Are Guided Birding Holidays fun? (2 Viewers)

[Tiraya]

Depends what you are going for. The best kind of birding holiday guides know the birds inside and out, both visually and by calls, and are more than happy to explain ID features and help people understand the birds beyond just ticking a name off. It's also preferable to have smaller groups, so people aren't in a line on a crowded trail unable to see the bird in front, or crowding the guide with questions. If you have both of these criteria fulfilled, I find you get significantly more benefit from a birding trip than you ever could solo. In those cases, my answer to your question is very much yes.

Some people enjoy the learning process on their own, and working out the locations, local culture, accomodations, and transport is part of their fun. Good for them, but personally I enjoy having some of that stress relieved so I can focus on appreciating and learning the birds in the field.

 

[jurek]

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

Note that it is combined for all tour participants and no single person will see all birds. And a proportion of tour guides simply string birds, truth to be said.

It is true that the guide will point birds, but this may be boring if you are rather capable, or an advantage if you are a passive birder, who simply waits to be shown everything. It can be positive or negative.

 

[Paul Chapman]

The answer of course is that it depends on the destination, type of birding, ethos of the company and the guide. All shared birding experiences require "give and take". To go on a bird tour, you need mentally to prepare yourself for quite a lot of "give" especially when you are used to independent decision-making and may have differing targets. But that is the same with all birding trips.

Since Covid restrictions mainly lifted, I have done ten trips if I have not forgotten any. Three have been with just one companion, five have been with two friends, one has been with a friend and a guide and one has been a guided tour. All have been successful and all have involved compromise but on a birding tour, you give up almost all control or decision-making. That can be helped with a good relationship with the guide and good communication but you are in their hands.

The birdtour was to Costa Rica. A destination quite well suited to self-guided. In 16 days, I recorded over 500 species with over 450 photographed which I suspect would have exceeded most self-guided efforts for the same duration and itinerary. I missed maybe 10 of the shared list. Certainly no more. A friend did a longer trip self-guided with over 600 species recorded at the end of last year.

This tour was a very good trip with one of the more expensive companies. If I went back, I would not do a tour as I now have a better idea of the country and its birds but I will do birdtours for other destinations.

I know my preferences and I know my usual travelling companions well. I suspect their lists of give and take on me would be longer than mine on them but they carry on travelling with me.... (Next definite trip in the diary is with five of them to Canada with a couple of days in the US with two of them afterwards - all self-guided.)

So bird tours can be fun but go with your eyes open, have a realistic expectation of the experience and pick a company, guide, destination and group size that will suit you. Some good contributions and advice in this thread.

All the best

Paul

 

[Farnboro John]

Yes. Or alternatively no. Anyone never had either a good day or a bad day birding on their own? It's no different.

John

 

[WACCOE]

Most are far too expensive these days for me even Naturerek's bargain birding tours seem excessive.

 

[Jos Stratford]

The answer of course is that it depends on the destination, type of birding, ethos of the company and the guide.

And, probably equally important, the person debating whether to go on a guided trip or not

 

[Andy Adcock]

In my experience the positives are not having to drive and navigate plus, the guides will have good knowledge of each site so no time is wasted getting to the best spots. Guides will have recordings for elusive species and knowledge of calls and will also be a native language speaker in places where this may be an issue.

I've been on trips where there have been some pretty unpleasant people and it can ruin a trip for the whole group, I've allso been on trips where I've made lifelong friends but it's an absolute lottery for what is, as others have stated, a pretty expensive holiday. I think the average holiday these days works out at c£3-4K for a week or ten days.

 

[YuShan]

I bird solo and without guides. This means I see less birds and usually don't see rare localized ones. But it just doesn't seem much fun to me to just tick off birds that your guide has found. Sure it's effective to build an impressive list, but... It's not really your list, is it?

 

[Andy Adcock]

I bird solo and without guides. This means I see less birds and usually don't see rare localized ones. But it just doesn't seem much fun to me to just tick off birds that your guide has found. Sure it's effective to build an impressive list, but... It's not really your list, is it?

An effective 'work around', is to travel indepedently and then pick up a local guide at whichever park or reserve you find yourself. This way, you'll get more birds for a much better price and you'll be putting cash in to the local economy.

 

[Steve Lister]

Booking on a commercial bird tour is a bit of a risk even if you do plenty of research on things like the ethos of the company, the itinerary, the style of the guide, the accommodation, the transport to be used, the daily routine and so on. What can potentially spoil a trip is the other people in your group, something that you don't really know until you get there.

My favourite type of trip now is to get a local ground agent and guide to organise an itinerary that I or a friend more or less give them (or adapt one of their standard tours) and travel with a small group that we know will get on for a fortnight. This has produced some excellent trips eg Costa Rica, Ghana, Mexico and Ecuador. What would have been an excellent trip to SE China one winter was ruined by an obnoxious French guy who clearly felt that the whole trip was organised for him - he had managed to convince my mate who organised the group that he was an easy going type.

A 'fun' trip has to hit most all of the birds we want to see. It will involve a good standard of accommodation but not ridiculous luxury and expense. Nice food. A decent amount of sleep - beware of this with some companies that stretch the birding day as much as possible and you end up needing a holiday at the end of the tour. A vehicle with at least a double seat each so you can keep a daypack and your scope/camera with you. And of course having someone driving for you, checking you into hotels, knowing good places to eat and so on all adds to the 'fun'.

