No reason to do a tour in Burma. But you will likely need a local travel agent to book flights and hotels for you. Burma is the safest place I've traveled. You may want to get medical evacuation insurance, as you would want to get to Bangkok if you got ill or injured. There is phone service in Burma, though your cell phone probably won't work... I'm not clear on what you are worried about.

Kathie offered good advice. I'm a 65yo male. My trip reports are here: http://www.fodors.com/community/asia/trip-reports-myanmar-visit-november-2012.cfm

I planned and booked much of my travel myself, but I used an agent in Yangon by email (Bravo) for my flight bookings and for the hotel in Mandalay when the city seemed to be booked out. For the other hotels I used either Agoda or direct emails to the hotels; occasionally I rang the hotels direct on Skype.

I didn't use the phone service at all. I travel with a netbook. Almost every hotel had wifi, although most were extremely slow. Despite the speed I was able to use Skype a couple of times back to Australia.

I never leave Australia without travel insurance; that is absolutely essential in my opinion. However, be sure the insurance company covers Myanmar; some don't.