Originally Posted by
Ber2dca
Try to do as much as you can on your own, avoid groups i.e. organized tours. If you have to do "must do's" do them at the most counter-intuitive time as there's likely a legion of other people who read the same guidebooks.
I agree that seeing things by yourself is typically better, but some organized tours do offer the ability to cut the line of all the people waiting to get in by themselves. If you're going to a city during peak tourist time, this could be a huge time saver.
We did an organized tour of The Vatican and it was great to skip the lines and go right through security. We didn't do an organized tour for the Colosseum and had to wait in a very long line.