Roavi · Santiago
Become a Local Friend in Santiago
Go out, explore your city and meet travellers from everywhere. Your days, your rate.
Go out
A sunset, music, a rooftop
Explore
Your city, the way only you know it
Meet people
A coffee with someone from abroad
Your terms
Your days, your rate
In public places · Respectful · Platonic only · Earnings vary by city and demand
How it works
Get started in
3 simple steps
- 1
Create your free profile
Tell travellers about yourself, your interests and your city. Stop and come back any time; your words are saved.
- 2
Show what makes you special
Your favourite places, three real photos, and how you'd like to spend time. A person on our team reads every profile.
- 3
Connect with travellers
When you're ready, reply to travellers and agree on a plan that works for you: the day, the hours, your rate.
Example profileMarta$22/hr
Lisbon, Portugal
Usually replies within 1 hour
I'm great for
Speaks
Portuguese · English · Spanish
Send a messageExample profile · this is how yours will look
Real people. Real places.
See what Local Friends share
From hidden beaches to local food spots, Local Friends show travellers the side of their city that isn't in the guidebooks.
Explore more profilesSantiago, and why this is a slower start than the coast
Santiago de los Caballeros is the second city of the Dominican Republic, the centre of the Cibao valley, and the place the country's tobacco, merengue and a good deal of its music came from. It is also not a tourist city, and it would be dishonest to pretend otherwise: far fewer visitors come here than to Punta Cana or the capital, so signing up here is a longer game than it is on the coast.
What you can show
- 1
A cigar factory in the Cibao, where a large share of the world's premium cigars are actually rolled. This is the one thing visitors specifically travel to Santiago for.
- 2
The Monumento and the city from it, the centre, and a Santiago evening — which is a different, more Dominican thing than a resort night out.
- 3
The valley: Jarabacoa and Constanza for mountains, rivers and cool air, an hour or so away and completely unlike the coast anybody pictures.
- 4
Carnival in February, if your visitor's dates land there. Santiago's is one of the country's biggest and it is not staged for anyone.
Expect this to be slow. Most visitors who pass through Santiago are here for a specific reason — cigars, family, a connection to the mountains — rather than browsing. A profile that names the specific thing you can do is worth much more here than a general one, because the people searching already know what they came for.
Travelers are looking for locals in Santiago
Be one of the first Local Friends they meet. Build your profile today and get discovered by travelers heading to Santiago.
See the Santiago pageWorth reading first
Other cities in the Dominican Republic
Questions?
Everything you need to know
The questions people ask before they join, answered plainly.
Ask Roa or the teamHonestly, expect little at first. Two things make it worth doing anyway: a profile takes time to become findable at all, and while very few locals here are listed, the handful of visitors who do search will see you rather than a page of competitors. If you need income now, this is not that.
You can offer whatever you are willing to do, and saying so widens your reach a lot from a city this size. If you are able to travel with someone to the north coast or the capital for a day, put it on your profile explicitly — that is the difference between being findable by Santiago searches only and being findable by a much larger group.
Yes. Creating and publishing your Local Friend profile is completely free — there’s no cost to appear in the directory or receive messages.
No — and that is the point. A Local Friend is not a tour guide: you spend time with someone as yourself, you do not run a tour. Professional guiding is a licensed profession in a number of countries; spending an afternoon with someone is not. And if you do hold a guiding licence, put it on your profile — travellers look for it.
Yes. You set your own hourly rate, and you can change it anytime from your profile.
Yes. You choose your days and times on your profile, reply only when it suits you, and can pause your profile whenever you like.
No. You need to be 18 or over, live in the city, and add three real photos of yourself. If you know where you’d take a friend, you have what it takes.
No. Roavi doesn’t process payments or take a commission on what you arrange with a traveler.
No. You decide who you respond to, and you can say no to anyone, for any reason.
No. Verification is optional. It’s completed through Stripe Identity and adds a verified status to your profile, but your profile, visibility, and messaging stay free either way.
Travelers message you directly through Roavi once they find your profile in the directory. You choose whether and how to reply.
Yes. You can pause your visibility or delete your profile at any time from your account settings.
Ready to share your world?
Become a Local Friend today
It's free. It could be the start of something amazing.
18+ · Every profile is read by a person before it goes live