to look at X, Y, Z, and then maybe you make the connection afterward. And it really, that's such a simple example. But for instance, when I was in Bali and I happened to be there at the end of rainy season, and so there was a lot of trash that was everywhere. It had kind of been washed out of the mountains and everything, and I kept wanting

Someone to tell me why I wanted the answer. I was waiting for my guide. I was traveling by myself. But to come up and give me that information and be like, this is something we see this time of year. This is why as a country you see signs everywhere that we're trying to eliminate single use plastics and all this stuff, then wow, what a moment for me to be able to step into that and think about it. And I was trying to have that one-sided conversation, but really can bring that, especially if they're local guides, which I think is something we could probably dive into the value of a local guide as well, is how much they can share and personalize your experience versus bringing a guide with you wherever you go. Finding a guide that's actually a part

Nikki: Of

Christine: The destination that you're traveling in.

Nikki: And that's a little bit mechanics as well. That's the distinction between a tour director and a tour guide where a tour director is super skilled at the hosting, at logistics, whereas the tour guide is that local knowledge. So in an ideal world, you have both. You have the tour director with you the whole time, and then you're hiring the local tour guide in each city. But yeah, that's super, I mean, talk about value, you know what I mean, that to have a tour guide who is local, and that can mean an expat as well, but to have a guide who is invested in the local city, in the local region, I mean, that's going to make that difference of the information because now it's not just, I see a lot of companies because regenerative travel's very trendy right now, so everyone's having their carbon offset purpose on their website and they're saying how we're going to help the environment or whatnot.

But really, if you really cared, what you would do is empower these local tour guides to take control over their own city. And it doesn't even need to be something as huge as what we're talking about culture and economic. It can be something as simple as teaching people how to order in a restaurant, something. It's so simple and it's so valuable to get, that's what I want to know when I travel, but that it relieves so much first, it's now empowering them to go to local restaurants. So you're boosting local economy. Second, you're making sure that they're going to be moved through that space in a way that doesn't disrupt the actual locals. So it's tourism benefiting a place instead of disrupting it. I mean, there's just a million different benefits. For something as simple as in Italy, when you order a coffee, go to the cash register first and pay and then take your receipt to the bar. It's these common things. And actually it's funny, local guides versus native born I should say, versus expats. I'm a huge fan of a combination on any team of natives versus expats because these are the things, it's the native knowledge that only the expats know is knowledge,

Christine: If

Nikki: That makes sense. Like of course that's how you get a coffee, but the expat is there to be like, oh, no, no one knows that. You know what I mean? So you have to say that out loud, and now I'm veering off topic, but the importance of that local guide is understanding those nuances and then educating all comes down to that education.

Christine: And I love the examples of that, of looking at if you as a traveler, you're coming hopefully to learn more about the destination and be more immersed. And I mean, I'm here to say that ordering off a menu is a huge roadblock in a lot of places, especially if you're looking at a foreign language, even if you're in France and reading a menu in English, it's still like a foreign menu. And so yeah, saying, here's this type of food, or it also creates conversation and discussion as well, which is really fun. And I remember sitting with a guide in Guatemala and she's like, have you heard of this? And then it's realizing, oh, this is how you say this. This is how we say it in our country. This is how it's similar. And then all of this connection has unfolded. Whereas if you would've just sat there and going back to the customer's always, right, maybe we don't want to insult them by telling them what they may or may not want to eat. You've just sat and they fumbled their way through ordering, maybe got a meal that they didn't even enjoy, don't have the best impression. And they're definitely not going to go to another French restaurant. They're going to be trying to find an American ish restaurant in France the next time they eat. So yeah, there's so much value in empowering a guide to be able to offer those services. So then it ripples out throughout the whole experience and even beyond.

Nikki: Exactly. And to push those boundaries as you kind of are hinting upon. I mean, I am a big fan of guides talking politics on tours, and that is a big no for so many guides, and I obviously understand why, but I think again, we need to move away from that, the PC tour, in that I think there is an opportunity we need to take that opportunity to educate in terms of bigger topics. Like another New York City example back, not that immigration isn't an issue today, but back when I was guiding immigration, Mexican immigration specifically was a really big hot topic issue in the US and in New York City, I would get tourists from all over the us and I gave a tour of Chinatown, little Italy, lower East Side. It was about immigration. And it was so funny through this tour, it was such a hot topic of the day, very controversial, but yet the Italian immigrants of the 19th century are very safe.

