Best Prague Tours 2026 — A Licensed Guide's Honest Picks

Searching for the "best Prague tours" returns hundreds of results — listicles from travel blogs that have never set foot in the city, affiliate roundups pushing the tours with the highest commissions, and marketplace pages ranked by review count rather than quality. None of them are written by someone who actually guides these tours.

This article is different. We are licensed Prague guides who have led thousands of visitors through this city. These are our honest recommendations for 2026 — what is worth booking, what is overrated, and how to match the right tour to what you actually want from your trip. We update this page annually because Prague changes, and tour advice from 2023 no longer applies.

What Is New in Prague for 2026

Prague is not frozen in time. The city evolves, and some changes directly affect how you plan your tours.

E-scooter ban. As of January 2026, shared e-scooters are banned in Prague. The Lime and Bolt scooters that once cluttered the sidewalks are gone. This is good news for walking tours — no more dodging scooters on narrow Old Town streets. It also means visitors who relied on scooters to cover ground between sites need a different plan. Walking, trams, or a private car tour are the alternatives.

Prague Castle renovation works. Ongoing restoration projects at Prague Castle occasionally close specific sections or reroute visitor paths. The core buildings — St. Vitus Cathedral, the Old Royal Palace, the Golden Lane — remain open, but scaffolding appears and disappears across the complex. A local guide adjusts the route in real time based on what is accessible that week.

Trolleybus 59. Since 2024, trolleybus 59 has replaced bus 119 on the airport-to-city route. It runs from the airport to Nádraží Veleslavín metro station. The fare is the same — a standard 30-minute transit ticket. If you are arriving on a budget, this is the most practical connection.

Charles Bridge crowd management. The bridge remains free to walk, but morning hours between 6 and 8 AM are the only time you will experience it without dense crowds. By 10 AM the bridge is shoulder-to-shoulder from April through October. On our tours, we time the bridge crossing for early morning whenever possible.

Best Walking Tour for First-Time Visitors

If you have one day in Prague and want to see the highlights, two tours cover the essential ground.

Charles Bridge and Old Town — our Charles Bridge and Old Town tour is the best starting point for first-time visitors. It covers Charles Bridge (commissioned 1357, completed in the early 15th century), Old Town Square, the Astronomical Clock, the Jewish Quarter, and the network of medieval lanes that connect them. The tour runs two to three hours and gives you the historical context that turns a walk through pretty streets into an understanding of the city.