Escorted Tours

“Travel makes one modest. You see what a tiny place you occupy in the world.”

Gustave Flaubert

An escorted tour is a tour with a guide.  There are many different kinds of escorted tours.  They vary a great deal.  Usually if you say you are going on an escorted tour, or on a tour with a tour company, everyone thinks about the "big bus" experience, the "If its Tuesday it must be Belgium" type of tour.  Those are certainly available, by every tour company out there.  But there are many other choices out there to choose from.

Trafalgar Tours Bus, Driver and Tour Guide

I have taken a few escorted tours over the years.  In 2010 we took a Trafalgar Tour.  Trafalgar is one of the largest tour companies, and they have been around for many years.  They are a good company, and if the big bus tour is your thing, then I would say they are a very good company for you to book with.  Our tour started in Vienna, Austria, traveled through Slovenia, Croatia, Montenegro, a corner of Bosnia and ended in Budapest, Hungary.  There were about 50 people on board, all very nice people who we got to know to some degree during the trip.  Some we liked better than others, that always happens.  It is a way to make friends, and you do tend to pair up with others who you find you have something in common with.

Special Dinner at Farmhouse in Croatia
George and myself with others on our tour

The advantages of an escorted tour are - price (usually overall it's cheaper because they book in block, and they cover so many of the little expenses), you have someone guiding you and showing you all the sights that they consider to be worth seeing, and they tell you about what you are seeing.

The disadvantages, at least as far as I am concerned (you may not consider these disadvantages) are - most meals are included (which means you will be eating at the hotels alot, and not eating where the locals eat, or what they eat), you are herded into a town in a large group and given a city tour, and maybe a half hour on your own if you are lucky, which doesn't give you much time to see anything on your own, there is no spontaniety, no getting off the beaten path.  And you are stuck with the same group the entire trip, which can get old.  Even though you are suppose to leave a place at a certain time, you are always waiting for someone, so you sit on the bus frustrated that you could still be out seeing things.  And they tell you what time to get up in the morning, usually early.  If you are in a country such as Spain, where the locals don't eat dinner until 10 p.m., then you miss all the night life, which is part of the experience. If you have to be up at 6 a.m to have breakfast and catch your bus, you will probably not stay up and experience the night life.

A tour Group being led up the steps to the ruins of
Lindos in Greece

There are options even for those who want an escorted tour.  You don't have to do the "big bus" type of tour.  You can opt for a smaller tour, maybe less than 10 with guides and usually a van or small bus to take you places.  These are a little less structured usually and you have more flexibility.  The guide is usually willing to listen to you if you say you want to do something different (as long as the others in the group agree), or to spend a little more time at a place.  You have less people that you are always waiting for.  However, if the group is small, you may find less people that you have something in common with, but you can always wander off on your own.

The other option is to do a free-style type of tour.  You are on your own, just you and whoever you are traveling with, but you still book through a tour company.  They arrange everything, places to stay, city tours if you want them, entrance to whatever sights you want to see, and land transportation (whether it is a van and driver or maybe the train).  You have a guide that meets you and takes you to your hotel, the guide is available if you need them, but you are on your own to see what you want to see, and spend as much time as you want at each place.  If you opt for the driver to take you places, then that is usually your guide.  You usually do meals on your own in the local restaurants, but the guide can advise you on good places to eat - they are usually local so know where to go.  It is more like traveling on your own, but you have the security of having someone available to help you.

Africa - On Safari

We are heading off to Africa soon, and we have booked through General Tours.  General does tours all over the world.  They do escorted tours and they will also design a trip just for you, with your own driver.  They are a great company and have also been around for a long time.  We are doing a pre-tour package to Victoria Falls, where we will be basically on our own, with a guide who will pick us up and take us to our camp, and we have a tour of the falls.  We will be there for 3 days, and anything else we want to do while there, we will have to book on our own. 

