Where Sidewalks End Anmeldelser 

I did three tours in Oaxaca and my guides (Victor, Octavio, and Laura) were all excellent! These tours are well-crafted and did an excellent job connecting me with local people and artisans. Plus, the guides are a wealth of local knowledge and additional connections that enhanced my local travel experience.

Great experience!

I've lived in Oaxaca for 6 years now, and I couldn't recommend this tour more! We started the day at the mercado, which I've been to many times and have shopped at regularly. Chef Eduardo showed me several places in the market that I hadn't shopped at before, introduced us all, and spent time teaching us what we were looking for. He taught us why these stalls had the quality, prices, ingredients, or whatever the reason was for each specific one. It was really eye opening! I've taken many cooking classes here, as well as around the world, and I found this to be the most informative of any cooking class I've ever been a part of. He has really built the course to take you through step-by-step understanding the why behind each decision. I really felt that was pivotal in learning to make these dishes. He wasn't simply teaching me a recipe, but teaching me to make decisions along the way to affect the flavors in ways that best suit me. That has to be one of the biggest takeaways from the whole day. I didn't learn to make a dish, I learned to make a dish the way I like it, can repeat it, and can change it up with different ingredients or for friends with different dietary needs. We learned a lot of history behind the dishes, interesting cooking and chopping techniques (some that will make you the hit of the next party!), and ended up in deep conversation all afternoon long.

This is the 2nd tour that I've taken with WSE, and as a tour company, I truly cannot recommend them enough. WSE tours truly get you off the beaten path, give you a real chance to connect with locals, and to see a side of what it really means to live in this place. They don't provide your typical tours that just show you around and give you some fun party facts. Instead they immerse you in the world you came to see, and in places you can't always get your foot in the door. For this particular tour, we got to cook inside of a really cool restaurant, while it was closed to the public, and ended up getting to spend the whole day in a beautiful kitchen, amazing views, and getting an inside peak of what it's like to be in the restaurant industry in Oaxaca, while also learning to cook homemade meals. The food was amazing. We made 3 different salsas, using different local culinary tools like the comal and molcajete. I've used these tools at home for several years now but I learned so many new techniques and even history about these tools. We made mole, handmade our own tomales, and even our own tortillas. I can't believe how much we did in one day!

Truly, if you're into culture, off-the-beaten-path adventures, and especially cooking, there is no better option that exists in Oaxaca than this tour!

They made unique experience.
Also friendly and helpful.
Highly recommended.

The tour and cooking class were great, I thought we were going to have a couple of hours and a selection of dishes but in the end it took up all of the morning and a lot of the afternoon and started off in one of the local markets ( which is not too touristy and a really good insight into the local way of life). There we went to various stalls and bought some of the ingredients for the later cooking class and also stopped for some breakfast. Not realising how much food we would cook and eat over the next several hours in the class I had two portions of breakfast, which I don't regret but was perhaps more food than I needed for breakfast, but delicious.

The cooking class itself happens in Eduardo's custom built small and intimate cooking school with fantastic views across the city just a little bit out of the city centre, a five minute walk, but great in the sense that it is calm and also a neighborhood famous for live music.
We cooked around five dishes, all of them delicious and every step Eduardo was very concise and clear with the history of the dishes and always with an interesting story behind them as well as the technical aspect of how to prepare them all done within a very comfortable and inspiring setting of his small cooking school.
Really a fantastic experience from beginning to end and felt more authentic than perhaps some of the more central cooking experiences but in all honesty this is the only one that I've been on in Oaxaca and it did not disappoint. So I can't compare to other classes but sometimes the general feel of the heart of the city centre can be quite touristy, which of course is normal for such a popular place as Oaxaca.

Our guide was such an wonderful person. We learned so much about the area from him. My daughter and I had an amazing time. The whole process will remain one of the most memorable experiences of our lives

Had an amazing half day with guide Nuch who took me to see Ajarn Yod in Phuket. I was given all the information I needed and everyone was so kind and gentle.

