How to organize a trip (trip) independently and cheaply. Organized tour or independent travel? Organized trips

Tatyana Solomatina

How to organize a trip on your own?

Greetings to all readers of my blog!

What makes people give up independent travel, overpay tour operators, risking losing everything?

Someone fundamentally does not want to prepare, and someone is simply afraid, does not know where to start. This information will be useful for people who dream of relaxing on their own, but do not know how to act. It was for them that I made detailed plan how to organize independent travel.

Step-by-step instruction

Think about what interests you, ask friends and acquaintances, read reviews. Calculate your budget. Understand the number of days.

It's good if the dates are floating, plus or minus a few days. This will allow you to subsequently play on the cost of air tickets. It's no secret that ticket prices can vary greatly for neighboring dates.

Carefully read the climatic conditions of the chosen vacation spot, it is possible that during your vacation there is not a season there, which may negatively affect your plans. In this case, either change the place, or mentally prepare for inconvenience.

Step 2: Making a route

This point is very important, especially for those who are planning to visit several places or even countries. Here are the highlights:

Open the map, select the places of interest. We read the reviews, maybe you won’t have time to go somewhere, it’s not worth going somewhere, but something is expensive.
Arranging the order of visits. Let's break it down by date.
Internal movements. If you plan to travel by rented car or taxi, then most likely there will be no problems here. If by public transport, then you need to find out the schedule and cost in advance.

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Find out in advance the opening hours of the places you intend to visit during your trip. Perhaps on the right day there will be a day off. It's a shame not to visit what we planned.
If your itinerary includes domestic flights, take into account climatic conditions countries.
Stock up on patience. The more difficult the route, the more time it will take to develop it.

Step 3: Buy tickets

We go to the Aviasales website - https://www.aviasales.ru, for me this is the most optimal service. It is convenient in that you can quickly separate direct flights and flights with transfers, set the required departure time in the search, set up tracking of cheap tickets, view a table with prices for each day of the month.

We enter the data, click "Find tickets", in a few seconds all options for your dates are displayed. If you have floating dates, be sure to check the cost of tickets for neighboring dates. Might be good savings.

I prefer to buy tickets on the websites of the airlines themselves, and not on the services of intermediaries. Therefore, having found a flight convenient for me, I write down all the data and go to the website of the airline operating this flight. I set the same dates in the search engine, find tickets and buy them. Many will probably disagree with me, but I'm so calm.

You can try to buy a ticket for a charter flight. It will most likely be cheaper. However, if you are going to buy them, you must understand that you are completely dependent on the tour operator. The risk of flight delay, replacement, cancellation is much higher than in the case of a regular flight. How to buy tickets for charter flights, read .

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Buy tickets there and back. It will cost less than one way.
Buy tickets in advance. More likely to pay less.
If you are planning domestic flights, buy them in advance. Read reviews, look for local airlines, prices are usually lower.
Pay attention to the baggage allowance. Sometimes cheap fares come with a minimum baggage allowance, which costs a pretty penny when you check in for a flight.
Always print e-tickets. Once I saw how at check-in in Thailand they could not find people on the passenger list. It was a scheduled flight. The guys were lucky, they had a laptop with them, opened the mail, showed the ticket number.

Step 4: Book a hotel

Having bought tickets, you can proceed to the choice of accommodation. Someone plans to live in a hotel, someone in a luxury villa, and someone in a simple bungalow. There are a lot of services for booking accommodation. I prefer booking.com. But I always check the results on the aggregator services Hotellook, Roomguru, Trivago. Why do I do this and what is the best way to book accommodation? Read.

Everything is very simple at Bucking. Go to the site, enter the place, dates, number of people in the search engine, click "Find". You can enter data into the search engine from above.

On the right, you will find many accommodation options. In the left field there is a search engine where you can sort by price, services, location, there are many filters. Then you look through the options, choose, and book. When booking, please provide a valid email address, you will receive a booking confirmation. Be sure to print it out and take it with you. In case of problems on the spot, it can come in handy.

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Book your stay in advance, there will be more options.
If you plan to stay in one place for a long time (more than a week), it may be worth booking for one day, and look for better accommodation on the spot. Unless, of course, this is not the peak season, and your trip does not coincide with local holidays.
If possible, choose places that do not take prepayment, where you can cancel your reservation. Then if plans change, you will not lose money.
Please read the booking conditions carefully. Sometimes they are very tough.
Pay attention to the accommodation policy (no pets, no smoking, much more).
Be sure to read the reviews, see the latest information on the forums. So you will get more information than you can see from the description on the service.
If you decide to book a hotel directly on its website, do not be too lazy to translate the text into Russian. Otherwise, you can lose your funds (read), as it was with me in Sri Lanka.

Step 5: Making visas

Many countries require visas to enter. It's time to do this.

There are countries where a visa is placed at the border. Issue it upon arrival at the airport. There is nothing complicated, after landing, do as everyone else, no problem.

