Friday, August 19, 2011

Why I Won't Travel With Groups


After years of traveling with groups, I discovered the wonderful world of solo traveling. This past summer I traveled to Spain for an internship. Now, while I still was affiliated with a study abroad program, I was completely on my own and loved every minute of it. So here are my reasons, why I won't EVER travel with a group again:


Schedules
As a newbie solo traveler, I don't want to deal with strict itineraries or "meeting points" after our allotted "free time" or having a curfew because the group has a certain place to be in the morning. I can make up my own schedule, thank you very much.

No Independence
Groups are great when you're young and in high school, but I want to get my grown woman on and see the Eiffel Tower in the afternoon and then go back home and watch a movie. I want to talk to whomever I want and not have to worry about my group leader yanking me away as soon as I ask someone, "Do you like the food here?"


Bus Tours
No, I would not like hop off a bus for 10 minutes to snap pictures and then get back on and listen to you drone on about the next monument we see while it's blazing hot outside. In addition, I particularly don't care for the bus rides to another city with my group and being forced to listen to our group leader give the history on how cheese came to exist. Let me figure that out on my own in a cooking class.

Headcounts
If I'm forced to do a headcount one more time, I will personally hunt down the person who is missing and give them a wicked tongue lashing and a smack to the back of the head.

When I travel alone, I'm free to do whatever I want, whenever I want, with whomever I want and it is heaven. Now, don't get me wrong I've made wonderful friends on group trips and am grateful to have traveled with groups, but please don't ask me go with you to Australia as a part of your "Young Women Travel" group.

No comments:

Post a Comment