If only they’re as cool as the above description. The one lesson I learned is that if your parents say they want to plan a trip to Hawaii/Florida and you don’t volunteer to do the planning, they sign you up for one of these.They certainly seem nice on the surface – for only a few hundred dollars, you get a ride on a comfortable tour bus, a tour guide that’ll know how to get to the touristy spots, and your meal locations/hotel stays all taken care of. It’s cheaper than if you actually plan the trip yourself and certainly less headache-inducing, and the only penalty is that you’ll be going at the tour’s pace and not your own.
Alas, that’s where trouble lies. It’s physically impossible to visit the locations suggested by said tour without establishing a pace that can only be described as painful and frenzied. The Japanese camera tourist stereotype applies well here, as you’re really only at any location long enough to take a picture and therefore proof that at one point in time, you occupied a space that’s in the remote vicinity of a space that happens to be famous. Apparently the enjoyment of travel is derived from photos and photos alone; as Sui said, you’re paying mostly for the privilege of the tour bus’s hospitality.
As you may have guessed, I’m not really looking forward to a trip this Saturday with my parents. We’re to hit the Sacramento capitol, Salt Lake City, Mount Rushmore, Yellowstone Park, and Reno in seven days, which means that I may come back with good photos to compensate for a vastly shortened and truncated experience.
On the plus side, I’ll probably be able to get a lot of reading done and finish a few games on my DS that I’ve neglected.
[...] sightseeing tour is the next worst offender and encompass what most associate with the word “travel”. [...]