Some countries require you to apply for a visa online. In this case, go to the website of the embassy, read the rules of registration and follow the instructions. If this is difficult for you, there are many intermediary agencies willing to do everything for you for a fee. I used their services when I was. Everything was done quickly and clearly.

Some countries require you to apply for a visa at the embassy or visa application center. It will take time, but it's also not scary. Study the information on the embassy website, follow the instructions. Sometimes an electronic record is kept for filing documents.

How to apply for a Schengen visa, read.

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Making a visa yourself is not difficult, you do not need to overpay for assistance in providing such a service.
Arrange in advance, do not leave for later.
Check the expiration date of your passport. One of the most common reasons for visa denial.
Carefully prepare the documents, copies should be of good quality.
If you decide to contact intermediaries, read reviews about them.
If you are traveling with children, do not forget to make notarized powers of attorney from legal representatives.

Step 6: Get health insurance

Somewhere insurance is required at the time of applying for a visa, somewhere it is not required at all, and somewhere it is asked at the border. And there are only two options:

You need insurance only to receive documents.
You need insurance for medical care in another country, you want to protect yourself from unexpected expenses.

With the first option, everything is simple - go to the nearest insurance agency or apply online, buy the cheapest option.

The second option is the most correct in my opinion. But you need to seriously approach the choice of an insurance company. The main thing you need to pay attention to is the assistance of the insurance company, that is, its partner abroad, which is designed to provide medical care on the spot. Timely qualified assistance in the event of an insured event depends on this. I have a separate blog page about this. There I compare many insurance companies and talk in detail about what must be taken into account when choosing a policy.

I always buy insurance. I usually use the cherehapa.ru service:

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In order to understand what kind of assistance you need (they may be different, depending on the country), read the reviews.
Carefully fill in the data when buying insurance. One wrong letter or number, you will not be paid for the insured event.
Don't rely on luck. The $100 you save can make all the difference in your journey.
If you are faced with the choice of buying insurance or not, I recommend purchasing it.

Step 7: Learning Transport

If you decide to rent a car, then there are two options. Order in advance or choose on the spot. There is no clear answer. It all depends on the country and season.

If you are traveling at the peak of the season, it is wiser to book a car in advance. This is how you ensure it exists. International car rental companies will require payment immediately upon booking. This deprives you of the right to change the decision, the advance payment will remain with them. Must have international driving license and a deposit for the car.

I have never booked a car from home. I risked being left without a car, but somehow managed. international law received recently, how to get the coveted crust, read.

If you are not planning to take a car, it's time to think about how you will get to your place of residence and how you are going to move around the country. There are several options here too:

Transfer order at the hotel. Usually not the cheapest option. But the simplest. But with subsequent movement around the country, it certainly will not help.
Take a taxi. Not a budget option, only for short distances. You can't move from city to city.
Contact private drivers. This is not always possible at the airport. But to agree on long-term cooperation with them is quite realistic. By negotiating the terms, it is often possible to bring down the price of services.
Go by public transport. Inconvenient with luggage, not always available direct message, arrival may not coincide with the schedule. However, this is the cheapest option.

If you choose to travel by public transport, then it's time to study the timetables and routes. I collect this information from the internet. I analyze, I write down everything, I take this data with me.

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Even at home, think about how you will move around the country, find out prices and schedules. Take this information with you.
When choosing a car booking service, be guided by reviews.
When ordering a transfer from the hotel, find out the price and method of payment. I had a case where I paid twice. First, the driver demanded money, and then they added it to the bill when leaving the hotel. Couldn't prove anything.

Step 8: Plan excursions

Almost all preparations are made. When planning your itinerary, you have already chosen the places you are going to visit.

You can explore everything on your own, you have already read the schedule, decided how and what to get to (if not, read Step 2 and 7 above).

Alternatively, buy excursions. They can be booked in advance, having studied the information on the Internet, or bought on the spot. In almost every tourist city many tour agencies.

If you don't know English language, no problem. Usually there are Russian-speaking guides. This option will cost more than a visit on your own. But the price usually includes a transfer, entry tickets and guide services.

To feel confident when traveling, be sure to read about the country. Learn the history and culture, customs and customs.

Decide on a financial issue. Find out. Solve the issue with . I had a problem in Thailand. Before the trip, I did not inform the bank about my plans and could not use a credit card. The fact is that many banks, for the security of payments, require the country to be opened in order to be able to withdraw funds there. And until you do this, it will be impossible to make transactions with the card. To prevent this from happening, just call the bank and tell them about your plans.

Perhaps you have friends who have been in this country, consult with them. Read, there are many travel blogs on the Internet.

The most important advantage of independent travel is freedom. Organizing a trip is not difficult at all. If you have a great desire to try something new, if you are tired of overpaying tour operators, do not delay, take and plan your next vacation yourself. Everything happens for the first time. It's not as scary as it seems. Believe in yourself and then everything will work out!

Doubt? Read my article. And in me it was possible to show the selection process on a virtual example.

If you do not agree with me, you have additions or corrections, leave comments, I will be glad to see them.

