While I was traveling through the Balkans, one of the things that I did was take several free walking tours, which gave me an overview of most of the cities that I visited. A free walking tour is exactly what it says: a local guide takes you around the city, talking about the history, culture, and architecture, and it's free, except you're expected to tip if you like it. The guides aren't paid anything other than the tips, so it's how they make their living. So of course I started to wonder how much money the guides might be able to make. Here are some of the estimations I made:

• I joined free walking tours in Ljubljana, Zagreb, Belgrade, Pristina, Skopje, and Sofia. The number of people on each tour ranged from 16 to 33, with the average being around 22 people.
• While the guides suggested that people pay 10 euros each, it looked like most people were giving 5 euros each. I'm assuming this is the average, with some people paying more and a few people not paying at all.
• It seemed as though many guides gave two tours per day, but they didn't work every day. So my guess was that the "average" tour guide would give on average one tour per day, or 365 tours per year.