For the last four years all of my trips have been taken solo. I’ve loved the independent style of travel, that I can go where I want, do what I want and create my own itinerary. When I decided to go on a photography holiday I knew it would mean travelling with a group of strangers. I’ve written about my trip to Japan with Creative Escapes, but in this post I wanted to focus on what my first experience of group travel was really like.

My First Experience of Group Travel

As a more introverted person I find it extremely difficult to introduce myself to people, to make a good impression, and to avoid coming across as rude and dismissive. The truth is that my nerves and anxiety can get the better of me and I end up just wanting to run away and hide.

I had purposely arrived the night before so that I could get enough sleep and wake up feeling refreshed, it was also in case I needed to give myself time to recover from any travel sickness (luckily this hadn’t been an issue.) I headed down to the hotel lobby to meet the course instructor taking along the butterflies in my stomach.

I had intentionally chosen Creative Escapes for my first experience of group travel as I was impressed by the fact that the groups sizes are no more than eight people. I don’t like large groups, but small groups also bring their own concerns: being in a small group means that you’re forced to talk to new people, something which can be incredibly intimidating.

The other aspect that I was nervous about was that fact that it had a photography focus, I was concerned that it would simply be a competition: who had the most expensive camera, who had the most experience, whether there would be a pretentious attitude among the other people in the group. Of course these concerns ended up being unjustified as they were a lovely group of people.

The thing I love most about solo travel is the ability to create my own itinerary, to do what I want, when I want. For my first experience of group travel I spent a lot of time reading over the details of the trip and the rough itinerary. I felt I needed to prepare myself as much as possible for a trip where I had no real control over the events.

I wanted to take this trip as I wanted to visit Japan and needed to improve and learn new photography skills. I booked with the rough idea that if I didn’t enjoy myself then I never needed to go on another group trip and could class it as a one off.

Instead I came away thrilled that I had taken the chance and had enjoyed myself much more than I expected.

What was your first experience of group travel like?

Let me know in the comments.