Top Reasons to Travel Rick Steves:

• Less Stressful travel. the big stuff is planned for you, hotels, reservations, transportation, meals etc.

• Local Guides! local guides means local recommendations, local stories, and local history. It truly immerses you in the country. Not to mention having native speakers in a foreign country is a life saver.

• Personal recommendations - While a lot of your trip is planned, there's quite a bit of free time as well. And your guides have great recommendations on what you can do, or can help you get something planned if you have an idea in mind.

• Tour guides that go above and beyond. As an aspiring photographer, I wanted to make sure I got some good photo opportunities on the trip. I lucked out, as our tour guide was a professional photographer (check him out here) who spent some time with me giving tips and tricks on getting a good photo.

• Backups, backups and backups. We all know travel doesn't always go as planned. Did the weather ruin your boat trip to Iona? Not to worry, your tour guides have backups. and in this case, the backups ended up being AMAZING alternatives!

• Its fun! the guides and drivers make the trips fun. Both our guide and driver sat in the lobby with us, sharing a wee dram, hilarious jokes, and great stories.

• Its safe. I travel solo quite a bit, so feeling safe is a huge priority for me. I started this trip with my aunt and sister, but as you'll hear later, I ended the trip by myself. But the great part is that I was never really alone, I had a new group of friends to spend the rest of my trip with.