Travel agencies vs. independent tourism. Independent and individual tourism - what is important to know about it Tourism independent tourism

Independent travel and independent tourism are not much different, but they differ from organized holiday through travel companies.
Reasons why people choose independent holiday, a lot of.
Some people like that the same vacation can be organized cheaper than through a travel company.
For others, there is confidence that they will not be deceived, and if it is necessary to cancel the trip, the loss of small commissions will not be a reason for disappointment. Agree that flying to a country in the midst of an epidemic or where it has become unsettled and terrorist attacks have become more frequent, just because canceling the trip is too expensive, is not reasonable.
Third, independent travel offers the opportunity to see more in one vacation, experience completely different sensations and get real pleasure from an independent vacation.

People most often think about the first independent trip in next vacation on a vacation package, when vacationers meet, those who relax on their own.

What you should pay attention to when thinking about traveling on your own

Safety
Travel safety should always come first when choosing a country (vacation destination).
Purchasing travel insurance is a mandatory and important part of an independent tour. To buy insurance, you don’t have to go anywhere; everything can be done online. Here you will find an article on where, how and how much to buy travel insurance.
But if insurance is an opportunity to compensate for medical care, then common sense is a chance to prevent insured and non-insurable events.
In addition to the preference of choice safe country To travel as a wild man, it should be taken into account that in any country there are local risk factors.
You shouldn’t tempt fate once again by walking along deserted streets at night while drunk.
The city center and the outskirts are two sides of the same coin. Outskirts and slums, this is not the best place to get acquainted with national customs.

Country selection
Choosing a country for a holiday is more about the type of holiday, whether it will be beach holiday, excursion or with the possibility of both. I think that everything is simple here, and the choice depends only on you.

Accommodation
Finding a hotel or accommodation can seem like one of the most difficult parts of planning. traveling on your own, but in fact, this issue is resolved quite simply.
The closer to the city center and the higher the class of the hotel, the higher the price of accommodation will be. For economical accommodation, you should look for a 3-star hotel or accommodation on the outskirts of the city.
The issue of accommodation is a matter of price and quality of service, and if you can save money on this, then why not take advantage of it.
For this purpose, there are special services that help you find and book a hotel room or apartment via the Internet.
Here you will find articles about hotel search and accommodation booking services:
- book a hotel in Booking;
- booking hotels in HotelLook;
- search for housing around the world.

In some cases, booking accommodation can be not only convenient and comfortable, but also cost-effective.
Read these articles and you will understand that finding and booking a hotel and apartment is not as difficult as it seems.

The language barrier
Knowledge of English will help only in English-speaking countries, in other countries ordinary people he is known the same way as in our country, with a C grade. Knowledge of English is no longer required when purchasing air tickets and booking a hotel; for this we use sites that support the Russian language. But knowledge of the language may be required at the hotel itself, and independent travel is the best way to improve this knowledge. In other cases, everything can be solved using a notepad, phrasebook, fingers and gestures.
Be sure to keep a notepad and pen with you, because after the questions - How much? or Quanta Costa? they will be very useful to you.
Believe me, there you will get a second wind, which will help you find a common language and understanding with the local population. And this is exactly what will give you unforgettable impressions and memories of your vacation as a savage.

Visa
In most countries where tourists are loved and welcome, a permit is not required, a visa is issued upon arrival, and some European countries are allowed to stay on their territory without a visa for up to 72 hours.
The list of these countries may change and therefore it is worth checking for each country on the websites of these countries when choosing a country for your holiday.
But there are countries that require a visa to enter. The websites of the consulates, embassies of these countries, or the visa center closest to you, have all the necessary information about the documents and fees that will be required when applying for a visa. Gather all documents and make an appointment if possible. In some cases, it is enough to have transport tickets, a passport, a hotel reservation and insurance, but sometimes they ask for a certificate from work and call back for verification.
In this article you will find information on how to get Schengen yourself.

