Which tours are included in this book?

The big political news, Arnold Schwarzenegger announced he's running for governor of California, and already, people are chanting, 'Four more vowels, four more vowels'.
Craig Kilborn

• First and foremost, I do not include any tours in this booklet that I have not taken myself. The tours highlighted on this website represent the best tours that I have taken of the State. I do not feel that I can include a tour in this booklet that I haven?t taken myself. The description, though brief, highlight the main attraction of the tour that I took. They don?t reflect (like many guidebooks) information gleaned from the organization sponsoring the tour.
  
  
• In order to ensure that this information is as complete as possible, this website will be updated regularly (including the addition of new tours). I will also send out periodic e-mails with updates to subscribers to my FREE California Tour Guy postcard (sign up on the side panel of the website).
  
  
• There are some tours that are not included in this handbook. Here is a list of criteria that most tours (note: I occasionally will add a tour that does not meet these criteria if it seems unusual and intriguing) must meet before being including in this website. To be included, the tours must be:
  
  
  • Regularly scheduled (begin and end at a particular date and time)
  • Cover a particular itinerary or place (many historic societies for example cover a different series of neighborhoods or topics every year)
  • Available to individual travelers (many tours require a group)
    
    
• During the course of giving seminars around the state, I've discovered that there is more demand for information about tours that are open to groups and self guided tours than I expected. Therefore, I will add information on these tours in the future.
  
  
• For now, the following tours are not usually included on the website:
  
  • Tours that are not regularly offered at least twice a year (many historical societies give one tour every year)
  • Commercially available large City and regional bus tours (i.e. Gray Line Tours)
  • Tours that are open only to groups.
  • Self Guided Tours.
  • Tours that require an overnight stay
  
  
  
• These criteria have been selected because:
  
  • It is difficult to make a relevant appraisal of a tour if the itinerary changes all the time.
  • I only want to include tours that are easy for you to arrange yourself. I feel that it is hard to make time in your schedule for a tour that is not offered on a fairly regular basis.
  • Many commercial tours are hard to distinguish from one other. In addition, a lot of them are more interested in entertaining their audience than the accuracy of the material.
  • The best part of tours, in my opinion, is the guide?s enthusiasm and personality. While self guided tours offer good information, the human contact that makes tours so enjoyable is lost.
  • I am a single person. I am not usually able to put together a group to go on a tour.