Packaged tours good fit for some tourists
There’s safety and convenience in numbers but you have little control over your pace and schedule
FREDERICTON — I love to travel, and I enjoy all the planning that goes into a big trip. So it was with some trepidation that I left all the details of a recent trip through Europe to a motor coach company that offers packaged tours.
Setting the daily schedule was out of my control. And, while I was travelling with my wife, what would it be like travelling for two weeks with 40 other people I had never met?
In the end, it was the trip of a lifetime. I learned many positives and negatives in comparing organized tours to independent travel.
First, the packaged tour saved me a lot of time by not having to research hotels, travel and excursions.
“When you go with a planned tour with a tour company, then everything is outlined for you. You sit back and relax, and don’t have to worry about reconfirming the hotels. You don’t have to worry about getting your luggage up to your room, getting to the airport or train station,” said Ellen Tucker of Freedom Tours in Saint John, N.B.
“Everything is taken care of for you. It can be much more relaxing.”
She said an organized tour also gives you the expertise of an experienced tour director.
“If you’re on your own, you could drive right by a place in your rental car and not have a clue what you’re missing,” she said.
Gary Howard of the Canadian Automobile Association said organized tours give you a very different perspective on a destination, and your escort can give you insights on things to see, or places to eat, that you’d never get from a brochure.
But packaged tours can also be fast-paced, and Howard said you need to find a balance between the number of places you want to see, and the pace that you want to travel.
“If you’re wanting to get across Europe in seven days, that’s very fast-paced and you might not get to see as much of what you want to see,” he said.
Once you’re locked into a set schedule, you have to keep up to the group and don’t have the option of adding an “off ” day in the middle to relax, he noted.
But, Tucker points out, the variations for tour schedules, even within a given tour company, are huge.
Whether travelling in a group or by yourself, it’s important not to overbook and get yourself exhausted.
“When you are travelling, you need time to absorb what you are seeing and experiencing with all of your senses. In our rush to do everything we often miss the most important things of all,” Tucker said.
Organized tours can save you time during the trip, as well. For example, as an independent traveller visiting the Colosseum in Rome, you could spend a lot of time waiting in line. Organized tour groups have their own entrance and get in faster.
Both Tucker and Howard say organized tours provide a great sampling of different cities and countries that may fuel your desire to return and spend more time in one place.
“You might do a four- or five-country tour of Europe and inevitably you’re going to love one country the most,” Howard said.
During my recent trip to Europe, I wasn’t sure how I’d feel about travelling with 40 strangers from different countries, but the agenda had a good mix of time together as a group, and time to go off and explore on your own. In the end, I discovered 40 new friends who made the trip a lot of fun.
And finally, don’t think that organized motor coach tours are just for seniors. There was a wide range of ages on my recent trip to Europe.