It may be difficult for you to organize an independent trip on your own, there is no time or desire to delve into all the intricacies of the issue, write to me, I will select the most profitable flight and accommodation options for the specified dates, draw up a route, do everything better and cheaper travel agencies. You don’t have to worry about money, you won’t have to trust me, you yourself will pay for everything online under my guidance. Read more about cooperation.

Now I say goodbye for a while.

Tatyana Solomatina

Decided to go on a trip and don't know where to start? Contact a travel agency, the staff will be happy to help you choose a route, assist in obtaining a visa, etc., but they will charge you a certain fee for this (although no one will tell you about this). They have to earn their living! Don't want to overpay? Then organize yourself an amusing trip to your taste and based on their financial capabilities. Of course, it will be difficult to do it the first time, and you will agree that it is a bit scary (what if something goes wrong!) But as they say, who does not take risks does not drink champagne. And not always what the tour operator offers will be interesting for you. And on your own organized travel gives you complete freedom of action, does not limit you to the framework of one or another cultural program And, more importantly, it saves money. But in order for your trip not to become your headache and a big disappointment, prepare for it in advance and very carefully, observing all the formalities related to choosing a direction, crossing the border (if any), purchasing travel documents, etc. How to start organizing your own trip? First of all, since reading this article. :f:

free time to study and search for information about the direction you are interested in;
Internet access;
time to read this article;
desire to travel and discover new countries;
international passport (if border crossing is supposed);
bank card (with money on it, of course);

The first thing to do when organizing a trip is to decide on the direction. You must decide what you want from your journey. Soak up the beach on the gentle sand and under the bright sun? Or see the sights of a certain country: museums, castles, etc. ? Or maybe combine both? But first, remember that you should not go on your first trip to conquer the jungle or the wilds of the Amazon. It's easy to get lost there. inexperienced tourist. Maybe for the first time satisfy your wanderlust with a trip to good old Europe? Well, or Turkey, for example (here and with a visa, the issue is resolved one-two-three). In general, you decide. As they say, any whim for your money.
The next step will be to resolve financial issues. First, get a bank card with a certain amount of money on it. Indeed, without it, you will not be able to buy a ticket, book a hotel, or rent a car ... Yes, and you should not have a large amount of cash with you when traveling, the whole civilized world has long been paying with cards (and only we still keep money in glass jars). It is best to issue a Visa or Mastercard. When traveling to Europe, it is better to choose a Mastercard and open it in euros. In all other cases, Visa, which is a dollar one, will do.
Before you go to the country of your choice, study the necessary information about it, which will allow you to create an initial opinion about it and possibly influence your decision. Read the reviews of real people who have been there and can provide reliable information. Pay attention to religious and cultural traditions, customs regulations. It will not be superfluous to study the rules for obtaining a visa. For example, you may refuse to travel to Mexico if you find out that upon receipt entry visa to this country you will be asked to leave your fingerprints, and choose the United United Arab Emirates, where the air temperature in the coldest December and January is +28 during the day, and +18 at night, and it’s easier with a visa.
Once you've made your choice of country, I advise you to move on to budgeting your trip. First, you must clearly define how much you are willing to spend on your trip. Ask about how much the visa (if necessary), tickets, hotel accommodation, insurance, etc. will cost. Don't forget to leave some money for occasional expenses and gifts for loved ones, as well as set aside a certain amount for expenses that may arise unexpectedly before the trip (for example, buying a new luggage bag or an extra battery charger).
Armed with information about your destination, you can start buying tickets. To do this, you first need to decide what mode of transport you will use. Remember that the journey ground transport(train, bus, car) will cost you much less than by plane. But traveling by plane is faster and more convenient. And of course, there are countries where land transport simply cannot be reached. Therefore, take care of purchasing travel documents in advance, especially if you decide to use air transport - so you can buy tickets cheaper and save money. To purchase tickets, you just need to have Internet access and an open bank account. And if you do not trust the World Wide Web, contact the cashier, where they will help you choose the most appropriate option.
The next step is to secure a roof over your head, i.e. to reserve a hotel room. First, decide on its type and location. Remember that if your hotel is located in the center or, for example, near the beach, then its cost will be quite high. You can, of course, choose a hotel more distant, but in this case, transport costs arise, and most importantly, you spend extra time on the road, which is worth its weight in gold when traveling. The hotel can be booked via the Internet or already upon arrival (sometimes it turns out cheaper), you just need to know where it is located. But this option has its pitfalls - if there are no places in the hotel you have chosen, you risk staying overnight on the street.
For travel abroad, it is not superfluous to arrange medical insurance. In most cases, this will be a prerequisite for obtaining an entry visa to the country of your choice. With this document, you will feel much more confident.
Obtaining a visa will be the final step in preparing for the trip. Of course, if your country of destination is Turkey or Egypt, you don’t need to do anything in advance - you will receive a visa upon arrival at the airport, paying a certain amount for it. But if you are going to visit Europe, then you simply cannot do without the formalities associated with obtaining a visa. Therefore, find out in advance how and where it can be issued, how long it will take you and other details in order to have time to do this before the start of the trip.
If you have a visa and you are completely ready to travel, it will not be superfluous to study good guide along the route you are interested in. Check out reviews and tips seasoned tourists, who will recommend which places to visit, study the opening hours of museums, traffic, etc. and based on the information collected indicative plan of your journey. It will not be superfluous to purchase a map of the city you are interested in, or an alternative to it may be the purchase of a GPS navigator.
Let's say that you have already prepared for the trip, your suitcases are packed and you are ready to hit the road for new emotions and impressions. But do not forget to check everything carefully before the trip. First of all, make sure that you have all the necessary documents with you (passport, travel documents, hotel accommodation voucher, insurance policy, bank card, etc.). Once again, carefully read the information indicated on your ticket (date and time of departure, last name, first name, etc.). Check your luggage carefully and hand luggage for the presence of prohibited items (I have written a separate article on this topic, if anyone is interested). And it is better to leave in advance, so that later, for some reason, not to lag behind your transport. And most importantly, do not forget to take with you a good mood, the idea that everything will work out for you, so that your tourist trip brought you only positive emotions.

