Logo xelantorivap

Live Like a Local: Instantly Book Verified Local Guides for Private Tours & Experiences

Discover authentic neighborhoods, flavors, and stories with trusted local experts who tailor every private tour to your interests and pace. Book in minutes with real-time availability, transparent pricing, and secure payments, then explore confidently knowing every guide is thoroughly verified for safety and quality.

Front view of an astonished young woman in a red dress on a moped, holding a ticket.

Who We Are

We are a global marketplace connecting travelers with verified local guides who deliver private, customizable experiences rooted in neighborhood knowledge. Our mission is to unlock cultural understanding, support small businesses, and make authentic exploration effortless, safe, and deeply memorable for every visitor.

How Instant Booking Works

Search curated experiences, compare verified guide profiles, view live calendars, and confirm with secure payment in a few clicks, receiving instant confirmation, clear meeting details, and direct messaging with your guide to personalize the tour before you arrive.

Popular Private Experiences

Choose from curated, high-quality private tours led by vetted locals, each designed to reveal a city’s everyday life while fitting your schedule, interests, and comfort level, with clear inclusions, fair pricing, and flexible options for families, friends, and solo travelers.

Private Neighborhood Immersion Tour

Spend three hours exploring hidden lanes, markets, and community landmarks with a verified local who tailors pacing, stories, and stops to your interests. Learn practical navigation, respectful etiquette, and favorite return spots so you can continue confidently on your own afterward.

9

Custom Day Trip with Verified Local Driver-Guide

Design a full-day itinerary to coastal villages, vineyards, or mountain viewpoints with a certified driver-guide. Enjoy door-to-door convenience, flexible detours, photo breaks, and lunch at trusted local restaurants, maximizing your time while avoiding crowds and tourist traps comfortably.

9

Market-to-Table Cooking Experience

Shop seasonal ingredients with your host, learn family recipes in a welcoming kitchen, and sit down to a multi-course meal with beverage pairings. Ideal for curious food lovers, this experience emphasizes technique, cultural context, and adaptable recipes you can recreate at home.

9

Explore Destinations Like a Local

Go beyond the postcard to discover markets, micro-neighborhoods, and cultural rituals that visitors rarely see, guided by locals who translate context, unlock conversations, and adapt the path to your energy, weather, and spontaneous curiosities throughout the day.

Hidden Neighborhoods

Follow your guide through backstreets, courtyards, and informal landmarks that reveal how residents actually live, commute, and socialize. Learn how daily rhythms shape the city’s character, and pick up respectful visiting habits that open doors and smiles wherever you wander.

Cultural Etiquette Introductions

Start with a friendly briefing on greetings, tipping, table manners, market bargaining, and temple or church protocols. These small insights help you avoid awkward moments, show respect for local traditions, and create meaningful connections with the people you meet during your visit.

Seasonal Highlights

Discover festivals, pop-up markets, harvest seasons, and neighborhood events that change month-to-month. Your guide will adjust routes to include timely activities, from cooking seasonal dishes to watching traditional performances, ensuring your experience feels fresh, relevant, and rooted in the present moment.

Meet Our Verified Guides

Every guide passes identity checks, background screening, and quality assessments, then builds a transparent profile with specialties, languages, sample itineraries, and traveler reviews, so you can confidently choose someone whose personality and expertise match your travel style.

Verification Process

We confirm government-issued identification, conduct background checks where legally permitted, review qualifications, and evaluate communication skills through interviews and test tours. Our team performs ongoing quality monitoring using traveler feedback, ensuring consistently safe, respectful, and insightful experiences across destinations.

Guide Profiles and Videos

Preview each guide’s style through short introduction videos, photo galleries, and sample routes with estimated walking distances. Learn their passions—architecture, food, street art, nature—and see how they adapt tours for families, seniors, and travelers with specific accessibility or dietary requirements.

