Personal Guide to New York City
 

My parents are planning a trip to NYC with my son, to celebrate his 10th birthday. Because (I think) they've more recently travelled (in Europe) on small guided tours, and really enjoyed having a guide, they would like to experience New York in the same way, with a guide to show them around (not my cup of tea, but then, I'm not invited).

Can anyone recommend a guide who could show them some of the familiar sights of the city, as well as maybe some of the more out-of-the-way spots? Someone who's experienced with kids would be good, though my son's interests aren't always those of the typical kid (so far, the Statue of Liberty and eating dim sum in Chinatown are two must-dos for him).

Thanks in advance!

Not a common question and I have no personal recommendation, but this guy looks great on paper

http://www.justinsnewyork.com/about.html

Here's someone else I found doing a search on walks.

http://www.walknyc.com/

I'll also mention there's an organization called Big Apple Greeters that gets NYers to volunteer their time and take tourists around. You can contact them at bigapplegreeters.org and request someone.

Finally, there's a tour called NY Party Shuttle that has a bus for 18 and hits the major sites in a 6 hr period. Personally, I'd probably do that for the regular sites and maybe use Justin or Michelle if they still wanted someone private for the off the beaten track stuff.

There are a lot of different walking tours, some are free.

Lexma, I just came back from NYC and we did the big apple greeters and they were great. The best part is that they were totally free and our tour lasted about 4 hours. Our tour guides were awesome! :-D

Thanks for the great suggestions. I'd seen other posts re the Party Shuttle, and that might be a possibility, in conjunction with a personal guide.

I'm trying to balance my parents' need for being taken care of, my dad's inability to walk real far, and my son's desire to do things like dim sum that my parents might be a bit too timid to do.

The website for Big Apple Greeters is actually:

http://bigapplegreeter.org/

Justin is terrific. I've taken a tour of Green-Wood cemetery and a few lectures at Cooper Union with him.

www.bigonion.com tours are great. I've been on about 3 of them, and they cover many neighborhoods in the city.

If you want a Big Apple greeter you really should arrrange as far in advance as possible. The Greeters are volunteers and there are many more requests than there are greeters.