Do organised group tours have a bad name? Well, sort of. If you think of a group tour these days, you might think of a group of twenty-somethings travelling around Europe by bus, consuming as much alcohol as possible. You’d be forgiven for wanting to avoid that like the plague. But this is not the case for all group tours. In fact, you should even think of the best kinds of group tours as being more like a guided vacation. You experience the destination with those who knows it best, and all the details are taken care of. This is particularly pertinent in some destinations, since even in this day and age, you can’t book each and every aspect of some holidays online. So banish those thoughts of drunk twenty-somethings holding in their vomit as a bus whisks them from country to country, and think about why a properly chosen, high quality group tour has some clear benefits.

Excitement with Safety

Have you travelled much at all before? It’s about the best thing you can do for yourself, but there’s a difference between taking a short plane ride for grandma’s birthday, and going to a foreign country where you don’t know a single person. You can still immerse yourself in a foreign culture when you’re part of a tour group, but it’s a safe immersion. There’s always going to be someone to ask for advice, if needed. It’s still like jumping into the deep end, but doing so with a flotation device!

Scheduled Vs. Spontaneous

You might be put off by the idea that your every waking moment is accounted for on a group tour. Sometimes it might be, but it’s not mandatory that you partake in each and every activity. So really you can get the best of both worlds. You have some carefully curated, well-planned activities there when you want to do them, but if you should ever feel like not participating, then you don’t have to. Not interested in the Lithuanian Museum of Vegetable Pickles? No drama, just sit in a cafe and enjoy a glass of wine… or two (or five), since you’re on holiday. You can join your group again tomorrow.

BFFs Forever!

You tend to pick up more than a few casual acquaintances when you go on holiday. These are the types of people you might meet while out and about in the evening, and feel that you’re going to be lifelong buddies after a glass or two or five of wine. You add each other on social media, and then never speak again. It’s different when you’re part of a group tour. You are generally put with like-minded people of a reasonably similar age group, and while you’re not going to adore everyone, you could easily forge some lifelong friendships from within your group, and this is all down to compatible personalities blended with this majestic shared experience you’re having.

A Local Expert

This can vary, depending on the type of tour you take. You’re better off meeting your tour group and tour guide at your destination. You want to be taken around by people who live and breathe the destination – someone to whom it’s home. These are the people who can look at your needs in a variety of ways. Sure, they know the big picture. They know the itinerary and how you’ll be getting from one spot to another. But they can also give you a deeper cultural context on your holiday. They’ll know where the coolest bars are (the ones that have mercifully stayed out of the guidebooks), and can additionally give you an insight into day to day life beyond the tourism sector, to the very cultural identity of your destination. You don’t get that so easily when you’re travelling around by yourself.

Minimal Planning

About the best part of a group tour is that fact that the details are taken care of. The value of this part of a trip cannot be overstated. Of course, there are some places where this might not be necessary. You might be from Canada, but if you go to New Zealand, you’re going to be able to find your way around… or ask for advice if you can’t. But what about if you went to Mongolia? Or Cuba? There are some destinations where having someone take care of the planning makes for a stress-free holiday when stress could be a possibility. Tours by Locally Sourced Cuba give you a range of choices, while still doing all that planning for you, for which you will be grateful.

Seriously, you could go crazy if you had to work out the train schedule in Cuba! We couldn’t make a definitive statement about the trains in Mongolia, but a tour guide might be wise in that instance too…

Loretta Fuller