An interesting thread has been bubbling away over on Lonely Planet forums. Everything kicked off with jacs75 asking for recommendations for group guided tours in Egypt for an ‘off the beaten track’ experience for the ‘young at heart’. There have been a few suggestions including loz_26 recommending the Top Deck tour, for uner 25s with a local guide, that she’d booked through STA Travel. And the comments have moved to a wider debate about whether guided tours are a help or a hindrance in getting insight into a country.

Have you been on the STA / Top Deck tour and would you recommend it? Have you found a tour helped you get to grips with Egypt or made you feel like a herded cow? Jump in and join the debate.

Andy Chapman is a teacher from Sheffield who likes to go somewhere a bit different on his summer holiday, rather than the usual beach bumming in Thailand or Australia. So this year he booked a trip with STA Travel to journey from Islamabad, through Pakistan, to Tehran in Iran, possibly dropping in on Kabul while he’s up in the north.

Andy set off on July 18th and is recording his impressions and experiences via his Twitter feed and his Picasa photo album, where he’s already started posting some images from Pakistan and Iran.

The photos are great because they really capture the warm social spirit of these places. In fact, as he updated in his latest Tweet: ‘was in pakistan for crazy festival. got interviewed for pakistan national tv-what a star!!’

Click through to his content for an insight into a different kind of holiday.