Yes, who cares. Personally, I hate organized tours.

Cons of organized tours:

often they include unnecessary sponsorship trips to a jewelry store or fur coats (seen in Paris and Turkey);

you are partially dependent on other tourists in your group (they need to pee, souvenirs, they have a crying baby on the bus);

tours are usually the most popular places for excursions that you have already paid for. And if you want to go to a non-tourist place, and you are going to Versailles with a bus, you are sorry to refuse, you have already paid.

Pros of organized tours:

you don’t have to think about anything: what to do with yourself, how to get to the museum, where to eat, what to see. True, it is not a fact that all places will be good.

usually it is cheaper due to the travel agency, hotels on the outskirts or those in which travel agencies have special prices, sponsors, to whose store you will be taken on a tour, etc. Also Bus tours, like 7 countries in 5 days, very cheap.

there are very cool tours that are not for everyone, but especially for you. For example, in Ukraine there are guys who take designers and architects on tours. They plan cool and with them you can get, for example, to the workshops of famous architects, where you yourself would never get. Or there photo tours. In short, highly specialized tours that will interest you. Or very expensive and rare tours, such as a cruise near Antarctica.

That is, you can enjoy the tour if planning makes you hysterical and if you don't care too much about what you see on the trip. Paris and okay, it doesn’t matter to you what exactly you see (you will see the Eiffel Tower and the Louvre 100%). Or if you find a unique tour.

If independence and quality are still important to you, it is better to do everything yourself.

Pros of self-guided tours:

what you want, then you do - visit the places you want, plane or bus - choose yourself, choose the hotel yourself, everything is up to you.

sites for selecting tickets, hotels, restaurants, establishments and entertainment give complete freedom (tickets.ua, tripadviser.com, hotels.com, anywayanyday and hundreds of other sites).

a guide (book) often tells everything you need, and if you choose it correctly, you can do without a guide on the bus, as in an organized tour. The Internet, again, knows everything.

you can get into tourist places, which you will find out about on some local site, and not in tourist mass-market places, where the quality is calculated on the fact that you will never return, and others will arrive tomorrow.

many interesting routes are not subject to organized tours. Fuck would we see Scottish northern castles, would have ascended to the very high point Great Britain, would visit Glasgow, Edinburgh, Oberdeen, Inverness, Loch Ness, Isle of Skye in one organized tour. And on its own it is quite real.

Cons of self-guided tours:

you have to plan a lot and rely on yourself. Often this means buying tickets to the museum on the Internet, otherwise there will be a huge queue (Uffizi, Louvre);

you can get into a bad hotel with bedbugs (Paris :)), travel agencies usually choose trusted hotels, because reputation and all things;

some places can only be reached with a group, or it is easier to get with a group or an organized tour (in some collections, group-only excursions, cruises, etc. are most often an organized tour).

a bit harder to find a guide. I don’t know, somehow we never had the practice of ordering a city guide from the Internet without recommendations. It is always either a blogger-guide whom I read long before the trip (London, Stockholm), or on the recommendation of friends (Tallinn).

In short, an independent trip is usually easier and more pleasant to organize for yourself in simple places (cities and countries in Europe and the USA). It is easier and safer to take a tour to exotic countries, as I understand it.

It's not the same for everybody. Last year my friend and I were looking for where to relax, looking for options where we can surf (I have dreamed of trying for many years). The newbies themselves did not know how. At first we wanted to get there ourselves, find a rental of boards and try it ourselves, but in the end we decided to choose a paid surf tour. And you know, we never regretted it at all! chose the surfvan camp at your own risk - thank God. everything went very well)))

Answer

Better solo travel. Get out of your comfort zone, improve your languages, ride local public transport, rent from locals, eat with locals, go to different places, watch what group guides don’t show, get into stories that will be interesting to tell. Take risks and discover new things. And you will be happy!

