14 outstanding travel experiences that will give you an insider’s view
If you’ve always dreamed of hiking the Himalayas but have hesitated about doing it alone or if you wanted to bike through Vietnam, visit Armenia or trek Africa but it’s seemed too challenging as an independent traveller, fear not.
Such trepidation is no reflection on your travel prowess. Many of us did adventurous and sometimes risky things as backpackers, and have previously plunged into remote destinations and mad festivals.
Eventually, though, we grow more cautious and, yes, that bit more worldly wise. The planet has certainly become even more unpredictable and unnerving in recent times.
At the markets in Marrakesh, Morocco. Credit: iStock
But don’t write off your travel dreams. There may be a method of travel that hasn’t occurred to you or one that you’ve dismissed or revisited. We refer to what the travel industry likes to call “escorted journeys”.
Travellers join such tour groups for many reasons: organisation, reliability, security, sociability, a stress-free escape from travel’s nitty-gritty. (Never having to haul a suitcase or book a train ticket? Sweet.)
But you can add another reason that the naysayers overlook: pick the right tour and you can have remarkable experiences made all the easier when someone else is doing the planning and there are like-minded travellers around you.
Maybe it’s time after all to trek the Annapurna Circuit or deep-dive into an alien culture without raising your anxiety levels.
Nowadays, tours aren’t just for the timid, sedentary or unimaginative. Many have become flexible, so you aren’t locked into the constant group experience. And increasingly, escorted journeys are getting more rugged, active and varied.
What’s more, the best escorted journeys offer outstanding travel experiences and the reassurance that you aren’t tackling them alone.
Here are some advantages of group touring, matched with dream travel experiences that you may not have considered on your own but which, when you weigh up the pros and the cons, make considerable sense.
Plunge into Morocco’s medinas
Navigating the Medina in Fes, Morocco.
Tell me more Whether it’s mysterious temples, fine-dining restaurants, dense jungles or shadowy bazaars, travel throws up spaces that intimidate even the most experienced.
Sometimes you need fellow travellers for reassurance – at least for that first heady encounter.
The medinas or old towns of Morocco may qualify as such a place, with their maze of streets and dead-end alleys, dim-lit shops and crumbling buildings. The sight of shepherded sheep, the smell of tanneries and the raucous din could seem too much.
So too may the carpet salesmen, the muttering fortune-tellers and juggling monkeys intimidate.
An experience shared is one made easier, though. Let a tour guide orient you and demystify the improbable sights. Share the horrors, beauty and excitement with your tour companions.
After a while the claustrophobia and clamour of Fes or Marrakesh fades and you can concentrate on the wonders: sacks of sandalwood and spice, blue-tiled walls, metalworkers tapping on lamps, old men playing backgammon over mint tea. By the tour’s end, you’ll be plunging in by yourself.
Take the tour Cosmos Tours’ 10-day “Highlights of Morocco” tour round trip from Casablanca departs on January 4 and February 16, 2024, and takes in key cities, the Atlas Mountains and Sahara Desert. From $1889 a person.
Join the dots in the European Alps
Touring the Jungfrau Glacier, Switzerland.
Tell me more As travellers, we have certain notions about how the world is arranged which ought to be challenged. For a start, we often equate destinations with single countries.
But in places such as Europe, you’ll never understand history and geography if you cling to that notion. Sometimes it takes a clever tour to point out that cultures, languages and landscapes transcend modern borders.
Take an escorted journey through the mountains of France, Switzerland, Austria, Germany and Italy and you’ll be struck more by what the Alps have in common than the stereotypes of what sets such disparate nations apart. And needless to say, the scenery is sumptuous.
Worried that the group experience could be suffocating? Choose the right tour in which ample free time is woven in and not all meals included, which gives you the flexibility to enjoy individual as well as group experiences.
Take the tour Collette’s 12-day “Peaks of Europe: The Alps to the Dolomites” tour between Chamonix and Venice takes in all the chief alpine nations in style on multiple departs between May and October. From $6499 a person.
See gocollette.com
Encounter wildlife in Botswana
Tell me more Wildlife experiences can be among the most difficult types of travel to arrange independently: you can’t just rock up to see Rwandan gorillas or snow leopards in the Indian Himalayas (and nor should you, right?).
You often have to access remote wilderness, get permits and know exactly where to look.
The Okavango Delta covers 15,000 square kilometres of northern Botswana with ever-changing wet-season lagoons and waterways that solo travellers couldn’t possibly navigate. Get onto an organised tour, though, and – whether on foot, by four-wheel drive or by traditional dugout canoe – one of the world’s greatest natural spectacles awaits.
