Well, if you don't have the choice, you don't have the choice. Don't get me wrong, there is experience to be gained by dealing with the pressures and time constraints of passengers. You just invited your Aunt and Uncle out for a $100 hamburger and they are only in town for this weekend and moving to Russia. The weather goes below your personal mins. What are you going to do? Its not an easy answer when they are standing right in front of you and the airplane is preflighted.

If you are going to do it 61, the quality of time issue is really taken away. If you gotta do the time, you gotta do the time. All my point was that for the money you'd be spending on the extra 50 hrs, you're not going to get that much experience.

There is something to be said for going to different airports, but once you get used to it, you dont need experience at every airport to learn how to get into every airport. Now, I did not instruct 61, so you'll have to review the regs with your instructor, but this is what I would lean toward. If it's possible, get some time x-country time done before or interspersed in with your IR to solidify your pvt skills. Then save some time after the IR to get some good soup time in. An employer may or may not care about this difference, but I just think you will be a more well rounded pilot if you dont use all that time for VFR x countries.

I also can't stress this enough...even though your instructor will also: do not get your IR and then go up in the soup alone. The IR, more than any other rating/cert, does NOT qualify you to go exercise your privileges.