CHUCKTOWN TOUR GUIDES

Thursday, February 28, 2013

Life goes on...

Some of the Tour Guides listed here have moved on to other challenges, so this blog is bring retained as a "snapshot in time" from 2008, an historical record only. If you need to update your profile, or have it removed, please contact me at patriciacatanich@bellsouth.net.

Tuesday, February 5, 2008

Ever wonder what Tour Guides think about the TOURISTS?

Chucktown Tour Guides is a humorous look at ourselves, our business, some of the sillier questions we've been asked, and we'll tell you how to hire a Top Shelf Tour Guide of your very own!

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"WE WANT TO GO TO RAINBOW ROW AND THE BATTERY!"

That's all we ever hear from many of our visitors. Chucktown Tour Guides call that the "Post Card" Tour.

If that's all you're interested in you can buy one of these.

But if you want to learn about a Charleston, SC most people don't know exists, talk to a CHUCKTOWN TOUR GUIDE!

This site is the home of the elite, all-star Charleston TOUR GUIDES, who know and can tell you about the REAL CHARLESTON MOST VISITORS NEVER KNOW ABOUT.

The Tour Guides featured on this site are independents or independent-minded people who just happen to work for someone else - you won't see any company logos in their pictures - there's plenty of brochures and Web sites out there if you want to book a tour like most people do.

But if you want to go straight to the source of the touring experience, it's US - the freethinkers, the specialists, the mavericks, the highly qualified, experienced people with unique styles and more than a touch of irreverence - we're CHUCKTOWN, the top shelf Tour Guides.

Read about what's it like to be us, and then check out the Top Shelf Tour Guide profiles - we're all hired guns. You might find The Tour Guide who will give you the most entertaining, informative tour you'll ever have in your travel life!

Some Stats to Put Things in Perspective:

Every Charleston Tour Guide is licensed by the City of Charleston - we're the most highly tested tour guides in the United States - this ain't no buggy ride in Central Park. There are two types of licenses - a temporary (only good three months after a fill-in-the blank idiot test - those are rookies), and a permanent tour guide license, as shown here.

But it's not really permanent at all - it has to be renewed every three years by continuing education classes, or you have to retake the dreaded permanent tour guide exam.

About 10 years ago, the exam had 400 questions on it - it's since been scaled back to about 250 - too many people were failing it.

It has three main topics: the history of Charleston and the region, which includes African-American, Revolutionary and Civil War histories, architecture, and the botany of the region. You have to get 80% correct on it to pass.

And if that ain't enough, two days later, you take an oral exam: they put you on a tour bus, drive you around the largest historic district in the United States (2nd largest in the world - only Rome, Italy is bigger), pull your name out of a hat, and wherever you happen to be you've gotta talk for three minutes flat - no ghost stories, no jokes, only FACTS. A couple of years ago there was an oral exam with 8 people on the tour bus who had passed the written exam with flying colors - 6 of them failed the oral. So it's not easy to get and keep one of these things.

And to give you some idea of how few of us do this:

There's about 100,000 people living on the Charleston Peninsula, approximately 580,000 people living in the surrounding metropolitan areas (and those numbers are growing exponentially), but only about 350 PERMANENTLY licensed tour guides, according to the official list of the Charleston Tourism Commission.

Some people on that list don't even LIVE here anymore; many of them give fly-by bus tours or ghost tours only, and some of them are little blue-haired ladies who just want to have a tour guide license - they don't give tours at all - they just show up at the meetings and criticize the REST of us.

And out of all those people, only about 50 people give carriage and specialty-based walking tours year round, on a full time basis as PROFESSIONALS. So you can IMAGINE how specialized our WAR STORIES are!

You'd love to be a fly on the wall at the end of day at a tour guide hangout to hear some of those stories - YOU might be IN them!

If you've read this far, you're probably wondering what the difference is between a top-shelf Tour Guide and an also-ran. Here are some generalizations to help you make the distinction, and choose a Tour Guide that will give you the experience you really want.

And the Tour Guide's experience is a big key, of course. A history major at the College of Charleston who got a license last month is NOT going to give you a full-blown, polished, sophisticated tour - they can't help it - they just haven't been doing it long enough. But at the other end of the spectrum, too many years of touring don't necessarily equate to entertaining expertise: a "lifelong" type may be burned out, or so bogged down by details and self-importance they'll bore you to death. See Top Shelf Tour Guides for recommendations.

Tour Guide Types to Avoid

As we've said, just because you've got a Tour Guide license, doesn't mean you're a good Tour Guide. Here are some types you might want to avoid and the reasons why.