Community Ratings and Reviews

Read verified reviews that highlight strengths, responsiveness, storytelling, and pacing. Our system prioritizes recent feedback and flags consistent excellence, helping you discover guides who create genuine connections, navigate crowds smartly, and solve small problems before they become trip-stressing issues.

Food, Markets, and Home Dining

Taste the city through guided market walks, street food safaris, and optional home-hosted meals, learning the stories behind ingredients, family recipes, and neighborhood staples while practicing ordering confidently like a local.

Street Food Exploration

Sample beloved snacks from clean, reputable vendors your guide trusts, understanding regional variations, spice levels, and ordering etiquette. Learn to identify quality, avoid tourist traps, and request modifications for dietary needs without missing the most celebrated flavors and textures.

Young travelers wearing backpacks are smiling, high-fiving, and walking in a canyon.

Market Walk with Tastings

Navigate produce stalls and specialty counters while hearing vendor histories and seasonal buying tips. Practice simple phrases, try signature items, and receive a list of reliable shops for later visits, empowering you to return confidently and shop like a neighborhood regular.

A couple hiking in a forest

Safety, Trust, and Insurance

A perplexed female traveler with a backpack holding a map.

Travel with peace of mind through verified identities, secure messaging, support coverage, and optional insurance, alongside clear emergency contact procedures and transparent guidelines that prioritize your comfort and informed consent at every step.

  • Clear Meeting Points and Check-Ins Receive a precise meeting location with a recognizable landmark, photo reference, and backup rendezvous. Automatic reminders, in-app messaging, and optional check-in features help ensure a smooth start, even when transit delays or unfamiliar streets challenge your timeline.
  • Emergency Support and Protocols Access multilingual support with escalation procedures for medical, safety, or logistical issues. Guides are trained in local emergency numbers, hospital locations, and safe detours, and they communicate expectations clearly so you feel supported while moving confidently through the city.
  • Optional Coverage and Guidelines Purchase optional tour coverage where available for added reassurance. Our guidelines outline what is included, what is not, and how to make informed decisions around transportation, weather, and physical exertion, reducing uncertainty while preserving flexibility and spontaneity.

Flexible Scheduling and Cancellation

Reserve confidently with clear rescheduling options, fair cancellation windows, and free changes within defined periods, supported by responsive guides who understand travel plans can evolve due to weather, delays, or inspiration.

Easy Rescheduling

Adjust your tour date or start time within policy limits directly from your dashboard. Coordinate quickly with your guide, who can recommend alternative routes or shorter formats to fit your updated schedule without compromising the experience’s essence or quality.

Transparent Policies

Before checkout, review cancellation windows, partial refunds, and non-refundable components like pre-purchased tickets. We summarize key points in plain language with examples, so you can book with confidence and avoid unexpected fees if plans need to change.

Weather and Contingencies

Your guide prepares rain-friendly routes, indoor stops, and backup activities for seasonal extremes. Expect honest recommendations, real-time adjustments, and gear suggestions so the day stays comfortable, productive, and aligned with your interests despite shifting conditions.

Multilingual Experiences

Connect effortlessly with guides who speak your language or offer bilingual tours, ensuring stories, humor, and nuance are accessible without losing cultural texture or local authenticity.

Language Matching

Filter guides by language fluency and dialect preferences, including support for families mixing languages. Profiles list proficiency levels and sample recordings, helping you choose someone who communicates clearly while preserving local expressions that add humor and meaning to the experience.

Overhead view of a focused travelling girl wearing a hat and backpack, holding a map on a yellow background.

Sustainable, Responsible Travel

Support small businesses, respect neighborhoods, and reduce environmental impact with routes designed to spread benefits and minimize crowds, empowering travelers to leave a positive, lasting footprint.

Local Economies First

Tours highlight family-owned shops, artisans, and community projects, directing spending toward people who preserve traditions and create opportunities. Your guide explains supply chains, fair pricing, and ethical souvenir choices, turning purchases into meaningful contributions rather than quick transactions.

