I Took a Group Tour for the First Time, and It Defied All My Expectations

26.02.2024 - 20:12 / matadornetwork.com

Last year, my parents took their first-ever group tour to France, Belgium, and the Netherlands. You know, those tours where you share a coach bus with 30 strangers for a week, stop at popular tourist draws, stay in pre-arranged hotels, and go on guided city walks with bright orange audio boxes that might as well be “look at me, I’m a tourist” placards. I tried to dissuade them, offering to plan their entire Eurotrip myself, but they ultimately opted for the tour’s convenience and relative all-inclusiveness. Now they’re absolutely hooked, with two more tours under their belt this year.

For an older crowd that really doesn’t want to handle their own luggage or navigate their own transportation — particularly in countries with a language barrier — the format always made sense to me. But for everyone else I maintained the stubborn opinions that independent travel is always better; that group tours were too rigid and restrictive to really count as traveling; that, to take liberty with the famous Ben Franklin quote, those who sacrifice freedom for convenience deserve neither. Through several discussions-turned-arguments with my parents, I spent the past year trying to understand the allure of the group tour. The only way to really do it, though, was to swallow my pride and take one myself.

I ended up choosing a 10-day itinerary through the UK and Ireland with a company called Costsaver, a division of Trafalgar Tours. As the name suggests, it’s a more budget-friendly tour than some other providers (trips start at around $1,400 while similar trips with other providers could start at $2,000). Hotels were between three- and four-star quality, and while a few group dinners were included, the rest of the meals were at the travelers’ own expenses. This was fine with me since I prefer the freedom of choosing my own restaurants anyway.

Photo: Ceri Breeze/Shutterstock

Each day pretty much followed the same structure: wake up around 8:30 AM, board a coach bus with 35 other people, and stop at scenic viewpoints and historic towns, where the tour director often gave guided walking tours, before arriving at your destination around 5 PM. You’ll get to know your tour director pretty well — their voice is the soundtrack of your trip, regularly piping in over a microphone during the bus ride with interesting tidbits about the area.

Optional experiences are also a huge part of group tours. These could be anything from scenic ferry rides on a lake to castle tours to cabaret dinners in local pubs. More expensive tour companies may include these experiences at no extra charge, but Costsaver charges per experience, which I actually preferred, as it let me curate a more personalized trip without paying for activities that didn’t