tours by locals find a guide

ToursByLocals Review: Can You Trust Their Tour guides? [2024]

Here's a rundown of the tour guide company, ToursByLocals, including what they do, what their features are, and if it's worth the money. Read on to find out more!

When you’re planning a trip to a new city or country, you want to make sure you get the most out of your visit by finding the best things to do, places to stay, and restaurants to eat at.

If that's the case, then read all about them in our travel blog collection here. Here at  Pilot , we’re all about helping you plan your trip and make the best of your time abroad.

However, if you're not the type that wants to plan out every detail of your trip, why not get a tour guide instead? We know that for many people, a great way to get to know a city is to take part in an organized travel tour, whether that’s as part of a large group or in a more private and personalized setting. Whether it's joining a tour on a yacht or hopping on a Busabout , tour guides comes in many shapes or forms!

There are many ways to find local guides to a city or town, and  ToursByLocals  is one of them. But what exactly is it, and how does it work? Read our comprehensive guide to find out!

What Is ToursByLocals?

ToursByLocals is an easy-to-use website that provides you, the traveler, with access to local tourist guides in cities all over the world. It currently operates in 193 countries and has more than 4,500 guides that you can connect with, in locations ranging from Barcelona, Paris, Rome, and Bern to places a little further afield, like Tokyo, Iceland, and even the South Island of New Zealand.

The tour guides are all local people that just so happen to have expert knowledge of the ins and outs of their hometown. Taking a tour from a local is one of the best ways to learn more about historical events that took place in a certain city, explore specific neighborhoods, or just find out about the best things to do while you’re traveling.

As well as personal tours of cities, ToursByLocals offers  shore excursions , allowing you to get a local’s perspective of any of the stops on your cruise.

At the moment, you can even book virtual tours with ToursByLocals if you’re craving a travel fix but can’t get away right now—perfect for armchair tourism during the pandemic! If you book and attend a live virtual tour, which will still be run by local people, you’ll also receive the money you’ve spent as a voucher that you can spend on an in-person tour when you’re next free to travel. Score!

Is ToursByLocals an Accredited Tour Company?

Now, you might be wondering why ToursByLocals doesn’t come up if you’re searching for top-rated tour companies in Europe, or if you’ve been googling the best US travel and tour options. There’s a pretty simple explanation for this: ToursByLocals isn’t actually a tour company.

Instead, it acts as a marketplace that gives you access to individual guides who run their own tours. All tours listed on the website are private tours, and if you can’t find what you’re looking for, you can message guides to see if they can customize a tour to better suit your needs.

What Is a Personal Tour?

One of the main benefits of using ToursByLocals is that you’ll be receiving a personal tour rather than a group tour. We’ve all seen group tours on our travels: Hordes of people following a slightly tired-looking guide who’s carrying some kind of brightly colored umbrella or flag, speaking in hushed tones into a microphone and not stopping to answer any questions along the way. Sounds great!

A personal tour is not like this. Instead, it’s one that you and your travel buddies (whether that’s your family, your partner, or your friends) book privately with a guide. The benefits of a personal tour are numerous:

• You can customize the tour based on your own interests
• You’re free to ask as many questions as you like without feeling like you’re bogarting the guide!
• You can book it for a time and date that suits you, making it easier to fit in with your other travel plans
• You could gain access to certain tourist spots that may be closed to large groups
• You avoid having to interact with  that one person— you know the type—who thinks they know more than the guide!

Instead of booking onto a tour that’s targeted at large groups, which can be impersonal and pretty rigid in structure, a personal tour allows you more freedom. It gives you the chance to get to know a city however you   want, making it easier to find your way around and uncover the coolest parts of town.

How Do I Find a Private Tour Guide?

Using ToursByLocals to find a private tour guide is easy. Sign up or log in to your account, then search by location. Add the dates you want to go on a tour, then browse the options and book whichever one interests you most.

You can also contact the tour guide before booking to arrange customization if you’re looking for something more personal to your interests.

