Next month, my fifth book will get published. This one is all about adventures across the state of Florida. I have a well-worn motto at this point — Don’t let the tourists have all the fun. Another motto of mine, which has guided more than a decade of travel writing, is “always take the tour.”
I’ve benefited from this approach while watching cigar makers at work at a factory in Tampa, walking the track at the Daytona International Speedway and floating in a glass-bottom boat at Silver Springs while a baby manatee under the surface snuffled along looking for food. I have poked around every pink hotel in the state while learning about their history, sipped gin on a distillery tour in an old ice plant in St. Augustine, and ducked and bobbed my way through Florida Caverns State Park in Marianna.
Talking with longtimers leads to fantastic finds. Getting a bit lost does, too. But there’s something special about taking the tour with someone who has already put in the work, spent time finding the best treasures and has fascinating facts at details at the ready.
But I’d never really considered tours as a tool for journalists.
So when a Seattle-based freelance journalist reached out to me a while ago to share a new guide she built on “tours as journalism,” I was very interested. Cara Kuhlman created “A Tour Guide for Journalists” as part of her 2025-26 Reynolds Journalism Institute fellowship and based on her own work with Future Tides, which she founded and which offers both news about and tours of Pacific Northwest waterways.
“I’ve realized that tours aren’t just events,” Cara says in an intro video for the project. “They’re a new medium for journalism. Whether you cover the economy, architecture or local culture, these aren’t just beats, they’re routes. They offer a unique way to generate revenue, build trust and share high-quality information that might not fit in a standard newsletter or web story."
The guide includes the basics of tours, finding the right itinerary, how to launch a pilot and how to “capture memories and metrics.”
I chatted with Cara via email about the guide and why tours might be the right thing for your community and your work.
Kristen Hare: How did you start this project?
Cara Kuhlman: The idea of tours as a component of Future Tides’ business model emerged in 2021 during my participation in CUNY's Entrepreneurial Journalism Creators Program. Two of our instructors led Untapped New York, which produces tours. My cohort encouraged me to consider tours, given my yet-to-be-named publication's focus on waterfronts and the maritime community.
As part of trademarking Future Tides, I was advised that I needed to be conducting tours to include that in the filing. That pushed this "someday" idea forward, so I launched a pilot program in the summer of 2024. Through this process, several fellow journalists and media professionals expressed curiosity about what I was doing and how I'd made it happen. That led to a lightning chat on the topic at the 2024 Independent News Sustainability Summit (LION) and prompted me to consider other opportunities to advance this working theory.
Hare: What about journalists might make them great tour guides?
Kuhlman: I believe that journalists are already guides, just accustomed to working through different mediums. For every story or beat, there is so much background reporting and additional context that doesn't always get shared. We are accustomed to diving deep, wrapping our arms around a news event or trend, and then explaining what's happening. It's the same process for being a tour guide. Local reporters are also physically present in their communities, and a tour is a chance to demonstrate that.
Hare: Where else have you seen this kind of work?
Kulhman: Untapped New York is a strong example. Tours are their largest revenue stream and drew 20,000 guests in 2025. However, as they follow that demand, they may transition into more of a tour company and less of a publisher.
I would say this is a working theory and Future Tides is among a growing number of publications experimenting and learning along the way. That's why it feels important to raise awareness and facilitate sharing what people are learning in real time.
For other examples, here are the case studies from the guide:
|