I also recommend using Google maps whenever possible. Look online in advance at the streets, houses and attractions, this will help you navigate the area and not get lost while walking around a little-familiar city.
This is what it looks like Palace of Westminster and Big Ben clock tower on Google map.

Where to start a self-guided tour

To feel confident on an independent tour abroad, try first independent holiday Houses. Buy air tickets to Crimea and book a hotel, or choose any other resort in Krasnodar region or Abkhazia.
Afterwards, plan an independent holiday in Bulgaria. Buy cheap air tickets to Burgas and book a hotel.
We can also recommend spending a few days in Prague; here you can compare prices for air tickets to Prague. In Prague, accommodation can be cheaper than a hotel room.
In Bulgaria and the Czech Republic they understand Russian, and this simplifies communication.
When you get used to independent trips, then you can safely plan an independent vacation in Greece, Italy, Spain or Thailand.
Independent tours to Turkey and Egypt, with rare exceptions, will be cost-effective, so it is better to go on vacation to these countries through a travel company.

Planning an independent holiday

You can plan an independent holiday in advance or fly out immediately after purchasing cheap air tickets. Here you will find an article about unplanned trips.
If you managed to buy cheap air tickets on a promotion or on a charter flight exchange, then your vacation will be adjusted to the purchased air tickets. All you have to do is find a hotel or accommodation and book it, buy insurance and...

Planning an independent holiday starts 2-3 months in advance, this allows you to find cheap air tickets in the direction where you would most like to go on vacation.
If you can’t decide on a vacation spot, go to a travel company and ask what they can advise you. Once they find a tour for you, use their suggestion to plan your own vacation.
According to calendar low prices, find a day for cheap plane tickets through a hotel search, find out the cost of living, in general, take into account all the costs that will be associated with a vacation in the proposed hotel travel company. If the hotel has a choice of boarding house, then the issue of food will be resolved, if not, then calculate the food based on how much is spent on food at home. Food in our country costs the same, or even more, than in many countries. By calculating the approximate costs of traveling on your own and comparing them with the cost of the tour, you can decide how it will be more profitable to relax.
If an independent holiday suits you, then proceed to buying air tickets and booking a hotel or accommodation.

What’s great about solo travel:
- This is a completely different type of vacation, which is perceived differently.
- The difference in the cost of traveling on your own is not significant, but it is 20-30% cheaper than similar tours.
- For you, every day becomes new, which you completely plan yourself, starting with breakfast and ending with the fact that you may already be spending the night in another hotel. Traveling through cities, you will always discover something new - previously unknown.

The most difficult thing is to decide on your first independent trip, but once you do it at least once, you will understand that independent travel is much more interesting than ready-made tours, and easier than they seem at first glance.

You can choose the direction where to go on vacation on our website.

Country selection

Choosing a place to travel is a purely individual thing; I usually focus on several points when choosing a country for a new trip. Firstly, it is desirable that this is a new country for me or a place where I have never been before, and secondly, you need to think about what you can do there, what attractions there are or what you can do there (I prefer leisure), and thirdly, you need to pay attention to various Promotions from airlines, when the price of tickets to a certain place can be very favorable. Sometimes the choice of country happens completely by chance: friends might invite you, or you might get caught cheap ticket on a plane or I can read some interesting book about this country, there can be countless reasons, for me it doesn’t really matter where to fly, the main thing is that it is interesting. You can find basic information about different countries on the website.

Search for a flight ticket

The next step after choosing a destination is to find a suitable and preferably cheap air ticket. First of all, you need to check whether discount airlines (low-cost airlines) fly in the chosen direction, for example, in Asia it is AirAsia, and in Europe Ryanair, such companies usually offer the cheapest flights, but this is not profitable in all cases. After checking budget airlines, it is imperative to search for air tickets on regular airlines; it is impossible to check all airlines, so it is better to use aggregator search engines that collect price information from many airlines and air ticket sales agencies and provide it to convenient form. With the help of such air ticket search engines, it is very easy to find the cheapest options (offers are sorted by price) on the desired route. There are several such search engines and for the most part they all have similar functionality, but I am used to using them and have been searching and buying tickets through them for 3 years now. Search cheap air ticket It’s very simple, just enter the destination we need and select the flight dates. (You can check out detailed instructions About, ). Promotions and promotions are also published on the website. Special offers from airlines - this is very convenient for those who have not yet decided where they want to travel. Sometimes you can fly to Europe for 5,000 rubles with all round-trip fees due to the promotion of some airline.

