Group tours: love to hate them?
 

For me it depends. It can either be very awkward (eg if there's only 3 people ... had a tour with myself and a couple, also had another tour with a family of 4), or can very very fun (eg with 5 or more people).

Group outdoor multi-day trips, e.g. cycling, kayaking, horseback riding, yes. I have made some excellent friends (the kind I have traveled with again in later years) on these kinds of trips.

Group tours of a city/country, absolutely not. There are invariably people that are habitually late for the transport or meals, insist on endless souvenir shopping, behave in cringey fashion with local people, etc., all of which drive me insane. Group tours also generally feature lowest-common-denominator food that is chosen to satisfy the person with the least adventurous palate. No thanks.

Not for me. At least half of my favorite travel memories happened unplanned or spontaneously. Group tours are too structured and do not allow for serendipitous discoveries.

There are good group tours and there are bad group tours.

We've really enjoyed good group walking food tours of Trastevere in Rome, Taipei night markets and Tsukiji in Tokyo.

The key is a small group, a genuinely knowledgeable and enthusiastic guide and a degree of informality.

In addition to the types mentioned above there are chronic complainers who are never satisfied with anything, the self-appointed experts who want to compete with the guide and assorted other obnoxious types that make group tours a miserable experience. Not only is the food the lowest common denominator it is rarely the best place but the one that is providing an "incentive" to the tour company, same with the shops and other attractions. Hard no to that nonsense.

This. And, in general, you get what you pay for. I use one company (Overseas Adventure Travel) that has no more than 12 people per tour. Sometimes it's smaller- on my South American tour last month there were 4 of us. They tend to attract an older, laid-back, curious group of people and out of 4 trips I've encountered only two people I wouldn't want to travel with again. (The guide told us in confidence that he was recommending that one of them not be eligible to travel anymore, not because of her personality, but because she physically couldn't keep up.) The last tour was me (female), two guys traveling together and a sensible, solid, widowed mechanical engineer who reminded me of my brother. We tended to have dinner when the other two had date nights and we got along fine with zero chemistry. There was plenty of "on your own" time where I could buy souvenirs without boring or delaying the others. All of us were science geeks who were enthralled with our trip to Latitude 0.00.000 although I was the only one who bought the T-shirt.

I'm perfectly fine on my own, especially in places where the native language is something Latin-based, but what you learn from a good guide and the out-of-the-way places a small group can visit are incomparable to solo travel.

I cruise the same way. Any more than 75 passengers is too many.

Nope, never.

The idea of being told where I'm going, when I'm going and how long I'm going somewhere does not appeal to me.

And you don't think you ever might, possibly, learn something new or experience something more than what you would on your own by going on a 3 hour tour???

Depends on the length of the tour. The longer the tour the smaller the group. My spouse and I once hired guides (required) for a 4 day excursion. They did small groups. 4-8 people. It turned out to be just us, a guide, a cook and two porters. That was great.

I travel with Overseas Adventure Travel too…taking my 22nd trip this year. Maximum of 16 people, I’ve had one group of 4, and a couple of 8. Have never had a bad experience.

Yes it is quite possible to learn something. I can learn who in the group is an ignoramus who can't keep on time. I will learn which one has a serious urinary issue and can't go 60 minutes without stopping for the loo. I can learn who is the most overbearing and obnoxious person in the group. So much to learn.

What I won't learn and will never know is what interesting new things I might have missed because I was herded into a group and trotted around to predetermined places while paying handsomely for the privilege.

Everybody travels differently. Groups work for some people and not for others. Whether it's worth it depends on the guide, the size of the tour, the place, and for me the ability to customize. Sometimes I need to go off on my own, sometimes I thrive on being amongst other people. I've learned that I'm not good with extremely large group tours and that I prefer to go at my own pace (a walking tour that has me standing in one place for 15 minutes while someone drones on is going to have me tune out). But a small, finely tuned tour can be a delight. I've been able to go to some places I wouldn't have otherwise reached because of group tours.

Wow, well each to their own I suppose. Like you, I generally much prefer to make my own arrangements, and can't see myself on a multi day tour of anywhere barring the most inaccessible places in the world. But, as I say, we've really enjoyed some short, small, focussed, tours which have augmented our self-organised trips, particularly to places such as food markets of Japan and Taiwan, and definitely gained more of an insight than we would have wondering around aimlessly by ourselves, or with a copy of Lonely Planet.

I'm a solo traveler and one of the things I noticed when I traveled with my late husband was how much richer travel can be when you're with someone- each notices things that the other doesn't, and each has a different background and knowledge base. He knew so much more about history, for example, but I could fake my way through several European languages, which came in VERY handy sometimes. I find the same thing in small-group tours- not just the guide, but the other travelers. So, I'm willing to put up with some structure in exchange for the contributions of my fellow humans.

When I think about it, I do have limits. "Fully Escorted Deluxe Motorcoach Tours" of 40 people? Heck, no. Every minute of my day and night scheduled? No chance to choose a restaurant on my own or even pick up a few things at the local grocery store? No time to wander, people-watch and get lost? Too many days when you have to have your bag outside your door at 5:30 AM and have to be on the bus at 6:30 AM? All deal-breakers.

What I've found in taking the OAT tours, though, is all the places my husband and I missed because we were both too chicken to drive a rental car so were pretty much restricted to where the trains would take us (which was plenty, of course). Some of my favorite destinations have been places I hadn't heard of till I saw them on the itinerary (Karanac, Croatia; Shkoder, Albania; an outdoor exhibit at 0.00.000 degrees latitude near Quito, Port Ayora in the Galapagos, the sculptures at Khahurajo in India... I could go on forever.)

Always trade-offs involved.

A personal guide gives you at least the same experience if not better. They may be a little more expensive but they are infinitely superior to trudging around a foreign country with a herd of dullards unable to visit a foreign country without a nanny.