For those who have tried group travel, what was your honest experience? Did it actually save money and reduce stress, or did coordinating everyone become more complicated than expected?
I’ve seen options like group travel where flights are arranged together, but I’m more curious about the real life side of it. How does it work with different budgets, seat preferences, and last minute changes?
It really depends. If you’ve got a good travel agent and a enough people to fill a bus or get group discounted rates, then it can be a great way to make it more affordable. If you’re trying to manage it yourself among a smaller group (or trying to manage a larger group without assistance) it can be a real hassle.
I’m in an alumni group that’s trying to organize a trip to an SEC football game this coming autumn. We have to start looking at it now to ensure it’s even an option to organize group travel. The last time we did something like this, we filled 3/4 of one coach bus coming from KC and a nearly full coach bus coming from St Louis, and we filled out a tailgating tent for about 100 people.
That made sense and worked out in everyone’s favor. The alumni association handled a lot of it; they filled the role of a travel agency for us.