Maggie
the Tour Guide

PRIVATE TOURS OF BERLIN & POTSDAM

Berlin has more history per square mile than almost anywhere on earth. I've spent more than twenty years living inside it. Now let me show you in.

• Tours
• About
• Contact

• Instagram
• Email

• Impressum

This site uses Google Analytics for anonymous traffic analysis. See our Cookie Policy

FIND YOUR BERLIN

Think of Berlin as a living history book, and you get to choose which chapters we open together. You can mix and match themes to suit your interests, but here’s a glimpse of some of my most requested tours. Many guests combine themes or spread them across several days, because Berlin’s history is simply too rich for one afternoon.

Tours typically run 4 to 6 hours, and we'll adjust the length to fit your enthusiasm and appetite.

• Back

Berlin Highlights:
A Walk Through Time

How we travel: Walking and public transit

Berlin's essential landmarks, told through the stories that shaped them. We'll explore the city's beautiful 18th century architecture, wander its historic old town, and trace the arc of a capital that has reinvented itself more times than almost any other city on earth. Along the way you'll see how each era left its mark on the next, and why this city feels unlike anywhere else. Perfect for first-time visitors who want the full picture.

• Top

Third Reich
and WWII Berlin

How we travel: Walking

As the former capital of Nazi Germany, Berlin is where the whole arc unfolded. The rise, the intoxication of power, the catastrophic defeat, and the long reckoning that followed. This tour moves through those traces honestly and unflinchingly, from the sites of absolute power to the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. From capitulation to reckoning.

• Top

Cold War Berlin

How we travel: Walking and public transit

Overnight, a city was divided. West Berlin became one of the strangest places on earth: a landlocked island of democracy, surrounded on all sides by a lethal obstacle and the forces of the Eastern Bloc. East Berlin, meanwhile, was declared a socialist showcase, a city with a front row seat to the Western world, and strict orders not to look. This tour explores what that division actually felt like from the inside. The checkpoints, the spy stories, the daily reality of a split city, and the extraordinary chain of events that finally brought the Wall down. Some of it you know. Some of it sounds made up. And more of it than any serious historian would like to admit is tied to the power of rock and roll.

• Top

Jewish Berlin

How we travel: Walking and public transit

Berlin's Jewish history spans eight centuries, from medieval roots through a remarkable golden age of intellectual and commercial life, to the devastation of the Nazi era and the city's ongoing reckoning with what was lost. This tour walks through it all, in the neighborhoods where it actually happened.

• Top

Berlin Today

How we travel: Walking and public transit

Berlin is a city that lives very much in the present, shaped at every turn by a past that refuses to stay hidden. Counterculture has moved into the mainstream, history has seeped into the neighborhoods where people actually live, eat and gather, and the two have become impossible to separate. This tour is about finding that connection. You just need someone to show you where to look.

• Top

Potsdam

How we travel: Train, walking, and public transit

An hour from Berlin lies a city that feels like a different world entirely. Gardens and palaces built to rival Versailles, Sanssouci among them, a charming old town that has survived the centuries largely intact, and then the Cecilienhof, where the Allies sat down after the war and redrew the map of the world. Potsdam is a day trip that earns its distance.

• Top

Sachsenhausen

How we travel: Private car and walking

Unlike my other tours, this is not a fun day, but an important one. Located about an hour outside the capital, Sachsenhausen was not only a concentration camp but also the headquarters of the entire Nazi camp system. We travel by private car, which gives us flexibility and time to talk along the way. This visit provides a sobering, essential perspective on the realities of Nazi rule and the resilience of those who endured it.

• Top

Prefer to Pedal?

How we travel: By bike

Berlin is one of the great cycling cities of Europe, and for good reason. It's flat, well connected by bike lanes, and best experienced at street level. Any of my tours can be done by bike, covering more ground while still stopping to take it all in. Just mention it when you get in touch and we'll plan accordingly.

• Top

About

I first came to Berlin in 1999 as a teenager on a high school exchange year, immediately fell in love with the city, and knew right away that I could live here. I kept coming back every summer until I finally just moved in 2004.

What drew me then is what still drives me now. Berlin is a city that has looked honestly at its own history, the darkest parts included, and chosen openness, tolerance and accountability over convenient forgetting. I find that rare and genuinely moving, and it shapes every tour I give.

I hold a Master's in Economics from Humboldt University and an MBA, and I guide in both English and German.

My job is to bring that history into the present. Not just as fact, but as something you actually feel.

• Certified member of the Berlin Guides Association

• Back

"Knowledgeable, digestible, and genuinely fun -- even in the pouring rain. Would absolutely recommend for anyone looking to tour Berlin."
Jessica

"So knowledgeable, charismatic, funny and engaging. I loved every minute."
Mark

"Extremely knowledgeable, funny when appropriate, insightful and empathetic at others. She answered every question thrown at her with accuracy and aplomb -- and delighted us with extras along the way. A very special experience."
Richard

"Maggie was upbeat, fun, informative, and added that extra touch to a great tour."
Sarah