Are Guided Birding Holidays fun? (1 Viewer)

[pjacobs]

I've been birding regularly for about 5 years now and I go birding on almost every trip I take, but I've never done a holiday dedicated to birding. I'm always very tempted by these "8 days in Spain", "14 days in South Africa", "3 weeks in Colombia" type trips. They sound like great fun even if they are a little expensive.

However, I realise the times when I enjoy birding the most are when I'm out solo, or with other non-experts, and I have to do all the hard work myself: finding a good location (or my local patch), finding the birds, identifying them in the field, or getting a decent photo and then heading home and going through my field guide to do the detective work. I've been out on day trips with guides a few times and they obviously do most of the hard work themselves and they will almost always find birds I would have not noticed and put me in places where I can see more birds or rare birds. While I do enjoy these days out, and I enjoy seeing rarities, and I do enjoy growing my life list, it is never as satisfying as going out and doing it myself.

So I'm curious.... how enjoyable are these big guided trips to Spain, Colombia, South Africa, etc.? A holiday in a beautiful country is (almost) always fun, but is the birding enjoyable?

Do guides generally point out everything quickly, or do you get a chance to make discoveries and IDs on your own?

Even if you see a few less birds, wouldn't it be more enjoyable to plan a trip for yourself, or a small group, and do the birding yourself?

I know much of this is personal preference, but I'm curious to hear some other's opinions.

Cheers,
Peter

 

[Mike Crawley]

In February I did a two week guided trip to Costa Rica.
it was absolutely brilliant and it was great fun.
The U.K. guide was a smashing bloke and the local guide was really great too - even the driver was a good birder.
It was a good laugh too.
Granted it was a 05:30 start every day but we had lots of laughs - no doubt because all the other participants (the company had the maximum of 10) were nice people.
The only other birding trip I have been on was to Colorado to do the grouse tour - that was hard work too. Yet again we had lots of fun because people made an effort to enjoy the trip.

Unfortunately, from what I’ve heard, if there are a couple of "Richardheads" on the tour it can certainly reduce the amount of fun available.

And finally, I did a self guided birding tour around Extramadura a few years ago with a group of friends. One guy did the planning and we followed routes taken by people who had published trip reports on t’internet.

I find "nipping off" to go birding on a family holiday less satisfying

 

[foresttwitcher]

It is very much each to their own. I can see the advantages of a guided tour but personally speaking I much prefer to plan my own trip, go solo, do my own thing and not have to fit in around others. I'm sure I miss out on some birds but am happier with my own company than having to spend time with others with whom I may not be entirely compatible.

 

[Welsh Peregrine]

Agree that it is a matter of personal choice; I have enjoyed birding for myself in the Middle East, South Africa and Australia, but also guided tours in South America and Indonesia. I suppose the key point is how much will missed species matter? Your list is likely to be at least 25% greater if guided, and this may matter if you are unlikely to revisit the area.

 

[lgonz1008]

I've done both and my mindset has kind of become one of: where am I? how much time do I have here? and can I drive? If the answer for any of these, showcases how much I'm missing out, I'm booking a guide.

At the very least, I'd say that if you are going to a completely new region (not something like UK to Spain, but to the level of UK to Colombia or Uganda), having a guide for your first trip to that continent or bioregion will help in not only finding your targets, but also ensuring you familiarize yourself with the main birds/families of the regions for when you eventually return there.

Best example for me right now is with Costa Rica, never been there, but since I've birded Panama, Mexico and Ecuador, I feel confident enough to rent a car and try to get the missing targets myself. Ask me to do the same in Malaysia or Ghana and I'd say no thank you, even if I know those places are safe and easy enough to traverse, but I just don't have the experience to do it yet.

 

[Jacana]

I did a two week guided tour with a friend (just the two of us) in NE India a few years ago. We both enjoyed it to an extent, however I'll not rush to do it again. It would have been impossible to visit all the sites we visited in that time frame without a guide ao from that perspective, it was great. However neither of us enjoyed the feeling of being constrained by the schedule and although we really liked our guide in general, he was clearly used to guiding a different sort of clientele. We had to constantly stop him from luring in birds with excessive playback etc.

What this boils down to is that a fantastic guide for one person can be a pain-in-the-neck for another person. But, if you have the funds and are thinking of travelling somewhere where independent travel is very difficult, it is worth trying the experience.

 

[Owene]

I've only done one (although done several other single days) and yes you can get onto and Id your own birds and wander around locations yourself. The guides are obviously good but when you have a bunch of other birders with scopes pointing off in other directions it is a bit more of a team effort than you might expect.