I’ve been buying air tickets exclusively on the Internet for 4 years now - it’s much easier and more convenient, the whole purchasing process takes no more than 5 minutes and you don’t have to go anywhere. During this time, I bought hundreds of air tickets via the Internet and never had any problems with it. To purchase you only need bank card, which you can pay on the Internet.

Another tip for those who do not live in Moscow or St. Petersburg - check the price of an air ticket with departure (arrival) from Moscow (or other cities closest to you major cities), it may turn out to be much cheaper.

If you are looking for a flight ticket to a popular tourist destination, you can also check last minute flight deals on charter flights, this can be done for example.

Hotel search and selection

Different hotel booking sites work differently, some offer to pay for the hotel immediately, while others book without prepayment, but you need to pay directly upon check-in, the first option gives more guarantees that the room will be reserved for you, and in the second case it is easier to cancel the reservation.

The process of searching and booking hotels is similar to searching for air tickets; the main difficulty is finding the most suitable option (in the case of hotels, reviews can help with this).

Getting a visa on your own

There are 130 countries in the world where Russians do not need a visa or a visa is issued upon arrival - that’s more than half the world! (WITH full list visa-free countries can be found on Wikipedia)

At the same time, there are countries that are of great interest to travelers, but where you need to get a visa (USA, Europe, China, etc.), but the process of obtaining a visa is much simpler than it seems at first glance or as they want to present it travel agencies. I independently obtained visas to the USA (2 times), Europe (France), China, Myanmar, and in no case was there a need to contact a travel agency. The whole job of travel agencies is to send documents to the visa center and for this they charge quite a lot of money. When I needed a visa to France, I saw offers from travel agencies that reached up to 500-600 euros for help in obtaining a visa, this is just robbery! I collected it myself Required documents and went to the France visa center in Moscow. After 3 days I received a ready-made Schengen visa, it cost me 70 euros (35 euros consular fee and 35 euros for visa center services). You can contact the consulate directly, then obtaining a visa will take longer, but you can save 35 euros.

The process of obtaining a visa is very simple and is described on the websites of the embassies (or consulates) of the respective country. All you need is to find the website of the embassy (or the visa center closest to you, if there is one), look at it for the list of documents required to obtain a visa and make an appointment (if necessary). Most often, to obtain a visa, a passport, air tickets, hotel reservations and insurance are enough. After that, you just need to submit your documents and wait for them to give you a visa. There's nothing complicated about it. It is especially easy to obtain a Schengen visa on your own, given that many new visa centers for European countries have recently opened throughout the country.

It is worth noting that in some countries (such as Japan) it is much more difficult to obtain a visa without the services of travel agencies, so in this case, contacting a travel company may be justified.

Language problem

One of the main problems that stops people from traveling independently is insufficient knowledge of English (de facto English is the international language). But it seems to me that most people overestimate the significance of this problem. Yes, not knowing English can make your trip a little more difficult, but it cannot make traveling on your own impossible. I have been to places where the local population did not speak English language and then I had to explain myself with gestures - this is of course more difficult, but this makes it even more interesting. In Thailand I often saw Russian tourists who came to relax on a tourist package and do not speak English at all, so these tourists walk around the city perfectly, buy fruits at local markets, while they speak Russian, and the Thais answer them in Thai, and everyone understands each other perfectly . Sign language is a very universal language and can explain almost everything. I will give two more examples from my experience. In China I once met an Irishman who was planning to travel from Irkutsk to Moscow in reserved seat carriage During our meeting, he learned five Russian words - that's all he knew in Russian. And another time, in a train compartment, I met a Swiss man who was traveling to Tobolsk alone, not only did he speak English very poorly (but in Russia, knowing English can be of little help to a foreigner, especially in the provinces), he didn’t speak at all in Russian, but this did not stop him from traveling from Moscow to Beijing by train, stopping in many Russian cities and exploring them on his own. Upon returning to Switzerland, he wrote to me that he really enjoyed this trip and was simply delighted.

