Guided Tour or Do It Yourself Vacation?
 

Going to Spain 8-1 through 8-13 with husband and 20 year old daughter/18 year old son. Kids have been to Spain previously. Should I go with an organized tour or just show up in Madrid and decide on itinerary/hotel/transportation when we get there? i.e., play it by ear.

Neither. You should PLAN your trip before you go. Read, study, ask questions. Decide what you want to see and for how long. Get info on how you will travel from point A to point B (train, bus car rental) and book your hotel rooms in each town. If you intend to reserve a car then do so. Learn from where to where you'll travel by train.<BR><BR>If you don't do a little work before you go you will not see as much as you could, nor know what to look for. Plus, you'll waste alot of time planing by the seat of your pants. With a party of 4 in peak season, you may not get to stay in decent hotels without advance reservations. Since you don't sound like you've given this much thought, perhaps your children could do the planning for you.

Angie: It seems to me the best option is the one you haven't mentioned - plan the trip yourself ahead of time. If you like organized tours, then that might work for you, but I tend to think kids of those ages would not be happy on one. On the other hand, arriving in Spain in August with no plan whatsoever could be potentially disastrous. Why don't you and the rest of the family sit down with maps and books and plan a trip that will suit all of your interests, then make reservations and go?

Angie,<BR>Envision breakfast, Monday August 5. Son says "Let's go to Toledo, it's a neat city". Daughter says "No, let's go to Escorial, it's neat". Dad says "Let's drive to Sevilla, it doesn't look that far on the map." Off you go to Sevilla. In the course of six hours or so, son is disgruntled for not going to Toledo, daughter is disgruntled for not going to Escorial, dad is disgruntled because he had no conception of distance and you're disgruntled because it's now five in the afternoon and you've got to find a hotel with two available rooms. Welcome to nightmare travel and ten day's of living hell! Plan, plan, plan, plan ahead: what to do, where to go, what to see, what's closed, what's open, where to stay. Determine travel partners interests and be prepared to compromise on sites and sights and itineraries. Above all else, plan!

Hotel is a must before you get there!! I met a couple who was totally "playing it by ear" because one of them thought it would be adventurous. Then their plans got screwed because they were trying to get a room at the last minute. <BR><BR>As for tours....if you don't want to commit to BOOKING the tours before you get there, at least have a game plan/menu with the booking options before you arrive. There are too many people involved to try playing it by ear.

I just came back from 10 days in Barcelona - don't speak spanish and loved it! I'd suggest you plan generally what you want to do and where to go - but I wouldn't have wanted to drive a car in barcelona - Its a city of 4 million people! and has a good train, bus and metro system. To start with I hired a guide who oriented me to the city. SHe'd just done a tour for a family with a couple of early 20 year olds - she not only gave the young people names of good clubs to go for fun - but her home number for them to call if they had ANY trouble! (After all - they may be "young people" but they're also adults. Barcelona has jazz clubs and salsa bars and everything in between! So you may want to consider hiring a guide for the first day or 2 in a new place then go off on your own afterwards! I highly recomend contacting Debbie. She's an american living there so Eng;ish is no problem. Her e-mail is [email protected] - tell her Jody recomended her! Buen viaje!