It depends. There are a few factors to consider before making your decision about paying for a tour. The type of tour, the number of people participating in the tour, and your comfort and knowledge level of a destination or site are all worth thinking about. Let’s discuss some of the different types of tours you might experience.

The City Overview Tour

I love a good city overview tour when I first arrive somewhere new. It helps me understand the layout of the city and it quickly hits most of the major sites. Then, for the rest of the trip, I can go back and visit the sites I was most interested in.

There are bus, boat, bike, and even segway tours. My favorite is the bike tour because they give me some fresh air and exercise (especially great after a long flight and jet lag). Fat Tire Bike Tours are available in Europe and the US. I’ve done three of these (London, Berlin, and Paris) and always have a blast.

Boat Tours are also quite nice, especially if a city is lit up well at night. Bus tours can be hit or miss. It’s a lot of sitting, often times in traffic. I would check reviews carefully before choosing a bus tour. Although, a bus might be the best option for people with limited mobility.

The Entire Trip Tour

If you decide to go on a tour for an entire trip, I would do a lot of research first to pick a great tour. You will be stuck with all of the other people during the tour, and the more people, the harder it is to have any say in what you do. It also makes it challenging to enjoy some more unique, local restaurants and accommodations. On the other hand, if you don’t want to do any planning and/or you don’t feel comfortable venturing out on your own, a trip tour can be a nice safety net that helps you to still get out and travel without any of the stress.

The Activity Tour

Certain activities are just way easier to go on a tour. If you want to see the Northern Lights in Iceland, you can taken a tour with a guide who will drive on the icy road and knows the best spots for viewing. A safari would be difficult to do by yourself if you don’t know what you are doing, and an adventure activity like glacier climbing or canyoneering are best done with experts unless you are an expert yourself.   

The Site Tour

In my opinion, some sites are really worth hiring a tour guide and others aren’t. I really like to hire a private guide when it comes to a large overwhelming museum, like the Louvre. I love Context Tours for museums. It can also be helpful for a site that you don’t have much background info on and don’t have another resource like a good guidebook or digital walking tour. When in Europe, Rick Steves has an app that has some great walking tours that you can listen to. We hired a private local guide at Chichen Itza, and it made for a fun and informative experience. And while we would have enjoyed the site without the guide, it was affordable and I felt good about supporting a local.

The Topical Tour

It can be fun to hire someone for a specific topic, like a food tasting tour or a graffiti tour. In Seattle you can do an underground tour with Beneath the Streets, where you learn the history of the city. If you plan on doing a tour like this, it’s best to keep the number of participants limited. A private tour is ideal because it makes getting around easier and gives you more one-on-one time to ask questions and converse with the guide, but you can usually save some money by having a few more participants. Context Tours also offers many of these tours, but you can frequently find local guides for this as well. Check out Airbnb experiences or just google what you are looking for.

So is it lame to go on a tour? Certainly not! But it’s definitely not for everyone. Carefully consider how you want to experience your trip and what types of tours you are interested in before making this decision.