Organized Travel Groups: Pros & Cons of Tour Groups
What’s up, travel friends?
In today’s video, we’re talking about travel tour groups and the difference between that and traveling solo.
Now, I think that travel tour groups are an amazing way to start traveling. I’m going to share some pros and cons, and then I’m going to share some questions that you should ask yourself before you purchase a group tour.
If you’re not familiar with what a tour group is, there’s lots of different groups out there, but it’s basically you pay a flat rate. You travel with a group that typically has a guide to a few different destinations– and also typically includes accommodation, hostels and different activities that you might be participating in with that group of people. There’s usually, I would say, 20 to 50 people that you’re traveling with.
The location, the duration, the price of the travel, and the style of the travel varies vary quite a bit with different groups, so check them out before you are going to do that.
So, some pros and cons of traveling with a tour group versus traveling by yourself:
Pro: you’re paying for a package, so if you’re a first-time traveler or if it’s your first time planning your own trip, it makes it– it makes travel a lot more accessible if– especially if you’re feeling overwhelmed by all the different choices and all the different things that you need to consider when you’re traveling.
Con: you’re paying for someone to put together a package for you, so the price of the actual trip is going be more expensive than if you were going do it all on your own. So the fact that it’s a package deal is really nice if you’re just getting out and traveling, and it’s kind of daunting and overwhelming, which I can totally relate to. But you’re also paying a premium for that convenience of not having to figure everything out on your own.
And that actually brings me to my next pro, which is that everything is figured out for you, so you don’t have to make a bunch of decisions on the destination, the accommodations, or the transportation. All that’s figured out for you. That’s especially helpful if you’re somebody who’s first getting out to travel, and it’s kind of overwhelming with how many choices you have out there.
And it’s also really helpful if you’re the type of person who gets analysis paralysis and gets FOMO, like trying to decide which destinations to go to– for how long. [It] definitely reduces the amount of decisions that you have to make, which kind of makes it a little bit easier.
But that’s also a con because everything’s figured out for you– you have— there’s less flexibility with the itinerary itself. It’s also harder to go at your own pace because there’s a set agenda most of the time.
Pro: Because you’re traveling with that group, you’ll have an instant group of people that you could make connections to, and it makes it a bit easier to make friends. Now, some people join tour groups with one or two other friends. Maybe they were already planning a vacation and this makes it easier. But tons of people show up and go alone and just make friends while they’re there, so rest assured there’s plenty of people going on group tours by themselves.
Con: Because you’re in a big group of people that you’ll eventually become more comfortable with, it makes it a bit more challenging to meet people outside of that group, especially locals or other people in hostels that you might be traveling with, because you kind of get used to being in your own little group. And you’re also a bit less approachable if you’re a group of thirty.
If I’m a solo traveler and I want to go make a friend, I’m not gonna go approach the group of thirty people. I’m gonna go approach the person sitting by themselves.
So you’re less likely to meet people outside of the group, but that depends on the style of the group and that depends on, basically, the initiative that you make to branch out.
And naturally when you get a group of 30 to 50 people together for days at a time, and they’re all kind of getting exhausted together– every now and then there’s a little bit of drama.
And the final pro is– usually there’s a set itinerary, so you get to see a ton because these guys get really efficient at booking things back-to-back in a way that makes sense, so that you can squeeze in as much as you can out of your travels. But that’s also a con because you are doing a lot.
And it can get pretty exhausting at times. But again, this depends on the style of the company that you go with. So some groups hold your hand basically the entire time, kind of like with college break, they’ll put everything together and just give you an itinerary.
But then there are some groups that are a bit more flexible, like Busabout, where it’s just a bus trip and you can opt into different excursions if you like, and there’s a lot more flexibility. It depends on the group, so take a look at the different companies that are out there.
So those are my pros and cons, and I’m gonna leave you with five questions that you should ask before deciding whether or not a group tour is right for you.
Number one: is this your first time traveling or traveling alone or planning a trip?
If so, a group tour might be a really great way to ease some of that nervousness and actually dive into traveling right away, as opposed to holding off because– oh my gosh, there’s so much research that I have to do, and I don’t feel prepared at all.
Group tours are a really great way to just get you traveling, and then you can kind of start figuring things out on your own once you have that experience under your belt.
Number two: how do you feel about planning an international trip on your own?
Is it something that you’re excited by– the challenge and the opportunity to save money and pick everything out for yourself, or does it feel super overwhelming, and you’re putting it off because it feels overwhelming and you don’t feel like you’re ready to make those decisions?
Question number three: how comfortable are you with making friends and meeting new people?
That being said, question number four that you should ask yourself is, “How important is it for you to be around friends or around people that you know versus being able to be independent?”
And finally, question number five to help you decide whether a tour group is a right fit for you is, “Are you open to going to cities or destinations that may not have been on your bucket list?” If you’re traveling solo, you have complete control over your itinerary, so you can skip over cities that you’re not interested in, but in group travel you might make a few stops in cities that you had never considered before.
To tell you the truth, some of the best memories I have from traveling came from the fact that I went to cities that I never would have considered if it wasn’t on my itinerary. So, cities like Nice, France; Krakow, Poland; Lucerne, Switzerland. Never really had them on my bucket list (= a list of the experiences or achievements that a person hopes to have or accomplish during their lifetime), but fell in love anyway.
So those are my pros and cons of group travel and a few questions that you can ask yourself to decide if it’s the right fit for you.
If you enjoyed this video, please let me know by leaving a comment below. It really helps me build up the channel a little bit more. And let me know, what are your thoughts on group travel versus independent travel? And be sure to hit that subscribe button. For more videos like this, I do post content twice a week, so you can look forward to that. And I’ll talk to you later.
