Comments on: Tim Leffel on Prepackaged Travel Vacations

By: Travel Guy

Travel Guy — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 01:56:04 +0000

I agree the spot isn’t perfect for Visa, however, I’ve had some good experiences with vacation packages and escorted tours at times when I wanted to travel and was willing to pay a little more to avoid planning/worrying. I don’t think the ad hits as hard (in a bad way) as you guys think. Just my opinion. :- )

By: Mike

Mike — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 13:31:55 +0000

I couldn’t agree more, Rene. To be honest, some of the best travel stories I have stem from when things went wrong. The prepackaged vacation offerings are reminiscent of so many other plastic, shrink-wrapped, FDA-approved things we do here in America (and increasingly other parts of the world) – amusement park rides; microwaved dinners at Olive Garden; the “authentic” cafe experience of Starbucks. It seems so little is truly authentic anymore.

By: Rene

Rene — Tue, 30 Oct 2007 22:02:36 +0000

That is just so wrong.

When Jim and I went to the Basque region of Spain way back in 2000, we wanted to rent motorcycles. Instead of a prepackaged tour, we got some beater bikes from a shop in Madrid and did our own thing, on our own time, for far less money.

Sure, those tour riders looked way snazzier than we did when we saw them blow past us near Pamplona. They rode shiny new BMWs, and didn’t even have to carry luggage. And they never needed to think about where to ride or stay or eat. How easy.

But all these years later, I’ll bet they don’t have the same (now) funny stories that Jim and I do, like ones about our bikes breaking down in Bilbao and how we tried to get help in our awful Spanish. Or, how we ended up staying in some really far out hostels in the middle of nowhere, like Agreda, in places where tourists seldom ventured.

This is what makes travel worthwhile. Why bother if it’s all thought out for you?