A group of colorful chairs in Athens, Greece.

Adventure is a State of Mind

Large Tours Versus Large Groups

Those of you who have been following this blog for a while know I’m a big fan of independent travel. I’m sure my attitude sometimes comes across as being against large tours and cruises. This isn’t completely true. The reality is, I do think there are times when an organized tour is the perfect option. My ultimate concern, however, is that people are often too quick to book a tour, not thinking through their options, or feeling they can’t do it. The goal of Brave Wise Traveler is to help everyone feel confident that they can design their own, independent travel adventure… especially if that’s the best option for them.

Being a fan of independent travel, however, doesn’t mean I’m against traveling with a group. My husband, Greg, and I often travel with other couples. And this summer, we visited Greece with a total of ten family members, including ourselves. 

“The more the merrier” is definitely true! But more people can also mean more complications. To increase your chances of a successful and enjoyable travel adventure with a large group, a little extra planning goes a long way.

What is a Large Group?

If you’re an introvert, traveling with more than one person might feel like a large group, but for most businesses in the travel industry, ten or more people is what is considered a large group. It’s at that size you occasionally start finding group discounts for tickets, including for airline flights and hotels.

Personally, I think if you’re planning to travel with six or more people, the same group dynamics that occur with a larger group can impact your travel. For that reason, the advice in this article can be helpful even for those smaller travel groups.

A group sits at a rooftop restaurant in Athens Greece.
Eating dinner together as a large group was an activity we prioritized several times during our trip to Greece Sometimes that meant making reservations so we could all be accommodated

Pick Your People

We’ve previously discussed how not every person you enjoy spending time with during your normal, non-travel days will be a good travel companion. There are many people we love dearly who aren’t a good match for our travel style. 

The easiest approach is to pick travel companions whom you know are interested in doing the same things you are at the same pace. Sometimes, however, we may want to travel with a group that mostly is similar when it comes to travel styles, but there may be a few members who have different interests and needs. For example, maybe you want to plan a trip with your best friends from high school or a trip with all of your siblings and their children and grandchildren. Such groups are going to have more complicated group dynamics because the groups weren’t created based on travel interests, but this doesn’t mean the trip can’t be successful and fun. It just means it will probably be more complicated.

To help ensure a successful trip with a large group, don’t ignore differences. Instead, have conversations about those differences and expectations. (More on that later.) Dealing with such complications openly, rather than just hoping they won’t be an issue, means they are less likely to later create problems, misunderstandings, or hurt feelings.

A Group is More Than Just Its Individuals

Group dynamics are created not only by individual personalities but also by the interactions between all of those personalities. Sometimes we are traveling with a group whom we’ve seen interact as a whole before, such as traveling with family members who spend every Thanksgiving together. In that case, you probably have some idea of the group dynamics created when the entire group is in the same room. 

On the other hand, sometimes the group is a new creation. This can occur if you invite friends from different areas of your life, such as old high school friends, old college friends, and current work friends. Or maybe you invite your family and your spouse’s family. Sometimes the dynamics can change dramatically with just the addition of one person, as often occurs when a family member becomes involved in a serious relationship and their new partner joins the group.

The group dynamics created by the alchemy of the group itself are not always something you can predict. The fact that the dynamics might be different than you expect also doesn’t necessarily mean it’s going to be a problem. Sometimes the addition of that new brother-in-law is exactly the change the group needed to ratchet the fun up to a whole new level!

It is possible to travel alone. But the good traveller knows that the journey is human life and life needs company. ‘Companion’ means… the one who eats the same bread.

Dom Helder, adapted by Jane Bentley & Neil Paynter

Pick a Leader

If you’re initiating the plan to take a trip together as a group, you might already be the designated leader. This was the case with the group trip Greg and I took to Greece this summer – we wanted to go somewhere to celebrate our retirements, and we invited a number of family members to join us. Because it was our idea, we chose the location and dates, although we sought out input from the others when we were doing so.

