Is A Guided Tour Worth It on Your Next Family Vacation?

When you’re a mom, and you’re planning a family vacation, whether it’s to a local city or you’re going somewhere international, one of the decisions you might weigh is whether or not to do guided tours.

Guided sightseeing tours can occur in different settings. For example, you might do a private tour with a guide who walks you around a city, or perhaps a bus tour. There are also options like group walking tours, or tours that focus on certain activities.

Tours can be pricey, however, so you may be wondering whether or not they’re the right option for your next family vacation.

The following are some of the pros and cons and other things to think about.

How Much Time Do You Have?

If you’re going to be spending several weeks or a month in a location, you may not need guided tours.

Ultimately, with that much time and perhaps some guidebooks or similar resources, you’re going to be able to get a real feel for the location.

On the other hand, if you’re taking your kids on a trip somewhere you’ve never been for a week, you aren’t really going to have time to grasp all that location has to offer perhaps without a guided tour.

Additionally, you can learn how to organize your time with a guided tour. You can start with a tour when you initially arrive in your destination and then that will help you get a lay of the land so to speak, and think about things you might want to go back to and spend more time doing, versus the things you’re less interested in.

Can You Find a Tour That Will Work For Your Kids?

Tour guides can be good at engaging kids, or not so great. If you can find a tour guide who has experience working with kids, it can be a great experience. This will help your kids feel like they’re part of the trip, they’ll learn more, and they’ll be less likely to become frustrated with the whole experience.

On the other hand, if you get a tour guide who isn’t adept at working with kids, the results might be the opposite.

You can often find guides and companies that will let you know they have experience guiding kids and families and making things interesting for everyone.

Feeling Connected

If you’re going to a new city, state or country, it can be easy to feel like you’re lost in a sea of other people and wandering around aimlessly.

If you do a tour of some sort, it can help you feel more connected to your new location, and that can create an experience that’s more positive overall.

Simplify Travel Planning

If you’re a mom and you’re the person in your family doing most of the travel planning, you might be willing to pay extra for the simplicity a tour can bring. When you do a tour, it takes the planning off your plate so you can focus more on your trip.

Tours can be organized ways to see major attractions in your destination and to do so in a way that’s well thought out.

You’ll know ahead of time what to expect during at least the tour portion of your trip, where you need to be, and what you’ll be doing during that time. Someone else designs the itinerary, and you don’t have to think about how you’ll get from Point A to Point B, or how much time to spend in a particular location.

If you have a personal guide, they may be able to get you special access and even offer recommendations on things outside of your tour, such as where to eat. Tours will usually also integrate tickets to attractions and skip-the-line tickets if necessary, so you don’t have to think about booking them all separately.

Of course, tours aren’t for everyone. Along with the price, some people don’t like thefeeling that they’re forced to do things a certain way.

They may prefer the opportunity to wander aimlessly, and that may be something that’s especially appealing to them about traveling. They might want to uncover hidden gems along the way, rather than having someone telling them what’s special and why.

For a lot of families, the pros of booking a tour or maybe even a few tours tend to outweigh the cons, although,with anything in travel, it’s also a personal and financial decision.