I do a lot of walking around the city and suburbs of Perth and see numerous fascinating little corners of it that I never knew existed. It's not the oldest city in Australia, but it has a lot of history nonetheless. And it's not just the historical features of certain areas that are interesting. Those pertaining to culture and lifestyle are compelling as well.
There's growing pride and interest in these parts of Perth. It's no longer seen as a "big country town" that deserves the label "Dullsville". It has a new found reputation as a teeming artistic and cultural hub with a vibrant cafe and small bar scene.
For this reason I've often thought that running guided tours of the city and surrounds could be a profitable venture. Of course bus tours have long been popular. But being logistically quite involved they would be comparatively costly to get up and running. The same could be said of other tours utilizing other modes of motorized transport.
On the other hand a small, inexpensive themed walking tour would comparatively easy to get up and running. You'd have to have an interesting route to take, along with well rehearsed, fascinating patter, of course. But you're not paying for the use of various machines.
There are a couple of outfits that offer tours of this kind. They seem to be focused on the CBD and surrounds. There may be little room for others, but considering how fast the city continues to grow I doubt that would be the case for long.
And you needn't focus on the most built up areas. You could hold interesting walking tours wherever there are interesting locations. On the weekend, for example, I saw this sign for an "Artwalk" near the corner of High And Swanbourne streets.
There's growing pride and interest in these parts of Perth. It's no longer seen as a "big country town" that deserves the label "Dullsville". It has a new found reputation as a teeming artistic and cultural hub with a vibrant cafe and small bar scene.
For this reason I've often thought that running guided tours of the city and surrounds could be a profitable venture. Of course bus tours have long been popular. But being logistically quite involved they would be comparatively costly to get up and running. The same could be said of other tours utilizing other modes of motorized transport.
On the other hand a small, inexpensive themed walking tour would comparatively easy to get up and running. You'd have to have an interesting route to take, along with well rehearsed, fascinating patter, of course. But you're not paying for the use of various machines.
There are a couple of outfits that offer tours of this kind. They seem to be focused on the CBD and surrounds. There may be little room for others, but considering how fast the city continues to grow I doubt that would be the case for long.
And you needn't focus on the most built up areas. You could hold interesting walking tours wherever there are interesting locations. On the weekend, for example, I saw this sign for an "Artwalk" near the corner of High And Swanbourne streets.
The event's Facebook page has this description:
Artwalk takes you on a leisurely journey to view some of Freo’s local artists in their home studios, from the Monument-al to the Bazaar.
This seems to have been a free event. But it was certainly a canny piece of marketing. The organizer knew of a bunch of talented people living in close proximity to each other, so he devised a guided walk that would have been interesting for art-lovers as well as good promotion for the artists involved.
And it shows just how specific you can be with this kind of tour. If you've got some fascinating local knowledge about a certain part of Perth, you could hold a themed walk pretty much anywhere. So why not make a buck taking people on it?
Artwalk takes you on a leisurely journey to view some of Freo’s local artists in their home studios, from the Monument-al to the Bazaar.
This seems to have been a free event. But it was certainly a canny piece of marketing. The organizer knew of a bunch of talented people living in close proximity to each other, so he devised a guided walk that would have been interesting for art-lovers as well as good promotion for the artists involved.
And it shows just how specific you can be with this kind of tour. If you've got some fascinating local knowledge about a certain part of Perth, you could hold a themed walk pretty much anywhere. So why not make a buck taking people on it?