Once you’ve got everything organized, just pay ahead of time and attend your tour. It couldn’t be simpler.

What If Something Goes Wrong?

Sometimes when you’re traveling, things go wrong. Maybe your cruise ship has illness on board and has been told it can’t dock, meaning your planned shore excursion is a no-go. Maybe you’ve had to cancel your whole trip because of a family issue. Or maybe you’ve just changed your mind! Can you still get your money back?

The ToursByLocals cancelation policy is pretty fair. If you cancel 15 days or more before the tour was due to start, you can get all your money back. Nice. You’ll also get a refund if certain unforeseeable events take place—this includes the ship being told it can’t dock.

If you’re booking ahead of time but aren’t completely sure whether you’re definitely going to attend the tour, the website also offers a more flexible (but more expensive) cancelation policy, known as the “Any Reason” policy. If you’ve paid extra for this, you can cancel for any reason at all, as long as you do so before the tour starts.

How Do I Become a Local Tour Guide?

If you want to  become a tour guide  for ToursByLocals, you can  apply  through the ToursByLocals website. You have to be legally permitted to give tours in your area (but this doesn’t mean you have to be a licensed tour guide—“passionate locals” are also encouraged to apply).

If your application is successful, you’ll be invited to take part in an interview process to make sure you’re suitable for giving tours, and to check your English skills. You’ll also have to undergo a background check.

If you pass all the stages of the application process, you can start selling your tours on ToursByLocals.

Do Tour Guides Make Good Money?

Tour guides that offer their services through ToursByLocals can charge as much as they think is appropriate for their tours. The company takes a percentage of every dollar earned, but you can factor this into your pricing when you set up your profile and tour offerings.

Remember to make sure you’re getting paid a fair amount, but you’ll also want to ensure your prices aren’t so expensive that they’re off-putting to potential customers!

Is ToursByLocals Worth It?

It’s easy enough to find and book private tours with ToursByLocals, but is it really worth it? The costs of private tours can be high, and with guides setting their own prices, you could end up paying huge amounts for a private tour.

It all depends on what you’re looking for from your vacation. Some people prefer group tours, as they give them the chance to meet new people and get a basic overview of a city or a particular sight. For others, it makes more sense to book a private tour because it’s easier to get a personalized or customizable experience. At the end of the day, it all comes down to personal preference.

I'd recommend looking at different options and reading up on specific reviews of that individual tour operator before making the purchase!

My Rating: 4.1/5

• Local experiences
• Curated tours
• Many destinations
• Experiences vary per guide

Plan your trip yourself!

Whether you decide to book a personal tour through ToursByLocals or not, you’ll want to make sure that your trip goes smoothly. Use Pilot to plan your trip—we have the ultimate travel planning tools and much more to help you!

Disclosure : Pilot is supported by our community. We may earn a small commission fee with affiliate links on our website. All reviews and recommendations are independent and do not reflect the official view of Pilot.

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18 Best Websites & Apps to Find Local Tour Guides

If you are looking at this page you are probably looking for recommendations on where to find local tour guides . There are many websites and apps where you can book local tour guides and can sometimes be difficult to find. To save you some time, we have curated a list of websites in order to help you find the best local tour guides who will surely give you an enriching experience.

Websites to Find Local Tour Guides – Worldwide

For an even more convenient way to find local tour guides and compare their deals, check out TourScanner !

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Don’t hesitate to comment below if you wish to recommend other websites for local tour guides. Wishing you an excellent time and travel safe!! 🙂

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Traveling Alone? How to Find a Local Guide

By Stephanie Rosenbloom

• March 16, 2016

When it comes to traveling solo, some people want to take a break and sightsee with a group. But what about those who prefer something more intimate, like a private guided tour?

Options are increasing as more people give solo travel a try. When I wrote about the trend last year, some 24 percent of people had traveled alone on their most recent overseas leisure vacation, up from 15 percent in 2013, according to the Visa Global Travel Intentions Study . Among first-time travelers, solo travel was even more popular, jumping to 37 percent in 2015, up from 16 percent in 2013.

