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In recent years, independent travel has become a popular form of travel, especially among young people who love the freedom of exploration and want to be in control of their own itinerary.
Independent travel is a form of travel where one or more people plan their own itinerary, schedule, time, and destinations based on their personal preferences. This style offers freedom and a lack of constraints, making it very popular among young people.
If traveling in a large group, it's easier to have a leader who will organize and schedule the itinerary for the group members.
Independent travel offers freedom and flexibility, making it very popular among many people.
When trust is exploited
Huynh Chi Vu, a freelancer currently living and working in Binh Phuoc, shared with Travellive his unpleasant experience with a tour leader who was vague about the cost of his self-guided trips.
This group leader is his friend of four years, and they've traveled together to many places like Hong Kong, Sri Lanka, Egypt, Jordan, and Israel. After the pandemic, Chi Vu took a trip to Northern Europe in May, and upon his return, this leader invited him to go to Morocco in November 2022.
This leader was always enthusiastic and helped me with my visa application; they supported me with anything I needed. Because they were close friends, I trusted them completely. Before the trip began, this leader always assured me that everything would be taken care of.
Huynh Chi Vu checks in at Chefchaouen - the city known as the "green jewel" of Morocco.
The leader that Chi Vu mentioned is the author of a travel book, and coupled with his fame and influence in the travel community, he has earned the trust of many people.
During the trip to Morocco, before departure, the group leader announced that they would collect money to book a land tour (package tour), but upon arrival in Morocco, they actually only rented a car to drive themselves. The leader provided a vague and non-specific itinerary, only visiting places chosen by them. When members requested more information about the itinerary, they were not provided with complete details.
In reality, it wasn't a land tour, because a land tour would require preparing everything, having a tour guide to introduce each location… With a land tour, members would have three main meals, with specific details of each meal, and would stay in 3 to 5-star hotels, but in fact, when they actually went, the group members and Chi Vu only stayed in hostels (cheap guesthouses)… to minimize costs and allow the leader to easily take advantage.
Initially, the leader requested a 300 euro deposit for the tour in Vietnam, and an additional 1,000 euro upon arrival in Morocco, totaling 1,300 euros. The group consisted of 19 members, but the leader claimed they were pooling their money as a group, not for the tour itself, but rather on a "pay-as-you-go" basis. From the first and second day, the group members noticed problems and became suspicious. Despite paying a large sum, the living conditions were terrible, and most people had to fend for themselves for food and drink.
From the Northern Europe trip to the Morocco trip, this leader always stayed out past the allotted time. When the time was up, everyone was usually tired and would eat on their own, not using the group's money. This resulted in lower expenses, allowing this person to profit from the surplus. During the 13-day trip, the group only shared six meals together; the rest of the time, everyone ate on their own.
“This leader was quite inconsiderate. When we went on the trip, we were divided into 4 or 5 small groups, and gradually signs of discord appeared. Everyone became increasingly aware that this person was the ‘financial leader.’ When members asked about the costs and specific itinerary, he gave evasive answers, didn’t provide complete information, and the finances lacked transparency; there were no clear statements,” Chi Vu said.
Later, Chi Vu and his team members still requested that the leader publicly disclose the detailed expenses and give them a specific timeframe to review the income and expenditure.
During that time, everyone in the group created a detailed daily expense breakdown and searched online for the costs of certain items, only to discover that the group leader's budget was significantly different. For example, regarding accommodation, the leader reported 80 euros per person per night, but the actual price was only 40 euros for both food and lodging, meaning the difference was double. And in fact, these places already had specific prices listed on the Booking.com platform.
The total cost the leader collected from each person traveling from Vietnam to Morocco was 1,300 euros, but only 720 euros were actually spent per person, resulting in a loss of 580 euros (equivalent to 14.5 million VND). With a total of 19 people in the group, the leader's total loss and discrepancy amounted to over 275 million VND.
After his recent trips, Chi Vu has also learned lessons and gained experience about traveling independently.
After the Morocco trip, the group that went to Northern Europe with this leader returned to request clarification of the expenses. Subsequently, this group leader had to return 295 million VND to the entire Northern Europe group. The problem here, which Chi Vu and the group members faced, was that due to trust, they weren't meticulous and detailed about the trip's expenses. This leader pocketed the difference on everything, even the smallest things, such as charging 650,000 VND for a 500,000 VND phone SIM card, over 700,000 VND for insurance worth over 500,000 VND, and over 2 million VND difference per plane ticket.
When organizing the two trips to Northern Europe and Morocco, Chi Vu was the one who received the most money back, 47 million VND. After the incident came to light, the group leader evaded responsibility, deactivated all social media accounts, and refused to face the community or apologize…
Huynh Chi Vu further stated: "This unfortunate incident occurred when the leader was using their popularity and influence in the travel community to recruit people to form travel groups and then exploit them. Under the guise of a group trip, they deceived people based on trust and emotions… The members of the group themselves were the victims who fell into this kind of 'scam' perpetrated by the economic leader."
After some unpleasant experiences with cost discrepancies while traveling independently, Chi Vu also offered some basic advice for travelers. He suggested booking simple things yourself, such as plane tickets, insurance, and SIM cards. If traveling in a group, he advised checking the leader's previous experience. He emphasized the importance of clearly outlining all costs and a specific itinerary from the outset, and making this information public to all group members.
Tips for traveling independently
Harry Bui is currently the CEO of a self-guided travel platform for Vietnamese people, currently developing the Thai travel market and planning to expand to other cities in the coming years. According to him, the discrepancies and ambiguities in the cost of self-guided travel have been around for a long time and are not a recent issue.
“People often join independent travel groups or search for ‘Find Travel Companions for Overseas Travel’ to find a leader to travel with, hoping for safety and assurance when traveling abroad. But I think no leader will dedicate their time and effort to doing this for free, because after all, they are strangers. At the very least, that leader must have some benefit to gain, such as enhancing their personal brand, money, etc. Therefore, to avoid this from happening, when planning a trip together, the whole group must create a detailed cost breakdown. This will help to minimize the risk of discrepancies and ambiguity in expenses,” Harry Bui said.
Based on his experience as a leader, Harry Bui believes that besides discrepancies and ambiguities in costs, there may be cases where leaders steer the team towards a schedule they decide on in order to maximize their own benefits.
Harry Bui (center) with members of his self-guided tour group in Thailand.
He further shared: “To have a smooth self-guided tour and avoid unnecessary situations, pre-trip preparation is extremely important. Group members should share tasks and not rely too much on the leader. From agreeing on the itinerary to preparing necessary bookings, prioritize bookings in advance to save costs, such as flights and hotels. Or, if you don't have much time, find an external self-guided tour support service to handle this. With these preparatory steps, you've already reduced 70% of the unexpected problems that may arise during your trip.”
Harry Bui also stated that, in his opinion, information for independent travel is time-sensitive. That is, not all information you read online is accurate for the time of your trip. For example, some cafes that were very popular on social media before the pandemic may have either changed ownership or been sold under a new name.
"Therefore, no single source or person is 100% accurate. But it's best to focus on one place that can continuously update a wide range of diverse information for reference. Currently, online independent travel groups are doing a good job of this, but they only solve half the problem, because the information is not verified and only reflects the one-sided experiences shared by previous travelers," Harry Bui emphasized.
