Claire DeTour
Tour leader by trade, educator by conviction, wanderer by nature, and philosopher in motion by accident. I have been leading groups across the world long enough to collect more anecdotes than passport stamps-and I have a few a both.
Follow Me: The Journal of a lost Tour Leader is where reality becomes chaos, and humour is developed as a mechanism to cope. Where true(ish) tales of group travel meet cross-cultural hiccups, and where the fine arts of pretending to know exactly where you are going, repeating yourself, and smiling at 7:00am is finally explained.
Expect equal parts insight, irreverence, and mess.
On your left is chaos, follow me.
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Sure, the landscapes are stunning and the food is sometimes unforgettable—but it's the people who steal the show (and occasionally the hotel towels). In this category, meet the coat-hanger packers, the group whisperers, the memory-challenged regulars, and the wonderfully weird humans who make every journey worth the detour.
Because behind every trip is a cast of characters you couldn’t invent if you tried.
Sometimes the real journey begins when the itinerary goes up in flames. This category is for those unplanned detours, bizarre misadventures, and moments of magic that no guidebook could predict, not even Rick Steves. From leading a cruise without a ship to stumbling into local life in the most unexpected way, these are the stories that prove that when plans go wrong, the best memories happen.
Stress, joy, and the fine art of improvisation—this is the part of the job no one prepares you for. From bathroom tours and broken buses to repeating yourself with a smile (and phlegm), this category dives into the messy, magical backstage of tour leading.
Because when you're lost, you smile. When you're tired, you improvise. And when all else fails… there's wine. And colleagues. Or maybe ice cream. Maybe all of the above, but definitely not a day off in sight.
Some stories don’t make you laugh—they make you pause. This category gathers the quiet, powerful moments that stay with you long after the tour ends: human connections, unexpected lessons, and glimpses of beauty that aren’t in the guidebook.
Here you’ll meet the children who understand more than we think, the strangers who became family for a day, and the ghosts of history who feel like old friends. These are the real reasons I keep doing this job.