Recent years have seen a marked rise in the group tour phenomenon. Fuelled by increasingly busy lifestyles, and a growing interest in emerging destinations once considered the sole terrain of hardened backpackers, the market for group tourism has expanded rapidly. Most of us only get a few weeks of holiday each year. When time is of the essence, it can feel good to delegate all the travel planning to someone else. Slow, independent journeys will, of course, always be the cheapest form of travel, but they're not entirely practical if you don't want to quit your job and hit the road for an unspecified amount of time.
