The Scoop on Touring

I've had a number of questions about what it's like to be on a tour so here's the scoop on that...

I'm touring with a company called Trafalgar. The are a British company based in London. I chose them because I liked their website, they have been in business a long time, and they had a lot of different itineraries that I thought were interesting.

Okay, first the pros. I had wanted to see as much of Europe as I possibly could (a smorgasbord) and didn't have all that much time. Initially I tried to put together my own itinerary even copying one of theirs and I couldn't do it. So there's a big pro. For the daily rate of the tour (price of tour divided by number of days) I could not get the same kind of pricing on my own -- so there's a price advantage being in a group. Second, on some days I am only in the city for one day and to get to the hotel and deal with all of the luggage and logistics and tour the city it's very difficult. On a tour they deal with all of that. Luggage is brought to your room and you are dropped off and picked up right where you need to be all of the time. It is really quite amazing how these tours are put together. They have been doing tours of these cities so long that they know exactly what to see and do and the
schedule is very tightly packed with really amazing stuff.

Along with that on a tour they get advantages that the general public does not get. For example, as part of the tour we never stand in line. When we went to the Sistine chapel, they bought the tickets in advance, we went in a separate entrance just for tours, got a private tour with a special our guide just on the Vatican and Sistine Chapel. We were given wireless headsets so we could hear her no matter where we were and we could wander around. The same was true for the Schonnebrun Palace and the Colosseum. We are dropped off and picked up right in front and the whole thing takes a couple of hours as opposed to the general crowd who waited 3 hours just to get in.

I have to say that I am really impressed with the tour. They take prodigiously good care of you. Another example, we went to a music concert in Austria of Mozart and Strauss. In the concert hall we had to check our coats and bags - they wouldn't let us bring them in. A few minutes before the concert ended our tour director collected our coat check tickets, went and got all of our stuff so we wouldn't have to stand in line at the end of the concert. They are constantly taking care of details like that - it's really wonderful.

They generally try to combine things as well. Several of our lunches have been and will be on river cruises: the Rhine in Germany, the Vltava in Prague, San Bruno and the Lagoon cruise in Venice, Lake Como in Italy, Lake Lugano in Switzerland, the Seine in Paris. Frequently, if we are going to a planned dinner they will call the restaurant ahead and make sure that they have something ready for us when we arrive - drinks, appetizers, champagne are often there waiting for us when we arrive. At dinner, they often have folklore stories, or singers, or performers. I told you about the gondola ride in Venice where they arranged for a singer and accordion player to be on one of the boats. These are things that you just can't put together as a new visitor to a city on a short timeframe. Every single day there are all different types of activities and each one seems to be better and more amazing than the last.

Okay, so here's the funny thing and maybe a con depending on your point of view: I actually like discovering a city on my own. One of my favorite things is to learn their subway or bus systems and get around on my own - go where I want to go. Initially, i resisted the tour schedule and did things on my own. However, I quickly learned that you really miss out on some fantastic stuff if you go out on your own. The tour directors are super knowledgeable and seem to take a genuine interest in making sure that you get to see and do every fabulous thing the city has to offer so it becomes easy to just hand over the reins and say okay take care of me! Now the funny part: because they are taking care of every little detail in such a fabulous way - including making sure that you are eating at great places and they steer us to the best bathroom places, where to go, most importantly which ones not to go to - your brain just shuts off! At one point, we were in Prague and he had taken us to this little town square and we had free time to look around we all just stood there! 43 people standing there not sure what to do next - we were so used to someone telling us where to go and what to do that we had no idea what to do with ourselves. I had to tell myself - turn your brain back on; you need to make a decision! Embarrassing, but true. So, when you see those people marching around zombie-like after their tour guides you'll understand.

So, I would say the pros far out weighs the con ( whose brain can't use a little rest, right?) so I would highly recommend touring. I am doing an impressions tour which is a lot of places in a short period of time. They have all types of tours, some that are more in depth in specific regions or countries, some shorter, some longer, and others like mine which cover a lot of territory and really condenses everything. They say that once you've completed a tour that it takes time for it all to sink in and to realize all that you have seen and done. I can see how that is true. This smorgasbord will take quite a while to digest, I think.