Solo Travel vs. Tour

     Loyal readers know that in the past, I've traveled entirely solo, so going on a tour this time is a big change. The verdict so far?
     On the plus side, there is no thinking required on my part. Everything is orchestrated and they tell you where to be, when, and you get driven to all the sights. They've done a very good job coordinating so you spend 1.5-2 hours max between stops and then have plenty of time at whatever the destination tourist sight is.  Our driver/guide has also done a good job getting us to each place a bit ahead of other bus tours, so we're ahead of the crowd, so to speak. It's not that crowded overall anyway -- but I bet it will be in a few weeks when the tourist season begins in full swing.
     It does feel really cheesy to be descending en masse at all these tourist sights. But I keep reminding myself that I would be going to all the same places if I were doing this on my own and it would be a lot more work.  It's just that when you do it on your own, you have the illusion that you're exercising some control when, in fact, you're really following the same tourist blueprint.  And it definitely is a blueprint.  It's clear, and a little disturbing, that everything we do and buy has been pre-ordained  by the Irish tourist industry.
     On the minus side, I'm chafing under the regimen. Everything is dictated and there isn't much time to do things outside the group. Typically, we get on the bus by 8:30 each morning,  go all over the place, and return by 4:30 - 5:00.  All the dinners are pre-arranged, so we eat as a group at the hotel.  Ditto breakfast.  We are supposedly 'on our own' for lunch but what really happens is that the driver pulls up to whatever restaurant his friends own, and directs us in there and we all eat together again.  On Wednesday, I had vowed not to eat at his chosen restaurant, but it turned out to be the only restaurant at our stop, so I had no choice.
     On Thursday, I staged a small rebellion.  We were in Galway and the plan for the day was to drive to Cong and take a tour of the area where some of the 1952 movie "The Quiet Man" was filmed. This sounded like the ultimate in "making something out of nothing to sweep in more tourist dollars" so I decided to bail on the bus tour and spend the day by myself in Galway.
     I took the city bus into town and  then tooled around on my own for awhile (museum, St. Nicholas Church). Then I found the tourist office (yes, a tourist office but somehow, this seemed better) and asked if they had any walking tours. They nodded to an old man and said he was scheduled to conduct a tour in about 5 minutes. This guy (probably in his 70s or older) has lived in Galway all his life. He took us around for 2.5 hours (!) and showed us all sorts of things I would not have discovered on my own.
     Afterwards, I was hungry so I backtracked to a restaurant I had spotted. There seems to be a serious deficit of lettuce here in Ireland so I was thrilled to find a restaurant called "Mixed Greens" where I had a delicious salad (more on food in a future post). After this late lunch, I shopped around, took the bus back, used the hotel exercise room and then met my fellow tourists for dinner.
     After hearing about their day, I feel confident I made the right choice.  They said the Quiet Man tour involved a group re-enactment of some of the movie scenes (a horror ranking right up there with Karaoke in my book) and that the rest of the day involved a lot of bus time with nice scenery, but nothing better than we had already seen.
     I had been a little afraid folks might be offput at my leaving the group for a day but on the contrary, I detected a bit of jealousy and admiration at my moxie.  One woman said "wow, I didn't know we could decide not to go" and a man whispered over the dinner table: "you didn't miss anything!"  I'm planning a similar rebellion on Saturday -- I'll skip the trip to the Giant's Causeway (I've been there) and spend the day in Derry.