Here's a copy of Derek's tips on how to arrange your own guided tour, as opposed to using a commercial tour company, presented at the October, 2005 meeting of the Travel Club:
A customized private tour differs from a conventional group tour in two ways:
1) The tour is limited to you and your immediate party.
2) The itinerary is designed by you, not by a tour operator.
A usually independent traveler may wish to arrange a customized private tour for travel to a “difficult country.” Sri Lanka is one such example; its problem is that self-drive car rental is generally not advisable for tourists, because most roads are narrow and heavily used by large trucks. Backpackers have to make do with buses, which can be slow and crowded. Alternatives to road travel are limited, since train service is spotty and slow, and the island nation is too small for domestic air service. Because wages for drivers are low and car insurance rates for nonresidents are high, it may cost no more to hire a car with a driver.
If you are lucky enough to obtain a recommendation for a suitable driver from a recent traveler, either personally or from a letter in a travel magazine, you could make arrangements directly with the driver and negotiate the fee, usually by e-mail. Otherwise, you need to contact one or more travel agencies in the destination country. Derek followed the following 3 steps for his Sri Lanka visit:
1) Decide on your itinerary, just as you would for your usual independent trips. You could ask the travel agencies for their suggestions, but differences in the itineraries will compromise your comparison of the competitive bids that I recommend for step 3.
2) Decide what services you absolutely need and what others you might like. We needed a driver, but if it would cost little more to hire one who was also a licensed guide, why not? Because most visitors to Sri Lanka travel in groups, local travel agents have negotiated discounted rates with the 3 star and 4 star hotels preferred by groups. So, I also asked the travel agents for hotel quotes.
3) I submitted my proposal for competitive bid to 6 travel agencies in the destination country and obtained 5 replies. I asked the agencies to itemize the various costs; one agency refused and another complained! I selected the lowest bid and then fine-tuned the arrangements to substitute one hotel that had been recommended by a different agency; you can’t do this, if you don’t get itemized bids that allow you to compare "apples with apples." The agency also proposed including admission fees to the various monuments that I had selected, so our only unbudgetted expenses were meals and gifts etc.
How did I pick the 6 agencies? I looked through the very extensive list with links provided on the official Sri Lanka Tourism website (www.srilankatourism.org/travel.asp) and chose 6 with the most professional website design. This may not be the best way, but it worked! I was very happy with my final choice; subsequently, I recommended that agency to another member of the Mid-Valley Travel Club, who was equally satisfied during his trip to Sri Lanka.
Virtually all foreign government tourism information offices provide similar links on their web sites; many have offices with toll-free phone numbers in the USA, which will send the same information by mail or fax to prospective travelers who do not have internet access.
A customized private tour is also appropriate for group travelers who, for their next trip, wish to try a relatively painless method of branching out somewhat independently.