Traveling alone is definitely better, and here's why:

Self-planning is a way to travel on any budget. No one in the chain between you and the computer has their own margin for food, flights, housing and all that.

Self-organization is zen. No one but you is responsible for jambs, delays and failures. And since there is no point in blaming yourself, you will only have to accept the universe with all its surprises.

Complete freedom of movement. Nowhere and never will you feel so many emotions as at the Bangkok train station without scoreboards and signs.

Hold on, friends.

1) If it European city then, of course, self-travel. Book a hotel on one of the many sites, upon arrival, buy a "city name_card" (in many European cities such cards are sold for a period of one to 3 days, they usually give free travel on public transport and free or partially discounted passes to museums), travels to the suburbs public transport, there you can take an audio guide, and if you arrive before the opening, then walk through the sights in front of all the tourist crowds. Good things about such a trip: you don’t depend on anyone, you walk wherever you want, you eat wherever you want, you merge with the city, and not with the guide’s herd. But for this: you need to plan in advance what you will visit tomorrow, after tomorrow, etc., do not spare your feet, because there is a lot of walking, it is advisable to know English.

2) If this is a trip around the country, then the question is in the budget. Everyone writes about tours like huge buses filled with time-oblivious women, sober men and their squealing offspring (hello, typical Turkey). Of course, such a journey is comparable to a descent into Hell. Another case: a driver-guide in a good car for a small company or family (assume that you don’t drive / are afraid to get confused in the maps / can’t cope with driving on unusual terrain / take a break from the steering wheel and calmly look out the window) - this, believe me, is very good and helps to get to know the country from the inside. However, this is a tour, not a solo trip.

3) There are concept tours, that's another story altogether.

4) Destination: The difference between East and West is great, if you are not going to experiment by placing yourself in the condition of a newly hatched chick, then it is better to use a tour operator.

Better water or beer?
Here is the same thing. You need to ask yourself a few questions, in the spirit of "what do I want to get from the trip? what resources do I have (time, money, etc.)?", and accordingly, based on the answers, it will be clear what is better in this case.

If you want to lie on the beach for a week in Turkey, because the budget is limited, too lazy to organize, and besides, you don’t know languages and are afraid that they are needed (actually not) - then why not buy a tour.

And if you are interested in walking around Venice, then vice versa - there is no point in contacting the company - you will overpay for the tour, and the hotel will most likely be offered to hell knows where.

There is no single answer to this question. Depends on direction and what you want.

Usually an organized tour, especially if it covers several countries or cities, allows you to free your head from organizational issues and put all your strength into the perception and development of what you see. For relative comfort and efficiency in terms of time, you pay here with standardization and a somewhat incubator approach.

Traveling on your own is more fun because you can completely tailor it to your needs, interests, budget, and pace of learning. However, this requires a lot of time, emotional and physical costs, which are rewarded interesting discoveries and adventure.

Some companies offer a combination of these two approaches, and this is probably the most advantageous option. Last year I had a chance to go on a two-week trip to Vietnam with the world famous company Intrepid. We had organized basic things, such as transfers between cities and overnight stays in hotels. Everything else was optional. optional excursions, entertainment, going out, dinners and so on. And we ourselves put together the most interesting and relevant program as if from Lego, while there was enough time and opportunities to explore the area on our own.

For me, independent travel is preferable. Sometimes you start to prepare for half a year, and this is already a great pleasure. I buy a bunch of books, a map, watch historical films, read reviews from other travelers. Finding a place to live is a special pleasure. When traveling around Europe, we ignore hotels, we book accommodation on airbnb.com We always take country houses near the area we want to explore. Having a good kitchen is so important! It is very inexpensive to live in a real medieval house! But about the cost of independent travel, I do not agree with those who write that you can save money on this. Traveling in a rented car across Europe will still cost at least 2 times more than a package tour, although it is worth it.

I am always for independent travel, because it assumes that unforeseen circumstances will arise that will need to be resolved, you can run into some kind of adventure, and so on, in general, everything will not be monotonous.

Agreeing with all those who have unsubscribed, I will add that if you are just starting to travel abroad, you are not very fluent in the local (where you are going) language and not very good at the topic where to learn-buy-live-be, I would advise you to go a couple of times with a group. You take a closer look, learn the basic things that relate to travel, etc. And then you can already go to an independent level. I traveled with groups for several years, and then it so happened that I went to Ireland "wild" - with a plan, a hotel reservation, a paid excursion to the cliffs. After this trip, I realized that I would not go with the group anymore))) This is such freedom! But it requires at least minimal preparation of the traveler :)

Depends on what you want from this trip. I will write about excursion trips, because I am not a fan of beach holidays.

When buying a ticket through a travel agency, you, of course, overpay, but you don’t bother with the route (you just pre-select from several presented), accommodation, excursions, guides, and mode of transportation. Sometimes you don't even bother with food. They just pick you up at the airport, put you on a bus and take you to where they planned. You just have to relax, listen to the guide's stories and buy souvenirs. And another bonus: most often groups go to museums faster than individual visitors.