One-on-one tours allow travelers to explore at their own pace, be it for an hour or an entire day. And thanks to the growth of the sharing economy, private guides around the world have become easier to find and surprisingly affordable. Below, a guide to local guides.

Global Greeter Network

For those on a budget, this worldwide organization is a terrific way to become acquainted with a city. It’s simple: local tourism boards match visitors with residents who want to show them around — free. Hundreds of places are part of the Global Greeter Network, including New York; Chicago; Tokyo; Buenos Aires; Naples , Italy; and Haifa, Israel.

Keep in mind that the knowledge of volunteer guides varies. If you want an expert in, say, modern architecture, you’re probably better off looking elsewhere. To see if your destination offers a Greeter program you can visit Globalgreeternetwork.info .

Tours by Locals

There are a handful of local guide sites on the Internet, but many are awkward to navigate and have poor-quality photographs, as well as spelling errors. Frankly, most of them seem like something your kid brother set up on a lark. An exception is Tours by Locals, which has guides that offer private at-your-own-pace tours in more than 130 countries. The site is a bit cluttered, but click on the “find a guide” link to select a place and you’ll be able to select a region, then a city, and then see a list of guides in the area. You can read about their background, view headshots, check out reviews from previous customers and communicate before you book a tour — a nice option that many competitors don’t allow. A recent search for a guide in London found a two-hour private walking tour around major sites in Westminster for $153.

Toursbylocals.com has been around since 2008 and says its guides undergo reference and background checks through Thomson Reuters World-Check . That offers peace of mind, and is yet another thing that many other sites don’t offer.

Note: some local guides on Tours by Locals as well as the other sites mentioned here list rates per person (helpful for solo travelers); others list rates per tour. If you’re traveling solo and don’t see rates for one person, message the guide or the site to see if you can work something out.

This cheerful, easy-to-use site allows you to search for “experiences” offered by local artists, teachers, photographers and chefs, among others. There are bright, clear photos of the guides, user reviews and descriptions written by each guide of what you’re getting à la Airbnb. A recent search found a number of compelling options, such as a three-hour culinary walking tour of Chinatown in Flushing, Queens, with stops for specialties such as Hainanese pot stickers, Sichuan chicken, Xinjiang lamb kebabs and Korean kimchi dumplings, for $85 — food and soft drinks included.

In Paris, a guide wrote that she would meet visitors anywhere in the city and show them around their chosen neighborhood (or pick one for them), as well as offer tips about Parisian culture during a three-hour walking tour for $200 (up to three other people are allowed at no additional cost). It’s nice to know, too, that if for some reason your guide doesn’t show up, Vayable.com will refund your money.

Owned by the travel review behemoth TripAdvisor , Viator offers reasonably priced sightseeing tours and activities from a variety of people and companies almost everywhere on the map. Guides have been reviewed by travelers who have already taken the tour, and you may contact your guide before you book. Many will customize their tours to accommodate your interests.

Private tours include eight-hours in Bali with stops at Ubud; a spice and coffee plantation; Kintamani, an active volcano, and the Tanah Lot temple ($60), as well as a five-hour tour in Mexico City focused on the homes and work of Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera, with stops at places such as Museo Casa Estudio Diego Rivera in San Ángel, the Anahuacalli building designed by Rivera and the Museo Dolores Olmedo in Xochimilco ($175 for up to four people). Professionally licensed guides have green tags, and if you like you can filter your searches to find them. I’ve used Viator for a couple of small group tours, but keep in mind that the company does not screen or conduct background checks on private guides. For more information: Tourguides.viator.com .

Vacation Rental and Home-Swapping Sites

While sites such as Airbnb , HomeExchange.com and Couchsurfing are not designed for private tours, that does not mean you can’t use them to find one. It’s not uncommon for hosts to leave their guests a list of nearby activities and restaurants; pride of place and being helpful are part of the spirit of many of these companies. If you’re renting or home-swapping and also seeking a guide, ask your hosts in advance if they will be able to show you around, or hook you up with someone who can.

