Gyde and Seek is a travel platform that doesn’t believe in travel as usual. I confirmed it in Mexico this summer after getting hooked on the personalized and socially responsible private tour company that operates in over 20 cities internationally. If you haven’t tried it, you really should.

Paco is a former professional bullfighter and ex-Olympic chess prodigy who is as comfortable in the ballet of Mexico folk scene as he takes visitors lucha libre. In colonial Puebla, Married knows the best hidden places for baroque dishes, like peppers in nogada, but his true passion is Arabic tacos. So there is salvadorwhich will elucidate the Toltec ruins of Tula or the Aztec glyphs of Tepotzotlán but will also be able to deepen the blues of Chicago.

The company was co-founded by Vanessa Guibert Heitner, a veteran travel planner, and her friend Andrea Guthrie, a business strategist who grew up around the world with her diplomat parents. Their idea was to connect discerning travelers directly with charismatic, highly trained guides in each location, but without group experiences or obnoxious price increases. Gone are the middlemen and layers of onion-like tour operators that add cost, complexity and risk of accidents. Instead, you’re looking for the elements of a tour you’re looking for – food history, street art, nightlife, Jewish culture, and more. – and Gyde and Seek’s algorithm will match you with a guide. You then coordinate directly with that person and the guide, who sets their own prices, receives the lion’s share of the fees. It’s like Airbnb for the people who show you the world.

After a very positive first Gyde and Seek experience in June, I have booked two more Gydes for August. Mexico City is the company’s most popular destination and the platform really served my particular needs: a trip was a family graduation party for my son. Next was an extended family visit to the ancient pyramids of Teotihuacan, located 30 miles outside of Mexico City. The third was a day-long food tour in Puebla with three hungry teenagers. In each case the guides went above and beyond the usual “here we have a cathedral founded in 1548 built of limestone” type tours. The three guides were super engaged, very knowledgeable and also cool to hang out with, which is important. Maria, for example, showed us where and exactly how to eat those street tacos she loves, and she also pointed us to the best coffees, chocolates, mole, and mollettes. The crowd of tough teens had a blast and that’s the point: you’re on vacation, after all. You don’t want to be stuck in heaven with a wet cloth all day. Someone like Maria elevates the whole trip.

Guibert Heitner and Guthrie recently chatted with me via video to talk about their business philosophy, the challenges of pandemic travel, and their hopes for the future.

What was the travel problem you decided to solve with Gyde and Seek?

Vanessa Guibert Heitner: I had been in the industry for a very long time in a more traditional type of high luxury operation. We were always looking for ways to portray a destination in a way that wasn’t reductionist or exploitative and didn’t exoticize the culture. So in the case of Argentina, where Andrea and I met and worked, we wanted to find a way to organize tours that went beyond tango and steak. This meant finding people with unusual perspectives on everything from human rights and economics to fine and folk art; artisans of all persuasions, historians, scientists, sociologists, intelligent experts. I am a former university professor, so the training of our guides was very important from the start.

Andrea Guthrie: We also wanted to provide service without costing as much as the big travel companies, like Abercrombie & Kent. This meant designing a technology platform to solve all the little problems that exist with most tour operators. So we knew we wanted to eliminate all the extra steps and multiple parties involved in a typical tour experience. The old model where you would call a travel agent, and they would contact a local office in Patagonia, and that office would contact a guide, and each person takes a small cut of the profit, so the costs add up.

Vanessa Guibert Heitner: Not only does this increase costs for consumers. It massively lowers the remuneration of the guides. There’s no value, and it takes away those subtle opportunities to let a guide do their thing if, say, someone comes to Rio and really wants to see postmodern kinetic art.

People have contacted each other the day before a trip to say, “I’m coming to Mexico City and I want to photograph churches at night. The guide answered and said, “I’m also an architectural photographer. I’ll take you to see six churches tomorrow night. If you were working with an agency, there is no way to organize something so quickly.

You have about 400 guides. How do you select them?

Vanessa Guibert Heitner: We traveled to most destinations ourselves to meet each person, or sent members of our staff to meet them. We have strict criteria and reject more than 80% of people who want to be on the platform.

What does it take to be a Guide and Seek guide?

Andrea Guthrie: Experience, university degrees, expertise, this is the first.

Vanessa Guibert Heitner: There is a threshold at the start. Can they back up what they promise? Whether it’s a sommelier, an art history guide, or a Jewish historian, does he have the qualifications and knowledge base? We interview them and hang out with them in person so we can, you know, feel them.

Feel them?

Vanessa Guibert Heitner: Feel them. Nobody likes guides that smell bad. You want their English to be good. You want a personality. You want enthusiasm, excitement, friendliness. You want people who won’t take three days to get back to you.

Andrea Guthrie: You want someone who will listen, not just to your questions, but to your concerns, and even read between the lines and understand what makes a guest happy and comfortable. Being attentive is the first thing I want.

These are not easy times for travel agencies. How is it going?

Vanessa Guibert Heitner: It was very difficult. We have been hit hard by the pandemic. We suffered a year of cancellations in just a few weeks in 2020. Planes stopped flying. There was a cognitive dissonance for us – we were like, how is this possible?

We have ten new destinations ready to launch, including Peru, Croatia and Finland. The guides are ready, the profiles are written. But we can’t launch them because we’re waiting to see how the recovery goes, what’s happening with the Covid rates, the economy and all that.

