6 ways Globus solves the pain points of group tours in Europe

Is a group tour right for me? Until a few weeks ago, I would have said no – at least to travel to most mainstream destinations. I love traveling alone.

But then I spent seven days touring Scotland on a Globus bus, traveling with dozens of travelers I had never met before.

To my surprise, I had a great time, as you can read in this story about the trip.

In part, this was because I was traveling with a great group of people – newfound friends whose company made the experience even better. It doesn’t hurt that Scotland is home to stunning scenery and fascinating historical sites. I think it’s hard not to have a wonderful experience while traveling in Scotland.

But my enjoyment of the trip also had to do with how Globus handled every little detail of the trip – from arranging our hotel and transportation to getting us into all the top attractions – which meant I didn’t have to worry about a thing. I can sit back, relax and soak in it all.

Simply put, Globus removes many of the pain points in travel that can drastically impact the experience.

Here are six of the biggest travel pain points that Globus helped alleviate on my trip to Scotland.

The drudgery of finding suitable accommodation

I often spend hours searching for the perfect hotel or short-term rental property wherever I visit. Considering my busy schedule, that time comes at a cost.

But even if I’m willing to take the time to look for the right place, I don’t always find it. I would choose accommodation that looked cozy and cozy in online pictures, or seemed to be in the right part of town, only to find on arrival that it was neither exactly what I expected.

Globus made this part of my trip easy. The brand identified the best places to stay at each destination in the itinerary before I even signed up for the trip, saving me hours of time and worrying about whether I was choosing my accommodation wisely.

For example, upon arriving in Inverness in the Scottish Highlands, we discovered that our hotel (Mercury Inverness) was in a prime location, next to the River Ness and the main shopping street. Our hotels in Glasgow and Edinburgh are also ideally located, giving us easy access to the city’s top restaurants, shops and attractions right out our front door.

Arrival and departure stress

As a travel writer, I’m used to flying to new places around the world. But even I sometimes get lost when arriving in a new city or country, especially if I haven’t done much homework ahead of time. For people who don’t travel often, the moment you arrive on a plane to a new location can be daunting.

Globus eliminates this potential pain point by offering airport pick-up services for travel that includes airfare. A Globus representative will meet travelers at baggage claim and direct them to their transfer, then transfer them to their hotel for an overnight stay—nothing to worry about.

I did not take advantage of the transfer service offered by Glasgow Airport (GLA) at the start of my trip as I arrived in the country early at another airport. But what I loved was that Globus provided me with all the logistics of getting from our last hotel in Edinburgh to Edinburgh Airport (EDI) on the last day of my trip—yes, when you book a trip that includes airfare, Globus also includes airport transfers at the end of your trip.

The stress of figuring out how to get around

What’s the best way to travel from your hotel in Glasgow to Scotland’s famously beautiful Loch Lomond, 50 miles north, and from there to the iconic Stirling Castle, 40 miles east?

This trip, I didn’t have to figure it out. We visited both sites in one day – two of the best places to visit around Glasgow. But all I had to do was show up in the lobby of our Glasgow hotel after breakfast and leave all the transportation and logistical worries of getting to the site to our guide.

We took the Globus coach to both locations and stopped at a whiskey distillery near Stirling Castle for a tasting – as our coach moved locations we arrived at the whiskey distillery on foot. We also took a quick tour of Glasgow city center to see the highlights.

While I usually enjoy planning my travel schedule when I travel, I’ll be the first to admit that I can’t figure out how to do it all in one day on my own.

The tyranny of the ticket line

One thing I really enjoyed about this trip: I never spent more than a few minutes in line. As part of arranging all aspects of our trip in advance, Globus had tickets prepared at each attraction we visited. As a result, I didn’t have to queue at any location to buy tickets – which is a big plus for popular attractions like Stirling Castle where there can be long queues to buy tickets.

When it’s time to enter the attraction, our tour guide will be waiting at the entrance with the ticket. Sometimes we don’t even have to go through the front door. We will have quick access to the site through another entrance as part of a special group tour lane, which Globus calls VIP lane.

At Scone Palace near Perth, where Scottish kings have been crowned for centuries, our guide led us through the main entrance to a special side door, from where we walked straight into the grounds without waiting. We first stopped for an exclusive breakfast of coffee, tea and biscuits in one of the palace’s kitchens, before taking a private guided tour of the site.

The stress of time management

Getting us to popular attractions faster is just one way Globus saves me travel time. On a wider level, the hour-by-hour flow of each day’s itinerary was planned in extreme detail, including the list of attractions we would visit, travel times between them, lunch breaks and even toilet breaks, all of which were well thought out in advance, which meant I ended up seeing more and doing more on this trip than I would have done on my own.

As mentioned above, one of the days includes a cruise from Glasgow to the famously beautiful Loch Lomond (an outing that includes a 50-mile drive north), exploring Scotland’s iconic Stirling Castle (another 40 miles east) for a few hours, and a whiskey tasting at a nearby distillery, before driving the 30 miles back to Glasgow.

The next day we headed north into the spectacular Scottish Highlands, home to the picturesque Glencoe Valley (the setting for James Bond’s estate in Skyfall), the famous Isle of Skye and the fairytale Eilean Donan Castle.

There’s no way I could have done all of that in two days of tour.

fear of missing out

As it turns out, this isn’t my first visit to Scotland. Although I hadn’t been to much of the country before my trip, I had visited the capital, Edinburgh, twice over the years during cruise ship calls (as regular readers know, I write mostly about cruise travel).

During both visits, I did what I always do when visiting a city on a cruise: I explored on my own. On my first visit, I took a tour of Edinburgh Castle, the city’s most famous attraction, and walked around the old part of town. On my second visit I had a great lunch at a Michelin-starred pub I’d read about on a food review website and spent more time walking around.

But after visiting Edinburgh on this Globus trip, I realized: I was missing out on a lot.

For example, when we visited Edinburgh’s “New Town” (“new” is relative as it was built in the 1700s and 1800s), our guide pointed out to us a magnificent neoclassical residence in Charlotte Square that serves as the official residence of the First Minister of Scotland. In other words, it is Scotland’s equivalent of the US White House or England’s 10 Downing Street.

I’ve passed this building more than once, but twice I had no idea what it was the last time I visited Edinburgh. I never even stopped to stare at it. I also didn’t know that another large house a few doors down was the home of antiseptic medicine pioneer Joseph Lister (think: Listerine), or that telephone inventor Alexander Graham Bell lived across the street.

As a history buff, I am interested in these sites and their backstories. However, I had completely missed them on my previous trip.

If you’re worried about missing out on travel, then traveling with a group tour might be a good option.