 

[01101001]

Never been on a guided tour, but (reading some of the comments in other threads) isn't it so that self-found's are those best remembered/most valued species--not necessarily the most charismatic/attractive ones--especially so when requiring some additional effort to be observed (and, at the end of the day, that's how you get lasting memories/have adventures)?

 

[Paul Chapman]

Never been on a guided tour, but (reading some of the comments in other threads) isn't it so that self-found's are those best remembered/most valued species--not necessarily the most charismatic/attractive ones--especially so when requiring some additional effort to be observed (and, at the end of the day, that's how you get lasting memories/have adventures)?

Nothing stopping you finding a bird for the group..... No difference from birding with mates in that respect. Most foreign birding is going to sites for species that are known to be present. Not really sure you are finding anything in that regard.

All the best

Paul

 

[Larry Sweetland]

I think the less you know about what you're likely to see the more fun it is. And when you're totally lost and you've run out of water and you're falling off the side of a mountain...and then suddenly ... OMG there it is!! And YOU've somehow managed to nail it all on your own against all your hopes and dreams because you hadn't even got a clue it was there ... That's when you get the kind of buzz that's a gazillion times more memorable than seeing something 100 times as rare that someone takes you to his spot for and shows it to you. But hey, that's just me. I also enjoy birding with other people and seeing things you wouldn't see if there wasn't someone there who knows the area like the back of their hand. But it's a totally different experience. These days I even enjoy it less if I'm on my own but I'm somewhere snowed under with pin-point accurate site gen of what you're supposed to see under each tree, because I end up focussing more on the ones I've missed and appreciate the ones I see less because I expect to see them. Bring back ignorance I say! Birding is dead.

 

[Jim M.]

Nothing stopping you finding a bird for the group..... No difference from birding with mates in that respect. Most foreign birding is going to sites for species that are known to be present. Not really sure you are finding anything in that regard.

All the best

Paul

Agree. On most tours I've been on, at least half the new birds are first spotted by someone other than the guide.

 

[pjacobs]

I appreciate all the comments and the discussion. It's a subjective question and everyone has a slightly different answer but the comments helped give me a more nuanced view of guided trips. There are cons, but there are more pros than I first imagined. This will help me to decide if and when a guided trip is the best option.

All things considered I will likely stick to self guided, open ended trips, where I can bird solo bit also hire a guide for a day or two if needed. But if I decide go somewhere new or difficult, a guided trip would probably be best. I also need to think more about how I feel about missing hard to spot species, especially in places I may not return to.

 

[Euan Buchan]

Think they are worth it when I went to Funchal in Madeira I did a half day Birding Tour it was really good seeing birds you wouldn’t go and see on family holiday.

 

[jurek]

Perhaps try a short organized tour first and see if you like it. And make first a guided or locally semi-guided trip on a new continent, to quickly cover common birds and groups of birds. Note that there is a range of bird tours - Birdquest is for relatively most ambitious birders, Rockjumpers less, Naturetrek etc even less.

One important thing: if you watch birds, don't go to a photography tour or a mixed birding-photography tour. Photographers like to wait whole morning in a hide taking 1000s of photos of one bird. For a birder it can be a nightmare - you got to the birding spot, but you cannot watch birds, because you only study one species for 2 hours to get the best pose.

It is an impossible advice to “choose a pleasant tour guide and participants which suit you” - unless you already did a lot of bird tours before and know them. You can only ask company for the name of the bird guide and ages and home countries of participants - but this does not tell much. There are two schools about whether it is better to be with a seasoned guide, who knows all the birds, or a new one, who is more motivated.

Don't underestimate that in many countries, birding spots are so well known and infrastructure so good that you really can bird alone - e.g. Spain, Thailand or Costa Rica. Even if you miss some birds independently, then, organized tours are so expensive that you will likely still get much cheaper per one species

And yes, I noticed long ago, that of many tours I remember those where I was on my own, had to figure out which path is the correct one, not the organized tours.

 

[tehri]

You can only ask company for the name of the bird guide and ages and home countries of participants

I understand, but would not at all be a fan of this kind of guided tour... except may be if I can ask the company to organize a profile of the participants !! ahaha !!! 😜

 

[Mysticete]

The big companies will often list there specific guides though, so you can always use that information to get folks opinions online, or if you have used a company before, you can just select tours with the guide you like.

 

[Jim M.]

The big companies will often list there specific guides though, so you can always use that information to get folks opinions online, or if you have used a company before, you can just select tours with the guide you like.

Yes, I don't go on a tour unless I can get some good info about what a guide is like before signing up. The only problem is that folks on this forum at least are sometimes squeamish about saying anything negative about guides. Though I usually try to leave comments here with the guide's name when I have a bad experience.

However, Rockjumper started putting out a series of webinars during the pandemic in which a guest guide will give info and answer questions about a tour. They are great for not only learning about a tour but getting a sense of the guide's style.

Also, tour companies will sometimes give names of the other participants signed up on a tour before you pay your full balance.