You may also want to try MeetUp , which allows members to find and join free or affordable local activities and events. Search your destination for group walks and outings. Though you’re probably not looking for a group walk, you can message the leaders of the group and ask if they or one of their members might be willing to show you around one-on-one.

An Honorable Mention (Pay attention if you’re passing through Amsterdam ...)

This one is temporary and has too many variables for it to work for most travelers, but it’s too neat not to mention. If you fly KLM Royal Dutch Airlines from the United States, Canada or Italy, a new, free service allows travelers with a layover of at least six hours at Amsterdam Airport Schiphol to meet up with an Amsterdam local. Thus the program name: Layover With a Local. After touching down at Schiphol, the Layover With a Local app provides travelers with instructions. Travelers also receive a free train ticket on Dutch Railways to the city center, where they can meet their assigned person to learn about Amsterdam and have a drink. Even better: the first round is on KLM. Available through May: Layoverwithalocal.klm.com .

You asked: How do I find a local tour guide I can trust?

By the way concierge asked tour guides and travel experts how they find guides on their own trips.

Traveling has always come with complications. Our By The Way Concierge column will take your travel dilemmas to the experts to help you navigate the new normal. Want to see your question answered? Submit it here .

“We’re stopping in Casablanca, Morocco, for one day on an upcoming cruise. How can I find a reliable local guide? I’ve found several sites promoting local guides, but I don’t know whether any of them are trustworthy.” — Edith G., Laurel, Md.

A quick Google search will turn up the major tour companies operating in a city — or the ones paying for ads and searching juice — but you’re looking for the right guide to transform your understanding of a new place and avoid tourist traps .

This has become even more challenging as third-party companies and unauthorized guides have proliferated in tourism hot spots, scooping up tickets and driving up prices. Travel is already complicated; a guide should make it easier.

I’ve found plenty of reliable tour guides through social media and Airbnb Experiences . Before a trip to Oaxaca, Mexico, I went down rabbit holes on Instagram , looking at local food influencers and tour companies. Along the way, I ended up on the account of Lily Palma, a guide who founded Zapotec Travel by Lily . We coordinated a custom experience over WhatsApp, I sent a deposit in advance and paid for the rest in person, and I had a magical time with one of her guides.

Third-party tours have made Europe a maze. Here’s how to avoid them.

Using Airbnb Experiences required far less trawling. For food tours on a trip to Southeast Asia , I looked for local guides and strong reviews in Phuket , Thailand, and Vietnam , and I was delighted with the outcomes. In Bangkok, I took a risk on a new tour that looked unique but had no reviews; it paid off, and I had a spectacular time learning to cook with Prawit “Wit” Chankasem and his mom, Maew, at their coconut farm.

To get you started on your hunt, I took a spin through the Casablanca Airbnb Experiences options and thought this history and food tour sounded like a solid pick. In the many detailed reviews, customers described the Moroccan guide as flexible, adaptable, informative and in-depth. You could go on one of his small group tours for $60 per person or book a private one for about $300. Another guide had similarly strong reviews, so strong that his tour is described by customers as a “once-in-a-lifetime” opportunity.

I was curious what other travel professionals do, so I reached out to some hotel concierges, travel planners and tour guides for their advice. Multiple industry insiders warned against using mass-market sites such as Viator or Tripadvisor — which aren’t tour operators themselves but search aggregators.

“The challenge with some of those big-box operators is that it is hard for them to vet every experience provider, and so there’s a lack of consistency,” said Annie Sim, founder and CEO (chief eating officer) of the Table Less Traveled .

“We recently had a guest of who booked through a big website,” said Sue Yoon, VIP concierge supervisor at the Fairmont Pacific Rim hotel in Vancouver, Canada. “They prepaid and everything, and the driver never showed up.”

