Richard

and then ask questions about lodging, etc. It makes no difference, you're locked in. In this day of Fodor's site, Frommer's site, faxing for reservations, guide books aplenty, why pay someone for something you can do yourself? Half the fun is in the planning, send off to tourist bureaus, every country has one.

The Biker

Bawk, bawk, bawk.......see them chickens running all together? Don't want intermingle with the local riff raff.
Want those Holiday Inn style places. Love to eat 3 square meals a day (yeah....here ya are in Paris spending 2 hours evrery day eating dull tasteless meals inside some cafeteria type restaurant that no one goes to unless they are on one of those damn cattle car BUS tours. Ha!)
Safety in numbers. Go to Asia and meet folks from Kansas and talk about the Green Bay Packers. Getting up at 5 am everyday to ride a bus throughout Europe with 15 minute photo stops. Watch them chickens run!

Monica

I agree with you! 1/2 the fun is doing the research, the reading, and meeting people on the internet with the same interests. I don't have a lot of hobbies, buttraveling is my biggest hobby, so I always enjoy the research! I can't imagine taking a tour bus or staying at a well known American hotel with lots of other Americans. I'd rather wander the streets of Paris or Barcelona (Venice in 2 months) and discover things on my own. People on tour busses miss this unique experience! People on tour busses miss meeting the locals. Oh well, their loss. Ciao!

Monica

Hey Biker!

Love your message!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1

Arizona

Some of us take tours because we are still carrying around almost a pound of North Korean steel embedded in our legs...all these 45 years. Some of us are confined to wheelchairs. Some of us like people from Kansas. Some of us are too worn out supporting a family, sending kids off to college, and keeping house. Some of us don't like to lug luggage. Some of us like somebody else to cook our meals after taking care of kids all these years. Some of us don't like the biker crowd but are too polite to tell them to shave, shower, and put on clean clothes. Some of us are still proud to be middle-class, middle-income, and middle-aged.

Kentucky

To continue on where Arizona left off, some of us take tours to ensure safe and less expensive hotels, to help us circumvent the language barriers, to help us get discounts to attractions, to provide answers to our travel questions, to help us get our flights rescheduled when airlines go on strike, to help us get used to foreign travel.
And I like people from Kansas, too, although on tours I have met many locals ( you must know that we don't spend all of our time on tour buses.) And tour groups are usually a diverse group. I have met Japanese, Chinese, Australians, New Zealandners, Canadians, Israelis, Indians, Germans, Puerto Ricans, Venezuelans, Peruvians, Mexicans, Spaniards and probably those from countries that I can't even remember. Be open minded. Do your own thing, but allow others the same privilege without being critical.

Joanna

I agree with the last two posts. I go away every two years, sometimes taking tours, sometimes travelling by train. It often depends on where I'm going. Don't think everybody drives - I don't and some of us travel to relax as well as see the sights. Also, not all tours are the same. Many give free time for meals, often free days. Some first timers that are travelling solo take tours to orientate themselves and find out what they like. To each his/her own - it's your trip - you do what YOU want.

Sue

I booked a tour to Italy, as an incentive and reward for me to take the CPA exam, in May. I no longer dread, but really look forward to the month of May. I have traveled all over Europe independently by car, but this time, I did not have the time, nor did not want to worry about my trip, while I am focusing on passing the CPA. This is my first time to Italy, as well as going on a tour, and I am appreciative of the fact that a convenient, well-thought out tour is available for me. Yes, part of the fun of taking a trip is the planning process. However, this takes tremendous amont of effort and time, which one may not have. (I have also found that the tour is more economical than traveling independently. I guess the big tour companies can get big discounts that individuals can not get.) After I'm done with my exam, I will hop on the plane, sit back, and enjoy Italy!

George Holt

When I was a not so callow not so youth I travelled independantly around Turkey and enjoyed it immensely. I had no choice, at the time most British travel agents needed to get out an atlas to find where Turkey was and I wanted to go see Turkey. I don't drive so I did the local buses, I never found the one with the goat and the dancing bear on board but I came pretty close. I stayed in rooms that had just three iron bedsteads, the communal bathroom was a basin next door and the loo a smelly hole in the ground downstairs. It was fun. Nowadays I have other things to occupy my time so I let the likes of Cosmos organise the tedious bits like flights accomodation and transport, if you like these aspects then fine but I don't think getting there is half the fun. Just because I take a tour doesn't mean I don't do my homework, I go to many of the places I visit because I've been inspired by a book, a documentary or a film. When I get to a site (I like tours with plenty of ruins) I usually have some idea what to expect and I like to think that if all went wrong I could still get back to civilisation on my own. People I meet on tours are sometimes amazed that I'm philosophical about some of the grottier hotels Cosmos sometimes uses, my smugness hides the thought that I never stayed anywhere nearly that nice when I travelled independantly. I've never knowingly met anyone from Kansas

Kathy Raines

Sue: I read your message about taking a tour to Italy in May, and I would like to know what tour company you are going with. We are doing that trip in June, 99, and we are studying all of the brochures now. Any info greatly appreciated!
Thanks Kathy

Kansas

I too was named after a great AMERICAN state like the twins Kentucky and Arizona above. And I fought and died for my country. My wife has suffered through 45 years of raising our 9 young ones and I think she deserves the right to spend my hard earned greenbacks from my coal mining job to sit on an icy air conditioned bus with a lots of other fellas just like us proud salt of the earth types, and watch the continent of Europe sweep by the bus windows.
Why inconvenience ourselves by having to actually DO anything? Besides like typical AMERICAN folks we heft
a few extra hundred pounds, so it's hard to haul these huge asses independently thoughout that smelly place full of damn foreigners who don't have the brains to speak English to us. And they use funny money too....come in color and all. Confusing, confusing...I'm not going to mess with that stupid stuff. They are lucky we are even coming over there and spending our hard earned AMERICAN cash on their falling down old countries.

