E. How you can Research, Plan & Design your 4 ‘free-time’ Options 

 Options:  You have 4 main “free-time" opportunities: 
         1. Personal rest & relaxation
         2. Tour Company's Optional tours 
         3. Guest booked Local Excursions
         4. Your designed 'self-guided walking tour'

1. Personal Rest & Relaxation:  Worn out after hours of on/off bus rides & rapid site walkabouts?  You may seek the solitude & relaxation of a ‘quiet corner’ or a stroll thru a nearby town’s parks.                          
                          Your tour, your choice. Enjoy!

                 Small quaint town outside Buenos Aires, Argentina.

2. Tour Company's Optional Excursions: It is near impossible for a Large Bus Tour package company to profitably satisfy ALL the desires of ALL 30 to 60 clients with a truly intimate & complete cultural experience for each.

So, Large Bus Tour packages often offer a variety of extra cost curated Optional Tours for use during the package's 'free-time' afternoons & evenings.

These Optional Tours can enrich YOUR overall tour experience, if they appeal to your curiosity/interest.
    - Argentina’s Buenos Aires flamenco dancing,
    - London’ Thames waterfront evening cruise & dinner.
    - Reykjavik, Icleand's Phallological Museum
    - Vilniuis, Lithuania's Vilnius Holocaust Museum (The Green House)

These Optional Excursions also ensure a tour company’s:
     a) minimum required profit & perhaps a bit more,
     b) REDUCES your tour price. and  
     c) reduces overall Tour company's expenses, They are a for-profit  
         business, after all. 😀

CAUTION: Often these Optional Tours are overpriced presumably because the tour designer/company believes guests will opt for tour's easy booking option, BUT you may just as easily book by yourself over the Internet.  Please read further below   jlk ???
                  Please see below:  Guest-booking-factors.   

How to choose a Tour company’s Optional Tour.
Get a complete list of all Tour Company's Optional Tours including themes, sites, activities & price AND extras fees (entry, lunch), etc).
Choose & book your choice. 

CAUTIONS:
    1. Check Reviews
    2. Insure Optional Tour's Guaranteed Return to hotel policy, if 
        morning or afternoon 'free time' segment so you don't miss your
        Tour's NEXT activity.
    3. if concerned about price, included additional sites & perks
        offered locally, please read Guest’s Self-Booked 
                                          

3. Guest’s Self-Booked Local Excursions:

Each city or town that a Large Bus Tour stops at overnight will have Local Excursions available including your Large Bus Tour company's offerred Local Excursions, BUT often a greater variety of & perhaps a lower prices with more unique perks.

Your ONLY real challenge is to search out what Local Excursions you want and book them to fit your Large Bus Tour’s 'free-time' segments because, again, Local Excursion companies will have done all the heavy lifting.

The irony is that with simple research & planning AND with a small investment of your time, you can book your own local “free-time” Optional Tours.  Kinda your own “tour within a tour.” Pretty cool, eh?

Please glance thru these Local Excursions FACTORs:

A. Guest Booking FACTORs for Local Excursions
 1. Greater Variety of Sites/Experiences: Often a less costly, larger, broader variety of all Local Tour options occasionally including same ones your Tour company offers.
        a. All Tier 1, 2 & 3 tourist sites & experiences 
        b. Specialized Experiences: (French cooking class, hiking trails)
        c. Esoteric interests:  ignored  by Large Bus Tours because guest interest is too limited. (Rekjavik, Iceland's Phallic Museum - really ! 😀)          

   2. Pre-trip Online Research: …. almost as easy & convenient as booking the same tour that your Large Bus Tour company uses. 

World Wide Booking Platforms
(Note: the following produced after only 15 min of
online research & from my personal experience.)

        a. Get Your Guide: mostly positive … 
        b. Tours by Locals: mostly positive but for full group prepay
            requirement; “… think Viator, but a lot better run…”, with
            both clients & guide support, & dispute resolution service
            that works. Guides curated before being listed. 
        c. Trip Advisor & Viviator (TripAdvisor related): AVOID,
             apparently unreliable & overpriced.
        TIP: read a page or 2 of these organizations reviews,
                BUT NOT on their site. CAUTION: Confirm NO
                Shop Steering; just wastes time often. 

   3. Lower Local price: may be less expensive because they know they have to compete with your Tour Company's offerings. Ironically, the tour itself may be the same tour as your Tour Company offers.

So, … consider changing your attitude towards ‘free-time’ 
& exciting opportunities may appear!

        Note: OTOH, to be fair & honest, a local could be ‘similar’, but food, guides & itinerary might be sub-standard. Check Reviews

   4. Local Guides: You may hire local guides for large & complex sites or to visit multiple sites quicky because local folks-turned-guides & local tour companies can be highly motivated & respected experts on their local turf because they have ‘lived’ everything local — sites, history, culture, local stories.

