Updated by: May 11, 2026
The Privilege of Being Shown Around
There is a version of travel where you follow a guidebook. And then there is the other kind.
Working in the travel industry has given me something I don’t take lightly — the familiarization tour. An invitation to experience a destination as a guest, to be shown around by people who know it properly. Vietnam multiple times. The Philippines. Across Australia. And China — Guilin, Kunming and Nanning.
I want to talk about China.
Because nothing quite prepares you for it.
These are not cities like any you have visited before. The scale is one thing — but what strikes you first, and what stays with you, is the quiet. China has embraced the electric motorbike in a way that has fundamentally changed the texture of its cities. There is no roar of engines, no exhaust, no constant mechanical noise. Just movement — millions of people moving through vast cities in something close to silence.
If you have been to Vietnam or the Philippines, you know what city noise sounds like. The horn, the engine, the beautiful chaos of Southeast Asian streets. China is something else entirely. A calm that you don’t expect and can’t quite explain until you’re standing in the middle of it.
And then there is Guilin.
Guilin is where I had the best hot pot of my life. Around a table with Betty — our host, our guide, our entertainment for the evening, and one of the great party animals I have encountered in any country. Betty knew every spot. Betty knew every dish. Betty knew exactly when to order the next round and exactly when to move on to the next place.
This is the thing about travel with a local who really knows their city. You don’t just eat well. You eat the things that never appear on any tourist menu, in the places that have no English signage, surrounded by people who are there because the food is genuinely good and for no other reason.
No guidebook gets you to that table. Only Betty gets you to that table.
I have been very lucky. I know that. The familiarization tour is one of the great privileges of working in travel — to be welcomed into a place by someone who loves it, and to see it through their eyes.
There is no better way to travel.
Paul Mercuri
Wake Up Here Founder
