A question we are asked often at the briefing stage is whether a client should consider joining one of our small-group private departures — the scheduled itineraries of six to ten travellers — or take the same route on a fully private basis. It is a useful question, and the right answer depends on what a journey is being asked to do.
The case for a small-group private departure
Our scheduled small-group journeys are limited to ten travellers and built to the same access standards as any fully private week. They have three particular advantages.
- Company. A solo traveller, or a couple who enjoy talking at dinner, will find a group of six interesting, well-briefed travellers a pleasure.
- Price. A shared private guide, shared minibus, and shared reservations reduce the cost per traveller meaningfully. The quality of the week is the same; the bill is not.
- Decision-freedom. Someone else has designed the week. The traveller turns up and enjoys it, without weeks of back-and-forth on the itinerary.
The case for a fully private version
A private version of the same route is the right answer when:
- The party is a family, especially with children, whose rhythms and interests need to be the centre of the week.
- The traveller has specific requests — a day added, a day removed, an afternoon with a studio rather than a museum — that would be unfair to impose on a group.
- The traveller has travelled extensively before and prefers the week to be drawn around their own taste rather than a general one.
- Privacy, for any personal reason, matters more than company.
A third option, for the shy
Many of our small-group departures can be converted to a private group of one or two parties travelling together — a “buy out” of the scheduled week. The logistics remain as planned. The company is removed. The price is lifted.
The honest answer, in most cases, is that there is no wrong choice — only the choice that best matches the mood of the traveller that year. We are happy to walk through the options in the first conversation. Our only quiet rule is not to take a client into a group week who would have preferred, had anyone asked, to travel alone.
