The Tour Leaders

Marnie
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  • Places & Travel

The Tour Leaders is an oral history podcast about travel before the internet, told by the people who actually lived it. Each episode is a conversation with someone who was out on the road in the 80s, 90s or early 2000s, leading tours or travelling independently long before GPS, TripAdvisor or smartphones existed. These are stories about overland travel, cultural collisions, near misses, unlikely friendships, things going sideways far from home, and the kind of improvisation that shaped a generation of travellers. Not travel tips. Not destination guides. Just real stories from real people, told honestly. If you travelled before smartphones, this will feel familiar. If you didn’t, you’re in for a treat. New episodes every fortnight on Tuesdays.

  1. Zac

    May 25

    Zac

    Zac and I never met. Same company, same routes, same people, just never in the same place at the same time. This episode covers travelling in armed tourist convoys through Egypt after the Luxor massacre, buses racing each other despite the military escort, swimming off feluccas on the Nile, and the strange responsibility of carrying dozens of passengers’ airline tickets around Cairo before e-tickets existed. There’s also the small matter of accidentally taking some contraband into a government building in Cairo, realising it halfway through a security search, and briefly contemplating life in an Egyptian prison. He didn't go to jail. The tour continued. Then there's getting the tour fund pickpocketed in Xi'an, and taking over a group in India after three days in the country, when the group had already been there longer than he had. Enjoy the ride. P.S. Check out Zac's YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/@intrepidsouls2024

    1h 2m
  2. Annie

    May 12

    Annie

    Annie traveled overland from India through Pakistan and Iran in 2000 with a dog she'd rescued from a Goan street at three weeks old, tied in a sarong around her waist. In Iran, dogs had only just been made legal again. Everyone got off the bus. This episode covers hitchhiking across Iran with a rescue dog, an Egyptian doctor who required a formal complaint, climbing the pyramids illegally with Purple Kate (Series 1, Episode 3) and lying flat on the stones while the guards swept their flashlights, a horse falling into a neighbour's cesspit in Bulgaria, and the moment Annie told the village mayor exactly where he could go. She drove a 7.5 tonne ark from Bulgaria to Portugal with a pony, a Shetland, three dogs, two cats, and six chickens she wasn't supposed to have... She now runs an animal sanctuary in Portugal with 82 animals, including 28 dogs. If you'd like to support Annie's work, you can find the sanctuary at: Star Mountain Animal Sanctuary Enjoy. sEpmmsCBHhdjug1wvjnd

    49 min
  3. Arif

    Apr 27

    Arif

    Arif hails from Eastern Turkey and started tour leading in Cappadocia in 1998. His first tour outside Turkey was Syria — no training, a local guide who had no idea what he was doing, and a group that never found out. This episode covers getting the minibus stuck in the Moroccan desert for six hours after someone at head office decided to swap the 4WDs for budget minibuses to save money — go figure. A broken down boat in a Thai national park after dark, a panicking passenger, and monkeys screaming from the forest. And what it meant to spend a decade leading tours across Turkey, Syria, Egypt, Morocco and Southeast Asia before ending up in Helsinki. Arif still thinks the human touch matters more than the algorithm. Enjoy the ride.

    43 min
  4. Tracey

    Apr 13

    Tracey

    Tracy grew up in Wagga, studied maths and geophysics, and answered a classified ad to become a tour leader in Egypt. She thought it might last a while. It took years. She led tours across Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, India, Turkey and Eastern Europe — learning quickly that sometimes confidence mattered more than experience. We cover getting lost in Moroccan medinas, a spike through her toe in Todra Gorge (and walking on it anyway), a midnight hospital visit in Casablanca, a train that quietly crossed into Belarus without visas, and hearing about 9/11 in fragments at a station in Varanasi. Tracy is now an air traffic controller in Melbourne. Both careers started with ads in the paper. Enjoy the ride.

    40 min
  5. Richard

    Mar 30

    Richard

    Richard came to tour leading the wrong way around. Most people travelled first and fell into it. Richard was working a corporate job in London, went to Thailand for his sister Anna's wedding (Series 2), and just never quite went home. His recruitment interview consisted of being in the right place at the right time — specifically, the Baghdad Cafe in Bangkok, where Roachie (Series 1, Episode 2) spotted him, established he had a pulse, and offered him a job. This episode covers a tuk-tuk accident on his very first tour that landed two passengers in a Phnom Penh hospital, managing the paperwork while quietly panicking on the phone to Andy (Series 1, Episode 5). A border guard on the Tibet-Nepal crossing, faced with a man and no photos for his visa, simply handed him a bag of other people's portraits and said pick one that looks like you. A nine-month overland trip from Istanbul to Kathmandu — through Iran, the Karakorams, western China and Tibet — where every week brought another landmark he'd never thought to look for. Richard lived and worked in Siem Reap from 2012 to 2018. Angkor Wat was essentially his back garden. He now lives in the Scottish Highlands. He still gets up early. Enjoy.

    54 min
  6. Anna

    Mar 16

    Anna

    Before Anna was a tour leader, she lived alone in a hut in the Himalayas. No electricity. No running water. She banged a pan each morning to warn the snakes she was coming. Anna was built for this. In this episode — a motorbike robbery in KL that took the tour funds, the passports, and everything else. SARS quarantine in Bangkok. Pigs on motorbikes in northern Thailand. And an unexpected invitation to break fast with a family living in Cairo's City of the Dead. She also met her husband on a Cairo rooftop, got married on a Thai beach, and let a gecko decide which city to call home. Enjoy. P.S If this brought back memories — send it to someone you travelled with.

    46 min
  7. Spencer

    Mar 3

    Spencer

    Spencer trained me in Egypt in 1997 — back when applications were handwritten and camping tours ran on vodka and very little sleep. We cover Siwa Oasis, public toilets in Xi’an, ejecting a self-proclaimed Messiah from a tour in India, and the moment a passenger showed Kim Jong-il parody videos in North Korea. We talk about staying steady in a crisis, running back-to-back tours in Rajasthan, China before it changed, and the places that never quite leave you. Here's Spencer.

    48 min
  8. KJ

    10/13/2025

    KJ

    KJ’s tour leading stories span Turkey, training trips, and the art of entertaining a bus full of strangers. This episode is about improvisation, memory, and the strange facts you invent to keep people listening. She reminded me of a training trip in Turkey, where we decided to tell our passengers that Atatürk’s horse was loosely translated as Mr Tickles (it was the only 'alternative fact' that passengers would remember about Ankara)! Enjoy the ride with KJ.

    52 min
See All (17)

About

The Tour Leaders is an oral history podcast about travel before the internet, told by the people who actually lived it. Each episode is a conversation with someone who was out on the road in the 80s, 90s or early 2000s, leading tours or travelling independently long before GPS, TripAdvisor or smartphones existed. These are stories about overland travel, cultural collisions, near misses, unlikely friendships, things going sideways far from home, and the kind of improvisation that shaped a generation of travellers. Not travel tips. Not destination guides. Just real stories from real people, told honestly. If you travelled before smartphones, this will feel familiar. If you didn’t, you’re in for a treat. New episodes every fortnight on Tuesdays.

Information

  • Creator
    Marnie
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    17
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Show Website
    The Tour Leaders

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