I live and work in Japan. The Japanese were once a proud imperial nation with ambitions to dominate the Pacific region. Since that failed attempt the Japanese have been taught to fear just about everything. Every winter they religiously get their flu jabs (and still catch colds), they bolt their storm shutters every night and fear to walk home in the dark. They also pay outrageous sums of money to go on package holidays to Europe, Australia and Asia. The thought of traveling independently is too frightening to contemplate.

Being an English teacher I hear all the stories. My students return to class after 3 days and 2 nights in Europe. They only visit places that UNESCO deems worthy of inclusion in their World Heritage list, they uniformly moan about foreign food and they usually return with ‘souvenirs’ which is invariably nasty candy made in China.

My point is that going a package tour is a waste of time. You never get to experience the culture of the country you are going to; you only interact with locals in the service industry, and much of the thousands of dollars you spend go to rich travel agents back in your home country rather than the host country. Package tours are consumer products like cars and iPods.

Saga Holidays now have a tour called ‘Siam Island Adventure’. It costs £1,549 for 11 days. The tour starts in Bangkok and takes in Hua Hin and Chumphon before going to Koh Phangan. This is the first tour group I’ve heard of that goes to the once notorious hippy hang out of Koh Phangan. The tour spends two nights at Havana Beach Resort in Thong Nai Pan Yai before going on to Koh Samui.

This part of Thailand is one of the easiest and safest places to travel. It is very accessible and for the life of me I can’t understand why anyone would waste money on this tour. It costs £500 for a return flight from the UK to Bangkok. The cost to fly to Koh Samui is £70, the boat to Koh Phangan £2 and a cheap bungalow on the beach costs about £10 a night. For the same month you could stay on a glorious beach in Thailand for a month. You could also go to Ankor Wat in Cambodia and visit the Golden Triangle in the North of Thailand. You could make it to the Plain of Jars in Laos.

You might even have a real ‘adventure’ getting to these places.