There is no language problem - there is only fear of this problem.

Search for information. What to do and what to visit.

If you prefer to go on excursions in an organized manner, then on most popular tourist destinations Such excursions can be booked on the spot from local companies (with a Russian-speaking guide); most often, it will be cheaper than booking excursions from the travel company where you bought the ticket. In countries such as Egypt, Thailand, Turkey, there are a lot of local companies that will be happy to organize an excursion program for you, but I would suggest driving through the sights on your own, for this you just need to arm yourself with a guidebook.

But I would recommend hiring a local guide yourself for individual excursion, it may be a little more expensive than group excursion, but you will be able to receive individual service and, for sure, very interesting impressions. Self-guided programs are often more exclusive and will allow you to visit places you might never see on your own or with a group. There are several sites where you can find and book excursions from independent local guides; I recommend the Russian site, which has already proven itself to be good.

Travel insurance and safety

Purchasing a ticket from a travel agency provides absolutely no guarantees of safety. Your peace of mind is only in your hands, and the travel agency cannot provide any additional security. Most accidents happen to those who come on an organized tour, as they get a false sense of security and lose their vigilance.

When traveling abroad, always take out travel insurance, it can be done quickly and inexpensively (less than $1 per day). To obtain a visa to Europe (Schengen visa) and many other visa countries, the purchase of insurance is required. You can get an insurance policy from almost any insurance company or, even easier, you can get insurance online. You can compare offers from insurance companies and apply for insurance online on the website, where you can choose the best offer from the largest insurance companies (you can read more about the instructions for choosing and purchasing insurance in the article -). An electronic insurance policy has the same legal force as a paper policy. If you have an insurance policy, in the event of an accident, you will need to call the phone number indicated in the policy and they will give you all the instructions on what to do next, and if necessary, call a doctor. Take care of your safety yourself, no one will do it but you.

What are the advantages of independent travel compared to tour packages?

The main advantages of independent travel are freedom and low cost. You are in complete control of your journey, you go where you want, and not where your guide tells you. You don't have to live in the same place for the entire holiday; if you want to move to another place or hotel, you can easily do so. When traveling on your own, you will never find yourself in a situation where your tour company goes bankrupt and does not pay for your hotel stay. I think everyone remembers when hundreds of tourists around the world could not return home and were not allowed out of hotels, demanding to pay for their accommodation - with independent tourism this is basically impossible, since only you control everything.

Traveling on your own is cheap, the price of your trip depends only on you and your preferences. You do not need to pay for unnecessary services of travel companies; you can always choose the best offer. Let's compare the cost of independent travel and a tour package for specific example. Let's take one of the most popular directions - Pattaya resort(Thailand) and the largest tour operator TezTour. Let's say we want to go to Pattaya in early November for 7 days (departure on November 6th), one of the tour company's offers includes a flight from Moscow, transfer and 7 nights at the WELCOME PLAZA 3 * hotel with breakfast, the price for this tour package is 68,086 rubles for 2 people. Now let's see how much it would cost if we went on our own. We go to the website and look for a Moscow-Bangkok flight with a departure in early November for 2 people, as a result we get a price of 42,880 rubles for two. Then we look for a hotel on the website, enter the name Welcome Plaza and the dates in early November into the search bar, and we get a price of 9,035 rubles for 7 nights for double occupancy. A bus from Bangkok airport to Pattaya costs about 100 rubles per person. Thus, the total cost of the trip at independent planning it turns out to be 52,115 rubles, which is 15,971 rubles cheaper than the tour package offered by the travel agency. It's simple math, it's up to you to decide.

