Traveling is an endless process of decision making especially for first-time travelers – from choosing destinations, best hotel prices, car rental deals, and beyond, to choosing whether to travel alone or by group. If you’re torn between these options, well, you need to know that traveling solo or by a travelling in group can be a blessing and a bad idea at the same time. Learn the pros and cons of traveling by group to let yourself figure out what’s best for you.
Pros
✓ Expenses can be reduced.
When traveling by group, you can take advantage of travel agencies that offer huge discounts and perks for a large group of travelers. You often hear travelers say that the more people you travel with, the fewer cost of expenses you make. Since you’ll be traveling with your family or group of friends, everything will be shared from room rentals, food, and budget for a minibus hire. This saves you a lot of extra money that you can pour into something else like shopping for memorabilia and other stuff.
✓ Hiring a tour guide is possible.
Traveling with a tour guide can give you additional info about each place you visit. You got to learn new stories, cultures, and histories behind these places and that’s one important thing that you can get from traveling. Hiring a tour guide is ideal if you’re traveling by group since payment is also shared.
✓ Traveling is more fun.
Nothing beats the joy of traveling with your family or with your closest friends for it creates a sense of togetherness and companionship or for party in bus. There will be no boring moments because you have them to tell stories and do fun activities with. Although it still depends on the person. There are people who also find happiness when traveling by themselves.
✓ Safety is ensured.
Safety is the most important thing to look at when traveling to places that you haven’t been before or you rarely visit. Compared to traveling alone, your safety is more ensured if you have your companions to protect you from potentially dangerous situations and look after you when you get sick during your travel.
Cons
⨯ There’s no freedom for almost everything.
Traveling with companions sounds fun; however, you lose your freedom when it comes to making decisions. You can’t buy your own food since everything is chipped in. You can’t change the itineraries so you have no option but to force yourself with the majority’s plan even if you’re not completely happy about it. There are also times when you miss some parts of your itinerary due to certain time delays especially when you have to wait for your other companions every time. The worse is when you can’t choose to go by yourself considering the budget for transportation is also shared and your pocket is about to get empty.
⨯ Increase the risk of arguments.
The individual’s differences in several aspects like beliefs, interests, and the process of decision making can increase the risk of major arguments among groups of travelers. This means that the more people you travel with, especially when everything’s shared, the more disagreements are inescapably coming on your way.
⨯ Less opportunity of meeting new people
Since you have to always be around your group, you miss the chance of meeting new people or spend private moments with yourself doing your interests. You box yourself in the idea of this ‘close proximity’ that you can’t run away and explore by yourself.
Author Bio : Sarah Contreras
Sarah holds a bachelor’s degree in Communication with expertise in developmental and community communications. She currently works as a full-time blogger for business and lifestyle development. What motivates Sarah to keep writing is her passion of providing information to all readers out there.
