we would like to travel around Britain next year. We are looking for a resonably priced tour. We are currently considering Trafalgar Low Cost's tour called the Elizabethan (14 days from London to London)and two Cosmos tours, England, Scotland and Wales (13 days from London to London) and the Grand tour of Britain and Ireland. I would appreciate any feedback fodorites can provide about these, or are there other tours that fodorites can recommend? Thanks.

Cosmos' Grand tour of Britain and Ireland is 19 days from London to London. Also, I should mention that we are particulary interested in the sights in England, and to a lesser extent Scotland and Wales, and we would mind skipping Ireland on this trip. Any feedback would be appreciated.

Have you been on Cosmos or Trafalgar Low Cost tours before? Be sure to check the itinerary. Most often you are in a place just one or two nights. That's a lot of packing and unpacking, AND much time is spent on the coach. Be sure to read between the lines and see what is and is not included. If you're healthy and able to get around easily, why not choose several cities you want to see, and then do day trips from there. It is so easy traveling within England. You have no language barriers and great transportation available. Just a thought...

Is there a particular reason you want to take a tour? The UK is easy to get around on your own by car, or by train if you don't want to drive.

You can tailor the route to your exact preferences rather than depend on a standardized tour itinerary. And usually going independently is cheaper than a tour.

Be VERY careful when looking at tour descriptions - "see" means just that. For instance "see Stonehenge" means you will get a glimpse of the stones from inside the bus - the bus won't stop and you won't be getting off to tour.

"Visit" means you actually get off the bus - but it doesn't tell you how long the stop is.

Hello, retiredinflorida.

You've chosen a great place for your trip, but I'd caution you (as the poster above) about being absolutely sure that a tour is really what you want.

I'm sure that you know that there are a lot of comments about tours on this website, and many of them have particulars about specific tours and/or the types of itineraries and sightseeing options that are available.

Especially because you're most interested in England itself (as opposed to Scotland, Wales, and Ireland), it seems a shame to spend any significant portion of your trip on the way to those "other" places and in those places.

I have never found a tour that is as inexpensive as the fly-hotel (optional drive) packages from various sources. If you do those, you have the flexibility to do what you want to do - and you choose how long to stay in each place.

You can easily do daytrips from most English cities, using trains, and maybe you could splurge on a car/driver for a couple of days if you want to be out in the countryside more.

If you have 2-3 weeks (which I'm guessing, from the length of the tours you mentioned), you could spend one week each in three areas (London, York, and ??? - Bath, Devon, Kent??). With a couple of train trips (or buses, taxis, hired car/driver), you could see a LOT of England in that time (although you'll still just be skimming the surface, of course).

Anyway, I apologize because I'm not really being any help. I haven't been on any Tours. But, I have taken the train several times in England/Great Britain, so I'm quite sure about the possibilities there.

By the way, what is "reasonably priced" for this type of tour (14-19 days)? If you let us know your approximate budget, maybe some smart fodorites will have suggestions. (And, be careful with that tour price - it often doesn't include meals! A friend of my parents went on a tour through England/Wales/Scotland - she and her husband were only offered a choice of meals for ONE dinner - everywhere else they went (huge places, that can accept tour buses, so nothing interesting or off the beaten path), they were all given just one meal selection. Yuck, I would personally hate that! So watch the wording of the tour "amenities!&quot

Good luck planning your trip!

Gayle

I like a tour for my first visit but you need to be very careful in choosing, which you obviously are.

Low cost tours often have many extras and don't turn out to be as low cost as you originally thought. Also check hotel locations. If they aren't centrally located, then you'll be spending extra to get to the places you want to see.

Also don't forget to factor in the tips at the end of the tour.

Check the tour offered by Rick Steves. They are a little more expensive at first glance but have few extras outside of the meals that aren't offered.

Tours can enable you to see more than you can on your own. Once I have the 'lay of the land' and have seen the basics I prefer to do my own thing.

Don't scrimp on a good guide book and do the research yourself even if you do take a tour.

I just scanned the Trafalgar Elizabethan tour and to cover so many miles, you'll just be driving by many of the attractions.

Hi

I have taken both a Trafalgar Tour (Rome to London) and two Cosmos tours (Greece and Spain). Both companies have been very good. I have used Cosmos as I felt they had less optional extras than Trafalgar. For this reason we booked our third Cosmos tour for Turkey in 2006. However I have to vent my spleen here. Recently we booked our earlybird airfares and Cosmos tour for next year (September 2006). After paying full airfares and tour deposit, Cosmos cancelled our tour due to low numbers and suggested we go on the tour commencing one week later. This has caused considerable inconvenience and cost in relation to our airfare. We have been slugged with cancellation/rebooking fees of $400 plus we have ended up having to stay overnight in Dubai i.e more costs + staying in some place I had no intention of ever visiting in my life. I think this was pretty sleazy of Cosmos as they knew people would have booked the airfares already. Why didn't they warn people earlier. I feel I should warn you of these "surprises" plus use this as an opportunity to give Cosmos a public spray!

I took a great Cosmos tour to Britain & Ireland in 2002 which covered 4 countries--England, Scotland, Wales, & Ireland. This tour was 16 days with mostly overnights. I enjoyed the tour but we were really on the move.
I think the best thing you can do is read the itineraries carefully. Cosmos gave us lots of pre-tour information and still people complained about all the time we spent on the bus.
Faith

We have taken various tours in Europe, but the point is made that maybe in Britain you don't need one. A compromise if you don't want to drive is Backroads Touring in a mini-bus with driver as guide. We did this and it put us in nice rural farm house B&Bs plus delicious pub lunches. Due to circumstances it ended up with just two couples of us which was like a private tour! Plus we took extra days in London.

ozarksbill

Thanks for the feedback. I had thought of going to London and making several day trips from there, but we deceided against this because of London's high prices. We though a tour would be a better option and we are recultant to doing this trip by ourselves only because we cannot see ourselves moving heavy suitcases every day or two. (Yes, I know many of you will suggest that we travel light, and we do but we still find moving our gear a challenge.) We are planning on spending about US$2,200 to US$2500 per person. Any other tips would be appreciated. Thanks.

ttt