Andrea Guthrie: We focus on wins. We had a Swedish family who took their kids out of school and traveled with Guide and Seek for a year. Four children 14 and under. We structured their experience and it became a true learning journey for the family. However things turn out, we’re incredibly proud of what we’ve built and the kinds of experiences our customers have had.

Vanessa Guibert Heitner: So many people dream of traveling, but often the experience can be disappointing. You get 60% of what you want if you’re lucky. For us, the goal is 100% exceptional. A tour should never feel canned. A destination should never look like a cliché. Sixty percent just isn’t good enough.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Students scheduled to travel to America for work this summer have been “frustrated and stressed” by long delays and a lack of communication from travel agency USIT.

The company specializes in student programs and students can apply for their J1 visa through them at a cost of €850.

However, students have reported long delays with applications and many have been left in limbo as summer approaches.

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Trinity student Sarah Domoney sent in her application and documentation to USIT in late January, with herself and three friends planning to be in Chicago by June 1.

Part of the process is having a phone interview with USIT, but Sarah said she was left on hold for long periods of time and was having a hard time getting through.

The student told Dublin Live that she had sent many emails asking for help in arranging a telephone interview, but received no response.

The only communication she received from the travel agency until mid-April was this requesting payment of the balance of the €850 fee.

She said: “As we had sent them a multitude of emails asking for help with the phone interview and asking if they could call us, the only emails we had received from them at the time were payment deadline emails so that was really frustrating.”

Sarah said she paid the balance and contacted USIT for the phone interview in mid-April after being put on hold for 52 minutes.

The call lasted 90 seconds and all the questions she was asked were already answered in the forms she had filled out in January.

Sarah’s application then progressed to the job offer stage and she immediately uploaded all the required forms.

She said that since the phone call last month, the only communication she has received from USIT is that she is unlikely to get her visa in time for her June 1 start date and that they recommended that he change it for the third week of June.

“We started this process on January 28, and then being told in late April that we probably won’t recover until mid-June is extremely frustrating,” Sarah said.

“Currently, we have not received any communication from USIT as to when these forms we sent will be accepted, when we will receive our DS2019 form so that we can apply for an interview with the Embassy.

“It’s USIT incompetence. It’s just a shame.”

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She said she had friends who went with different travel agencies and received their visas without any problems.

Sarah also explained that pushing her travels back to mid-June would make it very difficult for her and her friends to find accommodation as most leases start at the beginning of the month.

UCD student Jenny is one of a group of students who have created a D1 students Twitter account to try to reach the company after many unanswered calls and emails.

She told Dublin Live that she started her application in January and all forms were sent in by February 10, but went months without any updates from USIT.

She said: “I wasn’t getting any response from emails. Then I started getting really stressed in April.

“During all this time, I was not able to get in touch with them at all.

“Time was passing and we were doing exams and homework so we were all so stressed about it. It would ruin everyone’s day if it was brought up.

“When I finished college, I said I had to move on this.

“I still wasn’t able to reach them, so a bunch of us decided to start a Twitter page to get some attention.”

Jenny said the UCD Student Union became aware of the issue and contacted USIT on her behalf.

Following Union involvement, she received a call from USIT this week but learned that they had changed their US sponsor.

Jenny said, “She (the USIT call operator) said I would have gotten emails about it, but I haven’t gotten any emails.”

Jenny said USIT told her that her forms were sent to the sponsor on April 20, but her US employer had not received any contact from the sponsor to date.

“It’s so hard to trust what they say because they keep lying,” Jenny said.

“It’s just a bit of a joke at this point, it’s really awful.”

A USIT spokeswoman told Dublin Live that “volume” is one of the reasons for the delays in applications.

She said, “Like every other business in the cultural exchange industry right now, USIT and other stakeholders in the J1 process have faced many challenges caused by the pandemic, such as high demand, COVID disease, shipping delays and staff shortages.The main difference between us and them is absolute volume.

“There are several different stages for a J1 application, including screening, candidate interview, job matching, job interviews, US employer verification and compliance, and interview with the U.S. Embassy, ​​so the whole process can take time as each application is processed by us and with our U.S. sponsors.

“This may mean that those who applied at the same time as others may not be at the same stage of the process. Some of the compliance required by program guidelines has experienced delays due to a variety of reasons, including documentation incomplete, errors in documents submitted to us, etc.

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The spokeswoman said USIT and the U.S. Embassy are “working closely together to expedite things.”

“We have a team of 20 agents who work tirelessly across the program to handle the high volumes of J1 queries by phone and email,” she said.

“At times call queues can take longer to clear, particularly around lunchtime. We fully recognize these delays and appreciate that this is extremely frustrating.

“We are grateful for the patience we have shown here and ask customers to contact us through one channel and never through social media so that we can keep the process as easy as possible.

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“We continue to hold Zoom meetings twice a week every Tuesday and Thursday from 4:00 p.m. to 4:45 p.m. These are available to all customers to provide updates and general information. The link to the sessions is https://www.j1online.ie/events

“In addition, USIT and the U.S. Embassy are working closely to expedite things and create interview dates available earlier so students with completed paperwork can meet their departure dates.

“All of our stakeholders are aware of the delays, and U.S. employers are extremely understanding about delayed start dates. However, if students cannot get a later start date to work for them this summer and wish to cancel the program, we We will refund their USIT participation fees and these are usually processed within 7 business days.

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