The Chinese immigrants of the 19th century are very safe. So you go through the whole tour and everyone's like, oh yeah, these immigrants, they worked so hard. They came from so far and they made a better lives and they contributed back to the city. This is so wonderful. And then you don't have to really get into it, but at the very end of the tour, maybe your last call to action, which I'm a huge fan, that every guide should have slipping in that line of, remember immigrating come every day to the city, and that's all you have to say. You don't have to change someone's mind, you just have to plant the seed of another idea. And then it's up to them to think on it or not. But I think it's a missed opportunity to not plant that seed.

Christine: And really it's you're only telling a truthful story, and it's only political because of a modern day context of something that someone may or may not interpret in one way or another. And that's hard in general when you're holding conversations amongst groups of people. And especially that's another nuance that a tour guide or a travel guide really if they're excellent, is really paying attention to and trying to understand. And then that's a huge skill as well. And especially if you're looking at a guide who's already leading something where you're set up for that kind of a conversation where when I was in Egypt and we were looking at the different religions in the area and visiting churches and mosques and temples and actually intentionally kind of doing this compare and contrast. So that is an undercurrent of already what's happening, but then having the skill to be able to say, this is the truth of this, this is the truth of this.

And I guess truth is relative to, but if you're just stating it in a very factual way of this is X, y, Z, and this is X, y, z, and isn't it interesting in the overlap between the X, Y, Z here and there? And those, when I have had those guides, which I've been lucky enough to have as well, I'm like, my mind is just blown. Because when you remove any of the inherent political undertones and it is presented in this factual way, you do it on your own and you're like, what? I don't understand all of the discord that has risen, that is centuries old because of these things, and it's really, really, really powerful. And you could have easily just gone and seen the buildings and not talked about it, or it doesn't even have to be an agenda. It's just sharing history, which is hopefully why we're traveling.

Nikki: Totally. And there is a responsibility in storytelling also that if you are giving a tour of Chinatown, little Italy and New York City, the responsibility to portray it in an ethical way, if that makes sense. And again, not to call out any guides, but most of the tours I have been on in that area of New York City in Chinatown, it's usually talking about the Chinese immigrants as one single monolith. And then when you get into Little Italy, then it's talking about the crazy and kooky mafiaa characters with names and families. And it's that it's very unintentional, and it comes to do with a lot of a lack of education knowledge on the guides part. A lot of those tours from the tour race, you're not getting a lot of information about the Chinatown, the Chinese immigration, because the little Italy one's more fun. That's what people want to hear about.

But the importance in then taking it upon yourself to say, whoa, wait a second, why don't I have names of Chinese immigrants? How can I source that information? Okay, well, what books have been written recently by someone who's from that community as opposed to relying because the old text, right, those big, what's the word I'm looking for? The big toes that everyone reads, the standard historical books of any culture, they were all written of a certain time, usually by a certain demographics. They're very one-sided. So I think it's very important nowadays for guides to be reading first source information from different voices if they are not themselves of that background, to be able to more ethically tell that story. I think today, and we're in a day and age, especially in the US right now, we're sort of no longer to just say group people together that we really do need to do our due diligence in doing the extra effort to find that information. That is harder to find.

Christine: And I think that goes back to your heart mission of empowering guides to know their importance. And that is part of it where if this is the set of information and facts you're given to feel empowered to be like, Hey, wait, I think there might be more here that I would enjoy sharing with people coming to my community. Can I dig into this? Can I share it with the rest of the guides once you found it? And can we elaborate upon what we share? And again, when you're in a position where you think you're replaceable,

Nikki: You're

Christine: Not likely to do that because you're just trying to say, yes, you're right, and the traveler's right and everybody's right, and I'm just going to be quiet and do my job and not rock the boat. And so I think

Nikki: Really

Christine: Understanding their importance in crafting these experiences goes a long way into giving them that comfort in being able to say, I'd like to do

Nikki: More. And look back to the industry side too. We can't put it all on guides, right? It is right now. But what I want to see is that pressure put on the industry to give the guides those resources. If guides were paid as the highly skilled professionals that they are, then they would spend a lot more of their time doing research and sourcing these things. And upskilling right now, there's really not a whole lot of benefit to the tour guide. Again, unless you're in one of these countries where you can get special licenses by taking certain tests, and that does affect your pay grade, but in general, it doesn't pay well and it's seasonal. So it's great because flexible, and that's why a lot of guides do it. But I would love to see guiding be a career that is accessible by everyone, not just the people who have the means to work part-time or be able to flip back and forth. And that's a whole nother topic. Who has access to being a tour guide and why the people telling these stories tend to be a very specific demographic.