Yoon says her hotel always opts for local guides it has personally vetted and recommends travelers always ask their hotel for input — even if the traveler has already booked something. Many will be happy to double-check your pick. In your case, you could ask your cruise concierge.

Katie Parla, a tour guide in Rome and a cookbook author, says to seek out locals who specialize in a field that interests you. If you’re more into food than museums, search for a food historian or a food writer in town who may do tours on the side. Look for expert titles in your guide searches. “Certified guide” doesn’t tell you as much as “art historian” or “former chef.”

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Natalie Compton (@natbco)

Aaron Millar, a British travel writer and the host of the “ Armchair Explorer ” podcast, said some of his best experiences were with people who were experts in their field, including a biologist in Costa Rica and a paleontologist in Utah.

“You’ll get next-level insight, but also passion,” Millar said in an email.

You can also skip the search yourself and turn to a well-established travel adviser or planner to help coordinate a custom trip with one of their preferred guides. Such companies tend to have decades-long relationships with independent guides and can vouch for their services, says Haisley Smith, vice president of product development at Internova Travel . They’ll be able to handpick the right guide for your travel style, “for example, one who specializes in food or architecture or history or maybe that is good with families,” Smith added in an email, recommending you try Abercrombie & Kent’s Morocco office .

It usually won’t cost you more to go through a professional. However, Clio Morichini, head of travel and events for Italy Segreta , a magazine and travel planning company, says you can usually expect a higher price point with a locally based or boutique operation vs. ones you might find on Viator. But you get what you pay for, Morichini says, because they’re more likely to have vetted their guides several times before — not only to be qualified, but also entertaining.

Lastly, Seda Meral, director of the front office for the Hotel Nikko San Francisco , recommends crowdsourcing information through Facebook travel groups or Reddit , or going to a city’s tourism office. She plans to check in with London’s to find tours for her upcoming trip to the United Kingdom.

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Locals can be excellent tour guides. Here’s how to hire one

How ‘citizen guides’ can bring insight and intrigue to your next journey

A few years ago, Ruth Sadur and her boyfriend were supposed to travel together to Bali,   Indonesia . When he had to cancel at the last minute, Sadur wanted help navigating the trip. Her hotel connected her with De Yudha Herdyana, a local guide, who thought her itinerary was too generic. Instead, he ferried her to tourist-free rice paddies, uncrowded beaches, and restaurants with menus in Balinese that he translated. “It was one of my best travel days,” says the Melbourne, Australia , childcare worker. “He felt like my friend by the end of it.”

Herdyana is a citizen guide, a savvy resident whose small group tours can give travelers a fresh, often inexpensive introduction to a new place. Tourists have long connected with private guides, but internet-driven companies such as ToursByLocals and Airbnb Experiences are introducing younger travelers to more personalized, locally connected experiences by creating platforms where citizen guides can offer their services.  

( Delve into the Indigenous women upending Canada’s tourism industry .) Some experiences are unconventional, to say the least: A kayak trip down the Nile to see Cairo, Egypt ; a hike with a herd of goats in Death Valley, California . Some tours are more conventional, of course. You can always see Pompeii, Italy, with an archaeologist or Washington, D.C. ’s Georgetown with a historian .  

“But these guides can take you to more places in less time than when you are alone with your Lonely Planet book and a brochure from the tourist information office,” says Núria Galí Espelt, who studies tourism as an art history professor at the University of Girona.

Here’s why citizen guides have become more common, what kind of experiences and insider information they offer, and how to hire one during your next trip.

A personalized approach to tours

As tourism became a major economic driver in the 20th and 21st centuries, mass options were created to cater to crowds. Flat bottom boats ( bateaux mouches ) with prerecorded spiels launched in Paris in the mid 20th-century; hop-on, hop-off tour buses cruised the streets nearly everywhere by the 1980s; and jumbo cruise ship excursions now herd hordes around historic sites from Venice to Mexico . Somewhere along the way, guided tours earned a rep for being stodgy, sites-by-the-numbers itineraries.

