Learnings from booking independent overlands

So, how did I book our independent overlands?
I started by reviewing the Cruise Critic and Trip Advisor forums looking for recommendations. I then sent e-mails to recommended tour operators. Some wrote back with proposals some didn't. The problem was that the foreign tour operators all wanted money sent via Western Union or wired to a bank account for deposits. I reviewed the Western Union web site and they said not to send money to people you don't personally know. So that was out.

I then turned to a service called Tripology on the Trip Advisor web site. I submitted my trip details and within days 3 travel agents, licensed to work in the US, sent me proposals. For both China and Egypt I got at least one good proposal. So I am booking these two tours with two different travel agents, one who specializes in Asia the other who specializes in Egypt. The third overland, Angkor Wat, I ended up booking with the agent who specializes in Asia as the tour operator's web site had an itinerary that was exactly what I wanted to do.

What did I learn?
I am willing to pay a little extra for the security of booking with a US travel agent who accepts credit cards/Paypal and will look after our interests while we are abroad. If something goes wrong with one of our tour operators or a flight gets canceled, they can handle it by finding an alternative. Also the turn around time for responses from agents on Tripology was 24 hours whereas with some of the foreign tour operators it took days to weeks, if I even heard back from them at all.

My tips for booking
Select your own hotels from Trip Advisor and let the tour operator know. For the most part I did not like the ones that the tour operators were choosing and went with ones that appealed to me based on their ratings. Do not accept wording that says "or similar" next to the hotel name. In reading other's trip reports often an inferior hotel was substituted. I really liked that the tour operator for our Asia trips right off selected the Hilton which had wonderful reviews. It gave me confidence that they would select similar high quality providers for other aspects of the trip.

Know what you want to see. I started with the Princess trip agenda and then modified it to suit what I wanted to see. Trip Advisor has a list of reviews for the major sites so I could get additional details on them. For instance I noticed that the Ming Tombs were not included in the independent agenda but were in the Princess agenda. I almost asked that it be included. But just before sending the e-mail I checked the Trip Advisor reviews. The reviewers mostly said 'skip it' due to it being a cement room with not much to see so I didn't ask for it.

And last but not least I booked travel insurance for all my independent excursions with cancellation penalties.