Christine: I

Nikki: Mean, you even get into gender in India, I feel like females is a hot topic. Everyone wants to know about, oh, when do they have to be married? And there's so many questions, but yet, for so long, all of the tour guides were male. So I feel like whether or not the men were happy to have those discussions, probably people wouldn't feel comfortable asking them about that. But now you're having more and more female tour guides, and I was really lucky to work with an almost all female tour guide managed by a female, and it was incredible. I mean, being able to tell their own stories, and it added just such a different layer for their male colleagues as well. Now they had permission to talk about a whole set of different things, and there's a lot of talk about safety for solo female travelers in India. So how do we solve that and make it more safe? Well, by providing education, who needs to provide that education? Women living as females in India are probably the best suited to that. So it's all tied together, access to these stories who is able to tell their own story to be able to pass along that education.

Christine: Yeah, I agree. When you look at guides as a connection to a destination, especially traveling somewhere like India for example, since you were just mentioning that I lead women's trips, so it would make a lot of sense for me. And I do try to have female guides because then there is this cross-cultural connection on gender issues that are similar and also acknowledging the differences and the way that we share together is just different. And then

Nikki: When

Christine: We hear the stories

Of a woman where we're traveling and how it impacts us, and then the way that we want to engage with that destination afterward, I think is so different than when you don't have that intimate experience. And not that it couldn't happen having a male guide for a women's group, but it, there's just something about that that creates a different dynamic. And so I love not only that it creates a financial impact for the women in those communities and hopefully gives 'em access to education, certainly allows their families to have better opportunities for education. It opens doors in a different way, and again, it's creating this really valuable role for that woman in that country, which is also often so important.

Nikki: And the things, it's different in a lot of these countries. So then it's like, okay, there needs to actually be, it is more work, and this is why it's not happening, because you can't just treat them as your male guide. I mean, this one woman, this manager, and she's young, she's younger than me. She was going to people's families. These young women wanted to be tour guides, and their families were like, no, absolutely not. This young woman was going to their houses in her free time and showing, see, I do it, it's fine. It's safe. She was paying extra money for the woman to take a cab home after a tour and calling the parents, the tour is running late, but I'm on the phone with her. I'm going to buy her a cab, I'll get her home. It does take in a lot of these circumstances, the extra effort, but as you pointed out, the rewards are there. So again, that's on the industry to, it's not enough to say we need to have more diversity in storytelling. It's like, okay, but we need to actually look at what it takes to get there and then start taking the steps to make that happen.

Christine: Right, absolutely. And acknowledging that, because I think I've even heard a story recently in a more developed country where a woman was saying she wasn't feeling safe in her role in the tourism ministry and that she was feeling like something was wrong and it went awry, and she had asked for that safety and that security, and it was overlooked. And so that's a whole nother category. I was going to

Nikki: Say, it's a whole nother topic

Christine: We go on, but it is when you look at bringing female guides in a lot of countries into play, you do have to have the cultural awareness to understand what you are actually asking of that woman as a leader for your group, and really acknowledge that. And again, it's another opportunity for education and conversation within the group, within your company, within the industry. So yeah, it really brings a lot into that space when you start to look at things from that perspective.

Nikki: Oh, yeah, yeah. There's so much work to be done on the way, I think it's hard to see how far we've come, but yeah, there's a lot of work to be done.

Christine: Yeah. Well, I was wondering if you would mind sharing either as a guide yourself or as a traveler, a story where you have had a guide that has really influenced and shaped your experience, because I think that that is valuable, both for people listening who are travelers in seeking that kind of guidance and experience, and for people who are on the industry side that are maybe not as aware of what a really valuable guiding experience looks like or feels like for their travelers.

Nikki: Yeah, I mean, I feel like I want to give an extreme example and then a more common example because it's easy to give the extreme ones, but any memorable experiences I've had with guides have honestly have been in the off time, off the tour. Again, these guides don't feel like they can share these personal stories and anecdotes during the tour. They think that's not what guests are interested in, which is a shame. Like, no, but they want to hear about the history. It's like, no, they also want to hear about these things. So I don't know. To give an example off the top of my head, one of the most impactful tours I had during was a tour director. I was in Cuba, and I don't know that this is the best approach to do it, but I really respected, we had long drives in between cities, hours at a time where you're stuck on a bus and he would literally get up there every time and say, okay, I'm going to talk and I'm going to give you information.

