myBCN · Good to Know
The honest answers to what guests ask us most, in one place.
The things guests ask before booking. For questions about a particular walk, the route, the meeting point, what is and is not included, you will find those on each tour page. If yours is not here, just write to us.
Our Public tours are Semi-Private: they usually run with four to eight adults and are capped at nine adult guests, which means you get the attention of a guide without the logistics of a big group. Private tours are just your party: we do not add other guests, and the size depends on the tour you pick.
A Public tour (we call it Semi-Private) gives you a small group of up to nine adult guests and a fixed route. A Private tour is just your group: we adapt the route to your interests, stop when you want to stop, and the guide’s full attention is yours for the whole walk.
Public tours run in English only. Private tours are available in English, Spanish, German, Swedish, and French. If you need another language, contact us before booking and we will try to match you with the right guide.
Yes, very. About a third of our guests come on their own, so you would be in good company. Because the Public walk is a small, Semi-Private group, solo travellers slot in easily: you are with a handful of other curious people, not lost in a crowd of forty. There is no pressure to chat, quiet listeners are as welcome as question-askers, and plenty of our solo guests end up swapping tips, or a coffee, with the others afterwards. You will not feel like the odd one out.
Yes, and children often get the most out of them. Stories about real people, visible physical evidence (city walls, inscriptions, bones under the streets), and a guide who can adjust the level of detail on the spot work well for curious kids. Tell us the ages when you book and we will calibrate accordingly.
Yes. A Private walk takes up to fifteen people, which covers most families and friend groups. For a larger party, a celebration, a school trip or a work outing, we can run more than one group in parallel, each with its own guide, or build something around your numbers and timing. Tell us the group size, the date and what you have in mind, and we will put together the right shape for it.
Yes, that is the point of going Private. Tell your host what pulls you in, and they will lean the walk that way and adjust the pace and stops to suit you. It is still the tour you booked, shaped around your group rather than a fixed script.
You book and pay online through our secure checkout, by card, and confirmation is instant: your booking and joining details arrive by email within a minute or two. If the email does not show up, check your spam folder, or message us and we will resend it.
Free cancellation up to 24 hours before the start time, so plans can change and you can still book with confidence. Nine times out of ten it is a delayed or cancelled flight, the one thing none of us can do anything about, so when we ask why it is more out of sympathy than nosiness, and a hope that the rest of your trip goes well. Never a deal-breaker.
Very rarely. The walk runs rain or shine, so a cancellation from our side is unusual. If something genuinely outside our control forces it, a transport strike, a safety issue or a host emergency, we will contact you as early as we can and you choose: a full refund, or a free move to another day and/or time. We would much rather reschedule than let you down.
Never expected, always appreciated. The price is the price, and your host will not angle for a tip or steer you toward one at the end. If you had a great walk and would like to leave something, that is genuinely kind and your host will be glad of it, but there is no awkward hand-out moment and no set amount. A warm review helps us just as much.
Plan to arrive a few minutes early. We send a reminder two hours before the start, and the joining instructions with the map link make the meeting point easy to find, so use the link rather than a pasted address. Being on time is your responsibility: on a Public walk, once the tour begins your host gives the group their full attention and is not checking a phone, so a late arrival cannot be caught up or rescheduled. On a Private walk the timing is yours, so running late is no problem. If you hit a snag before the start, message us and we will help.
We want everyone to enjoy Barcelona with us, so the honest answer is: it depends on the walk, and we would rather talk it through than guess. Most of our tours go at a gentle pace, with far more standing, listening and looking than hard walking, and several routes suit wheelchairs and prams. Barcelona’s old streets do have cobbles, steps and the odd narrow lane, though, so some walks suit some needs better than others. Tell us about any mobility, hearing, sight or other needs before you book, and we will tell you straight whether a given walk works, point you to one that fits better, or shape a Private tour around you. Nothing about this is awkward, just ask.
Allow a little extra time in the morning when traffic is heavier, about fifteen minutes more for a taxi or ride app. Uber is unreliable here and often cancels, so we would use Bolt or Cabify instead, both have plenty of cars. Or just hail one of the black-and-yellow taxis with a green light showing: they are metered, take cards and are perfectly safe. If you would like the full picture, ask us for our Barcelona Arrival and Transportation Guide and we will send it over.
The walk goes ahead, rain or shine. Barcelona gets so little rain that we are frankly out of practice, but on the rare wet day we just get on with it: the narrow lanes help, and the stories do not mind the weather. Bring clothes for the forecast, and if you manage to find an umbrella in this city when it actually rains, all the better.