When you travel there are many options available to you, if you are on vacation you can do an all-inclusive stay at a resort where food, accommodation and sometimes even your flight are included.
For the resort and tour company this keeps the majority of the costs within their walls, it means you are more likely to partake in the recreational activities they offer be it a tour of the local area, their beach, water sports and so on.
Not all packages are like that but back home in Canada those trips to Cuba fit that bill to a T. This makes sense for those with very little time as it allows you to get the most value for your money and to see and do as much as possible within the time allowed.
The cost for the local economy is that much of the money being spent stays within the companies that run the tour cutting down on what goes to the community where the resorts or tours take place.
There are great tour companies like G Adventures which put themselves as adventure tour companies and offer packaged tours based on your travel style be it yolo, family, comfort, local living, marine, classic or active.
Someone once told me G Adventures and its contemporaries are like the McDonalds of adventure travel and what they meant by that is that these tours are done with such regularity by the guides on the flip side for the individual it can be a brand new experience, with them doing a lot of things they may never have done if they traveled there on their own which is all that really matters in the consumer’s eyes.
Tours give you peace of mind so that you don’t have the hassle of dealing with all the logistics yourself, it’s what you are paying for. You have a company behind you that will be supporting you as follow the itinerary and you’ll have a guide that knows the area and the country in a way you never could. They manage your time well, to keep things on track and they usually offer some options for you depending on your own interests.
I’ve always wanted to do one of the G Adventures tours but decided to just jump on a plane and see what happens. For the most part I’ve done everything on my own with the only time I used a tour operator was to schedule my trains and places to stay while going through Rajasthan in India and when doing a 17 day hike of the Annapurna circuit in Nepal.
Some of my best experiences were during those tours but I did miss the freedom to wander and set my own timetable. In Nepal we were in the middle of the trek and I really just wanted to get off the road and take one of the side trails towards a lake but because of our timetable that just wasn’t an option.
After doing the trek with a small group when I go back to Nepal (both to volunteer and help them recover from the Earthquake) to trek I will do it on my own so I can wander more. This means you learn more about the area and are responsible for your own safety and equipment but it is through that you can take paths that you wouldn’t when on a tour.
Sometimes you are in the middle of one of these roundabouts and you want to stay in a city or a place for a little longer, sometimes a lot longer (for me that place is Pai). The opposite side of the coin is arriving in a new city with no idea where to go and no place to stay which can be an adventure in it of itself.
That’s part of what wandering is about which is both risk and reward. You could find yourself meeting a local that could lead you to a world you didn’t know existed or you could meet another local who will use your naïvety to rip you off, its a gamble that we all do when you have a direction but no plan.
The great thing about a tour is that you are with a group, often a few you get to know that could end up being new friends who share the experience with you or you have a group where a tour allows you to go all together for a good price.
Fundamentally there are tours for all types and it will be great for people who want to travel with the everything taken care of. It takes the hassle and frustration out of doing it all yourself. On your own you have complete control of where you go and when and what you are going to do when you get there.
One thing I want to do that I haven’t is go to a train station, pick any destination (not a tourist laden one) and see what happens. Maybe I will meet locals who will feel sorry for a lost soul like myself, maybe I’ll have to fend for myself or spend a night or two in a train station instead of a guest house or hostel but those become part of the story, the hardships on the way to a new experience which could be helping a local or teaching them English it is just about having an open mind.
I am not on vacation, travel is my lifestyle at the moment and as such my goals and expectations are different from those on a month vacation or so. A packaged tour would be something that I would consider for a vacation or for doing a trek in Nepal.
It lowers the cost of doing all those cool things on the itinerary because you are doing it within a group within a short period. On the other hand when you are traveling on your own you save money by choosing where to stay and what to do with much more flexibility.
I see tours as maximizing your time and what you will experience at the cost of your freedom while independent travel is all about the freedom to choose. What makes sense will depend on the length of time you have and what you want to carry out.
If you have a short time and want to maximize every minute then a tour package is probably the best option and if you are traveling for a while but have less money (because you are spending it over a longer period) than independent travel gives you more control which comes with more personal responsibility which can be for the better or the worse.
So somewhere along the way I’ve done a bit of both, have had a ton of shit stolen, been through amazing experiences and a few bad ones but I wouldn’t change a thing, because it has been an experience that has given me a direction I didn’t have before I started.
There is no wrong choice as long as you know what to expect and the benefits and drawbacks of each but it isn’t an either or situation and you can do both within the context of long-term travel if you have the disciple and adventurous spirit to live the moment for that new experience.