My husband and I have always been Do-It-Yourself vacationers and love the benefits of DIY travel.
Mostly we DIY travel out of necessity because our tight travel budget, but we still want to see the world. But, also, due to the first family vacation we took where we bought a package deal and got totally burned. Read about the worst vacation {babymoon}.
Are you a DIY traveler? Or do you prefer to buy packages, tours and travel agencies to book for you? Everyone has their preferences, but what I’ve experienced as a DIY traveler is that there are definite pros to doing-it-yourself.
What is DIY travel?
Do-It-Yourself travel means that all the planning of the trip and the executing of the plan is done by yours truly. You create your own itinerary that includes the things you most want to see and do. The plans involve you figuring out how to get to each location. You find your own lodging and food options. Trying to fit in everything that is important to us and leave out the things we don’t care for is one reason we are DIY travelers. But also, it is the most cost-effective way to travel. Our travel philosophy is the more we save on this trip, the sooner we can go on another. So we are willing to put in the time planning and executing if we are able to save money.
Pros of DIY travel
Flexibility
DIY travel means that you aren’t locked into a schedule. You can switch your plans based on how you feel, what you see at the moment.
For us standby travelers, being able to push our entire trip back a day or a week is essential. If flights fill up, we need to be able to start our trip when we are able to get there
Go at our own Pace
Staying with a large group means you have to wait until everyone is ready to move on. It means moving with the pace of the group rather than your own pace. In some situations, we like moving slower and taking things in. Stopping when we see a 1000-year-old Cherry tree in full bloom or a yellow field of raps. Other times this means going faster than the average person. We hiked Machu Picchu in 3 hours instead of the average time of 4 hours. Thank goodness we didn’t have to wait for the person who would take 5 hours to do it!
Budget-friendly
Paying someone to plan or schedule for you means it will cost you more (they have to make money somehow.
We’ve priced out multiple packages and even though they are convenient, the cost is much higher than doing it yourself. You might spend a little bit more getting lost or buying individual tickets, but in the end, you will get to choose what to spend money on, not be forced to purchase a package that perhaps has things you don’t care to spend money on. Paying for a guide or a tour package for a family of 6 can be a daunting cost.
Increased Anticipation
Planning the trip yourself adds to your knowledge and information about the area and trip you will be taking. You will see photos, videos, and information that will excite and motivate you. Anticipation the trip is sometimes as good at the journey you will be taking.
Start when we are ready
We typically start our travel days very early. Our kids always wake up early (or jet lag gets us up early) so we are ready to go before 7 am. Waiting for a group tour or itinerary would mean that we would spend our early hours waiting and our later exhausted hours touring. We leave the hotel when we are ready and come back when we are tired, not based on a schedule we were given.
Follow Our Interests
We like outdoors and getting away from crowds, so big groups don’t interest us. Shopping, Art, and Food aren’t the top of our priorities. but hiking, exploring, and viewpoints are. So when we take DIY trips, we can prioritize our likes and leave out the parts that aren’t for us. We love finding off the beaten path gems! Or just a secluded beach or city street that we love.
Cons of DIY travel
The opposite of DIY travel would be hiring a travel agency to book all the details and hand you an itinerary with your times of departure. The ease and simplicity of letting others plan your trip is appealing. DIY travel certainly has its drawbacks. Here are a few we’ve experienced.
Work
It is a lot of work to create a plan and execute it. Living our day to day life with 4 kids can be time-consuming without adding in planning our next adventure. This is why we typically Fly by the seat of our pants and make it up last minute! But we also try to have several trips basically planned in our minds so we can make it work last minute.
Stress
The anxiety of not knowing how everything will play out can be difficult. Most people vacation to get away from stress and relax. Doing it yourself may contribute to a lack of relaxation.
Problems
When problems arise, there is no one to blame but yourself. And you are the only one who has to fix it. If you didn’t plan enough time you may have to cut things out. If you planned too much time, you may be scrambling to find more to fill your itinerary. Getting lost may be a common occurrence, but also may not always be a bad thing!
We missed seeing Siena in Italy because my research wasn’t detailed enough to find a close parking space to enter the walled city. We drove around for a couple of hours trying to find parking and then had to leave to make it to our next destination.
Sometimes, I might put this in the ‘pro’ category too though. If you read our standby story here, you’ll see that after a canceled flight, those who had tickets booked with AA had to stand in a LONG line of people to adjust their flights. Since we fly standby, we took our bags and ran to another flight right away. We didn’t have to wait for someone else to make it happen.
But there are also times when it is difficult to figure out how to solve problems that arise while traveling. Or you just have to endure your uninformed decision.
Time
DIY takes a lot of time and sometimes will result in not being efficient in getting places. Taking the long route hasn’t always been a bad thing for us, but in some cases, we see less because we aren’t prepared to fit it all in.
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