40 days until we leave for our POI tour :) Woohoo :)
Hello from Texas and I hope everyone is having a thoroughly thrilling Thursday 
My hubby and I are set to do the POI tour on January 22, 2025 and we are so excited. This is my 12th Tauck tour so I'm familiar with how Tauck operates, but this will be our first experience in India. We are in our early 50s and so ready to see this amazing country!
Mike...thank you for your travel blog. I love seeing pictures of the places I will be touring from another travelers perspective...And your dogs are adorable!
One question I have is how much "down time" is there on this trip? I rarely feel the need to book extra tours during a trip, but I am a little concerned because there seems to be a lot of free afternoons. This happened to us on the Australia/New Zealand trip and it was a new experience for us. If I had known we would have so much free time, I would have planned better and arranged activities through the concierge at the hotels. I am a traveler with a "you can sleep when you get home" attitude and I like to stay busy...but I don't want to really explore India without a guide...I prefer to have a local tour person with us for safety and knowledge
A second question I have is about the me in the country. I have read several comments on this forum about aggressive men...have you guys experienced this? I had never had any issues at all, even when I was exploring by myself, but I did have a problem with the boldness of the men in Egypt and it was quite uncomfortable. I'm not shy at all...but i also want to stay safe.
Finally, does anyone know if Annie has retired...the reviews of her on this site are definitely mixed....a lot seem to mention that she is jaded. We have always had enthusiastic and wonderful guides and hope that carries over into this trip.
Thanks in advance for any info...I am happy to have this resource
Tamara in Texas
Comments
You do have to be careful about men in India, especially in crowded places. If given the chance they will touch you. It’s good to keep covered and not wear tight clothing.
We took the shorter Northern India tour some time ago and there was only one free afternoon but there was an optional excursion and only three of us took it. We felt the others missed a great afternoon of a beautiful temple and ride there on a tuk tuk. The guide took great photographs of us with the best backgrounds of the scenery, he knew exact where to place us.
Yes, the tours these days have too much free time. We would not venture out without a guide. Tauck paid people to keep the beggars away from us. Don’t look them in the eye or they will pursue you hawking their wears for long distances. We loved India.
Thank you for your kind words about our blog - and the girls thank you for calling them adorable (they said "Woof, woof" when I told them). I don't remember a lot of down time on this trip, except at the resort in the south of India. They left time for people to take advantage of the spa. Perhaps ask Tauck for copies of the daily itineraries.
There were a lot of early mornings. By the end of the tour, we were a bit tired - but we're not so young any more.
We recently returned from the POI tour which we and our group of well seasoned travelers thought was fabulous.WE arrived on the tour a day early and hired a driver and guide for the day to see Delhi.it was super inexpensive and covered sites not included with Tauck tour. You are kept hopping seeing many wonderful attractions and the flights from each location take time. The Oberoi hotels are beyond spectacular and we enjoyed hotel facilities and their beautiful pools in order to relax from hectic schedule. I found the locals to be charming and cooperative and don’t recall any complaints about aggressiveness. Our TD arranged at no cost a private tour of the slums of Mumbai while other guests spent time shopping.
tdelliott72 You will LOVE LOVE LOVE India...I think it will always be in my Top 3 Tauck tours.
I do not recall any aggressiveness from the Indian men. For my India tours, I arrived a day early and arranged guides and driver through the concierges at the Leela and Imperial hotels. I do not recall much down-time. it's a fast moving tour. If there were more downtime, I would have welcomed the opportunity to enjoy more of the beautiful hotel properties.
In reference to tour guides - I think there are two Annie's. For my first POI tour, I had Annie - middle age; platinum bob. She was good. and we had a few difficult people on that tour. A friend of a friend took the POI tour last year. I think her guide name was Annie ( a different, younger Annie). She said she was not that great - at times, downright awful). I hope you are lucky enough to get my TD Annie (2018 tour) or if Lady Luck is really on your side, you will get the incredible Sid who was my TD for the 2023 Northern India-Nepal tour. He does both tours.
Enjoy! I'm looking forward to Tauck developing another India Itinerary
tdelliott71 - I mentioned this in the other thread you asked about my Tour Director.
His name is Siddhartha Sharma. He is an excellent Tour Director. Here is his picture taken at our going away bash in Mumbai.
MY daughter and SIL are coming with me on this trip. My daughter has several Indian friends who go back regularly. They all said the Indian men tend not to bother white women, but keep their harassment confined to the natives. Of course, there are exceptions to every rule.
