Advantage of using Smithsonian Tours
 

We are planning a trip to Vietnam in late 2016, early 2017. We have been impressed with offerings of Smithsonian Journeys but we learned they use Odyssey Tours as their travel partner. When I look at Odyssey Tours website I find the exact same tour, much less. Would be interested in people's opinions as to whether it is worth it to pay extra for Smithsonian? Any experience with them? Is their expertise worth the extra money?

I have done one trip with Smithsonian, to China in 1997. The trip went very well, except that I felt I was in a cocoon. We had a tour director from the company actually running the trip, who took care of logistics, and we had a woman (forget what she was called) who was responsible for lectures and information. Of course, we also had Chinese guides, but the Smithsonian leader was the one with the good info.

I have visited Vietnam three times, and have not bothered with a tour for any of my trips, although I did have Tonkin Travel in Hanoi arrange my Sapa excursion last time, mostly because I was making arrangements while traveling.

Smithsonian is simply acting as a reseller of the tour and effectively adds no value. This happens quite a lot in the industry. If tour dates are the same you can feel comfortable booking with the lower cost provider.

Or, do as Thursdays suggests and arrange your own trip. If you are at all interested in the planning aspects of travel, you will end up with a much better trip and one that is tailored to exactly your own interests and you will spend a lot less money. My guess is you could duplicate the itinerary of the Smithsonian trip with hotels, transportation and guides for about half of the cost they are charging you.

We too arranged our own trip to Vietnam, using an agency for pieces of it that we could not arrange on our own.

"effectively adds no value"

Not entirely true. I felt that the expert accompanying us DID add value. Depending on the tour you may visit somewhere not on the regular itinerary. How much value is a matter of opinion. If I were taking a tour I would certainly look at the Smithsonian offerings. In fact I am currently looking at them for Central Asia, but they don't go to the area for which I would most want a tour, and I don't think they give me enough time in the cities in which I have the most interest - but that is the fault of most tours.

NGO's offer trips which usually includes a hidden donation to them.
They use a tour provider such as Odysseys Unlimited in this case.
However, their extra added staff members or experts enhance the trip beyond the regular OE trip.

Thank you for the replies - very interesting perspectives. We are not at all comfortable traveling to Vietnam on our own, so we were definitely choose a tour company. Which one is the question.

Can I ask why you are uncomfortable? It is really a very easy country in which to travel on your own.

Traveling in foreign countries, where we do not speak the language, is just not our thing.

There is a lot of English spoken here in Vietnam. We have been using Tonkin Travel here in Hanoi. They are but a phone call away. Yesterday we had one of their drivers who spoke very little English. We decided to add a few stops to our day. He took out his cell phone called the office and in 2 minutes we were off on our new adventure. They have been very accommodating, flexible, responsive and reasonable rates.

What ever you do for your tour, this is a fun country to travel in, and the people are very friendly.