After 4 and a half years of travel, it becomes very difficult to top your best experiences which is certainly one of the better things to worry about in the world. My mind has been blown across the globe and my jaw has dropped more times than I can remember. However, nothing can quite compare to how I felt on this trip and here’s why.
If you want to check out all the daily travel videos produced on this trip, you can check out the full playlist here!
If you have been following me for any length of time then you will know that I am an independent traveller. I don’t book any more than maybe a free city tour and I have never been on a 3-week tour organised by someone else. This was about to change when TopDeck reached out to me with their #Ultimate49 campaign and asked me to go on the biggest bucket list trip that they offer. A 19-day adventure through Egypt, Israel, and Jordan. To be honest, they had me at Egypt. For as long as I can remember I had dreamt about diving into a land whose culture and history is arguably unmatched anywhere in the world.
But then it hit me. This would be my first big organised tour… EVER.
The organisation
This should be a given that when you go on an organised tour that things are well… organised. But what I noticed goes beyond getting us to our hotel or reserving a massive table somewhere beautiful for us to all have lunch. It was exactly how they paced the tour and in what order we experienced everything.
Let’s start in Egypt. This was our first destination and also the country we spent the longest in. Our hotel was literally a few miles away from the Great Pyramids of Giza yet we weren’t due to visit them until we circled back to Cairo at the end of our trip in Egypt. At the time it made no sense whatsoever. But upon our return, it would suddenly become very clear as to why they did that and I’ll come back to this later.
The activities
In Cairo we started with the oldest pyramid in the world; The Step Pyramid. We were literally starting from the beginning! Our local guide was fantastic and in every location, they filled our minds with so much information and left us in awe at every attraction. They all certainly knew their stuff which is something I really appreciated! Our Egypt experience then took us through Luxor where we would visit by far the most incredible sight (in my opinion) of the entire trip; The Valley of the Kings. Our guide was an Egyptologist and guided us through every single pharos who was laid to rest here in the most mind-blowing way possible.
He taught us how to read some hieroglyphics and explain how and why some of the engravings were destroyed or who destroyed them. Each and every activity we did filled us with knowledge, unknowingly preparing us for our final trip back to Cairo where we visited the Cairo museum and the Great Pyramids of Giza. When we stepped in the museum we suddenly realised why they left it till the end. The Pharos we saw and stories we were hearing we had already been learning about this entire time. Now when we looked at a statue or saw a sarcophagus it MEANT SOMETHING. We knew the names and had even visited their temples. We had stood in their resting places hundreds of miles away. It is as though they had been preparing us with all this knowledge so when we got here, we could truly appreciate it.
We all had the same feeling on the very last day of the trip in Jordan where we got to camp out in the desert at Wadi Rum. By this point we had explored three countries, became a tight-knit family and to top it off we got to spend the night relaxing together around a fire, reminiscing on the craziness, enjoying a cold beer under the warm night sky. It was honestly the perfect way to say goodbye.
A balanced trip
Like I mentioned earlier. There was no doubt that our guides were incredibly knowledgeable, approachable and even funny! But they also didn’t hold back on anything. This was super apparent in Israel. I did wonder how much of the history and current state of the country would be covered. But in all honesty, you can’t avoid it. Within the beauty there is conflict and our guide didn’t hesitate to talk us through the state of the land and also answer any and all questions we had.
It was a shame that we only had just under 3 days to experience Israel but it was a very well balanced trip. Starting by floating in the dead sea which was by far the craziest experience I have ever had in the water, and finishing in Jericho where you were able to see the remains of a protest which happened only days prior to our visit. They didn’t try and give us a one-sided experience which I loved.
Is it suitable for free-spirited travellers?
One of my biggest concerns before embarking on this trip was that I am such a wanderer when I travel. I always plan my days and book everything independently. So for that freedom to be taken away from me after years of exploring on my own terms made me a bit nervous.
In all honesty, on many occasions I wanted to leap from the bus and run down a tiny street I spotted with my camera, however, whilst you are definitely tied into the schedule of your trip, they offer something which outways all of that; friendship.
Now, every tour will differ and you never know what the group dynamics will be like ahead of time but I have to say, it was so refreshing to become part of a fantastic group of like-minded travellers for this. One of the drawbacks of travelling alone and doing it all yourself is being surrounded by people. That comes with its pros and cons but I have to say, I really liked travelling as a group.
Could I travel like this for every trip? No. However, I am already looking at other tours which I could go on with TopDeck since that trip because it offers a whole new level of connection and adventure you don’t get when you’re doing it alone.
My advice to anyone who travels like I do is to give it a go. If I hadn’t had said yes to this trip I’d still be sat in the dark not knowing just how much group tours offer. Whilst I will never substitute all of my travels for organised tours, I think they would be an epic way to spice up my travels and the perfect way to make friends for life!
Have you ever been on an organised tour? I would love to hear about your experience in the comments!
Disclaimer: This tour was offered to me for free by TopDeck as part of their #Ultimate49 campaign. All opinions remain honest and my own.