This is my opinion as a Cuban, but as a group of Americans, you just need to know this and you could take it or leave it. And he would just talk for, I mean, hours on end. And in the moment it was like, oh my gosh, I just want to sleep, but I feel like I should be paying attention. But what he did by doing that was he opened up the room for discussion, and that was a very interesting trip. I mean, being an American in Cuba is a very surreal experience. And that trip very happened to be half people my age, the millennials and half baby boomers. So our parents' age was very split. It was very interesting, the questions that were coming from the two different groups, and the baby boomers obviously had a lot more personal memories of Cuba and their relations to the US.

And what was so impactful about that trip is he just got into it. There's nothing off the topic. And he really encouraged to be honest, ignorant questions. He really wanted them. He wanted people to say, I heard everyone in Cuba is starving or this and or that. Just so he could give his perspective. And again, he was very clear, this is my perspective, but I'm going to say it exactly how I feel it. I'm not going to sugarcoat it. I'm not going to say, oh, but the other side feels this. You are the other side. I'm just going to give you my opinion. And that, I mean, that trip just was probably the first time that I felt time. I understood what I didn't know. Is it the conscious unconsciousness or yeah, the conscious, what? I don't know. That was really impactful. That's one example of go for the politics, just go for it.

Another a super, super simple one was I was in, I can give a couple of these. Let's say in Krakow. I was in Krakow, Poland, and it was just, no, no, sorry, I'm going to give, send Sebastian in boss country in Spain because this example is something you wouldn't think this is anything special, but going back to how to navigate local bars, boss country, very famous for pink shows, which are their top us, and it's like a whole thing there. You order them in a very specific way and they're very intimidating. Those bars, there's lots of Michelin star tapas bars, which is great. So the food scene is very intimidating even if you're a foodie. And so it was just a food tour, that's all it was. We just went from Pintos bar to Pintos bar and ate. That was all it was. But the way the guide gave it was so practical, so literally coming down to great, so when you see on the board the wine, there are four types of wine.

This is the lowest, this is more fancy, this is fancier and this is the top, right? So this is what the colors mean. They would all have these colored labels and then tip like, okay, great. So she would explain it as she did, I'm going to go order our pintos, and you'll notice when I go, here's how I get the bartender's attention because all these bars are swarmed by locals. She's like, here's how I get his attention. And then when you go back to order more, you want to go to the same guy, you just go and you look him in the eye, and this is what you say. I mean so specific. And she even went the extra step to email us all at the end of the day, and I still have that email, she wrote it all down and it's copy and pastes from each tour, but it was like step by step.

And literally with that paper in hand, me and my travel companion, we just felt empowered to go into any tiny hole in the wall or super fancy pinto bar because we felt like we knew what we were going to do. We knew exactly how it worked. We knew how to be respectful, we knew how to get served. And that was so valuable, my God, that I had that knowledge. And then the reverse effect is that I was now empowered to go and eat in these St. Joe's bars, whereas before, maybe, I mean I wouldn't, but maybe your average traveler would be like, ah, maybe we'll just stay in the hotel tonight. I know where to start or where to go. I mean, that was huge, the impact of, and it was just a food tour.

Christine: That's

Nikki: All it was.

Christine: Yeah, it can be so magical when you have that moment and that connection and it is so intimidating. And I remember, I'm trying to remember if it was Anthony Bourdain or not that I remember watching a travel show of someone in that same experience, and the person walking in was like, well, how can it be? And then they started ordering and they're like, and be careful you don't order that because like $250 an ounce or a half ounce or quarter ounce or something like that. And they're like, what we're eating? It was like canned sardines or something. But then they're like, and then wine goes with this, and this is this, and there was tons of people and there so much confusion. And then if you're not the language, yeah, it's huge to have someone break something like that down for you or shopping in a market in Asia or something like that, or anywhere because the food is different, the language is different.

The way you go about ordering, whether you should stand in the line, should you just step in for yourself. All of those cultural things are what makes the trip relevant. That's what you're there to learn, I think. And so I don't think you could go overboard where you were saying she sent you the whole list afterward. Yeah, thank you. That's so valuable. And again, empowering your guide to be like, take it as far as you want to take it. Don't assume we know anything because we don't. That's why we're here. And if we do, we still might learn something and it might be fun to watch other people get the guidance that maybe we didn't have and we had to figure out how to do this by ourselves or Yeah, it's interesting.