Or, for example, one more popular destination- Cuba. At the beginning of October (departure on October 2, 2012), a package with flights, transfers and accommodation at the Vedado 3* hotel (reviews about the hotel, by the way, are not very good, but you won’t have a chance to change it) from TezTour costs 113,256 rubles for two. If we conduct a search, as we did above, we will find that the Moscow-Havana-Moscow flight for these dates costs 72,381 rubles, and the same hotel for 7 nights costs 11,311 rubles, which gives a total of 83,692 rubles, and this almost 30,000 rubles less than the tour company’s offer.

And if you take a non-standard route, which can be organized very easily if you plan it yourself, then purchasing it from a travel agency can be many times more expensive.

In rare cases, it happens that in a particular area there is no cheap air tickets and then it turns out that using a tourist package may be more profitable. But this happens quite rarely, and over time it will become even less common, especially given the fact that this year tour operators have significantly increased the cost of tourist packages against the backdrop of bankruptcies of large travel companies and an increase in the dollar exchange rate.

In fact, you pay travel agencies for the following services:

Flight. Often old planes with poor maintenance, but you can't change anything and choose an airline.
Hotel. You won't be able to change the hotel if you don't like it or want to go somewhere else.
Transfer from the airport to the hotel by shared bus.
Visa. If the country requires a visa (and there are not many of them), then they will collect your documents and send them to a visa center, but they cannot guarantee the successful receipt of a visa.
Excursions. You may be offered excursions, but the price will be many times higher than if you went to the same places on your own or through local excursion bureaus.

This is where the services of tour operators end. No one will help you communicate in a store or market if you don’t know the language, you shouldn’t expect help from a guide, if you have an accident, they are not obliged to help you, this is not included in the list of their services. Really, after reading this article, you won’t be able to organize your trip yourself, making it cheaper and more interesting?

If I still haven’t convinced you that it’s better to travel on your own, and you still intend to go on vacation with a package, then I recommend that you read the instructions - “”, so as not to waste time on trips to travel agencies, but to easily and conveniently find and book everything online.

Conclusion

The most difficult thing is to take the first step, but you only have to go somewhere on your own once and you will never want to buy packages again. organized tours. Don’t put it off for later, start planning your next trip on your own and you will see that it is much easier, cheaper and more interesting than it seems at first glance.

PS: If you have any questions or want to clarify something, ask in the comments, it is important for us to know whether this material was useful and how it could be supplemented. Share this article with your friends via social media, let them also find out how easy it is to go abroad on their own.

Group tours are far from the only service that the modern industry can provide to a traveler.

Today, he has many alternatives in the form of independent or individual tourism, which allows him not to be tied to popular routes, or to certain types of transport, or to set departure dates for a wide range of clients.

We will analyze in detail what you need to know about the features of such a holiday and the options for organizing it in different countries.

Independent tourism is usually called such tourism, which involves complete or partial refusal from the services of tour operators. However, in most cases, tourists, especially beginners, do not completely refuse the help of specialists.

Most often, this type of tourism is used by travelers who want to attend thematic festivals, concerts of their favorite bands, as well as other events for which group tours are not organized.

This type of tourism can be organized in various ways. In particular, it includes:

Backpacking is travel that involves minimal spending of money on travel and accommodation.
Hitchhiking is moving around a selected area using passing vehicles.
Booking is independent tourism, which does not involve the help of tour operators at all. The traveler independently books hotels, buys tickets, and receives a visa.
Autotourism is a type of travel in which the central means of transportation for tourists is a personal car.
Traveling through guest networks. The most popular amateur type of tour in recent years.

The advantages of this type of tourism include the ability to tailor a trip to suit your own budget, preferences, and schedule. That is why today it is developing so quickly and productively in various countries.

Amateur tourism is a type of independent tourism that involves the use of personal transport to travel along routes. This can be either a personal or rented vehicle. Most often this is a car, although it can be a yacht, an airplane or any other type.

