Question: Which method do you think is better for experiencing new places, to go on trips organized by a travel agency with a guided tour or to plan your own trip and explore without a guide? Consider benefits and possible downsides of both approaches in your answer.
☆Let’s Think
1.
Compare the benefits and
possible downsides of the two choices in the question in terms of safety, convenience,
flexibility, freedom, costs, and others.
2.
Tell the others about your
choice and the reason for it.
☆Hints for Points
To go on trips organized by
a travel agency with a guided tour
1. Inexpensive: It costs much less
than a solo trip.
2. Safer: It protects tourists
from potential dangers.
3. Efficient: The travel
agency does the arrangements and booking and the guide knows everything necessary
for entertainment and learning.
To plan your own trip and
explore without a guide
1. Free
and flexible: Planning is at the discretion of the traveler and decisions can
be impromptu.
2. More
interaction with the locals: Absence of a guide and other fellow travelers
makes more intimate interaction with the people in the destination possible.
3. Free
from commercialism: You can contact places and things that are not set aside
exclusively for tourists, such as a local market place or a gathering of the
residents.
☆Essay for Ideas and Expressions
The traveler in one of Dave
Mason’s beautiful songs, Mystic Traveler,
would not join a guided group tour because the lyrics goes “He is an unraveler”,
which connotes to anti-establishment. The song is said to be about Jesus Christ probably
because of the title and such phrase as “when he takes your heart, you are not
alone”, but it also seems to me to hint that there is some deep experience that
we expect in traveling. Whether this traveler is Jesus or Jack in the street, he is not a
consumer but the stranger and outsider, and the interaction with him reveals
the secret of life and merges the souls of those involved with him in love and eternity,
which few in guided group tours would experience. A guided tour may well be a
best, but may not be the best.
Traveling is an action driven
by various reasons. People have traveled for various reasons since ancient
times. We may travel to find something new: a new land, a new friend, or a new
self. We may travel to see the world, to visit the places of our ancestors, or
to challenge ourselves. We might also travel for fun. The word travel seems to me
to connote an action driven by a dire need for something essential in our inner
life. Depending on the need, we choose the best form of traveling that fits the
need. For example, a man who wants to see the world may want to travel alone so
that he can directly have a feel of the place he is visiting, and a woman who
feels that she is losing herself will visit her hometown without a company to
listen to the voices in her memory she recalls at the sites she visits and
people she meets there. Friends who want to make their bond stronger may try
not to join in group tours, and a group of insect collectors may be
disappointed if they are taken to a famous café in downtown Paris instead of
the forest nearby, where there are indigenous bugs. Traveling means much more
than merely taking a sightseeing tour. When I hear the word traveler, I think
of an explorer of reality, seeking meaningful interactions with people or
nature outside the person’s daily life. For this matter, traveling alone seems
to be the most natural because a group tour with a tour guide is an extension
of daily life.
A guided group tour is a
commercial attraction which is a win-win product between the tour industry and
busy workers in the developed world. Tourists who want to enjoy themselves away
from home and work, experience something exotic, and make some good memories
choose a guided tour for convenience and safety, and they usually go in a group
because of the spirit of the saying, “The more, the merrier.” The tourism
follows the rule of the economy of scale. Booking for transportation,
accommodation, and attractions such as local theaters and restaurants in large
numbers lowers the costs. The tour guide entertains the tourists and safely takes
them back home. It is probably the most popular style of travel as a leisure
activity, although it is not certain that people think it the best way to
travel because it usually does not provides more than it promises like other
mass products.
Perhaps I might be too
romantic, believing that people want more than a package tour out of traveling,
believing that they want some special experience on their own. However, solo
travel is in fact very popular. My home country Japan is not an exception. Excerpts
from a classic travelogue written in the medieval Japan, “Oku no Hosomichi,
Back Roads to Far Towns, are in
textbooks in junior high schools. About half a century ago, Makoto Oda, a
Japanese student from the University of Tokyo, who was then at Harvard,
traveled around the world alone with only a return air ticket and 200 dollars.
After the journey, he wrote a travelogue, Nandemo
Miteyaro, I’ll Go and See Everything, which became the bestseller in Japan.
Now, many people around the world travel without a guide. Travel agencies have
started providing various kinds of tours to meet various demands of both
experienced travelers who are fed up with package tours and people who are from
the beginning interested in specific destinations which happen to be out of the
tourism network. For many people, a guided group tour is not the best choice.
The word travel encompasses
a broad range of activities related, either directly or indirectly, to our
existence, while a guided group tour is a relatively new activity for fun. The
best way to travel efficiently for sport can be in a group led by a tour guide.
However, the best way to travel varies depending on what the traveler is in
search of, and I believe we all want to be a mystic traveler deep in our heart
when we say, “I’ve got to hit the road.”
☆Sample Responses
Sample 1
【Thesis】I think that traveling in a group led
by a tour guide is better than traveling individually because a group tour is
inexpensive and it ensures safety and satisfaction.
【Supporting Details】It allows us to visit popular sightseeing spots with group-discount
rates that are at least 20% off for a score of tourists. The guide’s
recommendation and lecture help the tourists to make the most out of what they
paid for the tour. A comparison between a school trip and an individual family
trip would clearly show how much more effective and efficient a guided group
tour is.
【Counterargument-treatment】An obvious downside is that it allows little freedom, but it helps avoid
a disaster. A visit to an unfamiliar place tends to cause problems such as disorientation,
loss of belongings, and involvement in crimes. To avoid such disasters, an
organized tour is offered by the industry. Also, a group tour offers options
not to join guided tours, so it is more flexible and freer than you think it is.
【Conclusion】Considering risks and disadvantages associated with traveling alone
without a guide, I do not have much problem in saying that the guided group
tour is a better way to travel. (196
words)
Sample 2
【Thesis】Joining a group tour with a guide may not be the better than traveling
on your own depending on the goal of the trip.
【What is Traveling?】Traveling is an action driven by various reasons from curiosity to new
places and peoples to testing oneself to a way of soul-searching.
【Group Tour with Guide】A guided group tour is an attraction which is a win-win product between the
tour industry and the busy workers in the developed world. Safe and well-organized
tours offered with reasonable charges based on economy of scale meets the
demand of novice travelers who want to make the best of what they can pay for
their leisure time they secure in their tight schedules.
【Solo Tour】However, taking a solo trip has been in fact very popular since ancient
times. The popularity seems to be related to our primal urge to go beyond our
comfort zone and go through experiences that will connects us with the world.
【Conclusion】Thus, fulfillment a solo travel can give you is better in quality than
what a guided group tour can. (171
words)
Your Sample Response
Structure
A
【Supporting Details】
【Counterargument-treatment】
【Conclusion】
B
【Thesis】
【A Guided Group Tour】
【A Solo Trip】
【Conclusion】
Write your response in 10 minutes. Show each other your responses.
Write down questions or suggestions to each other’s response.
DRAFT
