Yes, definitely take a guided tour if….. we have 5 criteria when choosing.
To be clear, I don’t mean a day tour off a cruise ship with 40 people in tow or a catamaran booze cruise or a city walking tour. We have done all of these and had fun. What I do mean is a private or small group tour for a week or so.
In Canada and the USA, Cathy and I are independent travelers. For us, it is language friendly, there is an excellent transportation network of air, rail and highways originating from our home base in Toronto, and we have amazing state, provincial and federal parks for camping and hiking. Independent trips we loved included a 10 week roadtrip to Alaska, the Yukon and the Arctic Ocean, taking the train to Montreal for a Valentines Day celebration and to Quebec City for skiing, and driving Route 66 on our way to Utah.
When we have chosen guided tours is for our trips to Cuba, Morocco, Egypt, Kenya, the Galapagos , the Marquesas Islands of French Polynesia, Vietnam, Cambodia, and China. So why these places?
First, price. Often guided tours are cheaper than trying to book everything on our own. Our included three nights in a hotel suite in Hong Kong would have cost us more independently than the cost of our entire 3 week guided tour of China, Hong Kong and Taiwan. At over 50 stories high, we had an awesome view.
Second, logistics hassles are substantially reduced, especially if you are on a small group tour. For Morocco, it was just Cathy, me, a guide and a driver. Our tour itinerary was just a guideline. For example we voted to go off road to see if we could locate and visit some Berber nomads – a great adventure. When the tour gets bigger, then the logistics hassles get replaced with a lot of waiting on stragglers and visiting and eating at places that can handle big groups, so be prepared to be patient.
Third being on a group tour does reduce the language barriers. Cathy and I speak English, period. Outside of the main tourist areas, the Japan based movie ‘Lost in Translation’ is real. It helps to have a guide to translate.
Fourth, there are many types of guided tours and our preference is to immerse in local culture and experiences. We liked spending time in small hotels on various islands in the Galapagos, of being locked down in Egypt by the imams during a solar eclipse, of experiencing a huge sand storm off the Sahara, and of seeing the revival of the culture of the remote Marquesas Islands of French Polynesia while sailing on a freighter / passenger ship.
And lastly, these group tours have been the only way for Cathy and me to access some very remote places. We don’t have a super yacht nor a global expedition truck. And we have no desire to limit our remote travel to capital cities with airports and to all-inclusive beach resorts that are amazingly generic across the globe.
What do Cathy and I think about when planning a trip? It is price, logistics, language, immersion and access. You can see that often we end up chosing group tours.
Browse Guided Tours that worked for us . And as an example of an agency that has met our criteria, check out G Adventures