welcome

i agree with mcpinder

what i learned by picking up several travel books and reading/researching the places i went to was that my choices came down to me. Not some travel agent or tour guide.

Even then, if i was able to communicate/convey my wants and emphasize was important or a priority, it usually happened.

Note, im a big DIY - Do it Yourselfer. Did so since trip #1 way back in 2012.

If you want, pickup some travel books and start reading. Or look at some other means to get your info on where you THINK yo want to go.

I find an INFORMED CONSUMER is best. And that means knowing yourself and what you want or dont and being able to convey that to your travel agent or tour guide before you pay. Relative words like "Budget is mid to slightly upper, not spartan" doesnt mean anything to me since what travel has taught me is that others have different size bank accounts.

Ever since 2013, my 1 month trips in September's have been about 5K USD and that is for EVERYTHING other than food. By doing my own research/planning, i have been able to adjust my itinerary/activities and places to that number. Note its for EVERYTHING other than food. My trip and cruse to the Galapagos last year ended up more than that 5K , but that was known from the start due to the cost of the cruse.

If you dont want to do your own reserach is up to you. But to me, when you hand over the reins to someone else, you may not get the ride you expect or want.

Ive also learned that by doing it myself, i can fix things if they happen. Such as your flights back home. Thats low hanging fruit in my travels.

Last comment/thought. You dont have to do it 1 way or the other way. If you are willing you can piecemeal your travels. Such as do your own flights/lodging and then pickup local tours/activities.

good luck

Why have you posted this question 3 times. Duplicates reported.

And by the way " best" so very vague and means a hundred different things to a hundred people.

The good thing about OAT is that it allows some spots for solo travellers at no extra cost. I have used OAT and did not find any accommodations "Sad". I know that if I want a 5 star hotel, then I organize the trip myself.

Look at G Adventures. Their Gluxe and National Geographic tours are higher end. You can look at the detailed itineraries to see the hotels that they usually use to see if they meet your needs.

some other thoughts.

I would look for a travel agent in your area and one you can like or get to know or better yet, for them to get to know you and your tastes.

to me you have specific tastes and wants including your relative budget.

If you plan to travel more it may take time to get to "know you and your tastes" but that way you hopefully wont be disappointed.

good luck

My travel expertise is somewhat niche, but I often look at small group trips to areas I am very familiar with just out of curiosity, and here are my observations-

Small group trips rarely use what I'd consider the best, most unique accommodations in an area.  Why?  Because those accommodations are often small and exclusive and also have a well established client base (often repeat guests or agents who send bookings).  Taking a booking for a group company is a risk.  You are expected to hold a lot of space open, maybe the entire property, often until quite close to the date, which the group company might not fill if they don't sell all the places on the tour.  For a small safari camp (for example), this isn't an attractive prospect, especially if they already have enough of a client base that they can fill their space without a problem.

Also, in small properties, groups can often be demanding and disruptive to other guests (if the group isn't big enough to take the whole property), and if you rely a lot on repeat business, taking groups risks alienating your other guests.

So I often see trips using larger accommodations, or sometimes new places that are desperate for business, or trips at sub-optimal times of year.  Not that I'd rule out travel at sub-optimal times of year, but if you do so solo, you can often negotiate excellent discounts and get the benefit of less busy accommodation- none of which you get while traveling as group.

Another observation is that sometimes groups are deliberately priced to deter singles.  I once saw a 9 night trip using a particular group of safari camps, which had quite a hefty single supplement.  I happened to know that the safari camp company would waive their single supplement for a 10 night booking.  So why was the tour company doing 9 nights?  Then I realised that the camps only had 4 rooms each, so single bookings would reduce the maximum size of the group, and of course the tour company had to cover the cost of their tour leader (including their travel from the UK).  If they had a 10 night itinerary with only 4 single guests, they wouldn't manage that.  They wanted 8 guests sharing.  So single travelers were bad for their business model.  So in this instance, as a solo you would have been far better off going separately. As you found with your Aigas trip, it is often the local guides who really make a trip, not the "tour leader" provided by the group company.

Having said all this, I wouldn't rule out joining a well researched small group trip to a new area I'm not familiar with.  I'm an avid safari goer but have been thinking about branching out to some other wildlife areas (Pantanal, India, etc) and it's a daunting prospect the amount of research I'd need to do to reach the same level of knowledge as I have about Zambia, or Botswana, especially as a solo traveler.  I would certainly consider a group trip if I wanted to "dip my toe in the water" of a new area.

Also, there are instances where traveling as a group does saves costs- eg going to remote areas where transport costs for one person would be very high.  But I think looking at group trips requires a certain level of knowledge and research to work out what is and isn't good value.

I think if you can be bothered to put the effort in to do the research, or find someone with the knowledge of a particular area who can help you, then doing a completely solo trip can be a better option.  I've helped many solo travelers planning trips to Africa and I'm always happy to share my experiences.

mcpinder, Thank you for your kind and thoughtful comments. First off, I’m very sorry for my typos as I was dictating this on my iPhone in a “parked” car. To the poster below, this is my very first time on TripAdvisor posting an actual question. My screen froze several times, thus, that may be the reason for the triple posting. I went to Facebook messenger and was having a conversation with TripAdvisor and their tone was very supportive, like yours. Hopefully they have removed the duplicate postings.

Separately, I’d like to know where I can go back and edit. It really bothers me when I have dictation errors that look like grammatical errors as I used to work in PR, editing and marketing.

Regarding your thoughts, I have traveled both ways. A friend and I created our own trip when we were in Belgium and parts of The Netherlands. It was the same when my brother and I traveled to England and Spain, as well as Thailand. We did it all. I really haven’t done tours other than this year and one many years ago with a work colleague who fashioned a tour for us to Provence with the subjects she taught at our college. That’s why my main question was asking so much about tours for solo travelers. Yes I could do my own research and that may be my best way to work with and around the activities that I presently want to do and see. Thank you for being so responsive when I posted.

r c Such wisdom you share and I am grateful for your clarity and wonderful insights. As I said to mcpinder, above, most of my travel has been DIY, with the help of friends. But, these most recent small-group experiences made me wonder if there was a way of fine-tuning the experience. Likely not, due to practicality, costs and meeting general interests vs. specific ones and for such a small group. Really grateful for your input. Thank you.

mathladyca49 Thank you for notifying me about the duplicates! I had no idea and as I said to mcpinder, this was my first-ever posting on TripAdvisor and my iPhone screen froze when I was hitting the “post” button. Fortunately, the TripAdvisor team on Facebook Messenger are quite gracious and helpful and not scolding and I think they corrected my “error.” As to your comments, my friend loves OAT and has been on numerous trips with them and I value her word and now yours. When I was on the OAT website, somehow I ended up on the GCT website, so perhaps that may have had something to do with it. Thank you for explaining the solo supplement, as well.

Adventurer2005 Fantastic! I love it that you shared a few names and I will happily research those. Thank you for answering my question. It means a lot as I am just beginning to travel again and doing it solo, so there’s a newness about it for me and a feeling of a little bit of the unknown.