I would like to do a 7-14 day tour to the British Isles (Scotland, Ireland, England) sometime in July. Here are my two main questions:
1-What's a good tour company?
2-Does anyone have any advice on finding a tour with folks around my age? I am 37 and I find that as I send these sorts of questions to the tour folks they tell me that a lot of the tours are filling with folks much younger than me (early 20s) or much older than me (folks all the way from 30-60s). I mentioned this issue in a previous post but I could use more suggestions on specific companies.
A singles tour would be nice but that's not necessary. I also want to hit up a lot of Castles and other medieval type things. I am going to spend part of my Europe trip on my own and I figured it would be nice to spend part of it on a tour also. I don't mind spending a bit more money if I can get exactly what I want.
Your advice is appreciated.
J
British Isles tour for someone in their 30s
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I have been on some tours in Scotland and you are around my age so I'll take a try at your question.
When I go to Scotland, I usually book a tour with Rabbies Tours http://rabbies.com/. They have tours of England, Ireland and Scotland. These tours can be as short as day trips or up to 8 plus days. You can decide which tours work for you and I like them because they are small buses, only 16 people max. Sometimes there are older couples, families with teens, friends, or singles. It all just depends. I have always gone with another person. Their tours are located on their website and say you want to take two of the tours. They will work with you and have them overlap so right before the end of one, you pick up the other. You can also choose to stay at a B&B or hotel. It might be worth it to check them out.
sassy27 has given good advice. Rabbies (and another similar Scottish company - Timberbush) do very good 1 day to 1 week tours. Mainly leaving from Edinburgh or Glasgow.
But if you meant a full blown guided coach tour of 3 countries (England/Scotland/Ireland) in 2 weeks or less - a sharp stick in the eye comes to mind. And for a 30 something it would be even MORE torturous.
You don't need a tour (and you really can't 'do' 3 countries in 7-14 days except by a gawd awful mass market coach tour).
But if you really want a tour get to the UK on your own, visit maybe London and Edinburgh for a few days, and then hook up w/ rabbies or timberbush.
http://www.timberbush-tours.co.uk/
Thanks a lot. Any suggestions from other folks?
"Any suggestions from other folks?"
What - you don't like ours?
Jeff, welcome to Fodors, generally the people on this website go in for individual travel so we know only a limited amount about group travel.
However, I also recognise that traveling on your own can be pretty boring. In which case you may be interested in doing short tours in groups, this can include walks in the major cities which last for a couple of hours ending (normally) in a pub, and day tours out of the cities (say to Stonehenge from London). If these sound interesting then a quick search of this site will bring up the best and worst of these.
Anymore at the back??
You could try Googling bus (or coach) tours of Britain and then compare what they offer. I like Globus and Insight, but then I'm a lot older than you are. My husband and I did a 28-day Globus tour that included England, Ireland, N. Ireland, Wales, and Scotland and just barely scratched the surface. I've been back to London several times and done day trips by train to different cities, and I really want to go back to Scotland and Wales and spend much more time. For some reason Ireland didn't "speak" to me like the others did.
This thread is exactly what I'm searching for. I'm trying to plan a similar trip next spring for myself and a friend or two. We want to go to Scotland (maybe Ireland too) for about two weeks to primarily see castles and scenery, with some city sights as well. We are both in our early 40s (healthy and fit). We like independent travel, but are a bit nervous to completely do it on our own. Ideally, we would find a tour company to help us plan the main items (hotel and transportation) but let us also explore on our own. The thought of being on a bus each and every day does not appeal to us! We are either too young or too old for many tour groups. Thanks everyone for the info - I will check out Rabbies.