Your Own Personal City Guide

Having worked in the tour industry over here, I can see how expensive tourguides can be for those ubiquitous city tours. In my last job, we paid anywhere from 40 to 200 Euro to pay a guide for 1-2 hours for a nice little tour through their city or town. What if you, as an average tourist, had this luxury (without the great expense)...in your pocket no less.

On my own travels, I will frequently look for audioguides I can download to my mp3 player. Any mp3 player will do, although I am still partial to my Zune player. Google the name of the city and "mp3" or "audioguide" or try some of these sites below:

• iAudioguide

• Paris Audioguides

I've also found that my Garmin Navigation device will let me download Points of Interest (POIs) along with photos of sites you are passing and the corresponding audio. Neat stuff. You can find some below:

• GeoTours Xchange
  

Alternatively, many of the more tourist-visited cities have regular tours throughout the day, that either meet at their tourist bureau, their main train station or some other central location. These can really be lowcost at around 5 euro per head. Google the name of the city and "tourist" to find their tourist bureau website, and then follow the links for "individual tours" or "city tours". Typically you show up at certain times of day at a designated location and then pay your guide after the tour is over.

Which city tour has been your favorite and where have you found lowcost tours?