Emina Sendijarevic

"How much for the guide?"

..yess, we started counting guide-proposals.

A famous American writer once wrote it's not worthwhile to travel if you're going to count the cats in Zanzibar (Thoreau, Walden). What he actually means is that the most valuable kind of travel occurs without leaving one’s hometown: yourself.

Not a glamorous ride, but a bumpy one. Not a mass tourist tour, but a personal approach. I think most visitors are aware of that since I have been counting quite a lot guide requests during the last couple of months. Let me inform you about the progress that lately has emerged on our network.

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Counting cats - Classic Russian Matryoshka Nesting Dolls. Picture found on the Russian Shop Emina Sendijarevic

At least 18 visitors have contacted a guide in the last three months. I say 'at least', because we can only count how many times visitors used the 'be-my-guide' button. It's difficult to know how many visitors have actually contacted their guide if they were using other means of getting in touch with their guide. Some of these visitors also requested two guides during their trip, so I can proudly declare that in just three months 22 guides have been contacted. Some of those visitors already came back from their travel and were really satisfied with their guide and trip. Their stories/comments will follow on the website.

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Top three most viewed guides. - To see a full list, click here . Emina Sendijarevic

Furthermore it's remarkable to see that the top three most viewed guidepages are about remote areas you wouldn't call your average tourist places. Subsequently they are: Tehran (Iran), Erbil (Kurdistan) and Beirut (Lebanon). You can see a full list of the most viewed guidepages here.

Also the number of visitors of the website has almost doubled in the last three months since the start of this project. We're receiving more or less 5000 visitors per month on our website that are interested in underground culture. 5000 visitors and I'm still counting.