We will be travelling to Europe in winter 2011 for the first time. We think a guided tour that takes in as many of the big sights as possible is the way to go for our first trip. We will also be travelling with our 2 teenage daughters (15 & 12) so we are somewhat concerned about which company to use & we are having trouble finding information on touring with teenagers.

We've found a Cosmos tour which ticks all of our must see destinations and the price is great but I've read on the forums that they are a "budget" tour group. Just wondering if anybody has any recommendations for a good tour company that provides good value for money - has a good range of age groups (another teenager or two on board would be a bonus) - & any other touring advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

Where are the big sights that you want to see. I am not a tour expert as we always gdo our own trip planning, but my impression is that most of the tour companies dont cater to 'families' or teens. I would expect them to likely be the only teens on the tour.

Is the reason for the tour because you arent familiar with planning something yourself? If it is, we are all very helpful and can help you plan something within your budget. If you post the itinerary we can provide feedback etc.

Is it because you want to see as many things as possible? If that is the case then yes, a tour might be best for you as all the logistics are taken care of and they can shuttle you around fairly quickly.

Be sure you take care to read what the itinerary says and what it actually means. Visit, view, see all mean different things - it may be just a drive-by of a sight instead of a visit. Tours also tend to spend time taking you to 'see' artisans which are really just ways to get you to shop at these touristy places.

Another thing to look into is where the hotels are. You dont want to end up miles outside of centre so you cant walk around in the evenings on your own.

Hope this helps!

Most people with children don't use tours...at their age, I think that I would have hated it....

Check too what is included in the price - entry fees, which meals/drinks etc.
Are you and your children prepared to be up and about by about 6.30 in the morning? tours often leave the hotel by 8 am which often means bags outside the room door for collection at about 6.30.

Days can be long and monotonous if you have a long distance to travel on the coach between sights.

I assume you are from Australia/New Zealand since you will be travelling in winter? The chances of other children/teens on a winter tour are small, unless there are fellow Australians/ New Zealanders on the tour with you. Northern Hemisphere kids will be in school.

You can often see what the current make up of a tour is before booking - usually you will find the ages to be 40+ if not 50+ and mostly couples.

The best value for your money is to plan and execute the trip yourself rather than take a guided tour. Once in cities, you can take local tours either on buses or on foot - most cities have excellent walking tours to acclimate yourselves and get some history, then you can go off on your own at your own pace. Since there are 4 of you, you could book private tours for half a day and get a tour that is tailored to your interests.

If you are convinced that an escorted tour is best for you then be sure to check what is included and what will cost an additional fee, how many meals are included, how many nights at each stop, how long on the bus each day.

Cosmos is a budget tour company. You don't say if that is what you're looking for. The best tour value for your money depends on where you're going (you didn't specify). You need to check several tour companies and compare what you get. Most tours cater to mature travelers.

There is a Rick Steve's 14 Day Family Tour of Europe which is geared to include children.

But, (1) it is not inexpensive and (2) does not operate in the winter. You might want to look at the itinerary for ideas.

http://tours.ricksteves.com/tours11/.../rurl/code/EFF

Tour groups - except for those specifically for young people (Con tiki etc) tend not to have teens as members (and many won;t take younger kids at all). I would not subject the tees to this type of tour nor the rest of the members of the tour to them.

Esp budget tours tend to have all 7 am starts, lots of very long days sitting on a bus, many stops of shopping for tschotkes nobody really wants, a limited amount of time at actual sights - and can cover so much ground only because most of the members are napping while the driver drives and the guide drones.

Have traveled to europe 3 times with tween/teen and teen stepdaughters - and each time we stayed in 2 or 3 places in 2 weeks - which we all enjoyed much more than interminable sitting on a bus. this also gave us the chance to do things separately - so we weren;t ready to murder each other at the end of the trip. Also them having their own room helped a lot - since there is no way I would share a bath with 2 tween/teen girls.

I really can;t see how the cost of a tour multiplied by 4 wouldn't end up being more than doing the trip yourself.

Sounds like a complete nightmare to me, for everyone involved.

Your teenagers are plenty old enough to start researching and helping to plan a trip. They will get far more out of that than sitting all day on a bus flying by sites. Everyone here is more than willing to help you, and your kids, get started.

The only teenager I know that was taken on a trip of Europe with a tour group with her mother was miserable, miserable, miserable the whole time. The early mornings, the long bus trips, no other teens or anyone under the age of 50 or so except for her mother who was the youngest of the adults, the hotels not in the cental district and so forth and so on. To this day she has no desire to return to Europe. So as our StCirq stated, said teen even who is know an adult believes travelling in Europe is a nightmare.

I too would encourage you to investigate travelling on your own. You don't say how many nights you will have in Europe, where you wish you visit etc. I sincerely hope this trip is not just one of those "check off the list" type of trips wherein one spends a few hours here and a few hours there and mostly just spends their time travelling from one location to another. I truly hope that you will arrange for a visit to Europe that will be filled with fun, interest and beautiful memories for all of your family.

