Solo travel? Here's how to find a local guide you can trust.
May 22, 2026· 6 min read · by the TBuddy team
A great local guide can turn a 3-day stopover into the trip you'll tell stories about for years. A bad one can ruin an evening — or worse. Here's the checklist our safety team uses internally, distilled for solo travellers.
Before you even open chat
- Filter for verified profiles only in the city you're visiting.
- Look for a trust score of 70+ and at least 5 reviews, ideally from travellers like you.
- Read the most recent review, not just the rating — a 4.8 with three recent 2-stars matters.
- Check the activities they actually do. A guide who only lists nightlife is not the person for a sunrise temple walk.
The first message that filters out trouble
Don't ask "what can you show me?" Ask three specific questions: where will we meet, what's the rough route, and how long will it take. A guide who answers all three in one message is signal. A guide who deflects or moves the conversation off-app is the strongest red flag there is.
If they ask you to chat on WhatsApp before you've met, end the conversation. Real guides keep it on TBuddy so reports work.
The first meeting
- Always meet in a public place — a café, a metro exit, a hotel lobby. Never their car, never their apartment.
- Share your live trip with one friend at home. TBuddy has a built-in live share for accepted tasks.
- Carry your own water, your own phone, and your own way back. A good guide expects this and won't take it personally.
- Settle the price in chat before you start. No price changes mid-trip.
After
Leave a review the same day — what worked, what didn't, what the next traveller should know. Specific reviews are the single biggest thing that keeps the community honest.
When something feels off
Tap the red shield in chat. It opens a one-tap SOS that shares your location with our on-call team and, if you've enabled it, your trusted contact. We treat every alert as real until proven otherwise.
