Art Tours aka 'Rent-a-Professor'

One of the best things about going to museums (well, in my opinion) is getting to learn about the artwork and objects in the building. Even if you don't have much experience with what you are seeing, you can always look up the art/ artist later or if you have your cell phone with you, it is easy to look up the artist on the spot.

But now, in our fast paced world, you can actually hire an art professional to guide you through your art adventure!


Intrested in architecture?

• Check out Joel Zack's (a Columbia University architect major) company Heritage Tours Private Travel and their mini version of Marrakesh's chaotic square, Djemaa el Fna, in the garden of a private villa. Complete with fire eaters, snake charmers, acrobats and street food. Heritage Tours specializes in planning highly personalized cultural trips to Morocco, Spain, Portugal, Turkey and southern Africa. If you are more of an Art Deco and Art Moderne fan, there are also tours of buildings in Morocco and private Modernist apartments in Barcelona, one of them designed by Antoni Gaudí.

Like American Art?

• Check out Art Excursions, a leisure guided tours of art and architecture in major U.S. cities. Art-and-gardens tour of Washington, D.C., during the annual cherry blossom festival, and a visit to Pittsburgh that includes an excursion to Frank Lloyd Wright's Fallingwater. 

Fan of urban street art?

• Check out Graff Tours.  to provide perspective on this urban art form. Graff Tours employs artists, historians and even a retired police officer to take small groups on 90-minute tours around New York City, Philadelphia and Los Angeles. There are even workshops led by graffiti artists (the paintings are usually rendered on canvas). If you are a real lover of street art, check out the in-depth expedition, like a recent six-hour circuit of graffiti sites in the Bronx, Manhattan and Brooklyn via limousine.

I think I now know what I am going to do with my art history degree!