Trying to decide between a customised FIT trip and a fixed group tour for your next holiday?
Group tours are cheaper and better for first-time international travellers, solo travellers, and budget-conscious families who want structure and company. FIT (Fully Independent Travel) trips are better for couples, families with specific needs, repeat travellers, and anyone who values flexibility, privacy, and a personalised pace over the lowest possible price. The right choice depends entirely on what kind of traveller you are — and this guide will tell you exactly which one that is.
It is one of the most common questions TravelDham gets from people planning their first international trip or returning to a destination they have already visited once on a group tour: “Should we do it in a group this time, or go customised?” The question sounds simple. The answer requires knowing a few things about yourself as a traveller — things most people have an instinct about but have never quite put into words.
This guide breaks it down completely — what FIT and group tours actually mean, where each one wins, where each one disappoints, how the costs compare, and a clear decision framework to help you choose without second-guessing yourself.
What is an FIT Trip?
FIT stands for Fully Independent Travel — sometimes called Free Independent Travel or Fully Independent Tour. Despite the name, FIT trips are not about travelling alone. They are about having a trip that is fully customised to your group — your travel dates, your chosen hotels, your pace, your interests, your budget category, and your specific requirements.
In an FIT trip, a travel company like TravelDham builds your itinerary from scratch based on what you want. You travel privately — just your family, couple, or group — with a private vehicle and driver where needed, hotels selected for your specific preferences, and a day-by-day plan that nobody else is following. No fixed departure dates. No bus full of strangers. No rushing because the group has to move on.
The result is a holiday that feels like it was made for you — because it was.
What is a Group Tour?
A group tour — also called a GIT (Group Inclusive Tour) or package group departure — is a fixed itinerary that departs on pre-set dates with a group of typically 20 to 45 people who may or may not know each other. The hotels, transport, sightseeing schedule, and inclusions are predetermined. You join the group, follow the itinerary, and travel with everyone else on the same coach, at the same pace, to the same places.
Group tours are sold by per-person cost and are priced lower than FIT trips because every cost — the coach, the hotel rooms, the guide — is divided across the full group. The trade-off for the lower price is flexibility. The itinerary does not change because one family in the group wants to spend an extra hour at the Louvre. The coach leaves at 8 AM whether you are fully awake or not.
FIT vs Group Tour: Head-to-Head Comparison
| Factor | FIT (Customised Trip) | Group Tour |
|---|---|---|
| Cost | Higher per person — you are paying for exclusivity and customisation | Lower per person — costs shared across 20–45 travellers |
| Flexibility | Complete — change dates, add stops, adjust pace anytime | None — fixed dates, fixed itinerary, fixed hotels |
| Privacy | Total — just your family or group | None — you travel, eat, and sightsee with 20–45 strangers |
| Pace | Entirely yours — linger where you love, skip what you don’t | Fixed by the group — no deviation possible |
| Hotels | Selected for location, quality, and your specific preferences | Pre-contracted hotels — sometimes good, sometimes average |
| Meals | Eat where you want, when you want | Fixed group meals at designated restaurants — limited choice |
| Departure dates | Any date that suits you | Fixed departure dates — you adjust your leave to the tour |
| Group size | Your group only — 2 to 30 people | Typically 20–45 people including strangers |
| Sightseeing | At your pace, with your priorities | Fixed — you see what the group sees, when the group sees it |
| Special needs | Easily accommodated — dietary, medical, mobility, children | Difficult — the itinerary runs for the average traveller |
| Guide | Private guide or no guide — your preference | Shared group guide throughout |
| Social element | None beyond your own group | Travel community — can be enjoyable or frustrating |
| Best for | Couples, families, repeat travellers, those with specific interests or requirements | First-time international travellers, solo travellers, budget-focused travellers, seniors who want company |
Where Group Tours Win
1. Price — Genuinely Lower Per Person
This is the most honest advantage of a group tour and it is real. When a coach carrying 40 people pays the same toll as a private car carrying 4, the per-person cost of the coach is dramatically lower. Same with hotels — group tour operators negotiate bulk rates over years of business. For a family of 4 on a budget, a Europe group tour can cost ₹30,000 to ₹60,000 less per person than an equivalent FIT trip. That is a meaningful difference.
2. Structure for First-Time International Travellers
If you have never travelled internationally before — especially to a destination where you do not speak the language, do not know the currency, and are not sure what to see — the structure of a group tour is genuinely reassuring. You do not have to figure anything out. A tour manager handles every transfer, every check-in, every sightseeing entry. You just show up and follow. For many first-time travellers, this reduces the anxiety that would otherwise colour the entire trip.
