There are lots of things to like and appreciate about the organized tours that are sold by tour companies. You generally see a lot more of the country/ies that you travel through than you would on your own. And knowledgeable tour directors and local tour guides (usually not one and the same person due to regulation of the travel-tourism industry or to tour company policy) are sources of so much information (and fun to listen to – almost always beats reading about places and sights you are seeing on the internet). In addition to being great at handling logistics and arrangements on the tour.
At the same time, organized tours are, by definition, on a schedule that, in most cases, must be rigorously adhered to in order to deliver everything the tour description promises. And, aye, there’s the rub as the Bard would say. Organized tours guarantee not only a solid sightseeing and tour agenda, but also that you will often rise earlier than you might like (e.g. to catch a bus, a train or a plane) and will move from one hotel to the next every couple of days or so (as little as one night sometimes, rarely more than three nights – unless you are doing a city stay and stay in the same hotel for as much as 5-6 nights, or even longer).
Frequently the drill will involve having suitcases packed and outside the door to your room at 7:00 am (occasionally earlier, or later, by as much as an hour or so). Then 30-60 minutes for some breakfast before getting on a bus (or other transport) that starts you on the next part of the tour. And that drill can start to wear you down after you have a few hotels under your belt – especially on longer tours.
So, as much as we enjoyed our tour of Lisbon, Seville, Madrid, and Barcelona, it was with a sense of relief that we woke up in our Barcelona hotel yesterday morning knowing that the organized tour was over. And that we could now set our own agenda and our own pace for the couple of days we were holding over in Barcelona and the 8 full days we’ll be spending in London with my sister- and brother-in-law.
Not that we don’t have things planned – we definitely do. But not every day. And if we want to take a day off and just kick back; or want to spend an extra hour somewhere; or want to wake up an hour later one morning; or want to linger a bit in our favorite London pub . . . WE CAN. Because we are free at last!
clayfish92026 