Meldrew wrote:It's all right saying who's up for a tour abroad, but you have to get the right balance especially if it's with people you don't really know, either everyone get's along together or they end up in cliques. What is a decent days mileage for one member may be too much or too little for some others, and you can apply that rule to how much or little they may want to pay for food, drink, and accommodation on the tour. You might be comfortable with route cards, sat nav, or maps, but I've found others won't bother and just follow your tail making no effort to navigate themselves, but it's your fault if you get them lost.

You may have booked the accommodation for the tour and pay the hotel bills, but others can and will strive to get there first every day to collar the best rooms. You could also get lumbered with the snoring farting room mate from Hell that no one else wants to share a room with. Watch out at meal times for those who shamelessly help themselves to more than their fair share of the potatoes and vegetables served to your table at dinner. Then at breakfast they're filling their pockets with bread rolls to save paying a few Euros for a lunchtime snack.

Eat out together and there's the inevitable hassle over who's had what when the bill comes, especially by the "if you're not eating that, can I have it?", or the "I only had a few chips" types who'll dispute everything. One of your new best friends clueless about the country's food will copy your menu choice, then blame you because they don't like it. Even getting a round of beers in a foreign country is too traumatic for some, they have to disappear into the toilet whenever it's their turn. You do notice drinking a beer bought for them by someone else during their absence usually calms them down.

I'm not bullshitting here, I've done a bit of group touring and this stuff get's on your tits after a few days.