Traveling with Family or Solo? Which is good!

Oh! You are travelling alone? How you do that? You are allowed? You are married (Seriously!! I mean, how does that even relate to #solotravel !!)? Indians Travel Alone (Is it flattery!!) ??!!

I face many such questions when people get to know that I willfully travel alone (especially being an Indian girl, though I am not aware whether it’s a taboo!). And sometimes I don’t know whether I should be worried for sprinkling the pepper or they are really surprised (Can I use envious here? :P)

So giving answer to all these, we have to understand few things. Travelling with Family or travelling with a group of people is two different segments. Let’s talk about them in brief first:

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Travelling with Family:

One of the best things we do right? Spending good time with mom- dad other than breakfast or dinner time of the day at home, then those siblings who on usual days tries to make our life hell (or may be it gets worse during vacations!). Getting to know what interests your mom apart from shopping or how far can your father go to try some new food is really interesting to see. And of course not to forget the almost no shout or no complain days are during holidays, they become different person (or may be, they become the real them for those few days!!). And seeing them happy, laughing like kinder-garden tots is more than the best thing in the world.

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Travelling in a group, with a group of people, where many groups inside the group!!

Group tours are absolutely like a pyramid.. Equally good, tiresome and take your nerves. First and foremost, the good thing is, you don’t need to think of anything, everything is taken care by the tour management company or tour leader, you are just a king and queen in my case! Just follow the schedule and be ON TIME and listen to your tour manager, he the boss though you being the king!

Group tours are pre-planned, and mostly full of activities for the entire day, so by the end of the day you are drained out and just want a good warm bed to crash. While, it’s value of money, and as my father says, it’s a family and togetherness feeling (I don’t understand, we are family of 3 travelling together, then what’s the need for more!!); group tours are truly travelling without any tension and the kind of holiday we all look for (yes yes exceptions are there, coming to it!)

The last part of group travel is, there are many brains travelling; good, intelligent, out of the world, witty, wise and chat-box.. Being Indian, we can’t stay quiet without talking to our fellow travellers or our temporary family for next few days! Hence you get to know who can be your long term high five buddy, who can iron your hair straight with their thoughtful words, or who can make you their substitute daughter for next few days!! Attention feels great, but in a group of mostly father-mother like, young hearts like me melts to sticky marshmallow. 

#SoloTravel: Welcome to my Zone!

Let’s come to my kind of travel!! Honestly being a solo traveller was not part of my dreams for a long time. Since childhood I have been travelling with my parents, we would go on our own customized tours (planned by my manager father) and in recent years my parents have been more prone to group travel, purely due to age factor (my father is done with planning, he is strictly into criticism mode now)!

May be, that is one of the reason, I turned into a solo traveller! But that story some other day. For me I love my own travel plans, going off beat (that’s so much me), knowing a new country or my own in a different way. Going local to be more precise, be it food (street food), transport, even staying at local home-stays is a different experience all together. Walking across the streets, no hectic plans, spending the whole day by the beach is my kind of travel. SO, when I love my family and love to spend to time with them apart form the meal times, I cherish my Solo Travels.

*** NOTE: This is purely sharing my personal views with you, there is no intention to influence anyone, still if one is, by any sheer chance, I would like to get your comment 🙂 🙂