6. Topic of choice (Importance of Passionate Guides)

Liam Mooney

As we’ve all grown to understand this semester, you can oftentimes tell when someone is genuinely happy (or unhappy) to be leading you on a tour.

Along our trip, I realized how all of the guides we met had very strong connections—ancestral, personal, or spiritual—to their certain church and its community. For me, this made the excursions much more authentic and meaningful. A number of the guides lived in houses just meters away from the churches they know so well. They told us stories of the past and included little gems of knowledge that are hard to come by as a roaming tourist in an unfamiliar land.

            This concept spans across many disciplines of tourism beyond just museums and heritage sites. Whether you’re skydiving, backpacking in foreign wilderness, or even checking out a zoo, having an impassioned guide will create a better experience for all involved. Throughout our semester, we’ve been lucky enough to have professors with this same mentality. Arne’s local knowledge of the land led us to some very sweet locations in Experience of Nature (think caves). Andreas’ connection to the Knut Hamsun Center and Hamsun's childhood home (and amazing reindeer soup), created an awesome experience there. And these past weeks, Petter’s background as an archaeologist and network through Nordlandmuseet gave us access to all of these exhibits. Also, how else would we have known that Kråkesølv just so happened to be playing at a little café in Bodø at lunch? Point being, having experienced members of the local region leading groups makes all the difference in creating authentic culturally immersive experiences.