When planning a trip with other people usually the question that makes the title of this post is not even considered. But it is of paramount importance to make a voyage unforgettable :), should you (or others) have the wrong expectation. It is like the choice of a pet… If you are a dog person, you will feel insecure with a cat, and if you are a cat person, the dog “follow-the-leader” personality will put you on the stress to be a leader when you do not feel so.
Group travel consists in a planned approach, and a group leader to take decisions for the whole group. The group is considered as a unit and move together, like a wolf-pack. Traveling together consists in sharing meeting points, transportation, and time together (if wanted), a more “feline approach”.
This travel is thought with the feline approach in mind. Do not let this blog, this seemingly organized array of places, dates, itineraries, and in the future hotel names and train schedules, fool you. I am not organizing a group tour, I am recruiting people who wants to share travel experiences, and, eventually, receive the help of like-minded people. When one together-traveler member goes to the ticket office to try to understand why the train is not at the station, the other looks after the luggage.
Of course, together-travelers may discuss everything and they should try to arrive to an agreement on, per example, if to take the night train or the day train, or if they prefer the International Friendship Hotel or the Xiju Impression Fashion Hotel, but if someone does not agree, he/she has the freedom of choice. And the decision should not affect the remaining of the trip, nor the relationship between the travelers. If a group traveler leaves the group due to dissension it is a major problem for the group and probably the traveler will not reintegrate the tour. A “together traveler” will not leave the group, because there is no group, he/she will decide do something differently and he/she will be welcome to resume the trip together at any point.
The only moment in which we must act as a group is if a “together traveler” has a health/police problem. In this case, we must stick together. A Marine never abandons its comrades 🙂
And an excerpt from Peter, speaking about Kini: “Differing widely in character and in temperament, we had one thing in common, and that was our attitude towards our profession (or vocation, or whatever you like to call it). We were united by the abhorrence of the false values placed – wether by its components, or by the world at large – on what can most conveniently be referred to by its trade-name of Adventure”
I do not search Adventure, either.
Images, all from the Author
Misha, sitting in a black couch
Flamingos over the Laguna Verde (4.380 m) Chile
Dakar truck in Copiapo Dunes Chile
Contact from, should you be interested in a follow-up
