Personally I see no need to take a tour if you have your own transport - unless you only have half a day or so to spare. I know that's easy for me to say because I live here but the first time we ever toured the Normandy beaches it was as vacationers with nothing more than a map. Everywhere is so well sign-posted it's quite easy to find most places on your own. And of course you then have the freedom to spend as little or as much time at each stop as you wish.

I can't imagine you'd have any trouble finding the main sites -- Ste Mere Eglise, the beachheads of Utah, Omaha, Juno etc, the cemeteries, etc.

But you'll miss out on a lot of great storytelling and lesser-known sites like heroic deeds in a farm field or near a hedgerow that had a lot of impact on me. I did the American tour through Battlebus and was glad for it. I would have missed so much.

It's probably a personal preference. If you have done tours before and have enjoyed that, then there are plenty of touring agencies for you to choose from. We were in Normandy about a month ago. Having seen Ken Burns' "The War" documentary, and having remembered some from our history classes in school, we thought it was nice for us to be able to do things at our own pace including stopping along the way to take in non-WWII sights like small villages with open-air markets or an interesting square or church, etc.. Most travel books on Normandy (Lonely Planet, Rick Steves, Michelin, Rough Guide, etc.) have very adequate descriptions of the landing beaches for us to refer to. Most sites (Arromanches, the German guns at Longues-sur-Mer, Omaha beach, & the American Military at Colleville-sur-Mer) were along a route with clear road signs and not too far from each other; most sites themselves also have narratives that tell a story. We also visited the German Military Cemetery at La Cambe and found that very moving too. With a tour, you would certainly get more information --assuming the info. is accurate, although if one is serious about history, I would imagine going to the primary source is the safest. One more note, when we came back, we watched "Saving Private Ryan" again and found it still outstanding, but we also realized that except for the opening scene which was filmed at the American Cemetery at Colleville-sur-Mer, the beach scenes and others were filmed in the UK!

We are staying in the Ste Mere Eglise area in July, I have booked a tour with a retired British Colonel, Oliver Warman (I know, what a great last name for a Colonel !)

The compamy is www.normandybattlefields.com

It is fairly expensive but I think it's worth it. Like one of the other posts said, you will miss out on a lot of important stuff without a guide.

it simply boils down to the fact that you can visit museums on your own, but won't get the "behind the scenes" insight and personal stories that a tour offers. My wife & I took the 2-day American Experience tour with Battlebus a few yrs ago and it was truly OUTSTANDING !

When you take the 2 day Battlebus tour, do you go back to your hotel and go on a second day trip the next day, or do you check out of you hotel and have a hotel room booked through Battlebus for the overnight?

Delliedigi

Battlebus does not take care of hotel accommodations. They just do the tour.

The consensus of opinions is that you'll miss out if you don't take a guide. You can get to the main sites, youcanspend half the day in museums looking at stuff you can see on intenet but at the end of the day you won't knwo what you were looking at. If you don't want a minibus tour you can take an audio guide and do d day on your own and make the most of the day.