Nikki: And the value of that too, again, I want to make it really clear that I don't think this level of service should just be reserved to the high priced niche core. I would love to see this for the big bus tours because is that the best way to travel? No, but it's the affordable way to travel for a lot of people, and I just think that there's more impact there. These are people who truly, you and I are a very specific type of traveler. We really want this knowledge and we're asking for it when we're there and we're conscious of it. But imagine the impact of that bus full of 50 people who aren't bad people, but they just don't think to ask these questions. If you were giving them this information, now it's going to be front of mind, not only in your place, but the next place they go in your country or the next trip they take, they're going to be a little more conscious of asking those questions themselves the next time. Something as simple as, I always ask every local guide that I have, what greeting, what do I say when I walk in a shop?

I just because I want to be, because sometimes you walk in and again, for you and I we're conscious like, oh, I don't want to start in English, but I really can't pronounce the language. There's no way I can memorize. Do you speak English? I don't want to get in the way. Something as simple as that. What word do I say or do I wave? Do I bow? Getting something as simple as that just gives you confidence. And that I think so many of those clashes between travelers and locals can come between even when the travelers do mean well, they just are uncomfortable. They don't know how to navigate the situation.

Christine: Yeah, the guide can really eliminate that discomfort for them by giving them those simple tools. And if you aren't a savvy traveler, if you have, maybe this is your first trip to Europe and you're on a bus, you literally don't know to ask those things. You don't know that you are going to be lik a bull in a China to shop if you walk in a certain way. Exactly. And you're not intending to be that person. And so we need you to tell us what it's like, how we should do it, and that's asking the traveler to not take offense to receiving this guidance. But I think, again, we were talking about the way that guides can portray the information so that it's fun and light. And often as a traveler, we love to hear how other travelers did it wrong. So tell us their story.

They can be made up because definitely you don't want to be that person. Totally. Yeah. And then it's relatable, it's humorous. It provides the education and the context, and then the whole group gets in on it. Yeah. So I think there's definitely ways, but it takes education because if this is also your first time guiding a trip, you might not know this. You might not know that this is something that comes up. It's a curiosity. So that's where then we need to put that education into play across the board for our guides so that they can provide the context and the experience that they need.

Nikki: Exactly, exactly. And for them to make it accessible, it needs to be accessible to them also.

Christine: Right?

Nikki: Again, there's no one way to do this. They're very different styles of guiding. So when I do training, I also have to be very mindful to present it in a way that can be adapted by any guide in any city. The circumstances are often so different.

Christine: Yeah, I agree. Is there any last tidbit that you would like to share in terms that we haven't uncovered? And I mean there's probably a lot, but any last thing that you would want to leave us with in terms of, I guess maybe as a traveler, how can we empower our guides or how can we become a part of this process as well?

Nikki: Ooh, yes. I would love to finish on that. I don't often get call to action for travelers. I think before I said travelers have a very low expectation of no fault of our own. We can only experience what is offered, but I want to see travelers asking for this. I want to see travelers asking these questions about how to blend in is a strong word, but how to be respectful in a city. What do you wish all travelers did in your city that don't? What do we wish that we knew? I would love to see travelers asking those questions because the more common they become, then the guides will start to give those. And I think demanding of the companies. There's a lot of people right now who are a little bit more mindful of asking about sustainable practices when talking to a company. So also asking about the guides. Where do you source your guides and what kind of training do you provide for them? And I think if we can start rewarding the companies that are doing it well, then hopefully the other companies will have no choice but to step it up a little bit.

Christine: Yeah, I love that. And again, I'm just so lucky that I know so many of the companies that are doing it well that it becomes hard for me to step into another space. But I also know that it exists. So I mean, some of the experiences I've had traveling with amazing guides, I would wish that for everyone traveling because it's so beautiful and it's tenfold the value and it changes everything. And it also in the future, like I was talking about in Bali, wishing I had my guide over my shoulder. I don't want to travel without them. I want a biologist when I head to the beach or an oceanographer or whatever, I want them to tell me all of the things and a historian, and it becomes really powerful. And when you have your local guide telling you the stories about the food and their family and what it's been like to live in this area and maybe how they left and went to university somewhere else for a while and chose to come back, that enriches your travel experience. And that is where really the power is for what we're trying to offer to the world as a travel community, I think

Nikki: Totally agree. I mean, literally everyone wins. The destination wins because it's being treated with more respect and sustainably. The guide wins because more fulfilling for them and the customer wins. It is just a better experience. It just is. So there's no negative. We just need to raise the bar all together.

