The pros and cons of group travel: Is it for you?

Imagine for a second the entire Auckland region was shrunk and squashed into its CBD, and a wall was put around it.

The wider super city has roughly 9000 streets, which would all be inside the wall. It'd be a maze of dizzying confusion.

That might sound a bit farfetched, but it's what you'll find in the .

In an area smaller than Auckland's CBD, it has around 9500 tiny streets. They're jammed with people, donkeys and shops. Some laneways are so tight, it's hard for two people to pass each other. It would be impossible to find your way around if you didn't have a guide.

I recently explored Fes on a . Until recently, I was a little reluctant about group tours. But I've now done several, and here are the pros and cons of this type of travel.

All we needed to do was turn up at the airport, and the rest was taken care of. The pre-planned schedule reduced the pressure of having to research and plan each day meticulously – which is what's needed if you intend to do cross-country travel. In a place like Morocco, where English isn’t widely spoken, it’s even harder to do yourself.

The old saying holds true: safety in numbers. Our guide always had an eye on what was going on – giving little opportunity for pickpockets, which is the main concern for tourists in Morocco.

This was crucial. Our guide Abdoul was a treasure trove of knowledge. His intimate understanding of local customs, history, and attractions really made our holiday that much better.

Intrepid uses its significant buying power to get better deals on accommodation, and as we share the cost of things like transport, it ends up being a very competitive way to travel.

We made friends for life and plan on visiting fellow travellers in our group from Adelaide and New York.

Some of Intrepid's tours are in countries where Western toilets aren't widely used. Their tours are planned, where possible, to provide comfortable bathroom stops. It's the little things that really make a difference.

My main fear around group travel is being lumped with someone annoying on your trip of a lifetime. But I've done several group tours now, and I am beginning to realise that fear might just be in my head. It hasn’t happened yet. Regardless, you end up gravitating towards the people you like, which actually makes the trip much more enjoyable than being on your own.

I’m not a fan of large group tours. The great thing about Intrepid is they keep theirs small – on average, just 10 travellers. At Casablanca Airport, we saw groups of around 30 with other tour companies. That's not for me.

Some travellers feel like group tours involve a lot of travel – especially shorter trips that try to cover a lot of ground. If drive times are looking a little long for you, search around different tours. Intrepid has more than 30 in Morocco alone. I always book a day or two of rest before the tour begins to get over jet lag.

If you want somebody to take care of the hard work and do the planning (especially in places where logistics can be complicated), I wouldn’t hesitate recommending one. I’m hoping to make it back to Morocco one day, and you’ll definitely find me on another group tour.

Intrepid offers a multitude of Morocco itineraries from roughly $800 to more than $4000 per person. The tours range from a few days to multi-weeks.

Our tour was the eight-day Premium Morocco Highlights starting from $2547 per person, including a complimentary airport transfer, many meals, better accommodation options and tipping. Intrepid is the world's largest travel B-Corp and is a carbon-neutral business. Each tour is carbon offset. See:

Emirates, Qatar and Etihad (via Sydney) offer flights via their Middle East hubs to Casablanca.

Safe Travel has a level two or four rating for Morocco, "exercise increased caution." You can read the latest advice here:

Flying generates carbon emissions. To reduce your impact, consider other ways of travelling, amalgamate your trips, and when you need to fly, consider offsetting emissions.