When planning a trip on your own, you take it all upon yourself. You need to shovel a lot of information about the city or country where you are going to find out where and why you should go there :) You buy air tickets, look for housing, find out how you can get to this housing. If transfers are provided, you also need to buy train / bus tickets. But there are pluses here: you go wherever you want, you do not have to listen to the guides' ranting (if it depresses you) and make sure that you do not lag behind the group; you are the king and god of your journey, everything depends entirely on you; you can go to super-interesting, non-pop places; you lie down and get up at your convenience. And it's also much cheaper!

Personally, I went on tours and on independent trips. I love this and that. I mostly travel on my own, but when I have extra money and I don’t have the strength to explore the country on my own (previously waiting for travel planning), but I want to go on vacation, I go to a travel agency

I see a lot of opponents of the organized tour and I will put in my two cents in defense of the tours. Firstly, an organized tour is often cheaper, this applies, of course, to well-known destinations. Let's say a direct flight, accommodation, transfer and insurance come out cheaper than if you collect everything yourself, all thanks to charters from the operator, and by the way, a big plus is often a direct flight. Secondly, no one will keep you in the hotel, they will bring you, they will tell you what's what, and then do what you want, travel around the country yourself, this is already like an independent trip. In fact, the operator does not organize your trip, he simply comfortably delivers you to the place and picks you up, and then you are free to do whatever you want.

Summer is the time of pilgrimage trips, to which vacations, the weather, and the desire to strengthen the spirit before the start of the new working year are conducive. Many firms, both ecclesiastical and secular, today offer trips to the shrines of Russia and abroad. Which one to choose? Or maybe take a chance and go to some monastery on your own? Our correspondent shares some secrets on organizing such trips.

My own organizer

If you decide to visit some well-known monastery - Optina Hermitage, Trinity-Sergius Lavra, Seraphim-Diveevsky Monastery - it is quite possible to do without the help of pilgrimage services and organize the trip yourself. In our age, when every more or less well-known monastery or temple has its own website on the Internet, this is very easy to do. In advance, you need to go to the monastery’s website, find the “Pilgrim” page there. It usually contains information about hotels, the procedure for booking them, as well as the specifics of the charter of the monastery regarding pilgrims and visitors, the amount of donations for trebes. Here on the site you can get acquainted with the history of the monastery, its shrines.

By dialing the phone of the pilgrimage service, you can not only book a room for the required number of days, but also ask: how do they feed in the monastery - is there a refectory for pilgrims, a cafe, how do they work? In some monasteries, a meal is provided to pilgrims completely free of charge, but it is assumed that if you come for a few days, you will definitely take part in obediences with the blessing of the abbot or dean. There are monasteries where you can eat for a donation, the amount of which is determined by your material capabilities (do not forget, of course, about the voice of conscience). In some monasteries (especially large ones), the cost of a meal is clearly defined (as a rule, you are not expected to stay here to wash the dishes, but it would be useful to offer your help).

If the monastery has adopted some special restrictions for pilgrims (the time of accommodation in a hotel, stay in the monastery), they are usually indicated on the website or you will learn from an oral conversation with the staff of the pilgrimage service. This does not apply to the most elementary requirements: a decent and chaste appearance, a ban on smoking and alcoholic beverages, a respectful attitude towards residents and workers. It is assumed that a person traveling to holy places should know about this a priori and strictly observe. For a long stay in the monastery, the blessing of the abbot is requested.

Arriving at the monastery, it is appropriate to recall the good old proverb: “You don’t go to someone else’s monastery with your charter.” It is unacceptable to criticize the monastery meal, the requirements for pilgrims. Photographing monks, as a rule, is possible only with permission. It is all the more unacceptable to look closely at the inhabitants of the monastery, ask them questions about how and why they ended up here, whether their rector is strict, how often he offends them, etc.

It is no secret that not all monasteries can afford to maintain pilgrimage hotels at the level of a five-star hotel. In addition, there is also a daily routine and rules of conduct. If you are not ready for this, it is better to look for a secular hotel in the same city. There will be more comfort, but there is no such feeling of belonging to the atmosphere of the monastery.

"+" Freedom is perhaps the main plus of such a trip. Having organized your trip, you can arrive on a convenient day for you (including weekdays). You can leave whenever you want, including earlier or later than the scheduled time. You can be in the service as long as you want, just take a quiet walk around the monastery and its environs, get to know the life of the monastery better.

“-” If you want to get acquainted with several monasteries at once, learn their history, visit springs, visit several temples and at the same time do not risk driving your own car, this option is not for you. In addition, in some monasteries there will be difficulties with excursions - they are often booked for a group.

Parish Journey

It is wonderful when you can go on a pilgrimage trip with the rector and parishioners of your church. Joint pilgrimage trips not only allow the priest and parishioners to venerate the shrine, attend divine services in a famous monastery, but also unite people, broaden their horizons, educate and promote churching.