Zebras, wallowing hippos and elephants, and rare honey badgers and sable antelope are among the animals that take advantage of the watery abundance as the sand dunes of the Kalahari are transformed each wet season.
Kingfishers and dragonflies shimmer, frogs croak and eagles swoop on fish. Sunset over the Zambezi River and the sparkling stars of southern Africa are other spectacular travel sights.
Take the tour Abercrombie & Kent’s 10-day “Discover Botswana in Style” tour round trip from Johannesburg has regular departures year-round and takes in Victoria Falls as well as wildlife destinations. From $19,855 a person.
Follow the music Stateside
Nashville - music-central on a tour of the US South.
Tell me more A good guide brings museums, historic homes and other buildings to life; as an independent traveller, it’s all too easy to whiz through and miss the details. And if you want to really follow your interests – or acquire new ones – then a themed tour provides valuable insight you won’t otherwise get.
An escorted journey through Tennessee, Mississippi and Louisiana supplies just such an opportunity. From R&B to gospel, jazz to rock ‘n’ roll, these states have provided the soundtrack to our lives.
Check out the legendary RCA Studio B in Nashville, Elvis Presley’s home and the blues clubs along Beale Street in Memphis, and the jazz scene in New Orleans.
Tours allow you to do exclusive things as well, such as a backstage tour of Grand Ole Opry country-music theatre in Nashville, the chance to meet musicians in Memphis, and a Southern dinner in an antebellum plantation home near Natchez.
Take the tour Trafalgar Tours’ 10-day “Tastes and Sounds of the South” tour from Nashville to New Orleans has regular departures year-round and has a bonus emphasis on southern cuisine. From $4152 a person.
See trafalgar.com
Delve deeper into the Europe beyond
Seafront scenery in the Mediterranean village Pucisca on the island of Brac, Croatia.Credit: iStock
Tell me more So you’ve “done” the big-name countries and are wondering what else Europe offers, yet are wary of places you seldom hear about, such as Albania or Bulgaria?
Fair enough: sometimes you need the framework of an escorted journey to push you into the unknown – and make you realise what you’ve been missing.
Why not consider the Balkans? They receive a fraction of Western Europe’s tourists yet are bargain-priced, beautiful and just as crammed with culture, castles, cafes and cathedrals – the latter shimmering with golden icons.
Landscapes are stupendous, whether you’re in the Croatian islands, the Montenegro mountains, or the heights above Lake Ohrid in North Macedonia.
Incidentally, you don’t need to feel overwhelmed by group travel; good tour companies offer a choice of activities and schedule downtime that allows you to set off on your own exploration – or just sit in a Bucharest square and soak up the neighbourhood ambience.
Take the tour Scenic’s 15-day “Best of the Balkans” tour between Bucharest and Budapest (or the reverse) has departures on August 30 and September 6, 2023, and others in April, May, September and October, 2024. From $6195 a person.
See scenic.com.au
Explore outback Australia
Tell me more The more remote the destination, the harder it is to get to and get around, and the more you fret that you might need the survival skills of a Bear Grylls to survive it.
In a small group, however, you’ll feel safe and encouraged, and someone else can worry about the logistics.
One of the most outstanding of those destinations is right here in Australia but a million miles away from regular life. The Kimberley is vast, scantily populated and menacing in its physical challenges.
Yet it’s also rich in staggering rust-red gorges, waterfalls, rock art and boab trees: the quintessential Australia from the dawn of time.
Do the iconic Gibb River Road on an escorted journey and you won’t have to worry about breakdowns, water supply, river crossings or how to handle your four-wheel drive. The other great thing about remote destinations in a group? You’ll have someone to swap stories with over the campfire.
Take the tour APT’s 12-day “Iconic Kimberley” tour from Broome to Kununurra along the Gibb River Road departs on August 7 and September 12, 2023, and on several dates between May and August, 2024. From $8395 a person.
See aptouring.com.au
Get an insider perspective on Italy
Cooking classes and culinary delights in Italy.
Tell me more If you have a been-there, done-that attitude to certain destinations then taking a touring holiday can make you see things from a different angle, or give you privileged access to locations and activities not easily available to the ordinary traveller.
Sure, many of us have “seen” Italy, not least its key historical cities and regions such as Tuscany and the Amalfi coast.