Low-Impact Routes

Expect walking-first plans, public transit use, and mindful timing to avoid peak congestion. Guides choose quieter alleys, parks, and community spaces that distribute attention and respect residential life while still offering rich stories and memorable views.

Respectful Photography

Learn when and how to ask permission, frame sensitive subjects, and avoid disrupting daily routines. By practicing discreet, considerate photography, you build rapport with residents, capture more natural moments, and model travel behavior that benefits everyone involved.

Families, Friends, and Small Groups

Enjoy private experiences tailored for multigenerational travelers, birthday trips, and reunions, balancing activities, breaks, and interactive moments that keep everyone engaged and comfortable.

Kid-Friendly Adventures

Guides incorporate hands-on stops, storytelling games, and snack breaks that transform history and culture into discoveries kids actually enjoy. Expect bathroom planning, stroller-aware routes, and safety-first pacing that keeps excitement high without exhausting the youngest explorers.

Celebrations and Milestones

Mark birthdays, proposals, or anniversaries with scenic viewpoints, surprise tastings, or musician drop-ins organized discreetly by your guide. Personalized touches turn meaningful moments into unforgettable stories, captured with thoughtful photo opportunities and respectful coordination at each stop.

Comfortable Group Logistics

Your guide manages meeting points, seating, and timing while balancing interests and energy levels. Expect clear roles, flexible detours, and shared decision-making that keeps the group together without sacrificing individual curiosities or comfort.

A group of happy friends taking a selfie with a cellphone outdoors.

Business Travelers and Remote Workers

Maximize limited time with efficient routes, quiet cafes, and reliable connectivity tips, blending essential sightseeing with practical orientation for future independent exploration and work needs.

Stories, Photos, and Memories

Capture meaningful moments with optional photo add-ons, post-tour recommendations, and saved routes that let you revisit your favorite spots independently after your experience ends.

Lovely, inspired curly-haired woman in a hat holding her pretty daughter and a city map, looking away. Outdoor portrait of two girls traveling around a new place and searching for beautiful sights.

Frequently Asked Questions

How are guides verified on your platform?
Every guide undergoes identity checks, background screening where permitted, and a multi-step quality review examining communication, responsiveness, and subject expertise. We evaluate test tours, monitor ongoing feedback, and remove or retrain underperforming profiles, ensuring travelers receive safe, respectful, and consistently high-quality private experiences.
What is included in the price of a private tour?
Each listing clearly states what is included, such as guiding services, tastings, or public transit fares when specified. Optional extras like attraction tickets, private transportation, or photo add-ons are labeled transparently before checkout, so you always understand costs and can choose confidently.
How does instant booking work across different time zones?
Our calendars display your local device time alongside the destination’s time, minimizing confusion. When you select a slot, the system verifies guide availability in real time and sends immediate confirmation, itinerary details, and messaging access, helping you coordinate easily regardless of where you are booking from.
Can I request a customized itinerary for my interests or mobility needs?
Absolutely. After booking, message your guide with preferences, accessibility requirements, and pacing details. They will propose a route with realistic walking times, transportation options, and weather backups, ensuring the experience matches your comfort level without sacrificing authenticity or meaningful discoveries.
What safety measures and insurance options do you provide?
We verify identities, offer secure in-app communication, and share clear meeting points with backup plans. Where available, optional tour coverage can be added at checkout. Guides follow local regulations and provide practical advice around transit, weather, and exertion, prioritizing informed decisions and traveler comfort.
What is your cancellation and refund policy?
Policies vary by experience and are displayed before checkout, including free cancellation windows, partial refunds, and non-refundable elements like pre-purchased tickets. Manage changes in your dashboard, coordinate rescheduling with your guide, and receive automated confirmations documenting any adjustments for clarity and peace of mind.

Contact us

Technical support

info@xelantorivap.com

Working hours

Monday—Friday: 08:00–17:00

Saturday—Sunday: 08:00–12:00

Address

One Bloor East, Toronto, ON M4Y 0E3, Canada