3. Built-In Company for Solo Travellers and Senior Citizens
Solo travellers and senior citizens who want companionship on the road often find group tours valuable for exactly this reason. The social element — sharing a dinner table with fellow Indian travellers, having someone to talk to at the Eiffel Tower, the shared experience of a desert safari — is genuinely enjoyable for people who would otherwise travel alone. Group tours create an instant community that many travellers appreciate.
Where Group Tours Fall Short
1. The Pace is Never Quite Right
A group of 40 people contains some who want to spend three hours in the Vatican and others who want 45 minutes. The group tour gives everyone 90 minutes and moves on. If you are the one who wanted more time, you spend the rest of the day thinking about what you missed. If you are the one who wanted less, you spend 45 minutes waiting for the group to reassemble. Pace mismatch is the most consistent complaint from Indian travellers who have done group tours.
2. Hotels Are Not Always Where You Want to Be
Group tour hotels are contracted for price and capacity — not location. In Paris, your group tour hotel may be 30 to 45 minutes from the Eiffel Tower. In Rome, it may be in a suburb rather than near the Colosseum. In Switzerland, it may be a 3-star property in a small town rather than a 4-star lake view hotel in Lucerne. When you are spending ₹1.5 to ₹2.5 lakh per person on a Europe trip, the hotel location and quality matters — and in a group tour, it is largely out of your control.
3. Fixed Dates May Not Match Your Life
Group tours depart on specific dates. If none of those dates align with your family’s school holidays, your office leave approval, or your personal schedule — you either adjust your life to the tour or do not go. For families with children in school, this inflexibility alone can be a dealbreaker.
4. Not Built for Families with Young Children
A group tour itinerary is designed for the average adult traveller. Young children who need afternoon naps, families who need an extra hour at the hotel in the morning, parents who want to choose child-friendly restaurants — none of this fits into a group tour schedule. The coach leaves at 8 AM. The group moves at adult pace. The itinerary does not have a provision for a tired 6-year-old who needs a break.
5. No Real Opportunity for Personalisation
If you are passionate about art and want to spend a full day at the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, a group tour will give you 90 minutes. If your partner has dietary restrictions that go beyond “vegetarian,” every group meal is a negotiation. If you want to visit a place that is not on the standard tourist circuit — a specific vineyard in Tuscany, a lesser-known temple in Kyoto, a neighbourhood in Paris that tourists rarely visit — a group tour will not take you there.
Where FIT Trips Win
1. Your Trip, Your Way — Completely
An FIT trip is built around your preferences from the ground up. The hotels are chosen for location, view, and amenities that matter to your group. The itinerary reflects your interests — more time at places you love, less at places you do not. The pace is yours. If you want to spend an entire day in Ubud doing nothing but a morning yoga class, a cooking workshop, and a long lunch by the river — that is your day.
2. The Right Hotels in the Right Locations
In an FIT trip, hotel selection is deliberate. In Paris, you stay near the Marais or Saint-Germain — walkable to the Louvre, the Seine, and the best cafés. In Bali, you stay in a private pool villa in Ubud with jungle views. In Switzerland, you stay in a lake-view hotel in Lucerne rather than a contracted property 40 minutes away. Location transforms a trip — and FIT gives you control over it.
3. Perfect for Families with Children
Families with young children consistently rate FIT trips as the best travel format. You control the pace, the meal times, the rest stops, and the activity choices. If your 4-year-old is having a great time at the beach and everyone wants to stay an extra two hours — you stay. If your 8-year-old is more excited by the desert safari than the museum — you spend more time on the safari and less at the museum. FIT travel adapts to your family. Group tours do not.
4. Ideal for Couples and Honeymooners
A honeymoon is not a group activity. The privacy, the romantic hotel choices, the ability to have a candlelit dinner when you want rather than at a group restaurant, the freedom to sleep in or stay out late — all of this requires an FIT trip. Honeymooning couples who join group tours almost universally wish they had not. The romantic atmosphere of Bali or Paris simply cannot coexist with 38 fellow passengers and a 7 AM departure.
5. Better for Repeat Travellers
If you have been to Europe once on a group tour and are going back — you already know what the Eiffel Tower looks like. The second trip is about depth, not breadth. It is about that restaurant in Rome your friend told you about, the vineyard outside Florence that does private tastings, the Swiss village that does not appear on any standard itinerary. This kind of travel requires FIT — a group tour will take you back to exactly the same places at exactly the same pace.
