ABOUT GO WITH GUS
Creating unique life experiences and making friends from all over the world, "Go With Gus Tours" provides its guests with a casual family-oriented experience of the natural wonders of Central America. We offer something special for every traveler with experiences that include sightseeing, adventure, and cultural. Highlights include meeting Mayan and Garifuna tribal communities and visiting historic pirate territories.
Our company's original goal has evolved into a humanitarian effort that promotes sustainable tourism and provides travelers the opportunity to contribute to the health and welfare of the local indigenous communities, schools, and children.
Over the 14 years of running the Humanitarian Tour on both ports - Puerto Quetzal and Puerto Santo Tomas – Go with Gus guests have provided over 400,000 USD in donations to school children helping hundreds of families.
VISION AND MISSION
Our Mission:
To create unique and valuable cultural travel experiences that will last our customers for a lifetime.
Our Vision:
To develop a GWG presence in every cruise ship port in the Caribbean and Latin America, dedicated to helping guests with limited mobility to enjoy the wonders of our people and communities. GWG Tours is dedicated to providing all our customers the opportunity to leave a lasting impression in the region through charity and social sharing.
WHO IS GUS?
Gustavo A Turcios, known to his friends as "Gus", was born in Guatemala City in 1948. At age 18, after graduating as an elementary school teacher, Gus emigrated to the USA where he lived full-time for 40 years. Gus married his wife, Iracema, and raised their two boys in NYC throughout the 70s and 80s. Always an entrepreneur, Gus never worked as an employee and rather created several businesses during his time in the US. And after sending his kids off to college, Gus and his wife felt a calling to return to their homeland.
As the tourism industry grew in Guatemala, Gus decided to create a small hotel in his childhood home of Livingston, Izabal which was the beginning of his move into tourism. Gus has dedicated the past twenty years helping visitors discover the beauty of his native Guatemala.
Even before the cruise ships started visiting in Guatemala, Gus felt a sense of responsibility and love for the underprivileged children of his childhood home. He would spend time visiting the surrounding areas of his fishing village to donate time and money to the local schools. This is where he began to organize fundraising efforts and donations of supplies to the students and teachers.
In the early 2000's when the cruise ships started arriving in Santo Tomas Port, he was asked by one of the executives of the cruise ship industry, Mr. Luis Aguilar, to help create a tour to visit the area where he grew up. This is when the Livingston-Humanitarian Tour was born.
The Go With Gus company name came from a review made by one of his cruise guests. After visiting our port and taking different tours, this new fan wrote a review on the Cruise Critic Call Roll that read:
"All the tours are good and the tour operators do a good job... but if you want to have a great time, I recommend to Go with Gus."
After reading that review, Go With Gus was born. We currently have operations in Guatemala, Honduras, Panama, and Colombia as the company continues to grow.
GO WITH GUS IS A FAMILY OWNED BUSINESS
While Gustavo is always looking to create new experiences for his customers, Iracema manages the operations on site. Their two sons Ricardo and Gustavo live with their wives Laurence and Darlene in Texas where they manage Go with Gus headquarters.
OUR TEAM
Gustavo Turcios
Owner and CEO
Iracema Turcios
Owner and Manager
Gus Turcios
Technology Director
Abel Colman
Tour Leader Puerto Santo Tomas
Dary Arevalo
Blue Badge Guide Puerto Quetzal
Gustavo Arriola
Roatan Tour Leader
Kevin Esquivel
Programmer and AI Specialist