Not Just a Tourist — Local services in Seville

We booked 2 tours/experiences with 'Not just a tourist' in our winter Spain holiday. We are a family with 2 kids (10 & 12 yrs), and we really enjoyed the personal 'Flamenco & tapas tour' night out. It felt like a night out with an old friend. It was great that it was just us & Kati, probably due to it being Winter... fantastic for us! Kati was a dancer herself (not performing in the show) and she shared a lot about the history and information about Triana & Flamenco dancing as we walked around Triana and nearby tapas places. She took us out to 2 places for tapas and drinks, and later a churros eatery with hot chocolate. Food was authentic, homestyle and tasty! The best churros we’ve had in Spain! We were very full by the end of the evening. The original Flamenco show booked unfortunately did not have our booking (theatre’s fault I was told), but Kati was fantastic to resolve the issue and booked us into another theatre and we watched an amazing show with professional flamenco artists. This show, even though a little more polished and rehearsed and the theatre more modern with great sound, the show was very heartfelt and dramatic and the performers were top notch! I was probably expecting more of an intimate, authentic and traditional show, and not one that was up on a stage and you in the audience in rows of seating, as it was harder to connect to the dancing. Overall though, we had a great and memorable night - Kati was 10/10. Thank you Kati! Later in our holiday, we had Luis drive up from Seville to Lisbon, and we stopped over to a winery for a tour at Ervideria, near Evora. We weren’t sure what to expect, but the winery was very modern & recently refurbished. They were winemakers dating back from 1880. We had a staff from the winery show us around the production and storage areas and was extremely informative about their whole production process from start to finish. We then tasted 7 wines and had small plates of cured meats, olives, bread & biscuits with fig jam. Not enough for lunch but was fine with the tastings. Amazing 1.5 hr experience! Wine was great and they offered international shipping, but we instead purchased enough wines to max out our duty free limit. Luis our driver, even though not great at English, was so kind and friendly and helped us with our luggage, and pointed out some sights on our trip. Don’t expect a ‘tour’ here. We had a clean and modern 7 seater van, and was perfect and very comfortable. Luis was 10/10. Thank you Luis! ‘Not just a tourist’ had exceeded our expectations in our holiday experience. We had a more personalised and ‘real’ experience. The people were so kind, helpful and down to earth and authentic. Here would be some improvement notes for ‘Not just a tourist’: To improve their communication with a reference booking number and official receipt for each experience (for ease of reference and to reinforce and assure bookings, particularly for advanced payments. We are in a modern world with so many dodgy tour guides around, this would help). Also, a list of what to expect would be great, and to confirm that your tour/experience will commence in the week prior… just so you are not ‘wondering’ if ‘Not just a tourist’ will turn up as scheduled. Overall, would definitely book again. These experiences/tours were a highlight for our holiday,...

This is a wow company. Mahsa from Not Just at Tourist organized our entire trip of 2 weeks in Spain, Portugal, and Morocco. The communication was very fast and she was very informative about every single question we had. First, we wanted to book with different agencies in each country. But we found is much easier to have only one contact person. It was a great idea as the trip went very smooth. Guides were all very friendly, on time, knowledgeable and passionate. We had a day trip in Barcelona to Costa Brava, a wine tasting as well as a private tour of the main monuments. In Madrid, we had an orientation bike tour, a private visit of the museums and 2 day trips to Toledo and Avila. The city wall of Avila is really impressive. In Sevilla we stayed for 6 days and each day there was a new experience. We were able to enjoy the Spanish way of life in a very authentic way. We met professional flamenco dancers that gave us an exclusive tour, did a tapas cooking class, went to the National Park of doñana and rode horses on the beach. That was my wife's dream since she was a child. We had extremely informative sherry tasting in a little coastal town with a very relaxed vibe with our guide, Filipe. The rooftop tour was our favorite tour since we got to enjoy a beautiful sunset and capture some amazing photos. We also had 3 day trips to Granada, Cordoba, and Gibraltar. All were amazing to give us a full picture of southern Spain. The vehicles were very comfortable and premium. In Granada, Mahsa ensured a private guided visit of the Alhambra. We booked quite late and were worried about not being able to visit it and paid quite a lot for a private tour. But our guide, Jaime, did a fantastic job to bring the entire palace into life for us. Although the food was not included in any of the day trips the guides made sure to ask us about our preferences and take us to some amazing local places where we could try a huge variety of tapas. What a feast! Our tapas and flamenco show tour on our very first night was a great introduction to the Spanish tapas and helped us throughout the trip. We spent 2 days in Morocco visiting Tangier and the enchanting Tangier. Our guide Hassan was an amazing man with a lot of stories. The market, the views and the camel ride on the beach are among the highlights of this trip. Later we had a comfortable transfer to Lisbon and took 2 tours with Not Just a Tourist. Again, the guides provided to be very personable and like old friends. We learned so much during this trip and made so many new friends as on no other trip before. Thanks to this...

My husband and I spontaneously booked a day trip from Seville for the Iberian Ham Tour. I booked on the 19th and got confirmation the next day. We were picked up by our driver Joan who had texted me his WhatsApp to pass along his number and check in. He was on time and very personable. Joan got us to our destination a bit early (very scenic route), so he took us to a region near a dam for a little bit of sight seeing. Once we got to the tour, we waited a bit to get set up with our guide that spoke English. Our guide was Charlotte who was lovely and spoke pretty clear English. She gave us a lot of info and we got up and close to the pigs that were only a few months old. Joan was with us to see the pigs but then departed to get us tickets for the cave and cathedral tour, plus a restaurant reservation. Charlotte took us around the facility and gave lots of info because she was going to test us when we were going to do our tasting. We had to wear a disposable coat, shoe coverings and hair net to walk around. We got to see the whole process with a couple of demonstrations while people were actually working. We had a quick run in with the family that owns the company and they were working just as hard with the rest of the team. At the end, we finally got to the tasting and test out or new knowledge and Joan rejoined with us here. Tasting was phenomenal and we got wine and sherry to pair. Afterwards, Joan took us to Aracena to have lunch at a cute restaurant near the cave. He helped us order then gave us privacy while we had lunch (which you pay for separately). We walked a bit around town until our tour time was ready and we met with Joan at the cave entrance. He passed us our tickets and explained what to do before letting us go. The cave is a guided tour, no self pace, but they have an English audio guide which the Spanish guide would tell us which section to play. There’s no picture, filming or touching in the cave. It was a really beautiful one where you get up and close to everything. There are a lot of stairs and a mix of steep and not steep. After the cave, we attempted to go to the castle which is up a hill next to the cave, but we were too tired and wanted to head back. Joan was able to get us back to where he picked us up and we napped most of the way there. We chatted a bit and I got to ask question about the train station since we were headed there the next day. Joan was super great driver and helpful. He also gave us privacy when we needed it. 10/10 recommend this tour with Not...