Private guides had long been available to the wealthy or connected. But as travel information moved increasingly online in the early 21st century, suddenly anyone could turn up details on foodie walks around Porto, Portugal , or Google Shop Hop BA , which leads one-on-one visits to the crafts ateliers and vintage shops of Buenos Aires, Argentina . Multiple surveys find that people, especially Millennials and Generation Zers, enjoy paying for experiences more than spending money on material items.

( Read about the pioneering tour guides showing Afghanistan to the world. ) These specialty tours or private guides can have deeper connections and knowledge about the places where they operate, resulting in more bespoke trips for small groups or single travelers.   “Guides bring the spirit of the destination to life in a unique way,” says Nikki Hellyer, of ToursbyLocals. “In some cases, they’ve got generations of family there, plus unique stories and access to different things.”  

A guide can act as a hired friend-for-a-day, helping you see a place better and doling out mundane-but-useful information—how to navigate the New York City subway, where to buy groceries in   Berlin .   The experience often transcends a simple work-for-hire arrangement: The artist who shows you the many street murals of Lima, Peru , might invite you to a gallery opening after your tour; that bike trip leader in Copenhagen can fill you in on the city’s cycle lane rules and tell you where to grab a post-ride beer.

How to get your guide

The old-school way to find a local guide is to ask your hotel, and it’s still valid. But you can also search for guides and experiences via ToursbyLocals; the pay-what-you-want Free Tours by Foot ; or Airbnb Experiences, which launched in 2016 as a companion to the lodging listings company. The last offers some 40,000 options in 1,000 cities, ranging from walking tours of downtown Sydney, Australia , to surfing lessons in Los Angeles to exploring an abandoned missile silo in Kansas .

Citizens-on-the-street also headline with walking tour companies in major cities including the long-running, English-guided Paris Walks and Washington, D.C.’s history-focused   Washington Walks . If you have very specific interests (pottery in Spain , Shakespeare in London ), check with your destination’s official visitors bureau. Or try a Google search using your interest, destination, and the word “tour” to turn up specialized experiences such as Tokyo Ramen Tours or New York City   Jewish history tours . Just because a tour is private does not mean it costs more. Prices vary from place to place, but especially for family or friends traveling together, a private trip can be cheaper than joining a big bus or giant group walking tour.  

What it takes to be a guide

In some countries or cities, tour guides must receive special training and get certified; in other places and cases, guides are professional historians, passionate foodies, or just residents who are deeply plugged into their hometowns.  

What makes a standout one is their ability to interact with strangers and impart their knowledge in memorable ways. Deirdre Harman, a ToursByLocals guide in Dingle,   Ireland , sometimes sings or speaks in Gaelic when showing people churches and other spiritual sites. “You can read all about a place, but good guides can grow peoples’ imaginations,” she says. “We draw them into the experience.” ( Discover your next great vacation via TikTok .) For travelers, a guide can be both make a trip more meaningful and reveal what it’s really like to live in a given place. Take Jorteh Senah, a New York-based tech worker who visited Cairo, Egypt, recently. Short on time, he hired an Airbnb Experiences guide, Bakr Ghoniem.  

Ghoniem picked him up from the airport and whisked him to see—and photograph—the pyramids and the Sphinx far from the crowds. “Bakr was very social media savvy,” says Senah. “He knew how to capture the angles.” Over tea, Ghoniem told Senah about what his life was like in Cairo beyond the ancient monuments and souvenir hawkers. “It turned into a real conversation,” says Senah. “It was a cultural experience on so many levels.”

HOW TO FIND CITIZEN GUIDES

Related topics.

• CULTURAL TOURISM
• FOOD TOURISM
• WALKING TOURS
• CITY GUIDES

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Discover 10 Richland County must-see attractions during May 3 tour

Guided stops of 10 of Richland County's most loved attractions are part of a new tour.

