Why We Never Book Package Tours (and How We Travel Instead)

here is a fair truth I need to say upfront.

Package tours are wonderful for a lot of people. They save time, they remove the anxiety of planning, they gather you with strangers who often become friends by day three, and they let you land in a country with nothing to figure out. Most of the friends and family I know who travel this way come back with their hearts full. Their photos are beautiful. Their itineraries are packed. Their memories are real.

They just aren't for me.

For more fifteen years, whenever the option of a package tour has been on the table, my answer has been the same. Merci, on va faire à notre façon.

It's not that they are bad. It's that I've learned I like my trips built a very specific way, and self-organising every detail is the only way to get exactly what I want.

Let me explain.

1. The Freedom Question

Why I want to write my own itinerary.

The main reason I don't do package tours isn't rebellion. It's much simpler than that. I like to make my own choices.

I want to be the one who picks the hotel. I want to be the one who decides what time we wake up. I want to look at a Wednesday afternoon and say, "you know what, we're skipping the cathedral. We're going back to that café in the little street with the yellow chairs."

A tour tells you when to be at the bus. When the group meets for dinner. How many minutes you have at the viewpoint. That's the trade. You don't plan, and in exchange, you follow. For a lot of travellers, that trade is a gift. For me, it feels like giving up the best part of travel.

The verdict: a trip is a long series of small decisions, and I've realised I want to make every one of them myself.

2. Yes, I Have Preferences (and I Own Them)

I'm honest about being particular. I've stopped being shy about it.

Here is the part I want to say plainly. I have preferences. Nim will confirm.

I don't pick restaurants at random. Before we sit down anywhere, I've looked at the ratings, read a couple of reviews, and clicked on a photo of what the plate actually looks like. I don't stop at the first place with a menu in the window. I usually have three shortlisted before we even land.

I don't book any hotel. It has to be at least three, ideally four, stars. Rooms under 20 square metres aren't for me. If the bathroom in the listing photos looks tired, I keep scrolling.

I don't shop just anywhere. I'll walk into a Zara before I walk into a bargain-basement chain. I would rather buy fewer things I love than a bag full of things I'll never wear at home.

Even coffee has its rules. I don't stop in a metro station café. I'd rather walk fifteen extra minutes to a little bistrot with a real espresso and a table by a window.

None of this is because I think I'm above anyone. It's because over years of travelling, I've learned that comfort, quality, and small nice details are what make a trip actually feel like a trip. And if I'm going to invest the time and the money in going somewhere, I want the whole experience to be one I would choose again.

The verdict: I know what I like. I've stopped apologising for it. And package tours, by design, don't let me curate to that level.

3. The Places I Skip on Purpose

Not because they aren't beautiful. Because they aren't mine.

There's a second reason tours don't work for me. They tend to send you to the same shortlist of destinations everyone else is going to.

I've had many chances over the years to go to South East Asia. Thailand. Malaysia. Bali. Most of my friends have been. Most of them have loved it. I don't doubt for a second that these countries are beautiful, warm, and full of things worth seeing.

They just aren't the places that pull at me.

When I look at a map and think where do I want to be next, my heart doesn't move towards the destinations the tourism industry pushes hardest. It moves towards a Nordic road trip. A village in Africa nobody's heard of. A wine region in South Africa that people only recently started talking about. A part of Portugal a little off the main coast.

I love a destination that hasn't been photographed a million times. I love landing somewhere and not knowing exactly what my Instagram feed already told me it would look like.

The verdict: I go where I'm curious, not where the plane is fullest.

4. The Uber Comfort Rule

A small analogy that explains a lot about how I travel.

Whenever I open the Uber app, I book Uber Comfort. Not the basic option.

It's a small extra spend. A slightly nicer car. A driver rated a little higher. More space.

Better air conditioning. And it changes the whole feel of the ride.

That's basically my travel philosophy in miniature.

I'd rather pay a little more, plan a little longer, curate a little tighter, and get a trip that fits me exactly. Instead of paying less, joining a group, and taking whatever version of the destination the tour operator has decided is best for a bus of forty.

Same principle for the café, the restaurant, the shop, the hotel. Comfort compounds. When every small choice of the day is a version I picked, the whole day feels different. A week of those days is what I remember years later. Not the "we went to five countries in seven days" version.

The verdict: the small upgrades I make on every single decision are what stop a trip from feeling like a trip and start making it feel like my trip.

5. Nim and Me (and How He Ended Up Here Too)

The couple part.

Nim would probably have done a package tour a few times in his twenties if I hadn't been there.

He's easier than me. Less picky about hotels. Less obsessive about which café. Genuinely happier just being somewhere new than fighting for the perfect version of somewhere new.

Eleven years in, I've contaminated him. He now researches hotels with me. He now knows the difference between a room with a real window and a room with an air shaft. He shortlists restaurants before we land.

He tells me sometimes that he travels better because of me. I take that.

We are now completely aligned. We plan together, we book together, we decide together. The last time we even mentioned the idea of a package tour was a good ten years ago.

The verdict: the way you like to travel is contagious. Find someone whose travel philosophy matches yours. Or, if you must, convert them slowly, gently, one nice hotel at a time.

The Real Answer

I want to make one thing very clear before I close this.

I'm not writing this to say package tours are bad. They aren't. They are exactly right for the people they are made for. If you don't want to plan, if you're not sure where to start, if you'd rather be shepherded through a place with company and confidence, they can be wonderful. Do them proudly.

But if you're like me. Someone who wants to write every hour of the day themselves. Someone who has strong opinions about hotels and cafés and shops. Someone who wants to skip where everyone goes and land where nobody thought to send them. Organising your own trips is worth every hour it takes.

The best trips are the ones you built one choice at a time.

A tour is a version of a country the operator wrote for you.

An organised trip is your version, written by you, one small good decision at a time.

I choose the second one, every time.