Also while some people didn't have scopes and stayed near the guides who were calling birds and getting scopes on them quickly I spent a lot of time looking for insects missed a few birds but found stuff for myself in the same way I would at home

That was Spain though and most of the birders there had a familiarity with western paleartic birds. If I was in a more extreme environment with less capability to Id myself it would be very different

It's not quite the same as birding by yourself but every time I've had a guide I've got them onto birds too. Not as often as they have for me or even close but it's not just having stuff pointed out.

 

[jurek]

It is impossible to answer. You may consider hiring a local guide in a country, which gives you much more flexibility than traveling with a whole group of foreign birders. Or go on your own and hire local guides for some days.

I agree, that going for 2-3 weeks with an unfamiliar guide and a bunch of other unfamiliar people can be pain. Or you may like it.

 

[Mysticete]

Like others have said this is a subjective opinion and it really depends on what you like and your personality. Some people love tours and take them yearly. I ran into a couple who were on a tour in Southern California, despite the fact that they already lived in San Diego. Other people loathe them and avoid them at all costs.

It sort of sounds like you would be better off booking a week long stay at one or a couple of ecolodges, and just hiring a guide for a few days. That would give you the flexibility to play it by ear and find your own birds. Or maybe search around to find a company that offers a more relaxed tour

 

[Mike Crawley]

I agree, that going for 2-3 weeks with an unfamiliar guide and a bunch of other unfamiliar people can be pain. Or you may like it.

meeting new (and luckily interesting) people was part of the attraction in booking a group tour, for me

 

[pjacobs]

Agree that it is a matter of personal choice; I have enjoyed birding for myself in the Middle East, South Africa and Australia, but also guided tours in South America and Indonesia. I suppose the key point is how much will missed species matter? Your list is likely to be at least 25% greater if guided, and this may matter if you are unlikely to revisit the area.

This is a helpful way to think about it. A few missed species might not matter much, but if I know I'm going to miss quite a bit, like 25%, it may change my thinking.

 

[pjacobs]

I did a two week guided tour with a friend (just the two of us) in NE India a few years ago. We both enjoyed it to an extent, however I'll not rush to do it again. It would have been impossible to visit all the sites we visited in that time frame without a guide ao from that perspective, it was great. However neither of us enjoyed the feeling of being constrained by the schedule and although we really liked our guide in general, he was clearly used to guiding a different sort of clientele. We had to constantly stop him from luring in birds with excessive playback etc.

What this boils down to is that a fantastic guide for one person can be a pain-in-the-neck for another person. But, if you have the funds and are thinking of travelling somewhere where independent travel is very difficult, it is worth trying the experience.

Yeah this is what I would be worried about. Especially if I spend a lot of money on a big trip, I'll have high expectations and would probably be let down if the guide wasn't well suited to me. But like you I would still really enjoy a few weeks looking at birds in India, even with a guide I didn't love.

 

[pjacobs]

Like others have said this is a subjective opinion and it really depends on what you like and your personality. Some people love tours and take them yearly. I ran into a couple who were on a tour in Southern California, despite the fact that they already lived in San Diego. Other people loathe them and avoid them at all costs.

It sort of sounds like you would be better off booking a week long stay at one or a couple of ecolodges, and just hiring a guide for a few days. That would give you the flexibility to play it by ear and find your own birds. Or maybe search around to find a company that offers a more relaxed tour

I agree this sounds like a great idea. It allows me to do what I enjoy most and gives me some flexibility to hire guides as needed.

 

[Jonny721]

This is a helpful way to think about it. A few missed species might not matter much, but if I know I'm going to miss quite a bit, like 25%, it may change my thinking.

I did a 16-day self-guided trip to Costa Rica in February and managed to record 367 species in total. This was my first self-guided trip outside of Europe and my first time ever birding in Central America, so as eluded too by Igonz1008 upthread it took me a few days to get used to the birding style and ID challenges. A fully guided trip on a similar itinerary would have resulted in over 500 species so I was definitely way down on that by doing it all myself, though if I repeated the same trip now with the experience I gained from the first trip I would probably get closer to 425-450 species.

 

[Jim M.]

Yes, they can be fun. I always spend a lot of time before the trip learning the birds, so I'm not just having a guide point out birds to me. I'm more into doing things myself when birding locally, but when birding in a foreign country you can save a lot of hassle and see a lot more birds if you have a guide. Plus, when seeing special birds, it is always nice to have other people to share the excitement with.

