Solo Adventure Travel vs Group Travel: Which Is Right for You?

What solo adventure travel feels like

Something that we’re always being asked

about is “do we prefer traveling alone, or in a group?”  So let’s tackle that issue head on:

There’s two ways to look at travelling alone – alone, meaning just you travelling solo, or alone, meaning just you and your significant other without family and friends.

As far as the pros and cons of travelling solo (the first scenario above) are concerned, I’ll have to rely on detailed feedback from our youngest daughter, who travelled throughout the British Isles back when she was young and single and significantly braver then I was at that age, for sure!  As you might expect her feedback was a mixture of the good, the bad, and maybe even a little ugly thrown in (but not too much ugly!)

From a positive perspective, she chose her itinerary and her excursions without having to negotiate or compromise with other members in her travel party.  She went where she wanted, when she wanted, and was able to check off many, if not all of the bucket list items on her list. (Have you ever gone to a museum with a group of people and didn’t get to spend as much time as you wanted looking at a specific exhibit because nobody else was interested in it?  Going solo removes that issue from the table!)  She was also able to plan her expenses up front, which is critical when you don’t have an unlimited expense account.  Bottom line, if you like to spend time exploring by yourself, if you’re comfortable going an entire day without talking to another person, and even if you’re OK spending an entire day of a vacation doing absolutely nothing other than sitting in a comfortable chair, reading a good book, and enjoying a hot beverage, then solo traveling might be for you.

The only downside of solo travel, as described by our daughter, came to pass because, even though she travelled alone, it was with a tour group that set the basic itinerary (we fly in to this airport, then we go to this hotel in this city, you have 2 days to explore, then we get on a bus to go to this city, etc.  Rinse and repeat city by city until you take the van back to the airport on this day.  Inevitably, one begins to make personal connections with the other people on the tour, and friendships are made, which is a nice byproduct of being part of a tour group. As the friendships developed, however, our daughter sometimes found herself being invited out to dinner at a restaurant that was out of her price range, or becoming a victim of the tour operator asking for a vote to decide what to do next (when she wound up in the minority).  There were one or two occasions where she wound up staying back at the hotel for the evening when she would have much preferred option B, which was out-voted by option A.  So a solo traveler being part of a large tour should understand that, even though you’re a solo, sometimes majority rule might rear its ugly head!

What group travel feels like

I should mention here that when we do take excursions from a cruise ship, whenever possible we’ll choose independent private excursion companies over the cruise ship-organized excursions because 1) they’re about half the price, 2) there’s only 12-16 other passengers in the van, vs about 60 on a big tour bus, and 3) you get to the same destination earlier because as soon as the van is full, you’re gone!  We did this throughout the Mediterranean (Sicily, Naples, Rome, Marseilles, etc.) and it was a thousand times better than getting on a big bus.  Now, don’t get me wrong – sometimes these private vans might not be available, so we’ve done the bus with everyone else.  And it’s certainly not terrible when we do it – we just prefer the smaller van if available.  And one quick note you’re probably already thinking about – the risk of not getting back to the ship on time.  It’s certainly something to consider, but not only has that never happened to us, but 95% of the time we take a private van, we get back to the ship before the big busses get back, so we’re already in the jacuzzi watching the busses pull into the lot!  The reason for the vans getting back first is simple – it’s because we left the parking lot while the big busses were still loading, we got to the venue (for example, the Acropolis in Athens) before any of the busses from any of the cruise ships got there, we got into the venue faster, we got more time to explore before the crowds got big, and we were back in the vans and headed back to the ship while, once again, the big busses were still loading!  All that, at about half the price – such a deal!

And lastly, let’s talk about not only taking a cruise with your significant other, but also being part of a larger party of family, friends, kids, etc.  Maybe it’s just a family vacation where the schedule was just right for others to tag along, or maybe it’s a well-coordinated reunion (family, friends, church groups, neighbors, workmates, etc.).  It really doesn’t matter at all what the occasion is, or how many people are part of the boarding party.  The best advice we can give you is, unless there’s a specific event that the entire cruise is focused on (wedding, retirement party, 90^th birthday), don’t plan on everybody doing anything together, either in the morning, the afternoon, or the evening.  Not everybody is going to meet you for breakfast.  Not everybody is going to be interested in the same excursions as you.  Not everybody is going to want to sit poolside with you for 3 hours.  And not everybody is going to want to see the same shows at the same time as you in the evening. (And on today’s larger ships, there are literally dozens of entertainment options available to you on any given evening!)  What we’ve found when travelling with friends and families is to just agree that everyone goes their own way during the day and during the evening, but we’ll all meet up at dinner.  So pick a restaurant, pick a time, reserve a table for 5 or 10 or 15, and during dinner everyone can talk about what they did all day, what they’re planning on doing that evening, and what they’re planning on doing the next day.   Will you sometimes wind up at the same place at the same time with members of your group?  Sure, it’s bound to happen – and the bigger your group is, the more likely it is to happen.  And when it does happen, it’s great and it’s a lot of fun (“Wow, I didn’t know you liked to play bingo, too!”  or “Hey – you like Harry Potter trivia?  Me too – let’s form a team and give those kids at that table over there a run for their money!”)  Bottom line – cruising with a large group is great fun, but don’t go into it thinking that you’re all going to be joined at the hip for the entire vacation.  Trust me – you’ll be looking for a little alone time by day 2!