Illuminating Local Cultures & Revealing Global Contexts

tour guide explaining something outside to guests
tour guide pointing to large metal door on the top of stone steps

You travel to shift your boundaries and expand your knowledge of the world. That same love of adventure and discovery motivates us. Guiding is an extension of the curiosity and commitment that led us to academic research, teaching, and journalism. The guides at Insight Cities are a network of local historians in Europe, mostly with MA and PhD-level degrees. As brainy guides, we look for the crucial detail, the vital, quirky fact that illuminates local cultures while also revealing global contexts. We care passionately about good storytelling and good hosting and crafting engaging tours that reveal centuries of history to you in insightful ways. We’re proud to have helped thousands of travelers to get the most from their time in our wonderful cities.


Meet Insight Cities’ founders, Bonita Rhoads & Vadim Erent
Vadim and Bonita, the Founders of Insight Cities

Bonita earned her PhD in Comparative Literature from Yale University in 2009. She was a lecturer at Charles University in Prague and an assistant professor at Masaryk University in Brno (the Czech Republic’s second city) for a decade before leaving university teaching to run her growing company. A native of New York City, Bonita moved to Prague in 2003. Her delight in her remarkable adopted city led her to become a dedicated student of Prague’s cultural and political history.

Born in St. Petersburg, Vadim immigrated to the USA at 13. He did graduate work in Slavic Studies at the University of Chicago, then spent a decade traveling through the United States as an interpreter for the US State Department. An art critic and photographer, Vadim’s articles and photos have appeared in international journals. Vadim and Bonita are editors of a book of essays on Serbian filmmaker Dušan Makavejev, published by Charles University in 2018. They are also parents of a young Pražačka, Lucy, born in Prague in 2008.

After years of giving tours of Prague and neighboring capitals to friends and family, Bonita and Vadim founded Insight Cities to offer in-depth experiences to a wider group of travelers.

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