Not enjoying our guided India experience and would like to…
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Not enjoying our guided India experience and would like to hear other people's thoughts
My girlfriend and I are currently in India and we're not having a good time. We're both sick of being here and I'm trying to wrap my head around why.
We've traveled a lot to Europe, East Asia, and Latin America from the US with a mix of travel styles. We've done whole trips where we plan everything ourselves and we've done guided experiences.
With India, we decided to do more guided experiences for her safety and to not have to worry about transportation logistics in remote places like Kerala. I feel like the experience has been disappointing for a few reasons:
- The tours feel very rushed and transactional. We’re basically being moved from one stop to another without much time to actually take anything in. We've also been dropped off at shops where we feel pressured to buy things.
- Many stops feel kind of hollow — like being offered to watch cultural dances or look at monuments without any real explanation or context. It feels more like checking boxes than actually learning or experiencing anything. Our Delhi tour guide would take us to say, the India Gate, and then was just like "do you want a picture?" It felt like prying teeth to get her to give historical context -- which I know she was totally capable of doing because she was getting her master's degree in history.
- Many of our tour guides have also been difficult to understand. I know English is likely their third or forth language and they're working hard to explain things to us but it still doesn't feel great to pay money and not understand anything. I didn't run into this issue in Vietnam or Costa Rica.
We were in Delhi, then Mumbai for a friend's wedding which has been the most enjoyable part of the trip, and now we've started the 4 day Kerala tour and we just feel absolutely miserable after our first day. We're thinking of cancelling this tour and just flying home at this point.
Are we missing something? It feels like everyone else who's done these tours had a great time going by the reviews.
#travel
source
My girlfriend and I are currently in India and we're not having a good time. We're both sick of being here and I'm trying to wrap my head around why.
We've traveled a lot to Europe, East Asia, and Latin America from the US with a mix of travel styles. We've done whole trips where we plan everything ourselves and we've done guided experiences.
With India, we decided to do more guided experiences for her safety and to not have to worry about transportation logistics in remote places like Kerala. I feel like the experience has been disappointing for a few reasons:
- The tours feel very rushed and transactional. We’re basically being moved from one stop to another without much time to actually take anything in. We've also been dropped off at shops where we feel pressured to buy things.
- Many stops feel kind of hollow — like being offered to watch cultural dances or look at monuments without any real explanation or context. It feels more like checking boxes than actually learning or experiencing anything. Our Delhi tour guide would take us to say, the India Gate, and then was just like "do you want a picture?" It felt like prying teeth to get her to give historical context -- which I know she was totally capable of doing because she was getting her master's degree in history.
- Many of our tour guides have also been difficult to understand. I know English is likely their third or forth language and they're working hard to explain things to us but it still doesn't feel great to pay money and not understand anything. I didn't run into this issue in Vietnam or Costa Rica.
We were in Delhi, then Mumbai for a friend's wedding which has been the most enjoyable part of the trip, and now we've started the 4 day Kerala tour and we just feel absolutely miserable after our first day. We're thinking of cancelling this tour and just flying home at this point.
Are we missing something? It feels like everyone else who's done these tours had a great time going by the reviews.
#travel
source
| 4,000 mlx | |
| 7 | |
| 0 |