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Gist: My girlfriend and I are trying to plan a European trip in 2015. We can't do it next year, but I figure planning it a year in advance is sufficient time for us to plan and pay for it. I've looked up about 3 or 4 traveling companies on the net but the one constant I seem to be finding is that it might be better to travel on your own w/out a tour company, because everything is regimented, you're in charge of your luggage, early wake up times, long hours traveling on a bus.
Point is, I didn't know about all of this until today and I was talking to her about it earlier and it's something we really need to sit down and discuss. So for this who have traveled to Europe, is it worth planning your own trip or save the headache and go in a guided tour?
You can sort of do both at once. That is, you can plan your own trip, adapting the itineraries of guided tours so that you go to the places you want to visit. You make your own hotel reservations and figure out your own travel plans from one city to the next (train, rental car, whatever).
Then when you arrive in a new city, take a half-day guided tour of the city. You'll learn about the general layout of the city from your tour guide, and get an introduction to the highlights, which you can then go back and see at your leisure when the tour is over.
My husband and I have done this, and the beauty of it is that you get some of the advantages of taking a guided tour without all the regimentation.
Part of it depends on what part of Europe. We're thinking of a DIY trip to the UK, Germany, and France this spring, and I've got no qualms about visiting those countries on my own but for a place like Russia, I'd definitely go the tour group route, if only for the bigger language barrier.
I don't know about European tours but I can say that getting the right bus driver from our timeshare to the Grand Canyon made the trip so much more of a pleasure. He was a native to the area, loved his job and shared his love for the area. Wish I knew his name and the bus company, but it was years ago.
NO! Plan your own trip, Europe (Western Europe at least) is amazingly easy to navigate and I have never done a guided tour. Not unless you are like 80 years old, and that seems to be the typical age for these guided bus tours of Europe, or you are really incapable of making decisions on your own.
Guided tours also seem to have the nasty habit of making stops to local carpet and cheap souvenir shops where, unknown to you, they get a commission.
Part of it depends on what part of Europe. We're thinking of a DIY trip to the UK, Germany, and France this spring, and I've got no qualms about visiting those countries on my own but for a place like Russia, I'd definitely go the tour group route, if only for the bigger language barrier.
The tour company we are looking at is called GoAhead Tours, we're specifically looking at a 16 day trip that includes London, Amsterdam, Paris, Venice, Cologne, Lucerne, Rome, Como and another city that I'm forgetting. Everything about it sounds great, they have optional excursions, and they allow you some free time to visit a city on your own. You don't spend more than two nights at a time in a city, but one of the things I was looking at is that a bus goes from Amsterdam to Cologne, which is about 7 hours, and then there's another shorter ride that takes about 3 hours. There's also a train ride. Basically, it seems like out of the 16 days, at least 2, maybe 3 of those are spent being transported from one place to another.
It's convenient because everything is scheduled for you, but at the same time...it makes me wonder if we're better off booking our own trip and as WellShoneMoon said, use their itinerary as our starting point.
NO! Plan your own trip, Europe (Western Europe at least) is amazingly easy to navigate and I have never done a guided tour. Not unless you are like 80 years old, and that seems to be the typical age for these guided bus tours of Europe, or you are really incapable of making decisions on your own.
Guided tours also seem to have the nasty habit of making stops to local carpet and cheap souvenir shops where, unknown to you, they get a commission.
This is another thing, the tour's age demographics is around 40-60, we're in our late 20s.
Part of it depends on what part of Europe. We're thinking of a DIY trip to the UK, Germany, and France this spring, and I've got no qualms about visiting those countries on my own but for a place like Russia, I'd definitely go the tour group route, if only for the bigger language barrier.
They all speak English in Russia, believe me. You can do well with a tour guide there too but you have to be careful where you are going and be careful with pickpockets. But the same thing can happen in France too. A friend of mine got mugged in Paris. SHe was in a car with her husband driving. AT a red light a guy opened the passanger door, took her purse she was holding in her lap and ran. The husband got out of the car but couldn;t run to catch the thief. In the purse they had passports, money, her phone. The rest the visit to consulate was a nightmare. So be careful, extra careful with your belongings.
If you're young at heart and adventurous... why not make it an adventure...
A Eurail Pass will always give you a place to go... some of my best experiences just happened... not planned.
On the other hand... I had co-workers wanting to go the Europe for the first time...
They have no street smarts and very opposed to roughing it... for them it was a no-brainer... find a tour and sign up.
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