Case study: A tour manager in your pocket, four days in Sicily

When I first entered the travel industry in 2004, it was obvious that it was facing backwards. If it's not broken, why fix it? The industry was littered with high-street stores, professionally designed glossy brochures and tens of thousands of pounds spent on postage.

The idea was simple: streamline the operation by cutting out the overheads and become a web-only tour operator. No high street, no brochures and no postage; just a website for a shop window, and email mailers to talk to our audience and our customers.

Over the next 17 years we became the global market leader in a specialist industry.

After a successful exit in 2022, I spent four years away going deep into disruptive technology and connecting with some of the smartest minds building at the cutting edge.

The exponential age is now here and, just as before, the travel industry is largely working in the dark ages.

I'm a seasoned traveller, and I've spent most of my working life organising trips for other travellers. I know how it works as well as anyone. I know the frustrations, and I know what travellers require: cost-effective, knowledgeable, independent travel, with travel protection.

Follow On Tours is exactly that.

After months of research and development, it was time to try it out.

In June 2026, when Michelle and I took four days in Giardini Naxos, on Sicily's east coast under Taormina and Etna, I put the Follow On Tours travel experience to the full test. No guidebook, no tour manager, no hours of research before we left. For the whole trip we used the trip concierge feature, and only that, for everything: how to get around, what to see, what to book, where to eat and what to order. It's the same feature we now build into every package.

Here's how those four days went, in real time.

We arrived late in the evening. I flew in from Luton and Michelle, after a yoga retreat, flew in from Milan; we met at Catania airport within an hour of each other. My first question was the best way into Giardini Naxos. It laid out the options, a taxi or the bus, with the exact bus times, fares and timetable. The next bus was 45 minutes away. It told us to avoid the black Ubers, which cost more, so we went to the fixed-fare taxi rank instead. It said the drive would take 50 minutes, and it took exactly that. It gave us the facts; the decision was ours.

Once we'd checked in, we asked where to eat that night. Its advice was simple: go local. Head out of the hotel, turn right, and within 200 yards we had plenty of options.

On the first morning we asked it to set out a relaxed itinerary: some sightseeing, Mount Etna, maybe a wine trip. Should we hire a car, and what would it cost? Its first piece of advice was not to hire a car. Parking around Taormina is a nightmare, the roads are challenging, and the bus is about €2. A map appeared showing the bus stop, with directions. It was literally round the corner from our hotel.

For Etna, it suggested two local operators, or simply asking the hotel's concierge. We did the latter, and booked an Etna sunset trip for the following day.

It planned our Taormina day the way a local would. It drew us a map of the day. It told us to take the Interbus for about €2 from Via Consolare Valeria and get off at the terminal on Via Pirandello. Get to the Greek Theatre when it opens at 9am, it said, before the heat and the cruise crowds.

It told us to buy our tickets at the kiosk at the entrance. Then it told us which restaurants were actually open for lunch, not just which ones were good.

It sent us up to the village on the rock above Taormina, told us how to get there, and said to order the local almond wine as the sun went down over the coast. For a swim, it pointed us to the cable car down to Isola Bella.

Etna was the one thing on the trip that wasn't optional. The concierge laid out the choices and what each cost that week: about €50 for the cable car to 2,500m, or €78 with the 4x4 and a guide up to around 2,900m. For two fit people, it said, take the guide.

Then came the detail no brochure gives you: take a fleece and proper shoes, because it's hot at sea level, freezing at the top, and people get turned away from the 4x4 for being underdressed. We'd already booked through the hotel's concierge, as it suggested, so all we had to do was turn up dressed for the cold, even though it was 30°C at sea level.

No car, as it had advised on day one, meant we could both enjoy the wine. The concierge researched the wineries on Etna's slopes and set up our day on an organised trip, with the same operator who had exceeded our expectations on Etna the day before.

It didn't just name restaurants. It suggested what to order, when to book and which seats to ask for. At Sea Sound, a locals' place a few steps from our hotel, it was the tuna tartare and the sea-urchin spaghetti. We loved it.

On our last night it picked Pura Vida: a plain front you'd walk straight past, an open kitchen, 4.7 from about 400 reviews. Order the octopus, the mussels, the grilled tuna and swordfish, it said. Open until 11, on a Wednesday when half the town was dark.

It also knew what was shut. Osteria da Rita, the Taormina place everyone recommends, was closed Monday to Thursday. Mari criu closes on Wednesdays. A guidebook can't tell you that.

On the way to Pura Vida, Google Maps sent us down a dead end.

I asked the concierge why. It worked out that the restaurant sits on a pedestrian promenade, so a driving route can't reach the door and gives up at the nearest road. Walk north along the water, it said, and dropped a pin on the exact spot. We followed the sea, and there it was.

For the trip home we chose the local bus. We bought our tickets the day before, walked the short way to the bus station at the time it suggested, and the bus arrived on time for the hour's drive to Catania and our flight home.

Over four days it never let us down once. It knew which bus to catch, what to wear up a volcano, which restaurants were shut on a Wednesday and what to order in the ones that weren't. When Google Maps gave up, it found the way. Michelle and I spent the trip enjoying Sicily instead of planning it.

A local guide, a concierge, a restaurant critic and a sat-nav, in my pocket.

It isn't magic, and it doesn't replace common sense. Treat it like a well-informed friend: question it, ask it why, ask it anything at all, and check what matters before you rely on it. You're a grown adult. It gives you the knowledge; where you stay, where you go and what you do are still your decisions. It guides you along the path, but you still use your head.

And this is the worst it will ever be. Every month it gets faster, knows more and gets things wrong less often. In a few years, travelling without it will feel like travelling without a phone.

Remember Etna: the concierge did the thinking, and a person on the ground did the booking. That's how we've built Follow On Tours.

Every Follow On Tours package comes with our trip app, and the concierge already knows your hotel, your sporting events and your itinerary. Ask it how to get to the ground, where to eat near the hotel or what to do on the rest day. Behind it are our trusted local partners, and us, when you need a real person to sort something out.