Don’t you wish you had a local to guide you past the maddening rush of tourists to the real spirit of a place? It was this desire that lead to the creation of Dopios, an Athens-based company that specializes in introducing travelers to locals in over 80 countries.

Dopios in Greek means “Local” and the concept of the company is to matchmake tourists with locals for overlooked experiences that aren’t usually listed on the tourist trails. The site offers traditional nona-styled dinners with local families to secret coffee shop tours to all sorts of other experiences guided by locals. From gay bars to cycling routes to all sorts of other events. The experiences challenge tourists’ usual perceptions of the places they visit.

The site offers a pool of people from around the world offering different tours from hiking to pub crawls with instant friends to culture trails and then some.

The user can pick a tour based on the personality of the actual local offering the experience.

The local (dopios) can earn a bit of extra cash.

A video presentation –