Meet the Wise Guides.
Green Dream Tours is blessed to have great guides, who are crucial in helping our 10-year-old San Francisco-based company offer fun, small-group tours to Wine Country. Our guides are so popular that we get calls from total strangers asking if they can do a tour with Dylan, for example.
Based on TripAdvisor reviews, Robin’s knowledge of California history is quite impressive. Aaron is regularly applauded for his professionalism. And Heather, who also serves as our fleet manager, knows all the San Francisco hotspots since she was born here.
We thought you’d enjoy getting to know our guides better, so we asked them a few questions to find out what makes them tick. Here’s what we learned:
Heather has worn many hats at Green Dream Tours, but it’s her own travels that have helped shape her guiding style.
“I was born in San Francisco in the Summer of Love. Both my parents were hippies and I lived in Haight Ashbury for the first four years of my life. I started traveling at a very early age. I lived in Greece for a year before moving to Canada to start school. I have lived in many places and in doing so have been able to meet, and can relate to, a wide variety of people.”
Dylan has been guiding for four years. He’s a rock star, literally. His band is called Midnight Snackers.
“I just knew that I wanted to do anything but the corporate role I was trapped in. I tried some guiding on the weekends at the recommendation of a friend and quickly fell in love with it. More than any other aspect of guiding, I love the idea of helping someone have a really great day.”
Robin takes pride in tours that are fun and informative.
“Being a tour guide, I get to perform before an audience. That may sound conceited, but telling stories is something I enjoy. I realize some people are more interested in the alcohol content than the historical content. I try not to talk too much, but when somebody I’ve only just met comes up to me and says, ‘I wanted to ask you about something you said’—as they say in the old MasterCard campaign, it’s priceless.”
Aaron is a real people-person.
“The thing I love most about guiding is the people I meet and having the opportunity to share their experiences as they visit San Francisco and Wine Country. Being able to listen to their stories and share their experiences here is almost always interesting and refreshing.”
We asked our guides what they liked most about guiding. Their answers had one common denominator: The People.
Heather says: “I call tour guiding ‘traveling in place.’ I treat every day as a new opportunity to not only make new friends but also to learn about life in other places. I enjoy meeting people from all over the world and bringing them together. Enjoying great wine is a bonus!”