But have you ever met a leatherworker in Florence? Visited a farm on the flanks of Vesuvius volcano to see what they grow, and enjoyed an on-the-spot lunch? Seen the famous Renaissance architectural wonder of the Bramante Staircase in the Vatican, normally off-limits to regular tourists?
Good tours these days increasingly provide meaningful insider experiences that often make tours to places you may imagine to be predictable so much better. How else, pray tell, are you likely to be serenaded by arias from Italian operas over a farewell dinner in Rome?
Take the tour Insight Vacations’ 11-day “Best of Italy” tour round trip from Rome lets you choose between a classic group (40 people) or small group (24) and has multiple departures between February and December. From $4525 a person.
Ride the rails in Japan
Shinkansen or Bullet Trains in Japan.
Tell me more Everyone is different, and some people happily navigate their way through perplexing customs, foreign languages, complicated timetables and alien systems. But if that isn’t your idea of a relaxing holiday, there’s no ignominy in getting a helping hand.
A great example: riding Japanese trains is a not-to-be-missed experience, but immense and crowded stations, complicated ticket machines and understanding the system can be stressful.
An escorted journey circumvents all that and lets you enjoy top destinations Tokyo and Kyoto, pleasing smaller cities such as Kagoshima and Fukuoka, and even the landscapes of national parks and country coastline by rail.
Pick wisely and your tour defuses the hard bits, but doesn’t organise your every waking hour. The entire trip needn’t be structured. You don’t even have to be lumbered with a group, for that matter. In fact, sometimes you can be your own group, with everything organised just for you.
Take the tour Inside Japan Tours’ 13-night “Deluxe Railway Adventure” round trip from Tokyo is a flexible, self-guided adventure that runs all year and uses both bullet trains and the luxury Kyushu Seven Stars train service. From $26,638 a person.
Journey along the Silk Road
Tell me more It’s when you have a long and complicated journey that a group tour really comes into its own.
Sure, you could organise a month-long exploration of the Silk Road across remote China yourself but, guaranteed, it will take you endless time, patience and headaches – and probably won’t turn out the way you envisaged on the ground.
Tour companies have long experience. They know where to go and how to get there, even if it’s into the remote mountains and desolate sands of western China. See where the Great Wall peters out, visit venerable Tibetan temples and ancient Buddhist caves, and trek the Taklimakan Desert.
By the time you get to Kashgar near the border with Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, the Pamir Mountains are rearing, Central Asian culture takes over, and you’ve made the link across one of history’s most significant trade routes – and all without a single headache at all.
Take the tour Wendy Wu Tours’ 28-day “Silk Road Explorer” between Xian and Beijing, taking in China’s far west, departs September 3, 2023, and several dates in 2024 and is limited to 18 guests. From $8580 a person.
Five more great group tour experiences
Devotees hold an ornately decorated statue of “Nuestra Señora de la Santa Muerte,” or Our Lady of Holy Death, in Mexico City’s Tepito neighborhood.Credit: AP
Feel festive in Mexico
Festivals can be daunting and confusing to outsiders but on tours your experience is shared, and guides explain the background and get you into the spirit. G Adventures’ six-day “Day of the Dead in Mexico City” tour makes a great add-on to independent exploration with its in-depth look at one of the world’s most remarkable festivals.
See gadventures.com
Take a hike in Nepal
While tours seldom supply experiences that independent travellers can’t manage themselves, they do offer organisation, backup and companionship – which you might crave on a challenging but gloriously scenic Himalayan hike. World’s Expeditions’ 17-day “Everest Base Camp Trek in Comfort” includes guides and porters to help you get there.
Go wild in Costa Rica
How do you give kids the opportunity to experience unusual and rugged destinations while keeping them safe and entertained – and yourself sane? Try family-oriented tours. National Geographic Expeditions’ nine-day “Costa Rica Family Journey” takes you into national parks, through rainforest on zip lines and onto volcanoes without you having to worry about logistics.
Smell the roses in New Zealand
To explore particular passions, consider themed tours which focus on anything from wine to whales, classical music to local cuisine. For the green fingered, Botanica World Discoveries’ 11-day “New Zealand Private Gardens and Landscapes” tour provides an inside look at some beautiful gardens, and includes encounters with their owners.
See botanica.travel
Have a rugged adventure in Oman
Sometimes getting off the beaten track is hard, especially in unfamiliar places, so have somebody else make it easy for you without actually joining a tour group. Bunnik Tours’ seven-day “Discover Oman” is an independent tour with flexible departure dates that takes you on an adventure through wadis, deserts and beaches.
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