There are times, however, when a group of people might all be in agreement that they want to experience a travel adventure together, but there is no clear leader. In that case, it is helpful to discuss and appoint someone to that role. Being the leader doesn’t mean you have to make all of the decisions and do all of the planning. (You can always delegate tasks.) It does mean, however, that there is one person who is overseeing the process of planning and is aware of what tasks are done and which still need to be completed. Without a leader, it’s easy for everyone to think someone else has completed a task… but no one wants to show up to their lodging and find out that the final payment and confirmation was never made!

A note of caution: Managing a large group requires good organizational skills and the ability to set limits. I’ve occasionally (and lovingly) described decision making with my in-laws as “herding cats.” While Greg and I asked for input on decisions, there were times when we set deadlines for that input and made an executive decision – for example, there were occasionally texts along the lines of, “Unless I hear otherwise by tomorrow morning, I’m booking our tickets for the Palace of Knossos for everyone for Monday morning.”

Sometimes you are facing deadlines, or dwindling options, when planning a travel adventure.  This is especially true if a lot of people are involved. For that reason, it’s not always the best move to wait for input from everybody. Instead, you need a designated leader who can make timely decisions.

A group supposes in front of a large hill with olive groves.
Because of the heat only some of our family visited the Palace of Knossos while we were on the island of Crete

A Large Group Doesn’t Always Have to Be a Group

Early in the process, it’s important to decide how much the group will do all together and how much individuals or smaller groups will do independently. This can include travel plans, locations, and activities. 

As an example, during our recent trip to Greece, Greg and I were able to spend more time away from home than the rest of our travel companions. And some of our family members wanted to travel to Santorini, which Greg and I preferred to avoid during the peak travel season. How this played out: we all spent a shared day in Athens, but then six of the group traveled to Santorini while four of us stayed in Athens for another two days. We then met up in Crete and spent six days together in Chania. At the end of the trip, one family member left on the sixth day needing to return to work. The rest of us left the next day, but we left at different times, with everyone returning home except for Greg and I, who traveled on to Thessaloniki.

A lot of moving parts, but the flexibility actually made the planning easier. For example, instead of trying to arrange and coordinate flights for ten people, each smaller group was responsible for making their own travel arrangements. For the activities we did together as a group, including staying together in a rental house in Chania, Crete, I made most of the arrangements after confirming with the group that the dates worked for them.

We had a couple of activities we hoped everyone would want to attend, including a couple of dinners, a tour of the historic Palace of Knossos, and a winery tour and tasting. These were discussed, and the one group member who does not drink immediately explained that she did not want to visit the winery, but as an introvert, she also looked forward to having that time to herself at the house. On the other hand, tickets were bought for the palace for everyone with the understanding that anyone could change their mind, but they would not be able to get that money back. As it turned out, a couple of the group members decided not to go on that excursion, but because the expectations had been discussed before the tickets were bought, there were no hard feelings that they were out that money.

As we’ve discussed many times on this website, it doesn’t have to be all-or-nothing. You can mix and match togetherness and independence to create a mix that works best for you and your travel companions. In fact, the most successful group trip will probably include a mix of both togetherness and independence, as well as scheduled and unscheduled/unstructured time.

Start Early

We won’t discuss how to choose a location and activities, as you can read past articles on those subjects. When traveling with a large group, however, it’s important to begin the process early. If you’re just a couple of people traveling together, there is a good chance that you can find an available hotel room or a table in a restaurant at the last minute. If you need five or more hotel rooms or a table for ten or more, it becomes difficult to be accommodated without advance planning.

A group of travelers walks through the streets in the Plaka in Athens, Greece.
During the brief time everyone in the group was in Athens Greece we made plans ahead of time to go to dinner together and explore a little bit of the Plaka neighborhood in Athens

Clarify Expectations… Especially About Money

In addition to starting the planning process early, it’s also important to identify and set expectations, or rules, for the group early. These expectations may or may not be about the travel itself, such as if some members have very strong opinions about staying only in hotels with air conditioning. Regardless of anything else you discuss, it’s especially important to have some discussion around finances. 