But on about a third of the 20 or so set departure trips I have been on, either the guide or one or more participants have been a real pain (bossy or inconsiderate or unfriendly). They didn't prevent me from enjoying the trip, but made me more cautious about just who I book trips with in the future.

Ideally, I'd prefer to go on private trips where you know all the participants beforehand and you can choose your own itinerary and guide. But trying to organize trips where everyone is available for the same time and destination can be very challenging.

 

[jurek]

Actually, on an organized trip you often see less, not more. Birds are afraid of larger group, and seeing into the right window in the vegetation is more difficult if there is a queue. This is not so important on trips in open country or waterbodies, but it forests and rainforests it is. And these are often very good birds, for example various pheasants. It can be such a pain to see a skulking bird on a tour, and such an easy thing on your own, or with just one friend and a guide.

And professional tours are usually planned for American people in their 70s or 80s with reduced mobility. So you generally walk few 100s of m on level ground at most. If a bird is further away, or there is a beautiful sight further away, sorry. Again, it can be a disadvantage or an advantage depending from your own mobility.

I wish that bird tour companies would offer self-drive or self-done itinerary: booking you places and local guides. I think this would be actually profitable for them, because it costs them little, and they would get publicity for their core tours.

 

[Jim M.]

Actually, on an organized trip you often see less, not more. Birds are afraid of larger group, and seeing into the right window in the vegetation is more difficult if there is a queue. This is not so important on trips in open country or waterbodies, but it forests and rainforests it is. And these are often very good birds, for example various pheasants. It can be such a pain to see a skulking bird on a tour, and such an easy thing on your own, or with just one friend and a guide.

And professional tours are usually planned for American people in their 70s or 80s with reduced mobility. So you generally walk few 100s of m on level ground at most. If a bird is further away, or there is a beautiful sight further away, sorry. Again, it can be a disadvantage or an advantage depending from your own mobility.

I wish that bird tour companies would offer self-drive or self-done itinerary: booking you places and local guides. I think this would be actually profitable for them, because it costs them little, and they would get publicity for their core tours.

– Most people will see more birds overall on a guided tour, but I agree a large group can be a hindrance to seeing some birds. (Though if you have the skills of a top-notch professional bird guide, which few birders do, your results may be different.) I generally stick to tours that have a limit of eight or fewer participants. Some tour companies offer special "small group" tours that are more expensive but limit the number of participants even further. And if you get your own group together, you can decide on the number of participants yourself.

– Most companies offer a range of tours from demanding to easy. I have been on several organized tours that have involved strenuous hikes over 2 miles – sometimes uphill and sometimes in the dark. But you are certainly right that most participants on organized tours are 55+, and few tours are designed for the athletic abilities of fit 20-30 year-olds. But if you compare the trip lists from organized tours with other trip lists, you'll see they are usually bigger and they don't miss much. Constraints on going after a faraway bird usually have more to do with time than effort (spending more time on some birds usually means spending less on others).

– A lot of ground agents used by the tour companies do offer self-drive itineraries.

 

[lgonz1008]

Something that might help is partially linked to something Jurek brought up, tours to countries/places with lots of skulking species can be frustrating. The birds are tough to begin with and having to share the guide's time/viewing window with a dozen other birders can be frustrating.

But from my experience, if you do the tour in a country that has open habitat or relatively tame wildlife (due to a lack of persecution), even a large group can easily see most, if not all, of the targets.

And sometimes the guide will cater to those that want to do a bit more during the normal down time, I've had extra owling sessions in a bird tour that I was the only one in the field while all the other birders were sleeping/relaxing in the hotel.



If you get a good guide, it doesn't matter even if you have a "bad apple" in the group, but you are kind of screwed if you get a "my way or nothing" guide. At that point, even if you have time and energy to do more, they will refuse your attempts and literally screw your experience.

Best example I can give for this is something that happened to a birding friend that went to the Gambia. The local guide said they had to leave early to get the first boat to cross the river and target Egyptian Plover (a mega no matter where you are in Africa) and everyone agreed to do it, but the main guide said no. Why? Because he wasn't going to lose the $50 he spent on everyone's breakfast for the next day...Luckily they got the bird, but with all the extra time constraints, worries and bribing to cross the river, nobody in that trip was happy even after seeing the bird, simply because the guide put their foot down and ignore the wishes of literally everyone else in the group.

 

[greer3]

No.

 

[Mike Crawley]

one of the criteria I used to chose the two tours I’ve been on was participant numbers.
8 to Colorado (16 seat bus with a driver/guide)
10 to Costa Rica (25 seat bus local driver; local guide and UK leader)