Many people ask me if they should go on a group tour or not, and my answer typically varies. There are many great reasons to travel in a group. One of the biggest appeals of going in a group is the camaraderie. You get to meet people from all over the united states who have similar interests as you do. They are taking a tour of the same places that you are. You usually will have a knowledgeable tour guild who knows the sites that you are seeing and the history behind them. Usually, you will stay in nice western style hotels and eat in very familiar types of restaurants. You will have a much safer experience when traveling to more rougher parts of the world. The language barrier will not be as significant. Finally, you will be able to see a lot of sites in a very short period of time, and you will not have to worry about how to get to them.
The problem with going on a group tour is that you will be limited to the sites that you will see. Group tours rarely divert from their itineraries. Most tour groups limit the free time you have, it's always go, go, go. You always have the mandatory cultural arts lesson, be it a rug making demonstration or a glass blowing show or maybe a ceramics exhibition. These can be very interesting, but they are designed to get the tour group to drop some money. They are simply organized shopping expeditions, where your tour company gets a percentage (usually 20%) of the money spent by the group. By going on a group tour, you will typically eat in restaurants that are designed to accommodate westerners and thus are not as likely to be frequented by locals. Finally, by being in a tour group, you will not have as many genuine experiences with locals. Many people can be intimidated by a crowd of strangers.
If you travel independently, you will have the opportunity to meet more locals and have more intimate experiences with them. In fact, some of the best experiences I have had on the road have come when traveling by myself. People will gravitate towards you and you can meet some very interesting individuals. When you travel independently, you can plan the itinerary that you want and see the sites that you would like to check out. You can eat in more authentic restaurants and stay in more traditional housing (bed and breakfasts, boutique hotels, hostels, convents, even barns). You can embed more down time in your schedule, which is great if you are trying to unwind on your vacation. You can avoid the trappings of shopping or you can shop until you drop. Of course you can have the fun of trying to communicate with locals in another language (always a blast!).
There are down sides to traveling on your own, like seeing a site, only to miss out on it's importance. If you do travel independently, invest in a good guild book. They are invaluable tools when traveling. You may get lost or have problems communicating. You may eat at terrible restaurants and not accomplish everything that you set out to do. Mainly, your trip may not go as smoothly as it could if you had someone organizing it for you.
So, what should you do? Well, it truly depends on the type of person that you are. If you like to kick back and let someone else do everything for you, then you should try a group tour. If you are a control freak like myself or ultra independent, try doing it yourself. If the trip is very intimidating to you, then go with a group. If there is a major language barrier, consider a group. If the area of the world that you are going to is in political turmoil, dangerous or anti-American, than consider going with a tour group (or possibly consider a different destination). If being herded around puts you off than go by yourself.
Lastly, you can always piece together a vacation with tours. This is a great way to get the best of both worlds. For instance, if you travel to Rome, you can stay in a hotel that your cousin raved to about and you can eat at that trendy restaurant that you saw in some magazine, as well as take an English speaking tour of the Colosseum to get the background on this amazing place. By incorporating a guilded tour or two into your itinerary, you can have a more rounded and in depth vacation. This can be truly experienced when you take a guilded day trip. You can find these for almost any location you plan on visiting. You can easily find tours that will take you from Rome and give you a scenic trip through Tuscany or to Florence. This is a nice way to get you out of a city and to a places that you would have to rent a car to see (like Volterra) This ability to use a group tour as transportation can come in real handy for independent travelers who want to see out of the way sites; like Stonehenge (England), The Blarney Castle (Ireland), or Uluru (Australia).
At the end of the day, you have to make a decision based on your needs, preferences, and goals for your trip. In case you are wondering, I have taken several trips both independently and with groups, and have loved traveling with each method.
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