Here's the Annie we had on the India tour. The picture was taken at the welcome reception. Everyone was dressed up.
MikeHenderson Yes, that's the TD Annie from my POI tour--albeit with a little longer hair.
We went on the POI trip last January. Annie was our tour leader and she was great. She is tough at times, but to get through the airports with all the carry on luggage...that is to your advantage! POI was the best trip my husband and I have ever taken. There is so much to see and very little downtime with the exception of the beaches in southern India. What an amazing country! I want to go back on the India and Nepal tour in the next few years. I am leaving in 30 days for the Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand tour. I have heard that this trip is a favorite of many as well.
@Sally North - See if you can get to Ha Long Bay when you go on the Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand tour. It'd be a shame to travel that far and miss it.
[Added note: The concierge at the Metropole Hotel can set up a day trip to Ha Long Bay if your time is limited. We went the morning of the Tauck reception dinner.]
Sally North We think alike! POI is definitely in my Top 3 Tauck tours. I took the Northern India-Nepal tour 5 years after the POI and I am anxiously awaiting a new Tauck India itinerary. The TD (Sid) hinted they were developing a tour to possibly include Bhutan. I'm ready and still have a few years left on my 10-year visa. I'm taking the Vietnam tour next December. I hope you get a chance to post a few reviews. I'm also taking MikeHenderson recommendation adding the Ha Long Bay tour on the front end and will add a few days at the back end to visit Laos. Safe Travels.
MikeHenderson And PureLuxury - Is this the Annie that people talk about being Jaded or is this the Annie that people have enjoyed?
Smiling Sam We actually met Sid last year. He was running a parallel Tauck trip in Africa so his group stayed in the same hotels and took the same flights as ours for almost 2 weeks before their group split off to go home and we continued on to Rwanda for the Gorilla Hike. He was very nice and seemed like a great TD. I did talk to hi about India and he said he did not think he would be leading our group...so I'm guessing one of the Annies might be our TD.......i hope we don't get the jaded Annie (although I'm betting some people might have different perceptions of her since different people click better with different personalities). We have always had really great TDs and I hope that doesn't change on this trip.
It is the same Annie! There are not two. She must be about 80 now.
Sally North - You are going to LOVE the Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand trip! It was my first Tauck trip to go on solo (my hubby retire about 1.5 years ago so before that i did some of the trips with Tauck by myself). I loved Cambodia so much that i took my boys back there about 6 months later to celebrate my oldest son's college graduation. I loved the trip because not only does it have a ton of history, but the scenery is just amazing to photograph!!!!
British - What was your experience with Annie? Was it positive?
Like I’ve said previously, she was jaded when we went years ago. I’m sure she was talking retirement then. Otherwise of course she knows the ropes efficiently. One day she was sick and had to go to get an IV. She organized the driver or it might have been the local guide for our site seeing that day. She left us and got an early flight to the US on the last day. I’m not repeating everything here again. Like I said, she must be about 80…the tour has changed a bit since we took it so there was if I recall only one half day of down time, so it must be tiring for her.
tdelliott71 That's the Annie I had as a TD. IMO, she was very good and went out of her way on occasion to ensure everyone had a great experience--now, I cannot compare her to SID --who was FANTASTIC.
Our tour only had 15 people, but a few were quite difficult. She handled them the best she could. I didn't have any issues with her and her attitude was just fine. She did mention she was retiring and that's why I was quite surprised when I asked Sid if her knew her and he mentioned she was leading a tour at that time--this was 5 years later. I'm sure it's an exhausting trip for the Tds. There's a lot of coordinating going on behind the scenes--but, that's what we're paying for...someone else to coordinate and handle potential "issues"
It's a great trip...Enjoy!
Hi all. Back from POI (Mike and I were in the same tour). First let me say that Annie was a wonderful tour director and folks really should try not judging and sharing personal opinions like I have seen here about Annie. This is our professional career we are talking about here. I get this is a sharing community site, but really. Second. I never at any time felt uncomfortable around Indian men. I actually even “broke the rules” and went sleeveless a few days due to the heat.
This tour was fabulous and is our number 3 out of 10 Tauck Tours. Annie helped make this an amazing trip. I appreciated her directness perhaps because I myself am pretty direct.
(Hi Mike 👋)
Should have said. “Her professional career”. Not “Our professional career”.