The assistance of travel agencies in this particular type of tourism consists of booking hotels, additional services ah, including obtaining a visa, drawing up a route (especially if a person is going on such a trip for the first time), sometimes even reserving the vehicle itself.

Also, a travel company can negotiate the services of local guides for its clients. However, in general amateur tourism transfers only the most complex travel issues to this type of organization, taking on the organization of the trip to the maximum.

It is this tourism that allows a person to enjoy all the benefits that specialized agencies provide, and at the same time freely choose the route, the type of hotels in which he wants to stay, as well as other parameters of his own vacation.

Unlike alternative tours, it provides for full provision of organizational aspects of departure by the travel company itself. In this case, it should provide:

Consultations on choosing a route to suit your needs individual tour.
Booking tickets for the dates required by the client. This category includes not only international routes, but also domestic ones, if the client is moving from city to city.
Selection and booking of hotels.
Ordering tickets for the type of event chosen by the client - visiting exhibitions, theaters, entertainment venues, water parks and other similar places.
Providing additional services, including car rental, equipment for extreme tourism or other individual means necessary to provide a tour specifically in your case.

We can say that individual tourism occupies that golden mean between group and independent tours. It actually completely adapts to the client’s needs, but does not involve placing all the hassle of organizing the trip on him.

Those who like independent tourism can choose for themselves ready routes, developed by their predecessors who chose Poland for themselves. Among the most successful and truly interesting are the following:

Lublin, Krakow, Warsaw – self-guided tour major cities Poland, which has a record number historical places, interesting for tourists.
Poznan, Warsaw, Krakow, Lublin, Wroclaw - an extended individual tour of the most popular Polish cities, designed for those wishing to get to know the history or culture of Poland in more detail.
Krakow, then Wroclaw, Warsaw, cozy Poznan, as well as small Gdansk and Gdynia. The tour brings together the brightest historical cities countries, as well as new small towns built in this country after the war.

These tours can be adapted as for regular excursion trip, and for religious and cultural tours.

The traveler only needs to choose the direction he is interested in in advance, and adapting it will not be difficult at all.

On such trips, the calculation of the time spent in each city is 1 day - 1 city.

Tours can be easily adjusted to suit the client’s wishes, for example, he can increase the time of stay in one location to 3 days or more, adjust the program of stay, add visits to seasonal exhibitions, performances, festivals and other events.

Also in Poland it is not difficult to organize amateur tourism by type of activity. This offer is especially often used for organizing extreme tours. Among them:

Horse rides. It is one of the most dynamic areas representing amateur tourism. Developed in Lodz, Bronszewice.
Boat trips in Gdynia or Pruszkow.
Rafting and rafting in Jaswily and Karpacz.
Kayaking trips in Przechlewo.
Walking tours. Since this destination has recently become very popular in Poland, amateur tourism of this type is organized in various places: Zakopane, Jaslo, Bronszewice.

Whatever amateur tourism a traveler chooses, when going to these parts of Poland, he can always count on the opportunity to book equipment for his sport here, as well as rent good apartments for accommodation.

You can go here at any time of the year. All you need to do is organize your trip correctly and obtain a visa to Poland. Fortunately, this is not so difficult to do today.

The difficulty of organizing a trip as part of an individual trip or self-guided tour depends directly on how actively a person involves travel agencies in this task.

After all, they can take upon themselves the preparation of most aspects for a person’s departure. The simplest thing in this regard is individual tourism. After all, here the client just needs to choose a route for himself, the agency does the rest. The remaining types have a lot of nuances in organization.

Fans of such a direction as amateur tourism should pay special attention to obtaining a visa. As you know, those who travel to Schengen countries via group tours, they give it out much more willingly.

For many experienced travelers There are already proven tour operators that help organize your vacation. But their services are not affordable for everyone. If you don’t want to pay a travel agency, you can organize everything yourself. What are the pros and cons of traveling independently?

pros

1. It is difficult to find a good tour operator. Rudeness on the part of travel agency employees and the company's financial problems, which often lead to bankruptcy, are well known to many. Those who like to relax without intermediaries depend only on themselves: on their financial capabilities, on their desires (you can change your travel route at any time).

