When planning a trip to a place you have never been there is a decision you should make early on. Do you sign up for a tour group? Or do you make all the plans yourself? Maybe you choose to do both. This is a personal decision with many pros and cons.
The advantage of a tour group is, generally, everything is done for you. You can find a group that lays out an itinerary with transportation, accommodations, and even meals, neatly planned. All you need to do is show up. There usually is a set fee so you know what your cost will be with the exclusion of any incidental charges such a souvenirs, tips, or taxes. Another advantage is that you are in a group of people looking for the same thing; thus, friendships that last beyond the trip can develop. Safety issues might be a concern. There may be places best explored with others. Safety in numbers, as they say. Some groups have open times, even days, that you can use to visit locations nearby that are not a part of the itinerary. The disadvantage of this option is you are tied down to that group. You may wish to spend more time in a particular spot but the tour group says it’s time to move on. The hardest part of this might be finding the group that fits your budget and wishes. There are hundreds to pick from.
Option #2 is to plan the trip yourself and go with family, friends, or yourself. This might involve door-to-door planning, meaning from the time you leave your house until the time you walk back into your house. There can be a lot of details to arrange. Do you need a passport? How about a visa? Airline tickets, taxis or Ubers, currency exchange, and hotel accommodations, are just the beginning. There are so many plates that you must keep spinning to make this work. If you have never done detailed planning such as this the task can be daunting. I’ll talk more about the myriad details that must be arranged in a bit.
Now for option #3. Maybe you like the no-hassle tour group option but at the same time would like to spend time on your own exploring, or relaxing at your leisure. Try a combination. Start with a tour group following their itinerary and then when it ends spend more time either exploring things not covered by the group or returning to areas where you wanted to spend more time. This works particularly well for places where you have never been as you might get an idea from the group of things you want to do.
For us, for our family, we chose option #2 for several reasons. One reason is that we wanted to explore areas where few – or any – tour groups operate. This allowed us to go into some of the backcountry of England and Scotland. But the main reason for planning the trip ourselves, to be honest, is our tendency to be happier when we are in control of our movements and the situation. While it can be much more work on the front end the control we have is worth the trade-off.
One bonus of doing the research for accommodations, etc., is you learn much about the area you plan to travel to. There may be events where you need to adjust your timetable to attend or maybe miss. For our trip to Great Britain, we learned many of the place names as well as routes to travel and basic rules of the road. Did you know that there is a road sign in Scotland warning of “toad crossing”? At times they have closed a road in Holyrood Park, near Edinburgh, because of the annual migration. Fun facts that we might never have known.
Originally, we had planned to spend two weeks in Europe. This, of course, was not enough time and it soon became three weeks. Looking over area events, we noticed that the summer solstice was taking place the week before we were due to arrive in England. Twice a year, at Stonehenge, during the summer solstice and winter solstice, people are allowed to walk among the stones. At other times of the year, there is a barrier keeping people back about 50 yards. Once we realized we were to be there the week after this event it was an easy decision to change our plans. We needed to add a week. The chance to be part of the celebration that draws over 10 thousand people of all ages every summer?! The opportunity to walk among the stones?! Easy choice. (Oh, and it was well worth it!)
So here you are. You have decided to plan your trip yourself. It’s a lot of work but fun work. We started by making a list of the places we wanted to see. How did we come up with the list? Never having been to Great Britain we needed to research. Of course, most everyone knows about Westminster Abbey, Big Ben (Roger Miller: “England Swings” – OK I’m dating myself), and other major sites in London. As for Scotland, who hasn’t heard of the Lock Ness Monster? Most would know about Edinburgh or Stirling Castle (“Braveheart” – they played a little loose with the historical facts but hey, it was a movie). Researching Italy. Well of course the Vatican, the Colosseum, the Leaning Tower of Piza, and David.
Research? Where? You can go to an area library and find information there or maybe write to VisitBritain for information. This is what my Mother would have done since computers were the size of large rooms in the Stone Age. Now we have computers that fit in our pockets with access to the world. I use Google, but other search engines would provide the same data.
Most likely, if you are reading this, you are familiar with computers and search engines but I will touch on a few things. You can type in any question you want and it will pull up various sites to explore. I typed in “Tourism Commission of Great Britain” and it pulled up the VisitBritian website. “Holidays and celebrations in Great Britain June 2025” brought up a long list. The one thing to remember is you can be more specific (June 14-21) or use different wording (events in England June 2025) and you could get different sites. It is truly amazing the amount of information that is available. If you are looking for places to stay, places to eat, hiking trails, or free museums, they are all at the touch of your finger. Don’t be afraid to try different wording. Once you find a site you can bookmark it (* top right section of the search bar) so you can come back to it later.
Once the lists were made, we numbered them in order of our priority. Then we compared them. We all had places like Big Ben and Stonehenge on our lists so it was easy to pare them down some. Because I had over 30 places in England alone, we went with the top 10 in each group. This still created a long list. It is easy to create too long of a list. Try not to cram too many things into a short time…..leave things for your next trip. More on that later.
Now is the time to pull out a map and see where these places are. I am old school and like to look at a map that I can mark on and fold up. I ordered a large paper map along with a laminated map so I could mark on and erase if needed. Doing this allows you to see where they are in relation to other places. This may show places that are too far from anything else and thus need to be held over for another visit. For computer-savvy people, you can create a map and pin it for later reference. You can also attach websites with added information.
I think I will close for now. I plan to create a list of steps we did that might help in your planning. I was not good at grammar/writing in school but it should be like an outline covering the necessary steps. This can be adjusted to your needs but is a good place to start.