G Adventures reviewed! 

Hi all! Some of you may remember that I promised a G-adventures review in my post on travelling solo – well, here it is! 

Last year, I went on a trip to South East Asia. It was one of my first trips travelling by myself so I wanted to play it safe. I did some research and went in to my local STA Travel to discuss my options. They suggested G-adventures which had a number of trips in the region, ranging from less than a week to a month and over. I didn’t have that much time to play with so decided to go with ‘Bangkok to Singapore on a shoestring‘ which was a 14 day tour. I also added a couple of extra days on each side to give me some flexibility to explore.

As a new solo traveller, I can’t recommend the company enough. For me personally, it took away the stress of organising everything  myself (especially as I didn’t have the time to do this) and I had the peace of mind of having a local guide who was really helpful in providing useful tips about each city we visited. I also think that, if you’ve not travelled alone before, this will give you confidence to take the leap by yourself later on. Having said that, there are also some potential downsides to using a company that organises everything for you. I’ve put down some of my thoughts below:

Pros 

• Great opportunity to meet people from across the world. My group alone had people from the USA, Germany, South Africa and the U.K. 
• Once you get to your destination, everything is planned for you – this includes travel between towns and cities as well as hotels.
• Itineraries are well thought out and take you to the best places to visit. 
• A local guide is with you at all times so it felt a lot safer. Also in countries where you can’t speak the language, this can be really helpful.

Cons

• There is definitely less flexibility in what you want to see as the itinerary is fixed. I also felt that we didn’t have enough time to explore in some of the cities. 
• It can be considerably cheaper if you plan a trip by yourself, particularly in South  East Asia where travel is really cheap. But then, you are paying for the service of a hassle free guided tour! 

On the specific tour that I chose, I loved the itinerary as it was quite varied and included major cities like Bangkok and Kuala Lumpur but also stopped in places like George Town in Penang and Maleka which were really interesting and unusual towns. 

Hope you found this post helpful! Have you ever used G-adventures? Leave me a comment below! X