The tour May 3 from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. will include the 47-acre Kingwood Center Gardens that once was the home of industrialist Charles Kelley King, the historic Ohio State Reformatory prison-turned-museum, where "T he Shawshank Redemption " was filmed and refurbished caverns , hand-built in the 1800s and once used to store beer before air conditioning, beneath Hudson & Essex restaurant in downtown Mansfield.

Hosted by Destination Mansfield-Richland County and the Mansfield-Richland Area Educational Foundation, the tour is designed for individuals who live or work in northcentral Ohio. Participants will ride a school bus. The $125 registration includes lunch.

And there's even a chance to get a sneak peek at one of the newest attractions, Hancock Heights short-term rentals, directly across Ohio 545 from the reformatory. The Mansfield Reformatory Preservation Society, which operates the OSR museum, purchased a few brick row houses and has turned them into overnight guest accommodations, according to OSR's website. A spokeswoman at OSR said they are a couple months out from opening.

Tour participants will hear from directors and key points of contact at each location about the growth of their organization. Destination Mansfield-Richland County will provide local and state tourism data as well as information on how attractions fit into plans for Richland County, according to the Richland Area Chamber-Economic Development.

“Most don’t realize tourism is a major industry in Richland County that supports over 5,000 jobs, making it the sixth-largest employer,” said Lee Tasseff, president of Destination Mansfield-Richland County. “It is worth learning about as its total impact is $405 million, generating over $11.6 milllion in local tax reenues for services all residents rely on.”

There will be 10 guided stops during the tour:

• Buckeye Imagination Museum  
• The Mansfield Playhouse 
• Shawshank Museum at the Ohio State Reformatory
• North Central Ohio Industrial Museum at the Ohio State Reformatory
• Hancock Heights Short-Term Rentals
• Niss Aviation FBO & Mansfield Lahm Regional Airport
• Hudson & Essex Winery and Caverns
• Ohio Bird Sanctuary
• Mansfield Art Center
• Kingwood Center Gardens

“Each stop will offer a curated experience designed for business professionals,” said Angie Cirone, director, Mansfield-Richland Area Educational Foundation. “Participants will have networking opportunities with each other and with tour hosts.”

Learn more and register at bit.ly/mansfieldtour .

[email protected]

419-521-7223

Twitter: @LWhitmir

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Post Game Guide

The Post Game refers to a secret area of Dragon's Dogma 2 that can only be accessed by making certain choices during the final main quest, Legacy. Completing the Post Game is required to see the True Ending. This page contains major spoilers for the end of Dragon's Dogma 2.

Check out our full Post Game Guide below

How to Access the Post Game in Dragon's Dogma 2

To reach the post game you first need to get to the game's final quests, The Guardian Gigantus and Legacy. Whether or not you chose to fight Gigantus you need to make your way to the Excavation Site at the far south end of Volcanic Island, where Moonglint Tower is located.

Ascend Moonglint Tower and confront The Dragon. When the Dragon asks if you want to battle or run away, choose to battle him. Complete the battle with The Dragon and attend the coronation ceremony.

At the ceremony, ignore the throne and instead speak to The Pathfinder, who is sitting at the table on the stage. Speak to him two times and he will offer you a chance to make a new choice. This will send you back to the long dragonflight cutscene before the final battle.

Crawl your way down to the dragon's chest, then open your item menu and Use the Empowered Godsbane Blade. Hit the command to stab yourself, which will trigger a new cutscene and lead you into the post game, which is cheekily named Dragon's Dogma 2 .

Once you are in the post game (also known as the world unchosen), there are quite a few new things to do and see. Some of these tasks are on a timer, and you can miss them if you wait too long. The oxcarts are no longer running but new Portcrystals appear across the map, so use Ferrystones when traveling great distances to save time.

If you die in the post game you are sent back to the start, and given another shot. Be sure to carry around a few Wakestones just in case.

