Galway Tour Guides’ Association will hold a Scavenger Hunt Tourist Trail this weekend to celebrate International Tourist Guide Day 2026 on Saturday, February 21.
Six of Galway’s finest qualified tour guides have put themselves forward to deliver each of six clues and act as on-site guides for the locations concerned. Because of the nature of these tourist trail scavenger hunts, the identity of each location is secret until the relevant clue is successfully answered.
You’re given a sentence to unravel, a line or two containing a clue. Solving the clue means continuing to the next location where a fully qualified tour guide will entertain you about the location’s history, relevance and significance to Galway city, then give you another clue.
This is a follow-on to the past two highly successful International Tourist Guide Day offerings by Galway Tour Guide Association, in 2024 and 2025. The GTGA will invite all tourist industry partners to partake in this free event, which will kick-off at 11am at St Nicholas Collegiate Church on Saturday, February 21, when Galway tour guide Brendan J Hynes, whose brainchild this scavenger hunt is, will start the tour.
Other participants from GTGA are Gerry Burke, James Walsh, Ger Considine, Galway Town Crier Liam Silke, and Jim Ward, chairperson of GTGA who will finish the tour.
International Tourist Guide Day has taken place on February 21 each year since 1990. It is organised in more than 70 countries worldwide. International Tourist Guide Day highlights the invaluable role that guides play in preserving heritage, sharing culture, and enhancing visitor experiences. This year’s theme is Sustainable Tourism.
The day is devised by the World Federation of Tourist Guides Associations (WFTGA ), the world body for tourist guide associations.
Galway Tour Guides’ Association is a collective of independent tourist guides – all Fáilte Ireland-approved. While not officially affiliated with WFTGA, the Galway association has many members also in ATGI (Approved Tourist Guides of Ireland ), which is.
This Saturday, International Tourist Guide Day aims to showcase the efforts of both native and foreign-language guides to local authorities and those involved in tourism.