"Native Charlestonians"

Interested in someone else's family tree?? You better be - these types worship their ancestors. You may not want to hear stories about his great-great-great Uncle Beaufort's hygiene habits (to break up the monotony of the entire line of begats), or the "Guide" who points out the house where her sister's best friend's dog used to live when she (who's the "she" here?) was young. This group includes people who have never been anywhere else, and Village Idiots. How to identify: start sentences with "When I was a kid..." or "MY family..."

Self-Promoters

"I", "I", "Me" and "Me" - the Vanity Press Club. Some of these are "authors"; some of these are "photographers". More resume than tour; thinly disguised sales pitches. How to identify: tells you about their "accomplishments" right from the get-go.

Night Club Comedians

They were cut from the auditions, so they're "performing" for YOU. Former Class Clowns. If this is what you want, you should stick with cable comedy; you won't get much substance here. How to identify: constant joke cracking.

Auto Pilots

Been out there WAY too long - the spiels are clichéd and canned, the delivery styles range from affected "Charleston" accents to bizarre self-invented cadences. How to identify: looks and sounds like a robot.You're better off buying a walking tour book and guiding yourself or hiring one of our Top Shelf Guides below.

TOP SHELF Tour Guides (HIRE ONE!)

Now that we’ve told you about some of the less-desirable choices in our occupation (see above), here’s the all-star list.

This section is a rogue's gallery of the Chucktown Tour Guides you can contact and hire via this site. Most of them also give carriage tours, but no company names are mentioned, because they are INDIVIDUALS for hire - we don't want to promote any one company - we're not partners or representatives, and the companies have their own Web sites. We derive no benefits (literally and figuratively) by sending you to those companies.

But carriage tour guides are the elite, in many ways. You might think YOU’RE a multi-tasker, but when's the last time you put on a tour-de-force performance, standing up on a moving carriage load of people while driving a 2,000 lb. draft horse with a mind of his own through heavy, loud traffic conditions that include cherry pickers, sewer-suckers, semis, refrigerator delivery trucks, leaf-blowers, motorcycles, skateboarders, hostile drivers, and barking dogs in driving rain and 40 MPH gale-force winds with a tourist in your horse's path trying to take his picture? And that's just ONE tour last Wednesday...

And we give even better quality tours on foot. Imagine that...

Guides are listed alphabetically, and this list will be added to as time goes by.

All Tour Guides listed here are available for private tours by appointment.

Benjamin Criscitiello

A 5-year Charleston Tour Guide, currently studying architectural preservation and urban development at the College of Charleston. One of his specialties is the antebellum period, and the liberality of the Holy City at that time; he particularly enjoys the dichotomy of a bawdy house existing on one side of a street, and a house of prayer on the other! Ben focuses on the astonishing range of architectural styles in Charleston, delivered in a straightforward style.

Email ben@charlestonpeninsulatours.com

Cell 843-509-0957

Patricia Catanich

Celebrating her 10th anniversary as a Charleston Tour Guide.

Author of this blog; see Profile.

Patt’s style is dramatic and dynamic, as she covers a surprising range of historical, architectural, and botanical facts, embellished with folklore, often including one particular ghost story that'll scare the bejeezus outta ya.

Her particular areas of interest are Colonial history and Charleston’s role in the American Revolution.

Patt is also owner/operator of Signseeker Travel.

Signseeker Travel is a specialty walking tour/travel consulting company in Charleston, SC and the UK. Here is another Charleston-related Singseeker offering:

Walking in the Footsteps of George Washington

The first US President spent a week in Charleston, SC in May 1791. This walking tour takes you to buildings associated with Washington’s visit, such as the house where he stayed, and a tavern where he dined (both open to the public). Four National Historic Landmarks are covered on this walk, and the discussion includes fascinating detail about events he attended, people he met, and his reactions to Charleston. A one-of-a kind tour.

See Signseeker Travel (the home site) for UK tour information.

Cell 843-330-9333

Email patriciacatanich@bellsouth.net

Kristoff Kohlhagen

University of Colorado, Boulder, BA, History/Creative Writing. Charleston Tour Guide, 6 years.

Toff's interest and expertise in Charleston pirate history and lore have resulted in the development of his own walking tour company, Charleston Sidewalks, catering to the treasure hunter in us all.

History is a "muddy ocean with no bottom", according to Toff, so his tours examine what is SAID to be fact, with an emphasis on exploring different versions of Chaleston history.

Email kristoff@charlestonsidewalks.com

cell 843-817-6362

Daniel Lesesne (pronounced "la-sane")

A Charleston Tour Guide for 6 years, Daniel comes from one of the oldest families in Chucktown, but you won't hear about them on his tours; he'd rather sweep through the events of Charleston history with a dry sense of humor. For example, when he names the four signers of the Declaration of Independence from Charleston, he mentions Strom Thurmond as the fourth (sometimes people even notice). But his delivery style is also gentle, evocative and poetic.