Post Game Map

First thing you will notice upon entering the world unchosen is that all the water in the world has drained, exposing the Seafloor Shrine and opening new paths all over the world. Day and Night no longer have any meaning, so zombies and skeletons spawn all over the place.

There are also new dragons to be found wandering around the world, and a greater density of large monsters.

Be sure to explore the newly opened paths around the Seafloor Shrine, which are packed with treasure chests and Ferrystones.

Post Game Quests

First and foremost, there are a handful of new quests you can complete which earn you a ton of gold and xp, as well as Wyrmslife Crystals. They are:

• Dreams Apart Walkthrough
• A Scholarly Pursuit Walkthrough
• Halls of the First Dawn Walkthrough

There are also five evacuation quests you can complete, which split off from Halls of the First Dawn. They are:

• Civil Unrest Walkthrough
• The Regentkin's Resolve Walkthrough
• Wandering Roots Walkthrough
• The Importance of Aiding Ernesto Walkthrough
• Shepherd of the Pawns Walkthrough

Post Game Bosses

There are four new bosses to encounter in the world unchosen, special dragons known as Purgeners . These Purgeners can summoned by interacting with the red beams marked on your map. The red beam in Bakbattahl is the only one without a boss, triggering a quest instead.

There are four Purgeners in total, defeating them gets you a massive amount of xp and Wyrmslife Crystals.

Post Game Weapons and Armor

Most of the Weapon and Armor shops in the major cities have new stock. The new gear is very powerful, but also very expensive.

However there is also an all new gear dealer, The Dragonforged. After speaking to Rothais at the Seafloor Shrine, The Dragonforged will move from his cave to the castle where you can speak to him and buy Weapons and Armor from him in exchange for Wyrmslife Crystals (WLC).

You should have gotten 100 WLC for defeating The Dragon, and you can get another 90 per Purgener you defeat, and 30-40 more WLC per quest you complete.

True Ending Guide

Once you have cleared the map of Purgeners, a final red beam will appear on the Seafloor Shrine. You can continue to explore the world unchosen as long as you like, but when you are ready to see the True Ending go to the final beam and interact with it.

Up Next: New Game Plus

Top guide sections.

• Walkthrough
• Side Quests
• Boss Guides
• Sphinx Location and Riddle Solutions

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Where to find Mystery Boxes in Stardew Valley

And how do you open Mystery Boxes?

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Share All sharing options for: Where to find Mystery Boxes in Stardew Valley

Mystery Boxes are a new type of treasure item found in Stardew Valley ’s 1.6 update . These boxes can be opened to get rewards, but you won’t actually see any Mystery Boxes around the valley until you meet certain unlock criteria.

Below, we describe where to find Mystery Boxes and how to open them in Stardew Valley .

The Stardew Valley Wiki notes that once you spend 50 days in the valley or you collect a prize ticket, you’ll unlock Mystery Boxes. This aligns with our experience, as we unlocked the Mystery Box cutscene the night of Summer 22 in Year 1. Note that we collected a prize ticket (and spent it) before Summer 22, so we’re not 100% sure if there are other prerequisites paired with the prize ticket.

After you meet one of these requirements, a short cutscene will play while you sleep, showing Mr. Qi airdropping these boxes all over the valley.

Once this happens, you’ll start digging these bad boys up from doing pretty normal Stardew Valley tasks, such as:

• Hoeing dig spots (the little wiggling worms in the ground)
• Fishing up treasure chests
• Defeating enemies
• Mining rocks and ore

You can also get them as rewards from the Trout Derby and SquidFest events, as mentioned above.

How to open Mystery Boxes in Stardew Valley

You can open Mystery Boxes at the blacksmith’s , just like geodes. Clint will crack them open for you for 25 gold each and they can have a plethora of items inside.

We’ve found seasonal crop seeds, warp totems, coffee, and even more Mystery Boxes inside, making them a nice reward for just doing your regular farming tasks.

The next level of puzzles.

Take a break from your day by playing a puzzle or two! We’ve got SpellTower, Typeshift, crosswords, and more.

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