I was assisted in choosing the appropriate Sak Yant tattoo and everything was clean and well taken care of.

Nuch even brought me local snacks and we had a delicious lunch afterwards.

Such an amazing spiritual and cultural experience.

My guide was excellent and helped facilitate my Sak Yant experience really smoothly. I felt supported and safe but not regimented or pressured at any point. The whole experience was paced really well and I had ample opportunity to ask any questions. I would highly recommend Where Sidewalks End.

I really enjoyed the palenque tour with Carlos. Felt right at ease and the trip was paced very well. Highlight was having breakfast with the maestro overlooking the fields.

Being able to meet Ajarn Rung at his place, have an in-depth conversation through a translator, and have transportation and help with photos was such a great experience! Highly recommend.

Love everything about this experience! We were picked up at our resort and thoroughly enjoyed the city on our way to visit Ajarn Yod. Appreciated how everything was explained to us and any questions we had were answered in detail. Ajarn Yod’s skill is top level. The detailing and precision is a beautiful sight to behold.

We’ve just come back from a wonderful few days visiting an Iban longhouse and trekking / camping in the jungle with WSE. Everything about this company is great. Wonderful communication throughout from Ian along with handy tips too. Our guide Chris was a joy to travel with. Friendly, cheerful, always helpful and a lovely guy to be around. Superb hosting at the longhouse too. Everyone there was extremely welcoming. This does not feel like a tourist experience so much as an immersion, albeit briefly, into the Iban way of life. There’s no real concession to you, you simply soak it up and go with whatever is occurring - just the way we like it. Can’t recommend this enough!

My guide made everything easier to navigate. Having someone who could communicate and answer my questions made the trip far more interesting.

Guides were knowledgeable and enjoyable to spend the day with. Nice to have the opportunity to connect with smaller innovative producers. Would have also liked to have seen some of the actual production process. Perhaps that was just a problem of the time of year we were visiting.

Awesome! Luis took amazing care of us and the experience was unique and powerful. Highly recommend to anyone who wants a more intimate and personal experience of Siquijor healing culture.

My husband and I had a wonderful experience!

For starters, our tour guide Carlos was thoughtful and friendly. He picked us promptly at our hotel. He was very engaging and shared stories and things about Oaxaca and Mexico in general as we traveled to Teotitlán del Valle. He was ready to translate and assist us during the workshop.

We were warmly welcomed by the Ruiz family in their lovely home. Daniella talked about the natural and indigenous methods of weaving and dyeing, and we were delighted to see and touch the materials used.

The actual weaving was fun, though it was a bit challenging at first because it was a first time for us to use a loom while standing up.

All in all, we highly recommend this workshop. I would just like to suggest that the size of the weaving projects be the same for participants. Mine was a bit bigger than the project that was worked on by my husband.

Carlos was a great guide. He was warm, funny, and took us to some great spots around town we wouldn't have found on our own. He even incorporated specific things we wanted to try. I had hoped for more direct interaction with the purveyors but he was full of insight and information into everything we tried. All around a fun, tasty and memorable experience.

We really enjoyed our Ancestral Food Tour with guide Leo. He was very informative, fun to be around and was patient in answering all our questions. It was a compact four hours of talking, eating and walking. I highly recommend WSE and the care to which they ensured the tour was a success for all parties involved.

The Oaxaca Red Clay experience was very special. My guide, Laura, was kind and very knowledgeable about the area we were visiting and the ladies running the collective. It was a great drive with her chatting about beautiful Oaxaca.
The demonstration of making pottery with Amalia was very educational. She also spoke so poetically about the process which made the tour very meaningful.

This was a truly authentic experience. We are so glad that we had the chance to interact with the local family and something we have wanted to do. The guide was fantastic and very engaging , helped answer all our questions. We will continue to book more tours with Where Sidewalks End to experience more of these moments and connections.