When you mention the words ‘travel guide’ to someone, they may interpret it in 2 ways: a person who will guide you to certain destinations and a type of catalogue that can help you find your way when traveling and exploring a new place. In this piece of information, we will look at how each of the options can be useful to people who travel.

The person who is known as a travel guide is supposed to know all the destinations of a certain place well. The guide must know where the exciting places can be found so that tourists can be taken there to enjoy their stay in the new country. If the guide has to take the tourists to the game parks or game reserves, he must know the times when animals can be seen or when exciting activities can be found. For example, if the tour guide is from Africa, he must have knowledge of when the migration of the wild beasts happens. This migration is an awesome sight. Many have only heard of it but never seen it. The guide is supposed to make sure that his visitors get the ultimate experience of being in new place so that they can go back to their homes with great memories.

The guide should also know all the places where people can relax and have a meal. He should be able to treat them to some of the local delicacies of that country. He should also take them round to the some of the pre-historic sites that are famous.

On the other hand, the documented travel guide can be in the form of a book, brochure or pamphlet. There are some airlines which offer these travel guides for free. There are also some local hotels that will give tourists travel guides to find their way around the city or town. Such documents usually include information about restaurants, hotels and other recreational facilities that can make a tourist’s life a bit easier. Most of the travel guides have maps especially of major cities or towns.

» Read more: The Usefulness of Travel Guides

“Where’s my Lavoris?” the Mobil Travel Guide inspector shouted at the poor, cowering room service attendant.

“Toothbrush, si?”

“Yes I see it’s a toothbrush. I know that’s what I asked for. But you should have anticipated I’d want mouthwash, too, you nincompoop! No star for you!”

With that pronouncement, the man slammed shut the hotel room door.

If this sounds like an episode from “Fawlty Towers,” then you don’t spend much time in Miami. As reported in the Miami Herald recently, our community must again hang its head in shame: of all the hotels we have, not one is worthy of five stars. Not anticipating the mouthwash with a toothbrush request actually helped keep the ultra-expensive Loews Miami Beach from getting a fifth star. Because a light bulb was out in a room’s desk lamp at the swanky Ritz-Carlton Key Biscayne, it failed to earn a fifth star too. Suggestions about getting that elusive fifth star include TV commercials reminding all of us who live here to be “more hospitable to visitors,” and hiring more English speaking workers because “non-English speakers make customer service an uphill fight.”

Good luck on both of those initiatives. When we can’t even be nice to ourselves, how can you expect us to be cordial and helpful to tourists? As for finding more English speaking workers for the hotel industry, that will probably never happen until wages rise high enough to attract a broader mix of the population. Right now, the hotel industry rests on the shoulders of immigrants willing to work long hours for little money. So, looking at it from that point of view, it will be a long time if ever before we get that fifth star so our advice is to suck up our embarrassment and learn to live with it.

» Read more: Mobil Travel Guide Inspectors to South Florida Hotels: No Star for You!

Whether you travel a lot for business, or occasionally for pleasure, sooner or later you’ll be staying overnight in a hotel. Location and a good rate are just two aspects of an enjoyable stay. Here are some “inside” tips and hotel etiquette to help ensure you have a safe, healthy, and happy stay.

Beware of CO in hotels. You’re probably aware of the dangers of carbon monoxide (CO), and may even have a CO detector in your home. As a refresher, CO is an odorless, colorless and toxic gas. Because it is impossible to see, taste or smell the toxic fumes, CO-often called “the silent killer” – can kill before a person is aware of it. The effects of CO varies from person to person, but symptoms generally include headaches, dizziness, disorientation, nausea and fatigue.

CO, is such a threat that the National Fire Protection Association says CO alarms should be near bedrooms in every home. However, only a handful of state or municipal laws require hotels to have CO alarms, even though there were 30 incidents of fire departments or government officials finding elevated levels of CO at U.S. hotels between 2010 and 2102, according to a USA TODAY analysis of more than 1,000 media reports and local fire departments.

And in early 2012, CO leaking from a swimming pool heater exhaust pipe hospitalized 16 guests, and killed one, at a West Virginia Holiday Inn. No CO detectors sounded because there were no CO alarms in the hotel.

» Read more: The Hotel Stay Survival Guide: What You Should Know That They Won’t Tell You