I Hated Group Tours … Until I Tried One

The Price

Travel is just cheaper when you get a group rate, which is why Friendly Planet can offer such inexpensive prices. The Taste of Vietnam tour, for example, is around $2,000 for round-trip international flights, two domestic flights, seven nights in posh hotels, ground transportation, and local guides. When booking separately, you could barely get the flights alone at that price.

Insight Into Local Life

Local guides provide an amazing way to learn what everyday life is really like in a country. Friendly Planet's guides all lived in the cities we visited. They shared everything from the cost of rent to wedding customs to local jokes—topics you might not normally feel comfortable asking strangers about. By telling awesome stories and sharing the insights of everyday life, local guides offer an enriched cultural experience.

Related: 10 Authentic Ways to Travel Like a Local

They'll Tell You How Much Things Should Really Cost

When I had free time and wanted to visit a museum, my guide told me how much to pay for a taxi there, and negotiated with drivers in Vietnamese to make sure I got a fair price, before sending me off on my own. Guides were also helpful in pointing out counterfeit souvenirs and letting me know how much things were really worth.

You'll Get To See Way More Than You Would On Your Own

You'll pack more into a trip when you have a private motorcoach to carry you and your luggage around. You don't have to waste time figuring out the local subway, waiting on a delayed train, or bargaining with a taxi driver. Plus, you have somewhere to store your bags, and a guide to keep you on a tight schedule. It's like a personal trainer for travel!

You've Still Got Free Will

No one is going to force you to go on a day tour—you can always break off and do your own thing rather than going on some of the scheduled events (as long as you let your guide know, so that he or she isn't looking for you). (Note: This was the case for Friendly Planet, but other tours are less liberal and have more mandatory schedules.) You'll still get the advantage of saving money on the flight and hotel rates, but you'll get some much-needed alone time if you're not a big group person.

Related: 10 Safety Mistakes Women Shouldn't Make When Traveling Alone

You Don't Have to Be in Charge

Are you the planner in your group? The one who researches where to go, books the hotels, and figures out the money? Me too. And I love it… usually. Prepping for the trip can be half the fun. But for once, it was really nice to just show up and have everything taken care of. No need to worry about finding a way to get to the hotel, being blamed if I chose a bad property, or dealing with collecting money from everyone.

Accommodating Special Diets

Being a vegetarian while traveling can be rough sometimes. Sure, you can learn how to say "I'm vegetarian" in the local language (in Vietnamese, it's "toi an chay"), but people can interpret it differently. I'll often wind up with a soup made from chicken broth, or an omelet made with fish. On my tour, all I had to do was let Friendly Planet know about my dietary restriction ahead of time, and true vegetarian options were waiting for me at every meal. If you have special needs (vegetarian, gluten-free, etc.), a guided tour can be a great way to accommodate your diet.

Related: Eating Vegetarian on a Meat-Centric Continent

Problems Are No Longer Your Problem

If you're traveling independently, you're the one that's going to have to fight with a hotel about a bad room or rebook a canceled flight. For example, on my tour, one of our intra-country flights was delayed a few hours. Fortunately, our guide was notified well in advance. He extended our morning tour so we could take advantage of the extra time before getting us to our delayed flight well before take off. We got to explore more of Da Nang rather than sit in the airport.

Guides Tend to Go Above and Beyond

When the hotel front desk lost a package that I'd had delivered the morning before our group was leaving for a new city, my guide was able to arrange for the hotel to call him when they found my stuff, and they drove it to the airport to get it to me before our flight's departure. Without fluent Vietnamese and a cell phone that worked in Vietnam, I wouldn't have been able to do that on my own.

You Know You'll Be In Good Hands

If a guide or a hotel is terrible, a tour company is never going to keep using with them. They've got incentive to keep you happy to insure repeat business and good reviews. Booking travel through a tour company like Friendly Planet means, for the most part, never winding up at a dumpy hotel or with a guide who is not a people person.

How do you feel about group tours? Share your thoughts in the comments.

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SmarterTravel contributors occasionally accept free or partially subsidized travel in exchange for our unbiased opinions. We never accept compensation in exchange for a positive review.