Email DLESESNE@HOTMAIL.COM

cell 843-813-2459

Matt Rudolph

St. John's University, NY, BA, American History, former Tour Guide at Gettysburg National Military Park, Charleston Tour Guide 6 years. Matt focuses on putting Charleston history in context with American Civil War history, and does it in style, literally: when he gives tours he wears handmade period clothing that is as authentic as possible; he's a "stitch counter" (enactors know what that means). Matt infuses his Civil War/slave history talks with little-know facts and a commitment to his subjects.

Cell 843-327-4685

Kevin Shiflet

Charleston Tour Guide for 12 years. A native who says, "My family has been ostracized since the Civil War, not delicate enough for Charleston society - they drank too much and shot their mouths off too much". Kevin revels in SC eccentricities, providing an inside look at the Charleston social structure, deftly lampooning general Charleston culture and traditions with caustic, self-deprecating humor.

He's also a specialist in WW II history as it relates to Charleston; for example, did you know that on the West Ashley side of the city there was U-boat activity due to the existence of a German POW camp of soldiers who were captured in Tunisia?!

Email FIREEATERS5@GO.COM

A Tour Guide Workplace

Carriage Tour Guides operate out of the City Market in downtown Charleston. The vast majority of our visitors come here first, although some start at the Visitor's Center and end up here. Many come to eat, browse the shops and stroll through the Market buildings checking out the crafts, t-shirts and other items sold by vendors. A considerable number come here to take carriage tours.

The intersection of Anson and N. Market streets is where you'll see advertising carriages (we call ‘em “decoys” or “rolling offices”) lined up to sell tickets.

Every carriage company pays the City $17,500 a year to sit an empty carriage out here and sell tickets. There are four sell spots on Anson and two on Market. The ticket sellers can only sell from the tip of the animal's nose to the back of the vehicle. It wouldn't be fair for two carriage companies to dominate the first two spots all day, because that's where we get most of the pedestrian traffic. So every 15 minutes, the carriage that's first in line on Market, pulls out, goes around the block, gets at the end of the line, everybody moves up, and they rotate like that all day long.

So this is NOT a taxi stand, and after you buy a ticket, you'll be sent elsewhere to get on another carriage. No, you CAN'T just climb on and go. Misty here has the day off!

Most of the decoy horses are semi-retired; they give very few (if any) tours; they just stand out here and look pretty and sell tickets. Left to his own devices, a horse will sleep about 15 minutes out of every hour, so these animals nap most of the day.

Yes, they can sleep standing up: horses were prey animals for millions of years, so it wasn’t safe for them to sleep lying down (too vulnerable to predators), so they have a special locking mechanism in their knees that enables them to sleep standing up.

If you come down to the Market, and see our “ponies” standing out here, and want to pet them BE SURE TO ASK THE DRIVER IF IT’S OK to pet that animal - yes, some of them DO BITE.

And always stand in front of them, where they can see you - they are all wearing blinders, the pieces of leather next to their eyes, as you can see in this picture of Misty. They have excellent peripheral vision, so the blinders keep them from being distracted when they’re being driven. This is why she turns her head towards the camera – she recognizes the voice of the photographer, who has driven her for about 10 years!

Misty is a French draft horse called a Percheron. She was once a broodmare who had five babies in seven years. That’s even more stressful than it sounds; the gestation period on a horse is 11 months, so she was almost continually pregnant for 7 years! She’d probably much rather be doing THIS!

After you pay for your ticket and get on a carriage (usually in a barn or at a scheduled time at the end of the line), your Tour Guide drives the carriage around the corner to this little building (we call it "The Gate" - it's air traffic control for the carriage industry) where Miss Catherine (shown here) or other Tourism Commission official of the day, writes down information about the carriage and puts a temporary green license plate (a "tag”) with numbers on it on the back of the carriage that tells the Guide what tour route s/he is assigned to take.

The Guide MUST go to the area assigned or receive an $1100 fine; that's more than most of us make in a MONTH. So we go where we're told. There's a lot more rules and regulations we abide by so we don't get one of those fines, but that's another story.

So if there's a certain place you want to go that's not on that route, hire a guide to take you on foot or get a map or a walking tour book and take your own lazy self there - we have no control over where we can take you on a carriage.

OR just enjoy the surprise and delight of going to a part of Charleston you probably never would have found on your own, narrated by one of our licensed Tour Guides.

