Hi,

Solange here.

I got my degree in tourism in 2012 but I’ve been guiding since 2016 only. During those in- between years, I worked in different areas but guiding: as a counter, welcoming travelers, working in Marketing and Operations, etc. Tourism sounded like a cool field to me but something was missing somehow. Little I knew, things would definitely change in 2016.

By the half of 2018, I had guided one group of Brazilians before I got a call from Luis (he works for exploor, too) and started working for exploor. The interview was like: experience in tourism? Check. Experience guiding travelers? (Kind of) check.

At the time I was working at a high end souvenir store, when Manuel (the office manager) called me: “Hi Solange, we are super busy this season, were looking for new guides and we really like your CV. Are you up for an interview tomorrow so you can start guiding for exploor next Monday?” –“Sure”. I thought to myself “I like guiding much better and (calculator app in my hand) and the pay is great” 2 days later, I quit my shop at the souvenir store.

So, after guiding a few trips with exploor that June of 2016 it was crystal clear to me that there was no going back. In fact, had I known how cool guiding was, I would’ve started much earlier. Meeting people from all around the world and introducing my culture to them is just amazing.

Guiding to me is way more than making a living. It’s like a lifestyle, like therapy, literally because sure, most people travel to cross off a bucket list or have a good time learning about a new culture but every now and then people travel to get over stuff or heal away some things. In any case, you build strong connections with people and that’s really cool.

Having been to Spain, Italy, Czech Republic, France, Netherlands, Bolivia, Chile and Sweden… I can tell you that Peru has something special and I’ll be eager to show it to you if I see you in one of my tours!

Cheers,

Solange