Where FIT Trips Fall Short
1. Higher Cost Per Person
There is no way around this. A private car and driver costs more per person than a shared coach. A hotel booked for 2 costs more per person than the same hotel booked for 40. For budget-focused travellers, this is a real difference — and for many, it is the deciding factor. FIT trips offer better value per rupee spent, but the total spend is higher.
2. More Planning Required
An FIT trip requires more decisions upfront — which hotels, which activities, what pace, what inclusions. A good travel company like TravelDham does the heavy lifting, but you still need to engage with the planning process more than you would for a group tour. For travellers who genuinely want to hand over all decisions and follow instructions, a group tour is less demanding.
3. No Built-In Community
Solo travellers or people who enjoy meeting fellow Indian travellers may find the private nature of FIT trips a little quiet. If part of the joy of travel for you is the social energy of a group — shared reactions to the Burj Khalifa, laughing with strangers over a missed metro stop, the camaraderie of a desert safari group dinner — a group tour provides that naturally. FIT does not.
How Do the Costs Actually Compare?
Here is a realistic cost comparison for a 7-day Europe trip for a couple and for a family of 4:
| Trip Type | Group Tour (per person) | FIT Trip (per person) | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| 7-day Europe (couple) | ₹1,20,000–₹1,50,000 | ₹1,50,000–₹2,00,000 | ₹30,000–₹50,000 more for FIT |
| 7-day Europe (family of 4) | ₹1,10,000–₹1,40,000 | ₹1,30,000–₹1,80,000 | ₹20,000–₹40,000 more for FIT |
| 6-day Dubai (couple) | ₹60,000–₹80,000 | ₹75,000–₹1,10,000 | ₹15,000–₹30,000 more for FIT |
| 6-day Dubai (family of 4) | ₹55,000–₹75,000 | ₹65,000–₹95,000 | ₹10,000–₹20,000 more for FIT |
| 7-day Bali honeymoon | ₹75,000–₹95,000 | ₹95,000–₹1,40,000 | ₹20,000–₹45,000 more for FIT |
The price gap between group and FIT is real but smaller than most people assume — particularly for families of 4 where the per-person cost difference narrows significantly. And the gap needs to be weighed against what you get: a private pool villa in Bali versus a shared hotel, a hotel in central Paris versus one in the suburbs, a day that runs at your pace versus one that runs on a coach schedule.
For many families, the extra ₹15,000 to ₹40,000 per person is a meaningful amount. For others, it is the cost of one good dinner in Paris — and the difference in experience is worth considerably more.
Which Should You Choose? A Simple Decision Framework
Choose a Group Tour if:
- This is your first international trip and you want structure and guidance throughout
- You are travelling solo and want the company of fellow Indian travellers
- Budget is your primary constraint and you need the lowest possible per-person cost
- You are comfortable following a fixed schedule and do not mind a fast pace
- You are a senior citizen who prefers the security of a group and a tour manager
- You are joining friends or family who have already booked a specific group departure
Choose an FIT Trip if:
- You are travelling as a couple or on your honeymoon and want privacy and romance
- You are a family with children under 12 who need a flexible, child-friendly pace
- You have specific hotel preferences, dietary requirements, or mobility considerations
- You have visited the destination before and want to go deeper rather than broader
- You have specific interests — food, art, adventure, wellness — that a standard itinerary will not accommodate
- You want to travel on your own dates rather than adjusting your schedule to a fixed departure
- You value quality, location, and experience over the lowest per-person price
Can You Get the Best of Both? The Hybrid Approach
Yes — and this is something TravelDham recommends for certain travellers. A hybrid approach means building an FIT itinerary that includes some group experiences within it. For example:
- A private FIT Europe trip where you join a shared guided walking tour in Rome (to benefit from an expert guide without the full group tour experience)
- A private Bali FIT trip where you join a shared Nusa Penida day tour (cost-effective, well-organised, and the boat is a small group anyway)
- A private Dubai FIT trip where you join a shared desert safari (the camp experience is inherently communal and benefits from a larger group)
You get the privacy of an FIT trip for your hotels, meals, and daily pace, while joining shared experiences for specific activities where the group format actually adds to the experience rather than detracting from it.
Frequently Asked Questions — FIT vs Group Tour 2026
What does FIT mean in travel?
