HOW TO BECOME A LEGAL GUIDE

Would you like to become a guide in South Africa? Tourism is a pretty big deal in South Africa today, and it's growing. But whether you're inerested in tourism, adventure, nature, culture, or whatever your reason; here we will explain HOW TO BECOME A GUIDE IN SOUTH AFRICA.

So firstly, what is a guide?

Simply put: somebody who guides!

It is a person that accompanies other people, whether they are tourists or not, through an area or activity, and provides information, guidance and anything relevant to the activity that might be needed as well as seeing to the safety of the group.

Different types of guides:

There are a few different types of guides as well as different ways of catagorising them. There are Nature Guides, Culture Guides, Adventure Guides. And then there are also site guides, provincial guides and national guides. All of which can be tourist guides...

Site Guide

These guides may work in a limited geographical area. For example: A Drakensberg Hiking Site Guide.

Provincial Guide

These guides may take clients anywhere in the appropriate province in South Africa.

National Guide

These guides are qualified to take his or her clients anywhere in the country and present the activities which he or she has been trained in.

Types of guides in South Africa

Areas of guiding

These are the different areas of guiding and can be any of the above mentioned.

Tourist Guide

A Tourist Guide in South Africa is simply a guide who takes tourists to places and through activities. Any of the other guides can be called a Tourist Guide.

Nature Guide

A Nature Guide is a guide who specializes in nature. This can be animals, plants, geology and so on.

Culture Guide

A Culture Guide is a guide who specializes in, well, culture... This guide has extensive knowledge on the populations and there ways, beliefs, history and so on.

Adventure Guide

An Adventure Guide is a guide who specializes in outdoor adventure activities and keeping his or her clients safe. For example: River rafting, canyoneering, hiking and so on.

Generic Guide

Now that we have that out of the way and everybody has been introduced, we can talk about the "generic guide". The generic guide is the base for the rest to be built on, it is the foundation of your guide training, it is the Guide without his or her speciality (like Nature/Adventure). Therefore it is the first step towards become the guide you dream to be.

We recommend taking a course that includes both the generic guide and your desired speciality.

Generic Guide 

Generic guiding course for one person.

Click the button for more information. Price is an estimate*

R 4890

Once that is done

You can now move on to phase 2, which is choosing your speciality as listed below...

Abseil Guide

(Adventure Guide)
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R 4500

Culture Guide


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R 4500

Hiking Guide

(Adventure Guide)
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R 4500

Nature Guide


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R 4500

Paddling Guide

(Adventure Guide)
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R4500

Registering

Once you have completed all of the above training succesfully, congratulations! You are now a guide. You can then register with the Department of Tourism in South Africa as a registered tourist guide! But know this; it doesn't take a few days to finish such training, it takes time and comitment to complete.

We hope this helped!

If you are still confused, need a quote or just got a question, feel free to send us an email, phone us or pop a message on Facebook!

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