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Upside of a Highlights tour if you've seen most of it before?

Upside of a Highlights tour if you've seen most of it before?

Old Jun 25th, 2014, 04:07 PM
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Upside of a Highlights tour if you've seen most of it before?

What do you think about signing up for a Highlights tour with short stops in major sites, when you've visited nearly all of it at least once or twice? Have you ever used the advantages of being with a group but split off when you've seen what they're visiting on particular days? Did you plan ways to fill in gaps in what you might have missed before, while the group was scheduled to be doing things you had done plenty of?
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Old Jun 25th, 2014, 04:36 PM
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I assume your question refers to a guided tour that takes you to a number of different places on an itinerary featuring a number of different cities?

If so, having been in your circumstances, I don't really see any upsides. I would pick out places you would like to revisit (or visit places for the first time that tours don't go to), and then spend some time there in depth, perhaps using them as a base from which to do some day trips.
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Old Jun 25th, 2014, 04:41 PM
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I agree - what on earth 'upside' could there be?

>>Have you ever used the advantages of being with a group
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Old Jun 25th, 2014, 04:57 PM
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No, and I wouldn't consider it. I can't see any upside to it at all.
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Old Jun 25th, 2014, 05:35 PM
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Given how fast most tours move, how many long hours are spent sitting on a bus every day and the typically out by the highway hotels they use - no I don;t see any potential upside - just a waste of time and money.
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Old Jun 26th, 2014, 04:48 AM
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Upside? Whizzing through Europe in a bus? Eating sub par food? Being trooped through souvenir shops because the guide gets a commission? Staying in hotels on the outskirts of cities before a quick drive by of a site you've seen before? Don't put yourself through the aggravation.

I've told this story before so apologies if you've read it previously... standing in front of the Eiffel Tower Hilton admiring the lights on the tower one evening a few years ago, a large bus pulled up. Must have been an expensive tour because they weren't going to a hotel out beyond the peripherique. One chap off the bus asked me for a light. We got talking and he was on a 2 week tour of Europe. The next morning I was again out front... being a smoker back then... when the same bus pulled up. I assumed it was to take the people to a site or a tour of the city but to my surprise all the luggage was being carted out by the driver and hotel bellhops and was being loaded back into the belly of the bus! Their only view of Paris was the drive in and then the drive out next day. I just can't imagine being on such a trip!
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Old Jun 26th, 2014, 04:51 AM
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I see absolutely no upside unless one is desperate for company with random tourists.
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Old Jun 26th, 2014, 05:18 AM
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I suspect some folks might consider this idea if they were concerned about traveling somewhere "solo" or at least in a non-group situation.

There are certainly upsides IMO to re-visiting places and even doing so with a small group of friends but I would not do what you are contemplating.
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