FIT stands for Fully Independent Travel — sometimes called Free Independent Travel or Fully Independent Tour. It refers to a completely customised trip built around your specific group, dates, preferences, and budget. In an FIT trip, you travel privately — just your family, couple, or group — with hotels, transport, and activities chosen specifically for you. There are no fixed departure dates, no strangers in the group, and no predetermined pace. TravelDham specialises in FIT travel for domestic and international destinations.
Is FIT travel more expensive than group tours?
Yes — typically 15 to 25% more per person depending on destination and group size. The gap is smallest for larger groups (4 people or more) and widest for couples and solo travellers. However, the cost difference needs to be weighed against what you receive in return: private transport, hotels chosen for quality and location, meals at restaurants of your choice, and a pace and itinerary built entirely around your group rather than 40 strangers.
Which is better for a family with young children — FIT or group tour?
FIT is almost always better for families with young children. Group tour itineraries are designed for average adult travellers and do not accommodate the needs of young children — fixed meal times, early morning departures, fast-paced sightseeing, and no flexibility for rest. An FIT trip allows you to build in afternoon breaks, choose child-friendly restaurants, take an extra hour at the beach, and generally travel at a pace that works for your children’s ages. Families with children under 10 especially benefit from the flexibility that only FIT travel provides.
Which is better for a honeymoon — FIT or group tour?
FIT — without question. A group tour is fundamentally incompatible with a honeymoon. The privacy, romantic hotel selection, flexible schedule, and ability to personalise every element of the experience — the candlelit dinner, the private villa, the sunrise boat ride — requires an FIT trip. Honeymooners who join group tours almost universally wish they had not. The per-person cost premium for an FIT honeymoon is typically ₹20,000 to ₹45,000 compared to a group tour — a difference that most couples consider well worth it for the most important holiday of their life together.
What is the difference between FIT and GIT in travel?
FIT (Fully Independent Travel) refers to customised private trips where you travel independently with just your own group, at your own pace, with a bespoke itinerary. GIT (Group Inclusive Tour) refers to fixed-departure group packages where you travel with a group of 20 to 45 people on a predetermined itinerary and schedule. FIT offers flexibility and privacy at a higher cost. GIT offers lower per-person pricing at the cost of flexibility, pace control, and privacy.
Is a group tour better for first-time international travellers?
Often yes — particularly for travellers who feel anxious about navigating an international destination for the first time. Group tours provide a tour manager who handles all logistics, a structured schedule that removes decision fatigue, and the security of always knowing where you are going and who is managing it. However, for first-time international travellers who are travelling with children, a group tour’s inflexibility can outweigh the security benefit — in those cases, a TravelDham FIT trip with full on-ground support provides the best of both worlds.
Can I do a customised trip on the same budget as a group tour?
Sometimes — particularly for larger groups of 6 or more, where the per-person cost gap between FIT and group narrows significantly. For a group of 8 to 10 people, a well-designed FIT trip to Dubai or Southeast Asia can come close to group tour pricing while offering complete privacy and flexibility. For smaller groups of 2 to 4, FIT will cost more than a group tour — but the experience difference is significant. Speak to us at TravelDham — we can build FIT itineraries at a range of budgets and find the right balance for your group.
Does TravelDham do group tours or only FIT trips?
TravelDham specialises in FIT (Fully Independent Tailored) travel — customised itineraries built around each client’s group, dates, interests, and budget. We do not operate fixed-departure group tours with strangers. Every TravelDham trip is a private experience — designed exclusively for the family, couple, or group that is travelling. We also plan corporate group trips and MICE programmes, which involve larger groups but remain fully customised to the company’s programme objectives rather than following a generic fixed itinerary.
Plan Your FIT Trip with TravelDham
TravelDham has built FIT trips for every kind of traveller — honeymooners in Bali who wanted a private pool villa and zero other tourists in sight, families of 6 in Europe who needed a large apartment rather than two standard hotel rooms, corporate leadership teams in Rajasthan who wanted a palace property and two private meeting rooms, couples revisiting Switzerland for the third time who wanted to go beyond the Jungfraujoch and into the valleys most tourists never find.
Every trip starts with a conversation about what you actually want from the experience — not a template, not a fixed package, not a brochure. A real conversation about your group, your travel style, your interests, your budget, and what would make this holiday genuinely memorable rather than just competently managed.
We handle everything from there: flights from your city, hotels selected and explained with honest assessments, visa and documentation support, travel insurance, and on-ground assistance throughout your trip. Domestic or international, 2 people or 50, budget mid-range or premium — we build it around you.
Contact TravelDham today for a free consultation and a customised FIT itinerary built around your next holiday. No fixed packages, just a trip designed specifically for you.
