As I sit in the basement of a secret bar of a flower shop in Buenos Aires with a few guests from a recent bike tour, I think about what it means to be a guide. The world is covered in us – from guiding expeditions in the Antarctic to biking through the canals of Amsterdam. A ‘guide’ is stereotyped, occasionally accurately, as a collection of young adults bumming around, making ends meet from season to season, thriving on adrenaline and beer, and otherwise avoiding the ‘real world’ with it’s office desks. However, many of us started guiding (or working in tourism and hospitality in general) because we love helping and managing stranger’s vacations, but more importantly, because we love the places we guide in or work in.
When I applied for guide positions in Buenos Aires when I first arrived, a huge motivator was spending as much time as I possibly could outside and exploring the new city I was calling home. However, I am finding myself enjoying the people as much as the place, not surprisingly. Not just the vibrant, amazing coworkers I have, but the guests as well.
I wonder, if a picture is worth 1,000 words, what is an experience? Is it something that changes your life? Is it a particular moment? Is it a combination of everything put together? As a guide, helping people to care about or understand a place is as much about effecting their heart as it is about appealing to their wallet. When a guest sees how their guide loves their place like they love a limb attached to their body, it touches a place in their heart too.
Many young adults won’t be guides forever, but most take that heart work and apply into other aspects of their personal and professional life. So telling people ‘I am a guide’ has much more meaning than most would think.
experiment to dérive 
Again, very nice. Your mind has given this much thought, but your ability to express those thoughts in writing is impressive, and I might add, very enjoyable to read.
I think being a guide in a foreign country teaches you tons of skills like hospitality, public speaking/ presentatations, sales, customer/client, service, organization, teamwork, resourcefulness,…and you are mastering a new language and they are including you in their marketing planning and implementation work. All of those skills will be valuable and transferable as you move to the next step in your career!