Free walking tour in my city ($1,500 per month)
My side hustle is that I currently offer a somewhat niche tourism offering, the only free walking tour in a very big American city that isn't known for tourism (but which has a huge population and has had many recent arrivals and gets tons of business travellers). I started off on a free walking tour platform called Guruwalk and then added Viator/TripAdvisor as well as my own personal website.
I only offer the tour on weekends (Saturday and Sunday mornings), and it's the same tour and route every single time: a loop around downtown that has some good stories and some notable landmarks. I've been slowly building up bigger and bigger groups throughout the year, averaging group sizes of 4-6 at the beginning to 15-25 lately.
My tours are free, but I average around $15 per person in tips, or about $200-$300 per 2-hour tour.
I've been running this business for about 8 months now, and make $1,500 per month from two tours each week (2 hours Saturday morning, and 2 hours Sunday morning). I started with no experience, just spent a few weekends walking around downtown and reading some history books, and watching history videos on YouTube.
I think this is a really good side hustle that is not difficult to replicate, and it's an underexplored option in the US. The city I do my tours in is famously unwalkable and not really on people's radars as a "tourist destination," but I was able to create a fun walking tour out of it, and I think other cities in America can get the same treatment.
My side hustle is that I currently offer a somewhat niche tourism offering, the only free walking tour in a very big American city that isn't known for tourism (but which has a huge population and has had many recent arrivals and gets tons of business travellers). I started off on a free walking tour platform called Guruwalk and then added Viator/TripAdvisor as well as my own personal website.
I only offer the tour on weekends (Saturday and Sunday mornings), and it's the same tour and route every single time: a loop around downtown that has some good stories and some notable landmarks. I've been slowly building up bigger and bigger groups throughout the year, averaging group sizes of 4-6 at the beginning to 15-25 lately.
My tours are free, but I average around $15 per person in tips, or about $200-$300 per 2-hour tour.
I've been running this business for about 8 months now, and make $1,500 per month from two tours each week (2 hours Saturday morning, and 2 hours Sunday morning). I started with no experience, just spent a few weekends walking around downtown and reading some history books, and watching history videos on YouTube.
I think this is a really good side hustle that is not difficult to replicate, and it's an underexplored option in the US. The city I do my tours in is famously unwalkable and not really on people's radars as a "tourist destination," but I was able to create a fun walking tour out of it, and I think other cities in America can get the same treatment.