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[raniroo]

As I do more travelling I feel more confident on travelling solo, but still tend to choose a tour. I prefer to take trips with companies that are more grassroot than your run of the mill, cattle tours.

Geckos/Intrepid/Imaginative Traveller/Kumuka are examples of the types of trips that I like doing. Geckos use local guides, which are informative, can help with local customs and language and can get you down to the local part of travel (unlike the big tour companies that herd you around, only eat in hotels etc). I usually leave myself time before and after tours to discover the areas on my own too (to give me that mix of solo travel and tours).

Give me a dusty street meat stall anyday!

I travelled around Turkey with a friend on the local buses and it was great and have done plenty of weekend trips around Europe on our own.

R

[battlemonkey]

I've never done a tour, though I've had a guide for a night in some places (always been fun). I also had "escorts" from time to time when on a job in a particularly volatile part of the o*#$%ry. Amazing how being int he company of armed South African mercenaries can sooth one's jangled nerves.

But I have another friend who likes to travel but is also totally high strung and nervous. For him and folks like him, an organized tour is perfect. It's gives them the ability to get out and about in the world, while removing a lot of the planning and potential stress that can come from independent travel. I've never held organized tours against people the way some independent travelers do. I figure anything that gets you out the door and around the world is all right. Without these tours, many many people would never leave their home town.

[gdreamer555]

I like guided tours if I'm traveling outside my native country. When I went Bangkok, I was very thankful that I had a tour guide because I was able to visit places that wouldn't have made it on the standard guide book. I've spent most of my vacations in the Philippines because I love the beaches and the weather is great. Also, I get to relax without burning a hole in my pocket

[travelmonster]

I've never held organized tours against people the way some independent travelers do. I figure anything that gets you out the door and around the world is all right. Without these tours, many many people would never leave their home town.

I think this is a great point, there is a lot of snobbery surrounding independent travel.

Whether you choose to travel independently or with a 'tour', it doesn't make anyones experience any less or any better than the next persons to the person involved, it's all about seeing and experiencing new things for that individual.

For me, I prefer to travel independently round europe and for trips to places such as South America or Africa with a guide, my recent trip into the Peruvian jungle would not have been possible without a guide.

[clintonb]

I'd agree with alot of these posts... It all depends on what type of experience you are after.

For me, I'd definitely say Independant Travel is the way to go :-) The feeling I got while having everything I own on my back, on the way to a land I've never seen with no idea where I'm gonna get food from, or where i'll be spending the night. Its just sensational. The ability to have no set plans, and just wonder off and get lost and end up somewhere you had no idea you thought you'd end up - is the best part about it and how you truly start getting to experience the place.

...Cant get any of that with an organised tour, as your food, accomodation, transport, and itinerary is all organised for you...

The only time i'd take a form of a 'tour', would no where be the type of trip i'm on, e.g. a contiki tour etc, but maybe when I rock up in some place, in some country from my independant travelling, and there's ruin's of some description and there's possibly a small tour that takes you around the ruin's explaining things. This i'd think about taking (if it was cheap enough). As you would probably gain more insight to what your looking at in this circumstance.

But again, this is my opinion of how I like experiencing new places I discover and some people arn't comfortable with it. There's no realy 'wrong' way to travel. E.g. I could never picture myself on a cruise ship, however some people think the being waited on in absolute luxurious conditions is heaven on earth, and probably consider that one of the main goal's of the trip. - Personally, to me, I dont think thats experiencing anything. If i wanted to do that, i'd just book in a hotel 20 minutes drive from my own house in a hotel at the beach.

My 2 Aussie Cents worth :-P
Clint

[jeremystravels]

For me I think it would really depend on the type of trip I wanted to do, where I was going, and how much time and money I had to spend. My first trip outside of North America, and alone, was on a Contiki tour this summer. I did an 18 day tour with a few days in London before (went out to Stonehenge on a day tour) and a few days after in Paris.

For the accommodations and itinerary I probably could have done something very similar for a few more weeks on the same amount of money. The problem was that I had to be back in a short period of time. It sucks that coming from the US the ability to get the time off is scarce (and 2 weeks is very impractical for an international trip to multiple countries). I went after I graduated college this May and had total freedom in the amount of time I was gone. Of course, after I started researching my best friend decided to get married about a month later. Unfortunately for me, he's probably the only friend I would cut a vacation short for, so I did, especially because he asked me to be in it. Since I was on limited time, I figured a tour would be good for me, 1 1/2 days in each city would be enough for a taste (sort of like a cruise, which I had done when I saw all the other countries I've been too in the Caribbean). I booked one that ended in Paris because I knew I'd need more time there to see just, everything, albeit it is all touristy. Turns out one of the major things I liked about the tour was that it went to a few places that I absolutely loved and would never have gone to on my own. Those being Hopfgarten, Austria and Lauterbrunnen, Switzerland. I think if I would've gone on my own I would've skipped those countries completely opting for more days in the other cities or gone to Geneva and Vienna instead.

So on that aspect I really liked the organized tour, with the exception of only being there a short amount of time. I could have used more days in a few cities, but I am glad I got to go to places I wouldn't have planned to go to instead. I really found I started to dislike the major tourist cities, mostly because you hear more people speaking English than the local language, which is kind of upsetting. I would say that if when I go back to Europe, i'll do it on my own but would give tour companies a glance over just to check out the itineraries to see if any unknown city (to me) sounds good. Again, coming from the US perspective with limited time off, the ability to go unplanned is rather difficult.

Aside from time issues, I like organised trips for countries I wouldn't feel comfortable in on my own and to have people that are with me the whole time instead of meeting new people halfway through. I am going to Egypt and Jordan next year and I am going to do a Contiki tour in Egypt and a guided tour out to Petra. It is just a lot easier to use a tour in my opinion for that area.

I am now looking into doing a long trip (like 4 months) in Asia when I graduate from my masters degree in 2010. I started looking at tours for the itineraries, but now I am looking at companies like GAP or Intrepid which seem to have higher reviews in terms of independence. Mostly I am interested in it for having the local guide and the transportation organized. I don't have too much planning time and would much rather look at what there is to do in each city (or near each city) than plan hostels and figure out how to get around. But, since I am getting used to traveling alone now I will probably be doing 3 weeks in Japan completely by myself and making my way to Beijing from Japan on my own (likely not flying). The rest of it is mainly due to the fact that I found an itinerary I really liked that I would not be able to accomplish on my own very easily. (Just for those who may be curious, it is Intrepids 'Beijing to Bali').

[stevewade]

I've done package trips abroad and independent tours.

Sometimes it's nice to have everything organised for you other times it's more fun to just do things as you please.

Going on organised tours to sight seeing / tourist attractions sometimes are a neccessity because you can't do them by yourself or it'd be too much hassle to get to them by yourself. I've been on some that were very much worth it, informative and insightful and I learned a whole lot more than I would have if I went myself. At the same time some have been awful and not worth the money because I learnt next to nothing from the tour guide or whatever.

[darrenstravels]

I've done organised tours when it's worked out a lot cheaper than DIY/Independent, or when it's something I didn't want to do alone - i.e. a snowboarding trip. Otherwise prefer to do it independently, simply because its normally cheaper, I can go where I want to go, and I don't get stuck with people I don't like!