2. Save time. Often, a travel agency’s vacation program includes various excursions, which are not always interesting to vacationers. You still have to go to the meeting place at a strictly appointed time. If someone is late, everyone waits for the offender. When organizing your excursions yourself, the excursion plan depends only on you. During your walks, no one will get under your feet and irritate you. You can go to any museum. To sit in a cafe, you don’t have to ask anyone for permission.

3. Saving money. Each travel agency offers its own trusted air carriers and its own hotels, although sometimes you can find other (cheap) options. In the middle of the week, air tickets are much cheaper than on Friday and Saturday, and instead of hotels, you can choose hostels or rent an apartment (room).

4. The tourist determines the departure date himself. It is difficult to fit your vacation into the tour operator’s schedule. If a vacationer is already tired of everything on the fifth or sixth day, it will not be possible to simply leave the vacation spot with a tour package. Any day a free tourist can exchange a luxury hotel for a simple hut (if he suddenly wants something exotic) or leave home ahead of time.

5. There is an opportunity to communicate with local residents, get to know the national culture better.

Minuses

1. Organizing the trip lies entirely on your shoulders: buying tickets, finding a hotel, choosing a route, obtaining a visa, etc. It will take several days to resolve all these issues. When purchasing a tour, all problems are solved by the travel agency employees.

2. If you don't know foreign languages, there may be a language barrier. Hotel managers in different countries most often speak English. Yes and simple walk walking around a market or a store without knowing basic foreign words will bring a lot of problems.

3. If force majeure suddenly arises, you will have to decide everything yourself. For your own peace of mind, you can arrange health insurance. IN organized trip The guide is responsible for everything.

For traveling with your family (parents, children), it is better to buy ready-made tour packages. With a last minute tour you can sometimes save a lot of money. Many travel companies also offer to book your vacation in installments. If you like improvisation while traveling and have a lot of free time, then independent organization relaxation is exactly what suits you.

Did you like this news? Then press.

Or how to travel on your own, without travel agencies

How to travel on your own? The question is quite reasonable if trips organized by travel agencies do not suit the tourist for some reason. These reasons, by the way, are very heterogeneous. Some people prefer to travel on their own for mercantile reasons, in order to save money, others – because they dislike traveling as part of crowded tourist groups. Some travelers are drawn to the exotic, off-the-beaten paths and routes. Others, on the contrary, gravitate towards civilization, the historical and cultural heritage of various countries of the world. In other words, everyone has motives independent tourists different, everyone is looking for something different, individual and in this sense exclusive. This, perhaps, is the very essence of independent travel. Independent tourism allows everyone to find something of their own and organize a trip for themselves, focusing on their own interests, needs, habits, etc., etc., etc....

However, this is all lyrics. It is clear that if people travel on their own, then someone needs it. Discuss on the topic “Why and why?” in essence it is possible endlessly. However, the purpose of this note is to describe key organizational issues. If you travel on your own, how to do it, where to start, where to go?

In general, in our opinion, the question of how to travel independently can (and even should) be divided into several components. What are these parts? For example, you can take any average tour organized by any average tour operator. Most often, the tour consists of flight(travel by bus, train, boat, etc.), hotel stay(in a villa, in an apartment, in a tent, etc.), transfers(movements from the point of arrival in the country to the place of residence and back) and excursion program(visiting museums, traveling to other cities, etc.). The same components include independent travel. In other words, if you plan to travel on your own, then you will have to take care of all organizational issues yourself. As they say, if you love to ride, you also love to carry a sled.

Next, we will consider each of the listed aspects in more detail and formulate a number of practical recommendations. In this case, of course, it must be taken into account that different countries have their own characteristics. Therefore, we will try, on the one hand, to avoid excessive detail, and on the other, to concentrate on general points applicable to organizing independent travel in general.

