When I first started traveling, I thought booking a tour was what tourists did — people who didn’t know how to figure things out on their own, who wanted to be ushered around "seeing the sights". Real travelers, I told myself, read the blogs, figured out how to get to "the sights" for the local's price, and otherwise wandered freely, unbound by the confines of a tour itinerary, ready to experience whatever the place had in store.
Then I backpacked across Africa.
Look, I traveled, I really did. I booked game drives from safari lodges, organized my own guides, porters and chefs for multi-day volcano hikes... but I also joined tours when the only way to do the thing was to pay the company to organize it for me.
There are moments when, even with the option to fly solo, it just makes sense to book a tour. After five months of backpacking, I booked a 12-day tour across Namibia, because the distances were long, the roads rough, and driving solo wasn’t encouraged – not that I had the appetite to handle any more logistics anyway.
Did I enjoy my tour in Namibia? Absolutely. I had two really fun guides, I never had to think about what I was going to eat or when, and I got shuttled from place to place, napping in the car the whole way. But I also didn't get to see some places I would have liked to, simply because they weren't part of the tour.
Here's what I've come to realize: I'm not wrong that many tours are, well, touristy. They all go to the same spots, you're generally rushed for time, and you'll sit through at least one song-and-dance routine billed as "traditional culture." Many of them charge you way more than it actually costs to provide you the tour, because they know it's a PIA to figure it out on your own. So it's up to you to determine if that price and the experience offered is worth it to you – or if you'd rather save the money to fly solo.
Flying solo also has the benefit of flexibility, of being able to choose to do what you want, when you want, and of being able to see things that the tour groups don't take you to. But undoubtedly, it comes with the headache ("learning experience") of doing it all yourself.
Here's a framework I use that can help you to decide whether to book a tour, or take the road less traveled.