Such trips are organized by the rector or, with his blessing, one of the church employees. The route, the list of pilgrims, the cost of the trip are preliminarily determined. First of all, active assistants of the temple are sent on such trips, because pilgrimage is a kind of encouragement.

If suddenly you have such an honor - to organize a joint trip, you should make a route in such a way as to combine worship of the shrine and acquaintance with historical, memorable places our Motherland. It is advisable to schedule the services of a guide or arrange an excursion with the inhabitants of the monastery. In addition, the priest, organizer, or one of the educated lay people, either before or during the trip, should tell about those holy places where the group is going. It would not be superfluous to recall the rules of conduct in the monastery, to talk about the Orthodox attitude towards shrines. Determining the route, the organizer must take care of the lodging, meals, and rest of the pilgrims. As a rule, pilgrims are charged only the cost of the trip.

"+" The most important and very significant plus is a trip with like-minded people. You are insured against unpleasant acquaintances and surprises, you will not be introduced to near-church superstitions, you will not be offered to perform senseless actions. The cost of such a trip, as a rule, is lower than in a company. Although sometimes the advertised price may not seem small to you, keep in mind that in many travel companies food is not included in the price.

“–” There is no possibility to be alone, to independently choose the route and time of stay at the shrine. Participants are required to obey the priest and organizer of the trip (actually, this is a plus for spiritual life, but out of habit it may seem like a minus). You will have to leave your piously ardent desire to write a note in this very church, to bathe in this very spring, to buy an icon at the moment when the bus is already running, you will have to leave at home. But the main disadvantage is different - this is troublesome and parishioners gather infrequently, as a rule, once a year, or even less often.

Professional pilgrims

Pilgrimage services at churches, monasteries, and sometimes even at the diocesan administration are a very common phenomenon today. The organization of such a service is carried out by individual employees who develop several popular routes, find pilgrims, and calculate the cost of travel. As a rule, such services operate on a commercial basis.

Trips around historical places, where famous monasteries and temples are located, are also organized by secular travel companies. But if you want to get acquainted with the holy places, devoting the maximum amount of time to this, difficulties await you. A secular company will not devote much time to worship, they will tell you about spiritual traditions and shrines in passing (and not always correctly). Most of the time will be spent buying souvenirs and visiting secular organizations. One of my friends with travel company went to Jerusalem. As a result, for several days they got acquainted with agriculture and industrial enterprises of Israel and were very happy that they managed to escape for one day on a tour of the holy places. Therefore, it is better to familiarize yourself with the route in advance.

"+" You can go on a pilgrimage at any time. Many pilgrimage services organize trips specifically for weekends and church holidays, which allows you to plan your vacation. You are deprived of organizational worries: pay money and forget about the material side, focusing on the spiritual. In addition, the group will help you in case of unforeseen health situations.

“–” Everyone who is able to pay a certain amount goes on such trips. Today there is a kind of fashion for "spiritual tourism". Far from the Church, people travel to monasteries and temples, vaguely understanding what they are looking for there. On the one hand, such trips are one of the missionary activities. There are many cases when a person went on a trip as a tourist, and returned as a pilgrim. But at the same time, such people are often not accustomed to attending divine services, they do not understand what is important and what is secondary in an Orthodox church, their conversations and actions are capable of embarrassing believing parishioners. One group brings together people of very different degrees of churchness. For some, five or six hours of monastic service is a long-awaited joy, for others - hard labor. The same applies to fasting meals, conversations on the bus, etc. You need to be prepared for this.

In conclusion, I would like to say that any pilgrimage is a labor and a spiritual feat. You should not count on spiritual and bodily comfort if you go to work in a monastery or even just pray at revered shrines. And the more you tune in to endure, give in and humble yourself on this trip, the more joy, and most importantly, the spiritual benefit it will bring you.

Marina Shmeleva

Bishop of Pokrovsky and Nikolaev Pachomy:

2016-08-22T18:11:50+00:00

Hello again, dear readers. Finally, I got around to writing the final article on travel arrangements on your own. Even before this happened, many friends and acquaintances asked how I manage to travel on my own, book tickets, find hotels or fellow travelers. The questions, in principle, are the same for many, so I came up with the idea to arrange everything in the form of a small plan or guide for those who are just about to start organizing their travels.

This article will be both introductory and final, because first I had to write all the useful posts on this topic, and then combine them into a single guide. I want to say right away that all articles, tips and examples are mine. personal experience which I have tried and use to this day. So if you have any questions or misunderstandings, you need help, or maybe you want to add some more to the list important information be sure to write to comments.

So, below is a list of articles that I included in the topic “ How to organize your own trip”:

How to organize a trip on your own and cheap

This list will be visible at the beginning of each page that is included in it. This is so that the reader does not get lost in the links. And the current article that you are in (for example, we are now on the page from the first paragraph) will be inactive and highlighted in a different color. It's simple. Naturally, only the most important planning points, in my opinion, are mentioned in the list, which is why I ask you for feedback with me, all of a sudden you think differently.

