How Not to Wear Yourself Out on Vacation Tours

Beware of FOMO When Booking Your Vacation Tours

You Really Don’t Need to Go On Every Tour You Can Find in a Google Search

If you’re traveling somewhere popular, you probably already have a few places in mind that you plan on visiting, but you may find it all too tempting to add extra visits to other sites with more and more tours as your itinerary develops. At a certain point, it’s important to take a look at your overall schedule and figure out whether you’re trying to do too much just because you’re worried about missing something amazing on your trip.

One of the worst things that can happen on a vacation is that you plan too much and get so tired after the first few days that everything that comes after is a tiring blur that’s difficult to enjoy. What does it matter if you tour the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre, and Notre Dame all in one day if it means you’re worn out the next when you head over to the Palace of Versailles?

The first thing you should do when creating your itinerary, especially when you’re visiting a place you’ve never been before, is choose the primary tourist destination you’d like to visit. Then, you can start adding other places or activities to fill the time you have available. However, it’s vital that you don’t try to fit activities into absolutely every second of the day.

I say this as someone who’s traveled to several continents and had all sorts of adventures: you don’t want to go overboard with the tours. At a certain point, you will burn out and you will wake up one morning feeling like you just got hit by a truck. Don’t risk having half of your vacation – or more! – feel like drudgery because tried to do too much during too few hours.

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Many Tours Actually Overlap One Another

And Sometimes, Missing the “Big” Touristy Thing Won’t Ruin Your Vacation

As you research the vacation tours you’ll take, you might start to notice that some of the tours overlap one another and visit similar sites. You can avoid double-booking tours that cover the same territory by opting for tours that have the entire itinerary or schedule listed before you book. There’s almost zero reason to visit a particular place twice, even if most of the tour visits different areas than another.

When I visited Paris for a brief few days, I wanted to see as much of the city as possible without wasting any time, but I also knew I was at the start of what would be a three-week journey across Europe and Africa, so I was cognizant of the length of each of my tours, too. When I started searching through my options, I found two tours that would take me to entirely different parts of the city.

One tour focused on the western and southernmost parts of Paris and was a bicycle tour that showed us all sorts of neat views we wouldn’t have seen on a mainstream tour of the “big” venues around town. The other tour was a lightning fast tour on the metro that took us to all the major sites like the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre, the Arc du Triomphe, and Notre Dame (just to see the exteriors though).

The tours didn’t really overlap at all except for one view of Notre Dame that we had from an apartment window during the bicycle tour. So technically, we saw Notre Dame twice, but that was the only area where you could consider the tours overlapping. However, it was a mild overlap at best, and the bicycle tour really didn’t focus on anything more than giving us a cool rooftop view of the cathedral anyway.

Read Reviews of Different Tourist Venues

Reviews Can Lead to Tours You Didn’t Know Existed

I always read reviews before I book tours because you never know when a score has been artificially inflated or when it’s been rated without any actual reviews. Sure, a hike to some magnificent waterfalls could have a 5.0 rating out of 5.0, but if there’s no actual reviews offering details about the experience, I don’t take that rating as seriously as a 4.5 with stellar reviews about a great hiking experience.

Sometimes, you’ll even get information from other travelers that makes you change your itinerary entirely in favor of visiting other venues or even entirely different towns. When I visited Morocco, one of the very popular sites to visit is the “blue city” of Chefchaouen, but I read multiple reviews of the experience that suggested getting to the town was a big endeavor and the reward of seeing the village wasn’t totally worth it.

One of the things they don’t tell you when you visit Morocco is that there are a lot of blue buildings and brightly colored exteriors around the country. I saw a town along the coast south of Casablanca that could have been Chefchaouen’s twin in some respects. I also saw many differently colored exteriors in Marrakech and Fez. Unfortunately, getting to Chefchaouen required a significant investment of time spent in a car.

As I booked my tours, I realized I just wasn’t willing to drive for three hours (one way) from where I was staying to see a tiny town that wasn’t 100 percent unique from any other I was already going to see anyway. Yes, the town is probably worth seeing if you have the time and you’re on a leisurely trip of Morocco, but I’d be hard pressed to fit it into a schedule where I was picking and choosing where to go and visit.

Alternate Long and Short Days on Lengthy Trips

Give Yourself Some Rest Time, Even With Many Tours

The length of your vacation can have a fairly significant impact on how many tours, drives, trips, and visits you make during your itinerary. If you’re traveling for three weeks, you’ll definitely run yourself into the ground if you try to fit too much into your schedule. However, if you’re just visiting a city for three or four days, it’s probably worth it to stuff in as much fun as you can into your time there.

On most trips, I’ll try to stick to one tour per day, but that’s not always the case on shorter vacations. If my travels will take me somewhere for less than a week, I’ll definitely consider a morning outing for a few hours and something in the afternoon, too. I might arrange for a walking tour in the morning, find a well-reviews place for lunch in the afternoon, and then another walking tour in the evening.

The key here when arranging for more than one tour in a day is making sure that neither is too long. It’s pretty tough to undertake a half-day tour in the early morning and then get yourself ready for another few hours of walking at night. If you’re keen on seeing two completely different places in one day, try to book a pair of short tours, so you can see both venues and have a break in between visits.

I’m one of those travelers who loves seeing as much as possible, but even I know that having too many days back-to-back of huge, long tours can make things pretty difficult when it comes to waking up in the morning and having enough energy to really enjoy the experiences. Don’t be afraid to spend an afternoon without plans or to have an entire day without anything booked. Relax as the locals relax, and greet the next day with as much energy as you need.

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