This post contains affiliate links. This means I may earn a commission should you choose to sign up for a program or make a purchase using my link. Whether or not you use my link, I genuinely love these products/programs and hope they can be of help to you! (-:
If you’re anything like me, you’re trying to make the most of your time when you’re out and about traveling. I’m not a leisurely traveler. Never have been, rarely am! As someone who works in schools, I’m quite limited in the days I can travel during the year. It’s a blessing and a curse to be on the school schedule! Regardless, I make every day of travel worth it.
Early Days of Travel
When I first started to travel on my own, right around the age of 21, I was broke and needed to stick to a budget. Due to my limited funds, when I traveled to a place, I would just walk for miles and miles each day. Also, I was new to it all. It was just exciting to be in another place and people watch. Obviously, I knew I had to visit big landmarks like The London Eye or Eiffel Tower, butI didn’t know what to do if I wanted to see something beyond walking distance. I didn’t even know what was worth seeing that was further away!
Although I’d like to call myself quite the savvy traveler now, it wasn’t always that way. One of my first solo trips was to London and WOW, did I get the WORST blisters. I do not recommend wearing Doc Martens when you’re planning on walking 30,000 steps a day! In retrospect, I don’t necessarily regret the way I traveled but I now know that I can be smarter and more efficient with my time.
I always shied away from guided tours because I thought they would be way out of my price range. Yes, some tours will cost more than you’re willing to pay but there are also a ton of tours that are very affordable. Also, in the long run, sometimes it is cheaper to take a tour. After a few wrong turns, a well-meaning excursion can become very costly.
Why I Started Using Tour Companies
With that being said, utilizing different tour companies has been my saving grace when trying to pack it all in on a budget. Although I used to try organizing everything myself, for certain things, I found it to be so much easier to pay to go on a tour. To be completely honest, I’m more of a big picture person than I am a detail person. I can easily plan the outline of the trip but sometimes have trouble filling in the details. There’s so much information out there, I find myself getting easily overwhelmed by what to book and where to go. That’s where the tour company’s knowledge and expertise come in handy.
The Experience That Changed It All
It wasn’t until my husband and I visited Vietnam that I became a firm believer in using tour companies to help plan my trips. When we began planning our trip to Vietnam, I was a bit nervous. It was nerve-wracking to try and plan a trip to a place that was so unfamiliar to me. I could not stop panicking about how we would possibly get around to some of our more difficult-to-reach destinations without somebody there to translate for us.
Thankfully, with the help of social media, we were able to book a tour that was really the catalyst for my shift in perspective when it came to travel tours. We booked a beautiful boat cruise to Halong Bay via Genesis Luxury Regal Cruises. We had a GREAT experience and they took care of everything. Not only were we picked up from our hotel in Hanoi (about a 2 hr drive from the port), we were fed all our meals, got to sleep in an incredible room, and went on multiple excursions. It was truly phenomenal and I could not have imagined being able to plan and book something of that magnitude on my own. It was incredibly easy to book and I felt safe and secure knowing I was being shown around by locals.
The Shift
With this experience in mind, we were much more open to exploring tours in the next city we visited. We were pleasantly surprised that we were able to book a variety of tours through the front desk of our hotel with a reasonable price. Although I prefer to book my tours ahead of time now, we had no idea the amount of value the tours would provide us at the time.
We had a blast! Also, visiting certain monuments and landmarks felt much more meaningful because we had a guide to help explain along the way. Additionally, not having to worry about transportation was a huge burden off our backs. Sometimes it’s nice to just show up and be shown around. Since this trip, we’ve actively booked travel tours in all the cities we’ve visited.
Solo Travelers
In my early days of solo travel, I found a lot of comfort and value in tours, as well. One of my first experiences was booking a tour via Airbnb experiences in Lisbon. It was a day trip to go see the city of Sintra. Although I was nervous at first, I found it empowering and comforting to meet other travelers – some alone, some not. After a few days wandering by myself, I was ready for human interaction. There’s only so much time you can spend alone, after all! I highly recommend checking out a tour or two if you’re going somewhere solo! It’s a great way to see the city in a safe way. You might even make a few friends along the way!
Final Thoughts
I don’t use tour companies for everything I do but I have found that for certain activities, it’s best to leave it to the experts! Especially since most tours will pick you up from your hotel or at a location near the city center. Not having to worry about transportation has been quite the game changer!
I still very much build my own itinerary when I travel. Now, I travel smarter and I let the tour companies fill in the blanks where I can’t. Although I typically have a good idea of what I want to see when I’m in a country, I’ve found that browsing sites like Viator or Get Your Guide have been helpful when determining the main attractions of a city. Airbnb experiences is a good place to look too. It’s a good jumping board if you’re not sure what to see or do. The worst part is getting to a place and finding out you missed one of the main attractions.
Not every tour is going to be good. It’s important to do your due diligence and read the reviews. If you were a skeptic like I was, let me invite you to give tours another shot!