Transport

If speak about independent travel abroad, then perhaps the most popular look transport are airplanes. Let’s start with them, especially since today there are quite a lot of useful tools on the Internet that allow you to search for the most convenient and affordable options for air travel to any country in the world.

One of these tools is presented on i- T icketsF inder.ru. The same search service can be found on www.aviasales.ru. In addition, to search for air tickets, you can use the sites www.skyscanner.ru and www.momondo.ru. They are similar in many ways and partly complement each other. The meaning of their use is simple. All of the listed sites allow you to search for air tickets while simultaneously using many independent sources of information, including airline sites and ticket agency sites. As a result, this makes it possible to choose the best deals, the best flight options and buy the tickets you like online.

On this topic, however, it is worth additionally reading articles in which the issue of searching and purchasing air tickets on the Internet is discussed in more detail:

Besides airplanes, of course, there are other types of transport. Let's not dwell on each of them for a long time. It’s better to provide links to several quite useful sources of information from which you can glean a lot of useful information:

rzd.ru – official website of Russian railways, information about international routes RUSSIAN RAILWAYS.
www.seat61.com – website about railways around the world (in English).
www.aferry.to and www.directferries.co.uk – search for ferry tickets, cruise ships and so on.
www.ecolines.net and www.eurolines.com – bus routes from Russia to Europe and between European countries.
www.busstation.net – website about bus routes Worldwide.

Hotels

Booking a hotel on your own is quite simple, at least from a technical point of view. There are many online booking sites that allow you to resolve this issue in just a few minutes. There are, perhaps, too many of these sites, and at the sight of this diversity, inexperienced travelers sometimes fall into a stupor. Therefore, we will try to set some guidelines that will help you understand the topic self-booking hotels on the Internet. First, let's list the most noticeable, in our opinion, sites:

All of the listed and other similar sites allow you to book hotels in almost all countries of the world without leaving your computer. To do this, you will need to provide your information: last name, first name, email address, as well as, as a rule, bank card details and some other details. Thus, there is no need to call or write directly to the hotel. The entire process is automated. But that is not all.

In addition to hotel booking sites, there are services that search several sites simultaneously and thus bring together information from various sources. Thanks to this, it becomes possible to quickly compare prices for hotels from different booking systems and choose the most best deals and thereby save money and time. Examples: www.roomguru.ru and hotellook.ru. Hotel price comparison sites are reviewed in more detail on i- HotelsFinder.ru(see, in particular,).

However, we will not repeat ourselves here again. To develop the topic of self-booking hotels, you can refer to the following articles:

Transfers

If we talk about transfers, the first thing you should pay attention to is the network sites public transport, websites of airports and train stations, as well as other official tourism resources of the country or countries where you plan to travel. All these sources of information allow us to solve most of the issues related to the need to get from one point to another. In addition, there are many companies offering individual and collective transfers for independent tourists. It is clear that it makes no sense to list all such sites in one list. Therefore, in this part of the travel organization scheme, you will have to arm yourself with search engines and Google, Yandex, Rambler... At the same time, as a rule, there is not so much information in Russian. But in English you can find almost anything.

Excursions

In terms of organizing the excursion program, everything is even more individual. Firstly, everyone has their own interests. And secondly, on the Internet, most often, it is quite easy to find information about any country, city, attraction, etc. Here again, you can turn to search engines and search, search, search. Armed with the information you find, guides and tourist guides, you can see a lot on your own. But you can go the other way and trust private guides and tour guides. Russian-speaking specialists offering relevant services can be found, if not in all, then in most countries of the world, especially in Europe. Of course, most of them do not work for free, but you don’t have to look for anything - they will tell you everything and show you everything.

These, in our opinion, are the basics of independent tourism. Of course, as you plan your travel, you will have all sorts of questions that are not covered in this article. But the main thing is to start, and there will always be information. One thing is for sure - you have a lot of discoveries to make if you decide to organize your trip yourself, without travel agents and tour operators. Good luck!

More detailed information organizational aspects briefly described above can be found in the corresponding section

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