Africa - On Safari

Then we do a 12 day safari through Kenya and Tanzania.  We will be staying in lodges and luxury tents.  All our meals will be provided and our transportation from park to park.  We are guaranteed that there will be no more than 16 people in our safari group.  I think that is a nice amount.  We will be in jeeps a lot, so we will be in even smaller groups then.

At the end of the trip we added on 2 nights on the island of Zanzibar (the spice island), to just relax and enjoy the beach.  We will be on our own there also, with a guide to pick us up when we arrive and take us back to the airport when we leave.

When you are doing a place like Africa, there is no "big bus" experiences, but there are companies that do put quite a few more people in a group.  And if you are staying in hotels in the parks, then you will not get to the good animal viewing places until later in the day, when it is crowded.  By staying in tents, we will be close to those areas all the time, and hopefully will get to see some good views of the animals.

Quite a few companies are now recognizing that more and more travelers prefer being more independent when they travel and are now setting up more independent type trips, but still being there for the traveler. Even Trafalgar now has what they call "At Leisure" tours.  You are still with a group, but a smaller group, you spend more nights in one place with more leisure time to explore on your own.  You are not rushed from place to place.

George and I on our own in Greece

And more and more companies are now custom-designing trips for the traveler who wants to go on their own but still have someone available to show them the sights and be there for them.  So if you don't want the "big bus" experience, but are not sure you are ready to head off on your own, consider one of the custom designed trips. 

If you are feeling a little more adventuresome and want to head out on your own, to distant places, my next posting will be about independent travel and how to get around.

Going on your own

"The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page."  
St. Augustine

                                                     Independent travel

The Shambles, York, England

In my last posting, I talked about the pro's and con's of escorted tours vs. independent travel. If you have never given thought to taking off for a foreign country on your own, then there are some things to think about before going.

Just how independent do you want to be? The first time I went to England it was in March, which is definitely off-season. There wasn't a big need to have hotel reservations in advance. My daughter had been a student in London for 4 months, and I flew over at the end of her semester to join her. She had a flat in London, so I had a place to stay there. We had 3 weeks, and a rough itinerary of places we wanted to go. I had done research, and had purchased Britrail tickets in advance. After several days of staying in London and seeing the sights, we headed for Dover and took the hovercraft to Paris. We had no reservations, but I had written down the name of a hotel that looked good and was not too expensive. The cab took us there, and they had rooms available. We spent several days in Paris seeing the sights, then took the train to Dieppe and the ferry back to Brighton, England, We spent the next 2 weeks traveling and exploring places like Penzance and Bath, then over to Dublin, Ireland, then up to Edinburgh, Scotland, and our last stops were York and Cambridge, before returning to London. We didn't have a reservation anywhere we went, and hadn't decided how long we would stay in each place, but we knew when we had to be back in London, so we worked with that. It was fun, exploring on our own. Sometimes we stayed in hotels, quite often it was a private home (Bed & Breakfast) and in Bath we stayed at the Y for $5 a night. If it had been high season, this would not have worked, as we might have found places were completely booked.

So if you want to just go and wing it, that's fine, but keep in mind that hotels might not be available where you want them. Some planning in advance might be a good idea.

Harbor in Rethymnon, Crete

Monastery in Meteora

The way my husband and I usually travel when we head for Europe is to plan the trip out in advance. We pick the country, then I research the places we want to go and decide how long we will stay in each place. From there I start making hotel reservations in the different cities or towns. Once I do that I start looking at transportation. Do we want to drive or take the train? Or a combination of both?

