FREE TOURS
The free tours concept is an alternative model of urban tourism that has developed rapidly globally in the last 20 years, changing the way travelers discover cities.
A "free tours" is a guided walk through a city, organized by a local guide, without a fixed, pre-established participation fee. The tour is free, meaning that participants decide at the end whether and how much they want to give the guide, in the form of a tip, depending on their satisfaction and financial possibilities.
The main advantages of this type of tours
Financial accessibility – anyone can participate, regardless of budget.
Flexibility – there is no imposed tariff, each tourist contributes as much as they consider fair.
Guide's motivation – guides are encouraged to deliver quality tours, because remuneration only depends on the impression left.
Relaxed and interactive atmosphere – tours usually have a friendly and less formal character than classic tours.
Socialization – tourists from different corners of the world participate, which also gives them a community component.
Varying duration and structure – tours are usually between 1.5–3 hours and cover central areas and lesser-explored or known stories of places in the city.
Differences from classic tours
Approach – guiding in free tours is focused on storytelling, more personalized, with local stories and anecdotes, while classic tours can be more rigid and... academic.
Passion – Although you can find passionate guides on classic tours, for them guiding remains a job. On free tours, most of the time, the guides are volunteers, passionate about tourism and the history of the places they present.
Target audience – free tours attract mainly young people and independent travelers, while classic tours are frequently aimed at organized groups and tourists with a higher budget.
Price – classic tours have a fixed fee (often higher), while free tours are based on voluntary contributions. And even if you choose not to pay at the end, no one is upset!
The history of free tours
The concept of free tours emerged in Berlin in 2004, through the Sandemans New Europe company. The model quickly spread to major European capitals (Paris, London, Amsterdam, Madrid) and then to all continents, including smaller cities secondary to the capitals. Its success was due both to the explosion of low-cost tourism after 2000 and to the need for a more flexible and accessible alternative to traditional tours.
Free tours in Romania
In Romania, the first initiatives of this type appeared around 2010–2012, in cities with high tourist flows, such as Bucharest, Brașov or Cluj-Napoca. Bucharest was the first city with a constant program of free walking tours, initiated by independent guides and local tourism associations.
The concept has developed in parallel with the increase in the number of foreign tourists, especially with the popularization of city breaks. Currently, there are groups and organizations that run daily tours, especially in English, which are very popular among backpackers and young tourists.
În 2013, la Arad a fost lansat proiectul Arad Free Tours, fiind primul oraș de dimensiune medie în care se implementează conceptul de free tours. Ulterior, echipa proiectului a înființat Asociația Turism Alternativ, cu care a extins mai târziu conceptul și în Timișoara, și în Alba Iulia, orașe care atrag mii de turiști, dar care nu aveau încă implementate tururile gratuite.
In 2025, the Alternative Tourism Association launched the FreeTours.ro project, through which it aims to expand its network primarily in the main tourist cities, and secondly in secondary cities, located around those tourist magnet cities and which can in turn benefit from the development of tourism in large urban centers.
Related projects
After implementing the free tours concept in the three cities, Alternative Tourism Association also developed several original, complementary concepts that carry forward the spirit of urban exploration and alternative tourism: Tourist at home (Tourist in your own city), Behind closed doors and Free tours on two wheels.
TOURIST IN YOUR OWN CITY
The project represents thematic urban exploration tours, aimed especially at locals who already know the history and culture of the city and want to delve deeper into niche topics. The themes are very specific and go in depth: architecture, industrial heritage, historic neighborhoods, various personalities, lesser-known stories.
The target audience for these events is mainly passionate locals, eager to discover new faces of their own city. Through these tours, you rediscover your city through the eyes of a tourist, but with advanced information and details that only a local can fully appreciate.
BEHIND CLOSED DOORS
This concept brings tours that focus on a single objective – an institution, an enterprise, a space that is normally inaccessible to the public and that is not perceived as a conventional tourist destination. The tours organize visits to unusual places for tourism: public institutions, sports facilities, cultural institutions, factories, plants, etc.
Access is facilitated by working with an insider – a specialist, an official or a personality in the field. Participants enter spaces that are otherwise inaccessible or forbidden: the mayor's office, the football team's locker room, behind the theater's curtain, a judge's office, a prisoner's cell, etc. transforming ordinary places into real tourist experiences.
FREE TOURS ON TWO WHEELS
These are urban and peri-urban exploration tours by bike, combining local culture and history with sports and outdoor time. The tours cover extensive routes that normally cannot be covered on a walking tour.
These type of tours cover more distant or geographically distributed destinations. Activities of this type emphasize history, culture and heritage, as well as exercise, a healthy lifestyle and responsible tourism.
Two-wheeled tours practically promote an active lifestyle and combine getting to know the city with the joy of pedaling.
