Group travel can be fun and for fulfilling

Group travel can be very fun and fulfilling. If you have ever led a travel group, you know
that it can sometimes be a challenge to maintain harmonious group dynamic throughout the travel you have worked so hard to create. Below are some helpful tips to help you and your group have the  

best travel experience possible!

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

Camera with extra memory

Travel journal

A good place to hold monthly meetings

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Step 1

First, decide how big you want your group to be. Then, start recruiting
travelers 10 to 12 months in advance of your trip's departure.

Step 2

Once you have recruited and registered three quarters of your desired
amount of participants, call your first group meeting and have meetings
once a month thereafter. It is good to schedule the meetings at the same
time--for example, every first Tuesday of the month. Meetings will allow
travelers to get to know and feel comfortable with each other. It is best to
cover financial topics in the first meeting--sorting out payment arrangements,
making travelers aware of any additional costs, discussing possible fundraising
options. Subsequent meetings should be informative, fairly brief and fun. Meeting
agendas can include topics such as: more detailed descriptions of itinerary
destinations, fun art-related activities that relate to the trip, speakers from
previous trips you have led, information about applying for a passport, a local
trip together to an event or locale that relates to the trip, etc...

Step 3

Encourage communication between members via phone or e-mail by
giving everyone a group contact list. When members offer to help in
any way, let them. Go out of your way to compliment and point out
the talents or travel experiences of individual members to the group.
Let individual group members run all or part of a monthly meeting.
Foster any opportunity for members to communicate and get to know
and like each other long before they will be asked to be in close
proximity to each other for 10 or 12 days.

Step 4

Talk about some of the difficulties of group travel in one of the first
group meetings and encourage a group discussion about ways to avoid
possible problems. Discuss group etiquette and rules--such as being on
time to meeting spots and not wandering off from the group without
letting someone know.

Step 5

This may seem an obvious point but, if the group is large, divide members
into smaller groups and assign each a leader so that, while traveling, it will
be easy to tell if someone is not accounted for.

Step 6

If you are the group leader, take lots of pictures of group
members having fun together and take lots of group
pictures in front of recognizable landmarks and
monuments. Group members will appreciate your
having and sharing these pictures after the trip.
These pictures can also be used to show future travel
groups how much fun you had.

Step 7

Chronically your trip in a journal and use this information along with
all your wonderful pictures to give a presentation or make DVDs
to give out when you bring everyone together after the trip for a
special pot luck dinner

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