Christine: Yeah, yeah. I agree. Well, for people who want to learn more, maybe if they are a guide and they want to learn more, find those resources. If they're a tour operator and they want to bridge that gap, how can they find you?

Nikki: So my website is trip kinetics.com, and I have, as I said, tons of resources for guides. I always try and put more things out there, all of it for free, and then tour operators can see different ways that I've worked with tour operators in the past,

Christine: And I always like to end. I have rapid fire that I need to rename. They're never rapid fire rapidly. I thought of the answer and we talked about it for a while, but yes. So I have seven questions just to kind of have some fun at the end of the discussion. What is your favorite book or movie that offers you a travel escape or inspires you to adventure?

Nikki: Oh my gosh. I'll go with my childhood favorite still to this day, Tamara Pierce, she is a teen fantasy novelist and her books are all about super badass women going out and exploring and stretching themselves. So I definitely read that book and feel empowered

Christine: What is always in your suitcase or your backpack,

Nikki: Water bottle, even in the countries where you think you can't do it. I always, always have a water bottle just in case.

Christine: What is your favorite destination?

Nikki: I'll say the place I go back to again and again is Italy. My favorite place probably in the world is Hanoi, Vietnam.

Christine: And where do you long to visit?

Nikki: I'm dying to go back to Vietnam. It's definitely number one on my list, although I know we're during the pandemic right now, so I just like to go to Puerto Rico to visit my family.

Christine: Yeah,

Nikki: That'll be the first one.

Christine: And then what do you eat that immediately connects you to a place that you've been?

Nikki: Oh my gosh. Literally everything with something recent coffee, Vietnamese coffee. I have a little Vietnamese coffee maker, and that really takes me back to sitting in a cafe by the office I used to work out of. I go right back there.

Christine: I love that For you. Travel and food are inseparable. I'm the same way. Everything, and it's the magic of the travel too, is learning the ingredients and tasting them, seeing how they put them together from region to region in one country, and yeah, it tells the story of it. Let's see. Who was the person that inspired or encouraged you to set out and explore the world?

Nikki: My grandparents. They were blue collar New Yorkers, and they won a trip. My grandpa won a trip through work to Italy. No one had ever heard of anyone traveling at that point for fun, and that was it. They were travelers and it was unheard of in their generation. They went all over the world.

Christine: Oh, that's such a great story. If you could take an adventure with one person, fictional or real alive or pass, who would it be?

Nikki: Oh my gosh. Oh, it's such a cool question. This is going to be really basic sounding, but I would love to go to that restaurant in Vietnam, in Hanoi, I think No Ho Chi Min City with Anthony Bourdain, Obama, and just share a bo chat and beer with them. That would be amazing.

Christine: I'm like, oh, I want to go. You can come. Okay. Thank you. I invite myself on your fantasy adventure. Oh, that's so good. I love hearing what people think of because everyone just has their own whatever lands on their heart. Thank you so much. I feel like this was such a valuable conversation. I would love to keep bringing this conversation to the table and supporting work that you're doing. I love seeing just the way your business has shaped in the last year in this time where we've had space

Christine: To do these things you wouldn't have done, and

Christine: I

Christine: Think it's so

Christine: Important. So thank you so much for being here to share with us today.

Nikki: Thank you so much for having me, for chatting with me. Like I said in the beginning, I love talking about this stuff and was thrilled that you were too.

Christine: Thank you.

Christine: Thank you for listening to the Soul of Travel podcast presented by Journey Woman. I hope you enjoyed this journey. If you loved this conversation, I encourage you to subscribe and rate the podcast. Please share episodes that inspire you with others because this is how we extend the impact of this show. Learn more about each of my guests by reading our episode blogs, which are more than your average show notes. I think you'll love the connection. Find our episode blogs at www.souloftravelpodcast.com. I'm so proud of the way these conversations are bringing together people from around the world. If this sounds like your community, welcome, I am so happy you are here. I am all about community and would love to connect. You can find me on Facebook at Soul of Travel podcast or follow me on Instagram at either she dot sojourns or at Soul of Travel podcast. Stay up to date by joining the Soul of Travel podcast mailing list. You'll also want to explore Journey Women Community and it's resources for women travelers over 50. A quick thank you to my podcast producer and content magician, Carly Eduardo, c e o of Convergent. Thank you for supporting me in my mission to amplify the voices of women in tourism. I look forward to getting to know you and hopefully hear your story.