Why you should plan your own trip

One of those eternal questions in traveling seems to be... to take a group tour or not? I'll preface this by saying I have a strong opinion about this. I think the vast majority of people should plan and research their own trips, and I will go on to explain why. But I realize that, for some people, they simply don't have the time - and it really does require lots of time to do it properly - to plan a trip. I understand that. But there are tours out there that allow you more free time than others. Some tours merely provide your hotels and transportation and leave most of the sight-seeing up to you. For some, maybe this or using a travel agent is the best of both worlds. But I will start with a story.

On my last night in Rome, my last night in Europe after 6 and a half glorious life-changing weeks, I returned to Da Francesco's - a little trattoria/pizzeria off Piazza Navona that had come highly recommended to me by the dear people over in the TripAdvisor Rome forums. I went there my first night in Rome and the pizza was so amazing, so memorable, that for my last night in Europe, I just had to go back. On this lovely evening in this little beautiful piazza, I was sitting next to a lovely American mother and her adult daughter, we hit it off because they were from the Boston area, which is where I grew up. They were with a group tour (hint: company begins with a G) and since they did not want to do what the tour was doing that evening, they asked their tour guide about a place to go, and he suggested this one. Only one problem - they didn't know the name of their hotel, they didn't know it's address, and they didn't know how to get back there. WHAT?! How can you go to a big foreign city and not know where you are! Needless to say, we chatted throughout or meals, and really they were lovely people, but after our meal, we had a gelato together and I showed them how to take the bus back to the train station (they thought their hotel was near there). They were very grateful and of course I was happy to help. They couldn't believe how much I knew; I couldn't believe how little they knew.

This bothered me on many levels. Besides the fact that these otherwise intelligent women were blindly trusting a tour guide for everything, because they did no planning or research of their own, they learned nothing about the culture or how Romans live on a daily basis, nothing about the geography or orientation of the city, nothing. I'm sure they had a great time, but did they have the same experience as someone like me who learned the buses, wandered around just to explore and experience and learn? I doubt it. Maybe they didn't want to. And that's OK. But forgetting all that esoteric cultural profundity, what about the fact that it was at night after dark in a huge city where they didn't speak the language and they were essentially lost and had no idea how to get back to their hotel!? I mean, that's a safety issue. What would they have done if I hadn't been there? I'm sure they would've safely found their way back somehow, but how long or frustrating would it have been?

But we're all different. If I took a tour with even just 15 other people, my opinions are completely ignored. Why should I pay thousands of dollars to speed through things I might like or spend a lot of time at places I don't like? Why should I spend this much money on what might be a once-in-a-lifetime trip to be rushed through cities and herded around like an animal?

Like I said, I know that some people really just have to take a tour. But at very least, research the tours. Find ones that fit with you and your interests. And at very least, don't blindly trust the tour for everything. If you venture out on your own - which I hope you would - at least take a business card from the hotel! But if you have the time, do it yourself. You will learn so much more and have a much richer and more fulfilling trip. I really believe that.