Countdown to Financial Fitness: Trusting Tourist Information

Countdown to Financial Fitness: Trusting Tourist Information: Whenever you travel to a new city, the Tourist Information Office is usually your best friend. Cheerful representatives hand out free ma...

Trusting Tourist Information

Whenever you travel to a new city, the Tourist Information Office is usually your best

friend. Cheerful representatives hand out free maps, make recommendations about what to see and do during your stay, and answer questions about attractions, hotels, tours, and local transportation.

But be sure you’re visiting the official tourist information office, not just a vendor who provides “tourist information.”

On our recent cruise to Iceland, we had a stop in Akureyri, Iceland’s second-largest city, located on the northern side of the island. The onboard port lecturer told us that all the city buses in Akureyri were free, and he encouraged us to use them.

When we got off the ship, the first building we saw displayed a big sign saying, “TOURIST INFORMATION.” We went inside. It was basically a souvenir shop, but they also had an information desk and free city maps. We asked the woman at the desk where we could catch the free public bus.

She made a face. “I have no idea where it stops; I never take the bus. Tourists shouldn’t ride it. You’ll get lost.” She was selling tickets for the Hop On, Hop Off bus for $25 each.

In many cities, the Hop On, Hop Off (HOHO) bus delivers good value. Sometimes, not so much. It depends on how long you’ll stay in the city, what you plan to see, and how close the major attractions are to one another.

If you’re going to be in town for several days and the HOHO stops near your hotel, a multi-day pass that includes discounts on attractions might be a great deal, because you’ll have plenty of time to get your money’s worth. If you’re only in port for a few hours, you might have time for just one loop—a poor man’s guided tour—and you won’t be able to reap all the benefits you’ve paid for.

And if the sites you plan to visit are within walking distance of each other, it could be more cost-effective to take public transportation or even a taxi to the center of town instead of trying to hop on and off every block or two. Also, pay attention to the schedule frequency and crowd size. I’ve seen HOHO buses in some cities packed so full, you can hop off, but when you try to hop back on, you have to queue up and wait for several buses to pass before you get a seat.

In Akureyri, we skipped the HOHO bus option and continued on foot into town, where, a few blocks away, we found the real tourist information office. That representative gave us a better map and told us exactly where we could catch the free bus. She explained that the number five and the number six made a complete loop, over the same route. One headed clockwise, the other counter-clockwise.

Before we boarded a bus, we decided to explore the downtown area. We hiked up a slight hill to the church (which was under renovation) and then walked to the botanical garden, a touted HOHO stop and also a destination for ship’s shore excursions. The grounds were beautiful and there were numerous plants in bloom. And admission was free.

When we finished our stroll through the botanical garden, we found the public bus stop. The number five wouldn’t come for twenty minutes, but the number four would be there in ten. Should we get on the four? What if we got lost, as the HOHO saleswoman warned? We noticed that the final destination of both buses was a stop called Midbaer. We figured we could take the four to Midbaer and then switch to the five.

Midbaer turned out to be the central station across from the real tourist information office. It was the end of the line for the four, and there was a five ready to depart (probably the same bus we would have boarded if we’d kept waiting at the botanical gardens). We hopped on the five, rode a complete loop, and since we still had time before we had to go back to our ship, we did another loop on the six.

We compared notes with a couple from our cruise who had taken the HOHO. The routes we had traveled were similar. “Just so-so,” was their assessment.

“Was the commentary interesting?” I asked them.

“You could barely hear it for all the static,” they replied.

Unlike the HOHO, the free public bus doesn’t provide commentary. But you get to chat with the locals, mingle with them as they go about their daily life. And you can’t beat the price…

Sharon Marchisello is the author of Live Well, Grow Wealth.