21 Adventerous Days in Europe on a
Rick Steves Tour
Europe Bound!
To Tour
Not To Tour
OR
- Guides, guides, guides. While on a Rick Steves' tour you will experience phenomenal guides. This truly is reason alone to go on a tour. Guides added context and life to museums, art, culture, history, people, cities, architecture, etc. I cannot put into words how much the guides enriched my experience.
- When Mike and I had time on our own we wasted a lot of it with indecision and travel mishaps. If you go on a tour, “wasted time” will be minimized. If you think you might struggle to make decisions a tour is great because you will have a great experience without the turmoil of trying to prioritize.
- You don’t have to worry about navigating your transportation from place to place.
- You don’t have to wait in lines!! We almost never had to wait in line as a group. This saved us hours of time.
- Rick Steves’ tours connect you to unique, local hotels that you might not find on your own. Most are owned and operated by locals and it is a unique way to connect with others.
- As we traveled from country to country I learned loads of info from Reid. He did such a good job describing a country’s history in a succinct way. He was also able to connect the history to current events and the countries’ culture. I just didn’t even expect this to be part of the tour and it change my experience 100%.
- Reid would buy little snacks for us to try in each country. It was fun to have an opportunity to sample candies, chocolates, etc. as a group.
- You get to travel with other people who have similar interests and passions. It was so fun to share special experiences with good people. We instantly had a group of travel friends. It was great. It also helped us to view our travel experience through the lens of those around us.
- Tours can provide a structure for your travel experience. If you don’t travel on a tour you may be prone to push yourself too hard or may be very tired and struggle to do all that you want to. Tours help provide a good travel pace.
- We never felt overwhelmed by being in a foreign country because we had the structure of the tour.
- You will broaden your horizons by trying things you might not have otherwise tried.
- Some people go travel to Europe via cruise which definitely has it’s perks. One con to a cruise is that sometimes you don’t get to
experience mornings or evenings in a city. These were some of my favorite times in a city and I would not give them up for the conveniences of a cruise.
Click here to explore tours offered on Rick Steves' site!
- One thing I respect about Rick Steves' company is that they want you to have the travel experience you want to have- that may or may not be through a tour.
- If you want to stay in a city longer you can’t if you're on a tour. That is a major drawback to a tour- you don’t have the flexibility to stay as long or short as you want in a city and sometimes in a museum.
- There is more of a barrier to make personal connections on a tour. If you are always traveling in a big group of people- how much harder will it be to connect with locals? Much harder. You do have moments away from the group but still it’s an issue to consider.
- You might be scheduled to do things that you have no interest in doing if your are on a tour.
- Although traveling with the group of people for me personally was a pro, for some it could be a con. Traveling with a group of others mean you have to deal with with idiosyncrasies of others.
- Part of the beauty of travel is all the little mishaps along the way. When you take a tour you won’t have nearly as many of those. For many, this is a huge pro but I put it in the con section because it is something that can sometimes negatively impact your travel experience.