M.M.

Tis amazing how much venom is spewed over the simple act of "TOURIST taking a TOUR". For Christ's sake lighten up people , different opinions , tastes and freedom of choice is what its all about !

Steve

I am still laughing out loud at some of these posts here!
Funny stuff! You made my night "Kansas".

Marty Stenberg

Not to be rude about it, but I don't understand the appeal of these big bus tours either. Nowadays there is so much help one can receive from travel agents, friends, guidebooks, the Web etc that I don't see why people do not think they can manage on their own (and see a lot more of the countries they are visiting to boot). That's even more true now, as most countrries have sort of adopted English as a commonly spoken second language. It used to be that not speaking other languages was a hindrance to a person's travels, but that is no longer true.

teresa l.

I also believe that traveling independently and doing the research is wonderful, but there are times when tours are a great life-saver. I plan to travel to Europe with my mother-in-law who is 81 and my sister-in-law who is 32 but has the mental age of a 12 year old (i am not being funny, she is that mental age). My mother in law wants to see Europe before she dies. She is in excellent health and very lively, but I can not imagine my husband. two girls, another teenage boy and myself doing anything but a tour. I plan to have a great time and enjoy the locals and my traveling companions. I have one question for those of you that don't understand or get angry when people don't speak English in Europe. How many languages do you know? I always try to learn some key words in the language of where we are heading. Things like good-morning, good-night, thank you and sorry. I have always found people took their time trying to understand and communicate when you were polite.

Craig

I think people have a problem with tours used by those who could otherwise travel without them. It is the experienced traveler's duty to help those people (who can) make the leap to flying solo. I know that at one time All Fifty States were truckin' along like the wildest Biker. I also suspect that some road warriors, some day, would prefer someone else did the driving for them. Point of note: I'll be moving to Europe in a few weeks for work and I expect a lot of visits from friends in the summer of '99. I'm anticipating this with a planned two week "tour". My wife and I will take little four day trips this year and work out an itinerary for our visiting friends (between 2 and 20). Trains and dinner will be done together as a group (and might be picked up by me if the new job pays well) and any day time/night time tours are all optional. I hope I can pull it off and i think it'll be a great time. I guess if you fall in with the right tour groups you could come to a similar situation; less intimate, but more informative.

Joanna

Further to my post above, Marty, not all tours are "big bus tours". I have done a mini bus archaeological tour of Greece and a similar one in Sicily. They are special interest tours with highly specialised guides - the guide in Sicily was a Professor of Archaeology. While I would not do a tour in, say, England, Germany, mainland Italy or France (all of which I have done independently by train), as I said above, I don't drive and in countries with a poor rail network and unreliable bus systems tours are often the only alternative I have.

B Wolfe

I have done vactions thorughout the world both ways. On tours, and on our own. There are some trips where it is much easier to take a tour. I enjoyed my tour to Egypt with and Egyptologist who explained every drawing we saw. The trip down the Nile was wonderful with this professional guide educating us on the history of Egypt. Morocco is another country that was much easier to do on an organized tour. Once the local vendors saw that you were with a group, they pretty much left you alone. Time is another issue. If one is trying to the highlights of Israel in one week, you better have a guide. Not only can you meet wonderful people on tours from all over the world, but many tours give you plenty of time to go out on your own to meet the locals.

peter nervo

some funny posts, but as far as i am concerned i am going on a tour to eastern europe. in my youth i hitchhiked thru the americas and parts of europe. but i was told that in eastern europe there are few road signs and not many speak english. hell i am not 20years old any more and i can afford to tour it first and then if i like it go back on our own if i so want to and like to. and yes i dont like supprises.

Bjoern

Why not let all travel as they like?
Am I the only one that has traveled in many different ways: tours, individual trips by own car or rented, or public transport?
Am I the only one that go to Asia individually, stay at a <5USD Guesthouse one night and at a first class hotel the next (when I need a bath, and A/C to cool down)? And who travel 5 days in a tour group of 5 in the middle of the rest, as this was the simplest/(only?) way to visit some country with severe restrictions on visas for individuals?
Why hate?
1: Tell the tour people that it is so easy (in most places) to go individually (but some say: NO this is HOLYDAY I want somebody to take care of everything, to take me to the best local restaurant (or to ensure that I get my usual food) etc.).
2: Ask the backpackers if all those people they meet are local people - or somebody from "at home" - ask them why they all stick to the same Guesthouses that accomodate ONLY forigner?
- and ask them why they cannot carry a clean shirt and a pair of trousers in the bottom of the backpack when they are visiting a poor country where everyone of the local always make sure that THEIR clother are spotless clean - well I am glad to say that it seems that more and more are learning.

Let enjoy travelling ALL of us.