Our Tour Managers are the face of Great Rail Journeys. Knowledgeable, experienced and personable, they are on hand throughout your escorted tour to guide and help you. Tim Hall, also known as Tim on the Train, discusses life as one our fantastic Tour Managers and provides his expert advice.
I may, possibly, have the best job in the world… I get to travel, visit and enjoy wonderful places, meeting interesting people, experiencing different cultures and best of all… I get to travel by rail whenever possible.
Imagine the worst day at work you can think of. Then imagine that you have to work through the problems of that day while sitting in spring sunshine outside an Italian bar with an espresso and a pastry; or while watching the sunset over the rim of the Grand Canyon. Suddenly, it all doesn't seem so bad. You still have to fix the problem, of course, but if that's the constant, the variables certainly make it feel better.
What I Love About Life as a Tour Manager
Travelling to a destination by air is quick, but I love rail. Trains have big windows to view the scenery, the carriages are light and airy, you can walk to the café car to pick up a coffee, and stations are usually located in the city centres. Best of all, you have an awareness of the distance, changing geography and climate. There is a connection with the country you are travelling through.
The core of my work is, of course, the customers. It's my job to make sure that the tour they experience and enjoy is the tour they expected and purchased. Whenever possible, it's a good thing if I can find a little something extra, a "surprise and delight" that adds value to the experience. There are a few places where I have some tricks up my sleeve, but they'll stay as my secrets - sorry, but there's the surprise part for you! To find out more, come and join me on tour!
Unexpected issues are part of my working life. It's my job to resolve problems or to find a way around them. After all, that's the primary benefit of having a Tour Manager around. It means somebody else does the worrying.
The Role of a Tour Manager
Customers often ask if I'm an expert on the particular country we are visiting. I'm sometimes not, but that's where our expert local guides come in - to explain everything they need to know. I am however good at getting groups of people through transport systems to the right place at the right time.
My job is essentially to be there to help people when they need me, and then to get out of the way when I'm not needed. That said, it's always a pleasure to mix and chat with the customers. They come from a wide range of backgrounds and occupations, and I learn at least one new thing from somebody every time I travel.
Great Rail Journeys customers tend to be slightly older, with plenty of life experience and they have learned how to travel and socialise with others. I simply can't recall a tour where the group has not got on. In several cases, people have maintained friendships and even travelled together again long after the tour has ended.
Do I Have a Favourite Tour?
Customers also often ask me if I have a favourite destination? That's a little like asking if I have a favourite child. Every tour is different, and every country is unique. While it is nice to repeat a tour several times, for me the challenge is in taking on something new, and preferably, complicated.
Customers may not realise that many GRJ tours are relatively straightforward with rail travel to and from the destination, and one or possibly two hotels for the entire duration. One day that may be for me, but for now I prefer long distance and complicated multi-stop tours that really keep me on my toes. There are some countries that I don't usually work. I don't speak German (I speak French, Spanish and Italian) and so I leave German-speaking regions to those that can manage them better than I can.
However, now that I've said I don't have a special favourite tour, there is a shortlist of those that put a special smile on my face when I am allocated them.
The official slogan for Indian tourism is Incredible India and this is on the money. India just never fails to delight. Every time that I visit the country, I see something I have never seen before. I would add the USA to my list. Having partially grown up there, I believe that you don't really understand it until you travel through it. New York, Miami and Las Vegas are part of the USA, but unrepresentative of the majority. Somewhere else in the list would be Vietnam and Cambodia and China - they are eye-openers and fascinating. In Europe, Italy always cheers me up (especially the Top to Toe of Italy tour) and Portugal & the Douro showcases some of the very best of Spain & Portugal.
Making opportunities out of challenges
The tours that I like the very best are those that challenge clients; I don't mean physically, but more in terms of challenging beliefs and notions.
Take a look at the map above. It's known as a Valeriepieris circle, created in 2013 by Ken Myers. Centred on the South China Sea, it covers a radius of around 2,500 miles - about 10% of the Earth's surface area. Even though a third of the circle is ocean and it contains the least densely populated country in the world, Mongolia, the circle is home to roughly 4.2 billion people, more than half the estimated world population of 8 billion.
Any tour that visits this part of the world is going to be fascinating. The things that apply to our culture and beliefs in the UK are often absent, inverted or irrelevant to those living inside the circle.
Beauty sits next to ugliness, heavenly fragrances alongside nose-wrinkling odours, and food brimming with herbs and spices that we have never tried before. Everything inside the circle is different. Our planet is amazing, and the people on it even more so.
Travel lets us observe all of this and, in the process, can challenge our perceptions of how best to manage own lives. That's a great thing to experience, in my view.
So, there we have it. If you must work, then you might as well find something you love and do it! I've been lucky to do so.
Travel Tips from the Expert
As someone who has travelled far and wide for many years, Tim has picked up many useful tips. Here, he shares his advice for the start of your holiday: packing and meeting the group at London St Pancras.
Packing Cubes
If you travel on tour at all frequently, you'll discover that packing a suitcase effectively can be a challenge. Whatever you want is often at the bottom of the case, underneath several days of used clothing, and takes some time to find.
Fortunately, help is at hand in the shape of packing cubes. These are soft, usually rip-stop nylon mesh bags with zips that come in various shapes and sizes. They are available anywhere on the internet and are inexpensive.
Here's what you do - put underwear in one, T-shirts in another, socks in another, and so on. You then lay them out flat in your suitcase, so they interlock. On arrival at your destination hotel, you extract one required item per person from each cube for the following day. Hang them up and you're good to go but your suitcase remains fully packed and ready for departure. The trick is to keep one (large) cube empty for dirty clothing - but remember, it will expand during the tour while the others contract. If you need to do laundry during the tour, it's all in one cube and ready to count.
If your clothes are creased when you pull them out, put them on a clothes hanger and hang them up somewhere in the bathroom. Turn the shower on maximum hot, close the door and leave them to steam in the bathroom for 10 minutes. Return, remove and hang in the wardrobe. The creasing will have disappeared… but your toilet rolls may be slightly damp for a while!
Setting Off from London St Pancras: All You Need to Know
GRJ are unique in having an office inside London St Pancras station. It's really useful as a hub for departing customers (and Tour Managers) to meet up and get assistance and information. Our excellent team at St Pancras can also help with questions and offer advice about how to get through the Eurostar process. It's also conveniently located over and opposite the Marks & Spencer outlet which makes it handy for picking up sandwiches, crisps, teabags and the other day-to-day necessities of international rail travel.
If I was asked for one piece of advice, it would be this; Don't arrive too early!
Sometimes clients will arrive three or four hours prior to departure and there's not quite enough at the station to entertain for that long. This is especially true for early morning departures. The station is (of course) not heated, and at 5am it can be cold, empty and gloomy and there is nowhere to sit. I tell my clients to arrive 90 minutes before departure, no earlier. Eurostar quite often won't allow passengers to proceed through into the lounge until 60 minutes before scheduled departure. Of course, if immigration or security procedures change, this 90-minute rule would change, and customers would be so advised by GRJ. However, barring that, please, please don't arrive too early!
