Choosing to set off on a journey and turn it into a cultural experience means embarking on a path that opens your mind and helps you grow in many ways.

Setting out to discover the distant, distinctive traditions, customs and ways of life of local communities helps turn a journey into a true cultural experience.

According to the definition given by the UNWTO, the World Tourism Organization, the term cultural tourism refers to “all movements of persons motivated by cultural purposes such as study holidays, attending live performances, festivals and cultural events, visits to archaeological sites and monuments, and pilgrimages. Cultural tourism also concerns the pleasure of immersing oneself in the local way of life and in everything that makes up its identity and character”.

Each of us has grown up and lives according to the parameters of our own culture: discovering, instead, that every culture and every country has a different way of living is changing the way people travel, eager as they are to discover the typical habits of the place they are visiting.

Let us discover together how to organise a journey with a strong cultural imprint.

Do your research before you leave

When planning your trip it is useful to find out about the place you are going to visit and its main points of cultural, historical, architectural and artistic interest, and so on.

Despite the advent of the internet and digital media, buying a printed travel guide can be a good way to start getting to know your destination; there are many different kinds, each offering a different “angle”.

To give a few examples, if you are visiting Italy’s cities of art, the Touring Club Italiano guides are very useful, offering a complete and accurate description of our country’s historical and artistic treasures.

The Mondadori guides are rich in images and 3D reconstructions and therefore offer an immediate overview of the main places of interest; the Lonely Planet guides offer numerous suggestions for eating, sleeping and living like the locals; the Routard guides are ideal for those organising low-cost, on-the-road, backpacking trips, immersing themselves in the local culture.

One idea for getting to know your destination in depth is to buy more than one guide, so as to have a complete overview from many points of view.

Stay in a local home

There is no better way to discover how the locals live than to sleep… in their homes! There are many online portals that let you rent a room directly from a private host, who will then share information and tips for immersing yourself fully in the atmosphere of the place.

Enjoy authentic experiences

Especially in tourist cities it is easy to end up in so-called “tourist traps” that cost a lot and offer poor service; to avoid this, it is wise to seek out visits, experiences and places that are authentic and support local trade.

Beyond the classic tourist attractions (museums, monuments, sites and so on), it is possible to enjoy other kinds of experience that let you get to know the local reality more deeply.

A visit to a winery, a local cookery course, a boat trip with the fishermen, a children’s workshop in the company of local families… these are all opportunities for cultural enrichment as well as leisure.

Rely on a local guide

Everywhere you go it is possible to book a tour of a city, a site or a museum in the company of a certified local guide; who better than a professional guide to immerse you in the cultural atmosphere of the place?

Beyond the basic historical and cultural information, you can ask for advice and tips and explore the topics that interest you most. Local guides also know the best places to eat or to spend your free time.

Learn the language

Knowing the local language is certainly an important factor, but it is not always possible to take a course or to find the time to deepen your knowledge. Before leaving, however, it is important to learn the few words or expressions that will help you connect with the locals.

Book an organised tour

There are organised tours with a strong cultural imprint that offer the opportunity to visit places of interest in the company of a knowledgeable guide and to explore every cultural question in depth. If you opt for this solution, it is worth making sure that the tour operator organising it is “well prepared” from a cultural point of view, proposing visits and itineraries of real value.

Guiness Travel’s tours

For Guiness, travelling is an enriching experience to be savoured in every pleasant moment, and means enjoying the cultural atmosphere that characterises each place.

All the itineraries in our catalogue are 100% independently planned and carefully designed and tested, allowing our product to evolve constantly and to reach a high, wide-ranging cultural standard.

The Guiness Exclusive Tour is a unique travel experience, mindful of sustainability, that offers you considerable advantages:

  • organisation;
  • attention to detail;
  • carefully selected services on the ground (designed to give you maximum comfort, leaving you free to think of nothing but enjoying the moment).

Thanks to the Guiness Exclusive Tour you will return home with a suitcase full of new and wonderful memories, immersed in the beauty of the world, thanks also to the many UNESCO World Heritage Sites included in all our programmes.

Indeed, in all our itineraries you can see at a glance how many and which UNESCO sites you will be able to visit, thanks to an intuitive, user-friendly icon in the catalogue. In this way, travellers will know which UNESCO sites are included in their travel programme.

Discover all the tours by Guiness Travel

Team Guiness