Why We Like To Travel As A Group

Why We Like To Travel As A Group

We’ve been planning group vacations for our dancing (and occasionally our non-dancing friends) for the past few years.  We’ve learned a lot along the way, some good, some not so good, but mostly we have learned that travelling with a group is a lot of fun.

As the organizer I’ve learned that for me it’s a struggle to spend other people’s money.  I want everyone to have a quality vacation, with lots of experiences.  However, quality and experiences cost, and I struggle to balance that since I’m not only spending my own money, but asking others to spend their money.  There are a lot of things to do when you travel, but sometimes as a group you can have a more interesting experience. 

     

The benefits of group travel far outweigh any negatives.  In most cases, someone else almost always does the bulk of the work.  Which is nice for those who are uncomfortable with the planning part, or like Steve, just enjoy the surprise of what we are doing tomorrow. 

A group of travelers together means that unexpected waits in airports are less stressful with others, than perhaps by yourself.  The person in charge of your group can find out what happened, and what’s going to happen next.  The more experienced travelers in your group can ease the minds of the less experienced.  We have also found out, through personal experience, that a plane will wait when they know that a group of 10 or more travelers are coming on a delayed flight from somewhere else.  They won’t wait for one couple, but they will wait for a group.  We’ve even been fortunate to have a personal escort through customs and security for our group of 26 coming home from Paris last summer.  For anyone of us who had been traveling alone, we would have missed our flight from Montreal to Vancouver.

It’s fun to be a crowd within a crowd.  We had over 40 people to New Orleans a few years ago, and planned our trip carefully, something to do every day, but didn’t fill up the entire day, so people could enjoy the City of New Orleans at their own pace as well.  It was nice to walk down Bourbon Street and run into others from your group.  At the end of the day, we’d meet back at the hotel for a nightcap and compare our days.  What a great way to find out who had done what.

 

Sometimes your travel partner isn’t interested in all the same things you are, but you can usually find someone who would want to go with you.  Last winter in the Caribbean, my friend knew her husband didn’t want to back into port to check out the spice shop, but she knew that I would go, so we left our husbands behind as we went on a trip to buy spices.  Win-Win all around.  In France last summer, three of us were able to take an excursion to a pastry class without our husbands, while they went with another group to a museum and a third group went shopping and took along another passenger from the ship who wanted to go shopping but didn't have anyone to go with.  Being part of a group means there is always someone to do something with.

 

 



Overall, the benefits of travelling with a group of people far outweigh any negatives.  Think about joining us sometime, it's better in a group!