Of Guides, Artists & Linchpins

“Art is a personal gift that changes the recipient.”
- Seth Godin

I just finished reading Seth’s latest book, Linchpin – Are you Indispensable? It’s a challenging and  inspiring call-to-arms for each and every one of us to become a linchpin…”the people that invent, lead, connect others, make things happen, create order from chaos, figure out to do when there’s no rule book, and delight their customers and peers. Linchpins love their work, pour their best selves into it and turn each day into a kind of art.”

It was when I read the word last word line paragraph above—art—that I thought of guides…the trip leaders who I’ve traveled with that made my journey one that exceeded my expectations, surprised me, delighted me, changed me. Their joy, passion and enthusiasm were immense…and genuine. The best guides are ones who routinely and seemingly without effort are able to elevate their work into an art form. And it made me realize that given an identical itinerary, you could have a very different experience depending on your guide.

With good reason, the best tour operators obsess over selecting, training and nurturing their guides. After all, once the trip departs, the operator’s brand is embodied and delivered by the guides and other field staff assigned to the trip. Here’s how Kurt Kutay, who along with his wife Anne are the co-founders and owner of Wildland Adventures, define what makes an exceptional guide:

“Being a really good Wildland guide is a really easy job (hah!). Actually, it requires a knowledge of history, ecology, archaeology, or other areas of expertise, first-aid training, in addition to having leadership skills and being a good communicator and a great listener. But the most important thing is to be, and to share, your genuine Self! If Wildland travelers are the initiates who seek to connect with the people and the places we visit, then our guides are their best friends who take them down new pathways by encouraging, sharing and supporting the traveler to be open-hearted and open-minded to new experiences.

Our goal is to share a real world without artifice, that craves our understanding and compassion rather than our judgment; a world that seeks to welcome us rather than entertain us. And to accomplish this, above all other factors, it’s the guides: guides are the catalyst between travelers and their experience.

Having the right guide that creates the ‘Wild Style’ experience is the difference between magic and mediocrity in travel. There are many trained naturalists, excellent tour escorts, and knowledgeable historians and archaeologists, but we seek native guides with the requisite wide range of skills and character: a sufficient command of multiple languages, the requisite knowledge and the skill to impart the information, the experience to lead, but above all else a personality that is open to sharing a part of themselves, and their personal beliefs and values, which creates an opening that induces heart-to-heart interactions between travelers and their hosts.

With guides like this, who bring with them a smile and good-natured sense of humor, our guests go farther in their journey to know a place deeper, to discover themselves better, and to develop closer emotional ties to others they meet along the way. Therefore, it’s not just about the ability to transmit information succinctly and quickly to the traveler, but more importantly to create experiences unwritten in a published itinerary that often become the most meaningful and memorable simply because they are real, unplanned and in-depth.

The criteria for excellence in guiding have changed from knowing the place to facilitating the most profound and meaningful experiences that travel can provide. This is only accomplished by knowing the individual traveler; not only from knowing what the individual traveler wants, but knowing what the individual traveler should want and how to artfully deliver it.”

Godin says “If art is a human connection that causes someone to change his mind, then you are an artist.” In my experience, an artist guide is the catalyst that sets the stage for the magic of travel that transforms and inspires us as we celebrate and embrace the incredible diversity of our planet and its peoples.

In a future article, I will share with you the key questions you’ll want to ask an outfitter before you entrust them with your money and precious vacation time.

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