Misunderstandings about money contribute to much of the conflict and hard feelings that can occur between travel companions. You can head off a lot of problems by talking ahead of time about budgets, how to divide expenses, and what to do if one of the travelers changes their mind about an activity, such as the previous palace example, or even has to cancel at the last minute for the entire trip.

As with other decisions related to the travel plans, there are a multitude of ways to handle money. The most important thing is everyone being in agreement about the plan. For example, I was once in a situation of renting a home for a group traveling together when three of the travelers backed out after the date when we could cancel and get a refund. We hadn’t discussed how we were going to handle this, and at the time we made the reservation, one member of the group paid the deposit with the plan that everyone would reimburse her their share when we were all together. This resulted in those of us who still went on the trip paying more than we had initially expected for a house with more beds than we needed. It is likely we will do things differently next time, including having a discussion and clarifying expectations up front, such as everyone paying ahead. What’s important is that everyone has input and knows the plan from the beginning rather than getting surprised.

Identify Goals

Goals for your travel adventure are another type of expectation to address fairly early in the process since they will guide some of the activities you choose. In some cases, your goals may even impact where you decide to stay or what time of year you decide to travel.

Obviously, the primary goal of most travel is to have fun, but there are almost always other goals. With a large family or friend group, the goal is often to spend quality time together, but there may be other goals based on shared interests, whether that is visiting churches, seeing famous works of art, or hiking to mountain peaks. Rather than assuming what these goals are, identify them and discuss them ahead of time with your travel companions. 

And again, remember that not every goal has to be shared by the entire group. The important thing is to clarify what the goals are and who is interested in them.

Identify Needs

Obviously, the more members in the group, the more needs to be accommodated. Ahead of time, consider different physical abilities. This is where it is helpful to not plan on the entire group doing every activity together. If some of the travelers have health problems or are older, they may not be able to walk as far, climb as many steps, or sit in the sun for as long as other younger or healthier group members, so some activities may not be appropriate or fun for the entire group. 

This applies to personalities and interests as well. For example, introverts can enjoy spending time with the larger group, but they need more alone time to recharge their emotional and mental batteries than do extroverts. And everyone has different interests and hobbies. During our trip to Crete, my brother-in-law, Kip, was interested in scuba diving. As he is the only family member certified to do so, this was an activity that only he did (with a local guide and group), although he met up with us later for a meal near the harbor.

If you’re traveling with a multi-generational group, it is also important to take developmental levels into consideration. For example, young children tend to take in less history than adults before they start zoning out (well, I know a few adults who zone out pretty quickly too), and they often need physical activity and playtime more than adults… although most of us adults can benefit from physical activity and play as well!

The view out a window in Santorini, Greece.
Some of our family traveled to the island of Santorini while the rest of us spent a couple more days in Athens before we all met again in Crete Photo by Jordan Tyler
Special Group Considerations

Overall, once you’ve clarified goals and expectations, planning a travel adventure for a large group isn’t that different from planning a trip for two or four people – except that bills can be larger, which can be a little overwhelming, even if you know your companions are reimbursing you. 

There are a few issues, however, to consider that are specific to large groups:

  1. Communication. When traveling as a couple, you may rarely be out of each other’s sight, so having a planned communication strategy isn’t that important. With a large group, especially if you’re sometimes doing things independently, it is crucial to have a way to communicate with the group. This is important during both the planning process and once you’re traveling, since there may be times when a change of plans needs to be communicated to the group at large. (No one wants to miss out on dinner because they didn’t get the message that the time or place was changed!) Before leaving home, create a shared text group (or WhatsApp group if you’re a mixed Apple and Android phone group and traveling abroad). A friend traveling in France with her extended family told me that they also created a Life360 account for the entire family, grandparents through grandkids, so that they could keep track of everyone!
  2. Have a plan in case communication breaks down. Our smartphones are amazing tools, but sometimes we can rely on them too much, and they are not completely foolproof. Especially when traveling in remote areas, such as national parks, or abroad, we can lose service. Talk ahead about the plan if phones are not working. It might be sending an email that members will get eventually and/or designating a meeting place, including making sure that everyone has the address of the hotel or rental house where you are staying. 
  3. Housing. House rentals are often less expensive per person than hotels, and they also provide the option to have shared meeting spaces, such as living rooms or patios, to hang out as a large group. There are times, however, when a hotel might be a better option. This might be the case if the entire group will not be together the entire time, such as during our time in Athens this summer, or if the makeup of the group is such that individuals do not want to share bathrooms.
  4. Transportation. Obviously, the transportation needs can be different for a large group. In some cases, a large van may be able to carry everyone, but it’s possible that no one in the group wants to drive that large of a vehicle. Multiple cars can be rented, but it is important to have a plan of what to do if the cars get separated while driving to a location. (Make sure that all of the drivers have the address and directions to where they are going!) Public transportation is an option, even with a large group – we purposefully rented a house on a bus line in Crete so that we did not need to rent cars for the whole time we were there – but there can be times when the entire group will not be able to get onto a bus or metro due to crowding. So again, there needs to be a plan of where to meet if some of the group has to wait for the next bus or metro. With a large group of people, sometimes hiring a van or bus with a driver is actually the most economical option and may be something you’ve never considered if you’ve only traveled with a small group. This summer we did this to visit a winery, which had the added benefit of no one missing out on the wine tasting!

A group waits at the bus stop in Chania on the island of Crete, Greece.
Having the bus stop just across from the house where we stayed in Chania Crete made it easier to get around And it also gave the members of our group freedom to come and go as they wanted

A Successful Group Travel Adventure

Planning your own independent travel, whether it’s by yourself, with a small group, or with a large group, gives you the flexibility to do and see the things you want and to avoid the things that you might have to do during an organized tour but really have no interest in doing. One of the reasons people sign up for organized tours is wanting to travel with family but feeling like it is too hard to plan with a large group. Hopefully this article has shown how independent large group travel is very possible.

As with all of your travel, it is helpful to do a post-mortem at the end of or after your trip. This is a chance to evaluate both what went well and what didn’t go so well. Such information is useful in planning future travel adventures. 

At the end of our time in Greece, while hanging out in the kitchen of our home rental, we had a discussion about the trip. Luckily, the consensus was that it went so well that we started discussing other places we’d like to visit as a group. Hopefully I’ll be able to talk about these in a future Brave Wise Traveler article!

Is there a group you’ve been wanting to travel with, but felt it was too difficult to do as a large group? Where would you like to go? Who would you like to go with? Can you reach out to some of them and start discussing the possibility of a group travel adventure?

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  • Sandi McCoy Kramos at Nürburg Castle in Nürburg, Germany.

    Sandi McCoy Kramos is a licensed clinical psychologist with a doctorate from the University of Virginia and over 30 years of experience as a therapist. She is also a lifelong traveler with years of experience planning and implementing individual travel adventures for herself and family and friends. When asked why she started this blog, Sandi said, "Over the years I've realized that when people say they want to travel but don't actually do it, it's often their own insecurities and lack of knowledge that get in the way. I want to give individuals the knowledge they need to actually make their travel dreams come true."

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Sandi McCoy Kramos Clinical Psychologist
Sandi McCoy Kramos is a licensed clinical psychologist with a doctorate from the University of Virginia and over 30 years of experience as a therapist. She is also a lifelong traveler with years of experience planning and implementing individual travel adventures for herself and family and friends. When asked why she started this blog, Sandi said, "Over the years I've realized that when people say they want to travel but don't actually do it, it's often their own insecurities and lack of knowledge that get in the way. I want to give individuals the knowledge they need to actually make their travel dreams come true."

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