Tours last between 45 minutes to 1 hour, depending on the length of the tour route, the speed of the animal and traffic conditions; it’s an inexact science. But the tag must be returned to the Gate within 75 minutes so someone else can use it; only 20 carriages are allowed out on the streets outside the Market area at a time.

These Tour Guides give about 6 residential tours a day in our high season (March to November), and even more on and around holidays (we ALWAYS work holidays).

Walking Tours, on the other hand, can last as long as the guide/customers agree upon; most are 1-1 ½ hours long. A tour group is limited to 20 people, and cannot go into residential areas at night, but other than those restrictions,
they can pretty much go where they please in the Charleston Historic District.

So where do some of us congregate when we're not giving tours? Wouldn't YOU like to know.

This is really a tourism industry hangout - managers, ticket sellers, barn hands, etc. MOST spend some time here talking shop and telling war stories: venting about bonehead company owners, moaning about long hours in extreme weather conditions, bitching about the low pay and (sorry) laughing at the comments and actions of particularly stupid customers.

Many of us are broke most of the time, since we try to live on South Carolina hourly rates, so we stick to this place for cheap entertainment - we're "regulars" - primarily because 1) we get breaks on drink prices, and can't afford the prices tourists and people with "real" jobs pay, and 2) it’s our "club".

We share a camaraderie in this highly specialized industry: we speak our own language, and we have our own code of ethics - you might have trouble understanding us in this context; in fact, WE have trouble understanding us after a few shots.

Sometimes we also make fun of "outsiders" who are fellow regulars, such as Citadel cadets, College of Charleston frat boys and "sorostitutes" (that's graffiti on the wall in the women's restroom), Aquarium employees, and pub-crawl crazies.

I'm not gonna tell you where this place is - you might go there. But here are some of the tourism industry folks that hang out there.

If you take a tour with one of our recommended guides, s/he might take you here, if you ask nicely. But be sure to pick up the tab - otherwise, YOU might end up in a Chucktown Tour Guide war story!

Top 10+ Stupid Tourist Questions

Speaking of war stories, these are some REAL questions Tour Guides have gotten from tourists, and some answers we'd LIKE to give.

10. Where's the water?

It's a peninsula - walk in three directions and you'll find water. Walk in the fourth direction, and you'll have to bring your own.

9. Where's the old church?

Pick one - they don't call this the Holy City for nothing.

8. Can I drive to Fort Sumter from here?

Not unless your car floats.

7. Where’s the haunted cemetery?

See #9. Incidentally, they’re called graveyards or, in Charleston - "gardens"

6. Do real people live in these houses?

No, those are mannequins. We set 'em up on the tour when we know you're coming.

5. Does the horse get water? (Referring to a carriage horse)

No, we let him die of thirst and then buy another one.

4. Do you take his shoes off at night? (another horse question).

No, they're nailed on, no, it doesn't hurt them, no, no, no room to explain it all here).

3. Is the harbor tour boat on tracks?

It's not a theme park ride - that's a real river, a real harbor, and a real captain steering a real boat.

2. Do these houses have indoor plumbing?

Sarcasm can't touch this one - just an exasperated sigh.

1. Does the horse know the tour? (the ultimate horse question).

Yeah, we just press a button for the appropriate tour route and off he goes. The guide has to do the talking though; the horse only speaks equine, not English.

Honorable Mentions (but too awful even for THIS list):

An associate professor of American History @ UC-Berkeley asks a Tour Guide (as they gaze out at Charleston Harbor/Fort Sumter):

15. Where was Francis Scott Key's boat?

You must have jet lag - wrong city. How much do people PAY to go to your school?

Others:

16. Where's Rhett Butler's house?

It WAS on a Hollywood set in 1938. This is just an example: Rhett Butler questions are too numerous to list. No, he was NOT a real person.

17. Where is the historic area?

YOU'RE IN IT.

18. Have these houses always been this old?

Yeah, and they get older every year (as do these questions).

19. Does this tour go by the plantations?

Plantation is Southern for "big farm"; there' s no "big farms" in Charleston.

OK, we're done making fun of dummies - now it's time for you to prove you are not one of them:

HIRE A CHUCKTOWN TOUR GUIDE!

CHUCKTOWN TOUR GUIDES

Thursday, February 28, 2013

Life goes on...

Tuesday, February 5, 2008

Related Sites

Blog Archive

About Me

The Postcard Tour

Permanent Tour Guide License

Patricia Catanich

Kristoff Kohlhagen

Daniel Lesense

Tim Manley

Matt Rudolph

Steve Reynolds

Kevin Shiflet

"The Stand"

Misty, a French Percheron "decoy"

"The Gate"

A Tour Guide Hangout