Now let me tell you how the organization of an independent trip is going on with me, at the same time I will briefly go over the items from the list.

1. Obtaining a passport via the Internet. Of course, what is a trip abroad without a passport. No, I do not argue that there are several other countries of the post-Soviet space (Kazakhstan, Abkhazia), where you can get on a Russian passport, but we don’t want to limit ourselves to the “near abroad”, right?

I am glad that with the development of the Internet, many operations with papers have become much faster and easier, so I always get my passport the same way. On which site can this be done, for how long, at what price and under what conditions is it better to take, as well as a list required documents to receive and a couple of practical tips you will receive by reading the corresponding article under item number 2.

2. Planning a route. Next, you need to decide, but where exactly will I go? And after the answer to this question is received, I begin to draw up a route for the country (countries) where I am going. For many, this particular point is a stumbling block, but I assure you that there is nothing complicated about it. Of course, for a beginner, you will have to spend some time, but then your work will be more than paid off by the fact that you will start easily and quickly compiling routes in any country, even in which you have not yet been. You can find out about this in the article item number 3.

3. Obtaining a visa. Oh how! Someone will say: “Where did this item come from? He is not on the general list!”. That's right, it is not there, because for each country obtaining a visa is individual. That is why I said that I included only the most important points on organizing a trip, I will not describe obtaining a visa to all 200-odd countries, especially yesterday, for example, in South Korea, a visa was needed, but today it is no longer there.

But, to make it easier to navigate this issue, because in any case it will be necessary to find out about the need to obtain a visa to a particular country, I will shed some light on this issue.

For starters, it would be nice to find out do i need a visa to the country where I was going. Personally, in this case, I do it simply: I go to Yandex and write “Japan visa” and see what they will give me. There are, of course, a bunch of sites where there is a whole list of visa-free or visa-free countries, but I do not trust them, because it is not known when this list was updated and whether it was updated at all. If you are still interested, then the best site (in terms of relevance at least) in my opinion is this one, but, I repeat, be sure to double-check the information.

If you need a visa, there are several ways to obtain it.:

at the embassy of the city of Moscow - I often use this particular point, since it is the cheapest and easiest for me (despite the fact that I am not a Muscovite), I still go through Moscow;). However, it is good to know what documents are required to apply. I deal with the solution of this issue on the same site that I gave above, but you can follow the standard scheme - “google”, and the best thing is to go to the consulate website (although sometimes info is only available in English). And it would be nice to have acquaintances in Moscow who would take the documents if you do not need a personal presence.
at the embassy of another country - this is if you have a lot of time and are traveling in more than one country.
upon arrival in another country - this item is not valid for all countries, which also needs to be found out. There are also options for obtaining a visa when ordering services in the form of air tickets around the country or hotels (very expensive option)
through a travel agency - the easiest way for those who do not live in the capital, however, you will have to pay for mediation. Accordingly, the farther from Moscow, the greater the “duty”.

4. What to take: card or cash? Choosing a plastic card. Money is the eternal question of mankind :). I think the title of the title speaks for itself. We decide in what form to take money with us, in cash or on a card? And if a card, which one is better? You will find answers to these questions in the article below. №4.

5. Buying a train ticket online. Since I am very far from the capital, and I fly mainly from Moscow, I often have to think about railway crossings. It is a pity that Russian Railways has no competitors, but if you make a purchase via the Internet, even a monopolist can find a couple of “tasty” offers. I wrote about this and much more in this article. item number 5.

6 and 7. Finding and buying cheap air tickets. The key word here would be “cheap” because, unlike railway, airlines compete, and how. But finding a cheap ticket is not so easy among the many “tricky” offers. So be sure to read not only the purchase method itself ( item number 7), but also the nuances of search engines that will help in your future experience in purchasing air tickets ( item number 8).

8. Finding cheap accommodation: book in advance or search locally. Well, of course, apart from all the tickets, we still need a roof over our heads. Since we are talking about independent travel, we will also look for and book a hotel on our own. There are two ways - booking in advance (via the Internet) and on the spot. What is better and better, you will definitely learn from the article item number 8.

9. List of travel items. It would seem the most banal point, well, why can’t I assemble myself? However, personally, I always keep with me a standard list of the most necessary things for all types of travel (mountain, long-term, recreational), so as not to suddenly forget something. Of course, a couple of items from the list are easily removed or added, it all depends on the preferences of each individual.

10. Airport: how to check in for a flight. Many travelers now chuckle when reading the title of this paragraph, apparently completely forgetting how they themselves stood for the first time in a huge airport lobby in confusion, not knowing where to go and who to turn to. And I remember, and therefore I wrote about how painlessly for your nerves to check in for a flight, which you can read about in paragraph number 9.

last two paragraphs No. 11 and No. 12 rather additional, however, recently I have been increasingly confronted with questions from others on these two topics, which is why I put them on the list. Who joined our group