 My husband is getting to the point where he has decided he doesn't like to drive all over a country, not knowing where he is going, so the train will get us to the destination, and then if we want to rent a car for the day to go outside the city and see some things, then that works too. So if we are going by train, I buy the Eurail pass before we go. Next I think about the cities we are going to be in, do I want a city tour? Those can also be purchased in advance, through a travel agent. Also, day tours from most locations are available. When we were in Athens, Greece we did a tour, which I had pre-purchased, that took us over to Delphi and Meteora. It was a 3 day trip and it included transportation, sightseeing, and hotels. They took us by van, and it was a wonderful side trip. Getting to those places on our own would have been difficult, so this was a nice option. I also pre-purchased a 3 day Greek island cruise as part of our trip to Greece. But a good portion of our 3 weeks in Greece, we were on our own. We even did the rental car for our week on the island of Crete.

 So you can go independently but have plans and reservations in place, and even have city tours set up at each location, which will orient you to the city when you first arrive. Then you are free to spend your time doing what you want, eating the local food, people-watching, shopping and seeing the sights. To me, this is the best way to travel.

Should we take a tour, Or go on our own?

"I have found out that there ain't no surer way to find out whether you like people or hate them, than to travel with them." 
 Mark Twain

EEscorted Tours vs. Independent Travel

Taken on tour in China

As a travel agent I booked a lot of tours for my clients. And I have done a few tours myself over the years. Tours are great, but there are some things to consider. For one thing, you will be with a group of people, who you may or may not like. There are always a few of each in any group. And the amount of time you have in any one place is determined by someone else. But they are good bargains usually, because they include food, entrance fees and sightseeing and you have someone to tell you what you are seeing.

There are some places where it is better to take a tour.  My friend Bonnie and I went to China in 2010, and I can't imagine doing that completly on our own.  Figuring out transportation to things would be more difficult there than in Europe, which is fairly easy to get around in.  It just made sense to have someone telling us the history and pointing out things to see. However, you can go with a large group, or in our case, a very small group. There were 6 people total in our group and we traveled by van instead of bus. We had a tour guide and a driver for each city that we went to, and we flew between cities, so we had several different guides during our visit. I loved that, because each guide was so different in personality, and we were able to ask them so much about their lives, their government, and their feelings. I felt like I really got to know some Chinese people. Our guide in Beijing was particularly delightful. He was as curious about us as we were about him, and he was willing to tell us anything about him and his country.  And he was very proud of his country, but he realized that it still had problems, such as less freedoms then we have.



Taken on tour in Slovenia

 So, once you determine where you want to go, you should also decide how you want to go. Should you take a tour, or go it on your own? It depends on how adventuresome you are, and how willing you are to “roll with the punches” when things go wrong. And quite often things do go wrong. But I have had some of the best stories to tell when I get home, because of things that went wrong. Sometimes those things turn out to be the most fun, and the best memories.

There are pro's and con's to escorted tours and to independent travel. I have listed a few of them here, I'm sure there are more, and maybe you can write me in comments and tell me what you like or dislike about tours.

Escorted Tours:

Pro's

All transportation on the tour is provided.

They have done all the research on what things to see and do.

They have knowledgeable guides to tell you what you are seeing.

If there are problems, they take care of them.

Most tours include entrance fees to the major attractions and some meals, so there are not a lot of extra expenses once you get to your destination.

You have the chance to make friends in your tour group.

You do have some free time to go off and explore on your own.

Con's:

Lack of flexibility, you can't get off the beaten path.

You usually have a limited amount of time at each destination, time to see the sights but not necessarily enough time to relax and do some people-watching or explore the back streets of the town.

You are stuck with the group, even if you don't find people you have something in common with.

Some meals are provided with tours, unfortunately a lot of those meals will be in your hotel.

The buses are large and comfortable, however, they are still buses.

Independent Travel:

Pro's:

The freedom to go where you want, when you want. If you love a place you can stay a little longer, if you find a place boring, you can move on.

You can get off the beaten path and discover the small towns and find interesting places to eat.

Con's:

You need to do your own research on a place and decide what things you want to see.

You will need to budget for food, hotels, entrance fees, cost of transportation, etc.

You will not have a person to tell you the history and show you each place, and to help if there is a problem, although you can book city tours in each location.

Next time I will talk more about independent travel.