managing travel stress -- consider a tour

As I wrote two weeks ago, travel can be stressful. Nearly everyone experiences travel stress, but the fact is that different things stress out different people. Today's column concerns the stress of coping with the unfamiliar.

Travel is exciting! It is exhilarating to step off the plane after a long international flight and find yourself in some far-off and exotic place: Italy, China, Vietnam, wherever! But once you make it through customs and to the front doors of the airport, you face the first of a multitude of very practical questions. How do I get some of the local currency? What is the best way to get taken from the airport to my hotel ... without getting taken? What's a fair price to pay? Am I expected to give a tip? How much is appropriate?

Of course, once you reach your hotel (assuming you have a reservation), you have the formalities of check-in to deal with. While most desk clerks at nice hotels have a good command of English, you may have difficulty understanding someone's accent. You may have questions about the rate on the form you are asked to sign; is it the same price that you booked? You may feel stressed out communicating your questions to the desk clerk, fearful that you won't be able to express yourself clearly.

You will face, at least two times a day, the most practical of questions: Where are we to have lunch or dinner? How can we find a good restaurant where the locals eat, some place whose menu represents real value for your converted dollars, not some tourist trap that dishes out plates of ordinary food to hundreds of tourists each day?

And, then, there's the whole reason you're there: What should we see today? How do we get there? How do I buy a bus or metro ticket? Is there a weekly pass that the locals know about that represents a really good value? Is there a good time of day to get to a particular attraction? Are there tricks we should know to avoid huge lines?

Some people are energized by living spontaneously and are perfectly comfortable exploring, taking wrong turns, and occasionally messing up. That's part of the appeal of foreign independent travel for such folks. Sometimes those "wrong turns" turn out to be serendipitous discoveries that are remembered as the surprising highlights of your whole trip.

While some travelers thrill in this aspect of the adventure, others do not. They stress out at everything I have described above. So I have a suggestion for such travelers: consider a tour. I know, I know ... tours have a bad name. We all have this image of busloads of tourists being driven around a city, hurried through museums, and herded into restaurants. That's not the kind of tour I'm talking about.

I would recommend seriously considering some upscale tour companies such as Backroads. All your logistics will taken care of; you'll never have to figure out how to get to the next place on your itinerary. You'll stay in very nice, sometimes hard-to-book properties in your budget range that the tour company has worked with for years. You won't have to drag your luggage around; when you leave your bags outside your door in the morning, they will magically reappear that very afternoon in your next hotel room. And you won't need to worry about finding places to eat; you'll dine at some of the best restaurants in the area, places that the casual tourist might never find. With some companies, you can order anything you want off the menu; the biggest challenge is passing on the desserts!

You'll have the services of terrific local tour guides, so you won't have to spend each night researching the next day's activities; your days will be well planned. Your admissions to museums and other attractions are taken care of. The group is small enough that you never feel regimented; you're free to go off on your own, and usually they leave one afternoon and one dinner free for you to spend with your travelling companion ... with tons of suggestions if you want them. A well-run tour company takes the hassle out of travel.

So if you love the idea of traveling to strange and exotic places but stress out over the details of being there, consider an escorted tour. They sweat the details so that you can just enjoy your vacation!

Photograph courtesy of Backroads.

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