I have a strong independent streak and will do any venture on my own if I can, but any alternative needs to be looked at quite carefully and comparing benefits can be quite tricky.

For example if you’re going to a new country and you know nothing of it, it might be preferable the first time around to be at least shown the basics and thus avoid waste of time and possibly waste of money through going up blind alleys.

I am a very late convert to coach holidays thinking that they would be a version of Butlins holiday camp full of positive people organizing you around. The truth has been basically different. We get taken from A to B by  people who have done arrangements for many years and know what pleases the customers.

We started our package holidays in the UK with Shearings, a good firm that has since been brought up by someone else, back in 2016. Since then as they say I have never looked back. We have been all over the United Kingdom though I hasten to add we have not yet used such a package company to travel abroad.

Our last six trips have been with Just Go Travel, a national and rapidly expanding travel group and good luck to them. So our latest escapade was tour number 85oj76 no less, to Manchester, Liverpool and Chester with various pickup points throughout the United Kingdom.

They achieve this by choosing a number of pickup points where they use small feeder vehicles to take people to where the main coaches for the majority of the journey are waiting. This can involve some standing around and waiting – looking around iterations of McDonalds and other chains so don’t expect the journey to take as short a time as it does with your own private motor vehicle.

The departure date of this tour was Monday the 17th of March 2025 and the return date was Friday the 21st of March 2025. This means four nights in a hotel which for me is about the minimum for it to constitute a holiday. There was one with Warner Holidays  – do a search on this site – which was a two-night taster but that was a different category

We had to be in Bath for a pick up at 8.05 am which did not give us enough time for our customary pre-departure breakfast in Wetherspoons. We had to rise  before 6 to catch the local bus from where we live to Bath. Once you are up it is really no great hardship.

So I will now do a cost comparison between the two, do it yourself and via Just Go (or most other companies come to that).

Total cost with Just Go was £518 for two people including travel, dinner bed and breakfast, excursions, evening entertainment, 2 4 1 evening bar..

DIY – Booking directly with the same hotel via a special offer rate with bed and breakfast would have cost £228. In the hotel, evening meals are priced at £15.

Distance from Bath in Somerset to Bolton in Lancashire is 210 miles. If you wish to drive on your own to the destination from Somerset plus three day visits you are talking about 550 miles which in my rather thirsty car would not give much change out of £150 to which should be added parking charges which in the 3 places we were going to visit would be quite considerable.

I have allowed £50 parking for the three visits.

So we have £518 with Jut Go vs £548 minimum DIY

On the face of it there is not much difference between the two modalities, but there is more to this matter than meets the eye. Holidays are supposed to be stress-free and in terms of the package holiday all you have to do is to turn up at the pickup stop and then not have to worry about anything else because all your basic travel needs and accommodation needs are attended to.

You can then just relax and enjoy yourself.   I cannot quantify the value of this. If anything goes wrong,  it’s not up to you to fix it – for example if the coach were to break down. We could say that the company’s job is to make things as stress free as possible and they have a legal responsibility to carry out their promises.

If your own self-arranged holiday does not work out, there is no one to turn to except possibly a hotel in case of gross malfunctioning.

There is another factor which we always enjoy which is the company of other people because when you are in a group it is in everyone’s interest that you are a sociable being and many people especially those of senior years have very interesting stories to tell.

We also enjoyed four evening entertainments, normally singers, and also a 2 4 1 bar after 6pm in the evenings.

For example we met one person whose  enthusiasm was the history of shipwrecks. Everyone has a little niche interest – a hobby or skill set. You can happily chatter away in the coach, at breakfast or evening meal and get to know people, sometimes forming an acquaintance which is good humored with plenty of banter and jokes. People would go on coach trips are social types otherwise they wouldn’t go would they?

I met an inspirational chap who was from Madeira and who was 90 years old and he was as bright as a button a company by his equally awake friend who was 85 years of age. The man was joyful, attentive if a little bit deaf and a privilege to be with. At 80 years of age I felt a comparative youngster and was able to tease myself in front of others which I quite enjoy doing.

So you’ve got a ready-made audience for your bad jokes or teasing and can tap in to sources of local knowledge or whatever. I was snobby for many years stereotyping the sort of people that I thought went  on such tours and I was completely wrong.

So my vote goes to an arranged holiday. If you have a project which involves meeting people in places other than cities then you’re probably better off not relying on local bus services but by doing it to yourself.

For me it was a great pleasure not to drive and just get myself on the allotted seat in the coach by a certain time and leave the organizing to someone else.