Every time we visit a new city we are looking for the perfect balance between the charm of wandering around town freely and the pragmatic benefits of knowing where you’re heading to next. Sometimes you just can’t join the guided tours (timing, organisation, etc.) or you just prefer to explore on your own. Inspired by the quest to find the perfect balance between being guided and being independent, we created “Get Self-Guided”.
“Get Self-Guided” is an online platform for self-guided tours in Bulgaria, designed for those of you who are curious and brave enough to explore on their own, offering an easy and fun way to get your way around while remaining independent and flexible.
We, the team behind “Get Self-Guided” are city and mountain guides, event and marketing professionals, but above all we are a bunch of enthusiastic travelers. From Chile to Morocco and from Florida to Thailand, we have always been passionate about exploring the world and embarking on all kinds of adventures.
And we are more than eager to share with you everything we know about travel, history, culture, events, and hospitality in Sofia and Bulgaria!
Along with the very places that defined the historical, cultural background and development of our country, we want to share with you the hidden gems that we, the locals love and are proud of!
This is our team:
Alexander (Sasho) is a traveller by heart and a mountain guide by profession. His hobby is to explore new mountains, new places, new people and new business ideas. Any place and field that lacks know-how and well-trodden road is an attraction to him, because this is the only way to be truly free. When you act without the burden of previous, experience it could be hard. But in the end it would always be rewarding!
When not on the road or in the mountains Sasho usually relaxes at his home located in the small village of Leshko. An excellent place to chill and look for inspiration hidden in between green meadows and cheerful bird songs!
Margarita (Margi) had her first job as an accountant so long ago, that luckily she doesn’t really remember it. Ever since, she has been spending all her time in the nature, travelling, gardening and staring at the stars. Margi’s life slogan is “Travel to live, live to travel”. And so she does!
Margi believes that more time you spend out in the nature, more inspiration to explore the wide wide world you get. So half of the year she works as ski instructor and ski touring guide and half of it as mountain and cultural guide for English- and Spanish-speaking travellers.
When on the road she always carries a little wooden spoon so she can try new exciting food and, of course, never stay hungry.
After many years of traveling and living abroad, Margi has found that her favorite place is her village. A place with so many new things to explore and learn. The place where she settles down between the mountain & cultural guiding job.
“Get Self-guided” gives her the opportunity to share all the experience know-how she has with more and more people.
Stella did her first big hitch-hiking trip around Eastern Europe 10 years ago and ever since she just couldn’t stop travelling! The next five years she worked as an international event manager guiding groups from all around the globe and being their host abroad. So we can freely say that she saw the world and the now the world comes to see her!
Her ambition is to help travellers visiting her country make the most of their experience and keep the best memories of Bulgaria when they return home. She is a certified cultural and historical guide.
Apart from her passion for travelling she is teaching swing and jazz dancing in the local swing community.
Maria is a certified tour guide, specializing in creating custom trips and memorable experiences in Bulgaria. She is a traditional folklore dancer, a vivid lover of delicious local food and a curious explorer by nature, so you can trust her with recommending off-the-beaten path sites, boutique fashion stores and interesting local crafts
As a former Bulgarian expat with more than 10 years abroad, including 8 years of university and work in the United States, one year in Australia and several months in Spain and China, she is happy to be back home and pursue her dream to share the beauty of Bulgaria with foreign guests.
Maria is also a personal trainer and nutrition advisor, specializing in High-Fat Low-Carb Nutrition and High-Intensity-Interval-Training and often includes morning exercise routines and ketogenic menus in the custom travel programs she designs.
Mariana is a writer by education and vocation. She seeks inspiration in people and loves staring at them when they don’t see her. Mariana finds refuge in the high mountains or among the liberating freedom of the desert, as nature is the only place where her writer’s mind calms down. She never leaves for a trip without her camera, her watercolors, and a book or two, which she never finds time to read.
When she’s not seeking inspiration somewhere surrounded by nature, you can find her working on different projects as a copywriter, TV and film writer or playwright. She graduated Screenwriting in Los Angeles and her favorite place on Earth is the overwhelming and breathtaking desert in Death Valley.
Nadya has been working in marketing for the last six years and just recently discovered the world of digital marketing where she would like to advance. It’s a whole new world and she is committed to working passionately and with a cause for projects that matter, such as Get self-guided.
In her free time, she loves travelling the world, she likes nature and cities, looking at people and walking around randomly. She is keen on good food, spending time with friends and reading books.