Local guides can offer specific & unique Itineraries or will craft one for you. Local guides are a great source of local authentic restaurants and  at solving minor issues: “I need to replace my lost hat?”    May also be the same guide as your Large Bus Tours use. 

    a. Private Site guides:  If official, a popular site may have a formal
        queue like airport taxis queues. You take the next guide in line.
    b. Local On-Site Guides: you may have to choose from a
        gaggle of pushy local guides clustered desperately around the
        site’s entry. 
    c. Private Guides: search guides who advertise their experience &
        expertise on the Internet giving them the credibility of past client r
        reviews. Online scheduling & booking is usually simple.
    d. Informal Local Guides:

                      Oyantaytambo's Informal Site Guide

    CAUTION: Confirm NO Shop Steering. May just waste your time & money.

    5. Booking Tips: book through reputable(?) local companies or independent booking platforms which may offer both quality, safety & savings: 

     6. Local Cultural experience: Local guides can often slip authentic experience into your Local Excursion tour, if time allows. 

Anecdote: Inle Lake, Myanmar boat hire: I hired a guide & his roostertail boat to show me Inle Lake's small island communities & local 'floating' culture. Spontaneously he took me to his family's 'floating home' for coffee & to meet his family.
 
    YT Myan: Inle Lake boatman/guide's visit to family home for tea

Anecdote: Mandawa, India's 'painted havelis': My motorcycle taxi guide gained special access to several authentic original 'painted' havelis (homes) currently occupied by caretaker families. And then I went on a self-guided walking tour of many other Havelis. An intimate look at the lifestyles of former super wealthy great Silk Road trade merchants. 

    7. Safety & Security: Safer, more secure access to dicey sights/activities. 

Anecdote: St. Petersberg gypsy assault:  A goups of 8 of us were gathered outsaide Catherine's Palace awaiting entry when we were surrounded by a pack og gypsies trying to steal anything. I immedaiately warnind everyone. On man touched me and I instantly karate, chopped his hand away. They soon backed off. 

    8. Group Size: Tier 1 & 2 site’s are very often overrun by large tours between 10am & 3pm. Avoid some hassle by purposely booking a small tour or private guide with: 
    a. VIP or private access tickets, 
    b. ability to maneuver nimbly,
    c. a silent/private Tour Guide Audio System.
    d. …. or once at your hotel for the night, immediately grab a
        Uber & get to a top Tier 1 site on your own before others do.

9. VIP Site Access: Local Tours & guides have arranged VIP access: 

 Nalwalgarh, India's historic painted havelis rare access

  11. Dining: included if necessary (e.g.: lunch on 6 hr excursion)

12. Peer-to-peer local private host & guide: Peer-to-peer is a relatively new option rapidly growing as travel demand has shifted from ‘destination’ to ‘experiential’ based vacations.
 
            Reuters Events:  destination to experience-led vacations,  

Dig Deeper

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2) YOU decide what Local Excursions appeal to you from a.

ANECDOTE: Tallinn, Estonia’s capital…  has several impressive historical sites & museums: Tallinn City Wall; Freedom Square, Estonia Maritime Museum, & on the far outskirts, Sagadi Manor, & Estonian Open Air Museum. All easily done on a tour or more flexibly on your own. I spent many days wandering these sights and the entire city, avoiding the cruise ship crowds during middle day.

to nearby Tier 1 & 2 site tours & unique local activities. Often these local excursions are the same tours as your Large Bus Tour company offers, but at significantly lower prices because they have to compete with your tour company.

Compared to your Tour Company offerings, Local Excursions may offer:
       1) greater variety of sites & experiences than Tour Company. 
       2) more unique or with deeper cultural immersion
       3) less expensive than Tour Copany's with more perks
       4) almost as easily booked as Tour Company's 
       5. Often direct emaikl or text access to Local Excursions office.

ch city or town’s that a Large Bus Tour stops at overnight probably has a range of Local Excursions available to nearby Tier 1 & 2 site tours & unique local activities. Often these local excursions are the same tours as your Large Bus Tour company offers, but at significantly lower prices because they have to compete with your tour company.

The irony is that with simple research & planning AND sufficient time, you can book your own local Optional Tours for your “free-time” segments.  Kinda your own “tour within a tour.” Pretty cool, eh?

2) YOU decide what Local Excursions appeal to you from a.

ANECDOTE: Tallinn, Estonia’s capital…  has several impressive historical sites & museums: Tallinn City Wall; Freedom Square, Estonia Maritime Museum, & on the far outskirts, Sagadi Manor, & Estonian Open Air Museum. All easily done on a tour or more flexibly on your own. I spent many days wandering these sights and the entire city, avoiding the cruise ship crowds during middle day.

   a. There are (???) online companies allied with local Tour companies that may offer a greater variety of Local Excursions & lower prices not offered by your tour operator. Ironically, they may be exactly the same tour & at a lower price.
         b. Pre-trip Online search makes Local Excursion research & booking almost as easy as booking with your Tour Operator & perhaps for less money.
         c. Locals provide all necessary transport, meals when necessary, & maybe site entry fees. Enquire & confirm price & perks before booking.