As a teacher, I took lots of students on trips designed for kids and run by companies that cater to teens, so it was mostly teens on the tour, and my kids had lots of fun. They also got an educational experience. However, those trips ran during summer, spring break and Christmas. I think it will be difficult to find a good tour that would be good for kids in Europe in the winter.

Also, you have to be very careful to choose an itinerary that does not spend hours and hours on the bus with short sightseeing times. Do not look at only the places the trip takes you. Get out a map and look at distances. Calculate how much time it will take to get from place to place. Example: A tour that takes you from London to Paris to Venice to Rome by bus will spend huge amounts of time on the bus. You would be paying a lot of money for a bus seat rather than really seeing things. In winter, days will already be short, cutting into your time to experience a place. They wanted to see everything, but I kept my trips to one country for 10 days, two for two weeks, never more than that; and even that was rushed for me, though it was ok for kids.

If you wanted to wait until Spring and join a good student group, I could give you some ideas, but honestly, with four of you, you will be better off planning your own trip (whenever you go) and save a good deal of money.

Hi EllaViv - maybe if you let readers know your proposed dates, where you are travelling from and what places are on the 'must see' list - then people can come up with helpful suggestions.
With three (now adult) well traveled offspring we have never felt the need for an organized trip - especially in the European winter (which is when we Australians have our long holidays) when the early starts and long trips on grey roads would be difficult for us.
Girls of that age will want to wander, maybe shop and enjoy trying different foods - not easy when trying to work in with the timetable of a tour group.
Also - the early starts will be in the dark and won't allow for just having a little 'down time' - I think that is important when travelling as a a family group.
You will get a lot of wonderful advice and help from this forum if you feel OK about planning your own journey - and the girls can read some of the great trip reports and select places that sound like fun - especially the ones that describe crepe eating in Paris and ice creams and gorgeous cafes everywhere - not to mention shopping - all mixed in with fantastic sightseeing for all of you.

Have a think and see what you might prefer to do.

Happy planning!

Thanks so much for all of your detailed responses, I've enjoyed reading everybodys ideas. It's certainly given us something to think about in terms of the tour.

The idea of this holiday is really to give our girls a little taste of the big wide world so the last thing that we would want to do is have them on a tour that they dread.

Organising and planning the itinerary will be my job (hubby just wants to "enjoy the ride") and the girls have mentioned a few "must see" spots which will be easily accomodated - apart from that, they seem happy to leave it to me.

Organising a 6 week holiday in Europe just seemed too hard (all things considered) and a tour seemed like a good option . . . but I'm definitley having second thoughts.

So to share a little of our adventure with everbody. We will be departing from Brisbane, Australia in early December 2011, and plan on travelling direct to London. We have free accomodation with rellies in London so thought we would spend 4 - 5 nights there before heading to Europe.

Highlights of the trip would be: a White Xmas (maybe somewhere like Switzerland) but happy for any other suggestions. It would be nice to have a special New Year (maybe Paris)?

Other must see destinations would be (besides Paris & Switzerland mentioned above): Italy / Czech Republic / The Netherlands & maybe Germany or Berlin.

Wishlist destinations would also include - Greece & Spain & Slovenia - but on a budget & with only 6 weeks - we might be pushing it!

We would like to spend a couple of nights in Singapore & a couple of nights in Malaysia on the way home & need to be back in Australia by the 21st of January 2012.

I'm curious to know what transport options you would suggest for multiple countries?

Any accomodation hints?

Any hints on which order to do our must see countries in?

Any sights that would spark an interest with the teens (I loved the idea of crepe eating in Paris and yes some shopping or wandering through local markets would be a huge hit)!!

Thanks again for reading and I really appreciate everybody taking the time to respond!

Cheers.

With traveling time and stopovers you have used up one week, and then the best part of a week in London.
Singapore and somewhere in Malaysia - or one or the other?

So - time to get a good map - look at all the 'maybe' places, consult lots of trip reports, and then select a few places and look at guide books to get started.

The train experts will probably be on the forum soon to guide you as to how this could be done by rail - much easier than the other side of the road in winter - well that is our preference.

Have a look at some of the postings on apartments in various locations - great for a family - space gets important after a few weeks on the road!

Very late here now in SA - so will think about other interesting things and post again soon.

Are you OK in the terrible flooding?

Happy planning.

I may be of some assistance to you as I planned and have just returned from our family trip to Europe ex Western Australia. There were 4 of us - me, my husband, 20 year old son and 18 year old daughter. As others have indicated, it was made clear to me very early in the planning stage that a coach tour was not an option as far as son and daughter were concerned. I appreciate they are older but I think most 'kids" would be of the same opinion. In the end,I could see that organised tour costs for 4 would be high but with some careful planning you can replicate a 'tour' for a fraction of the cost and do it'your way'. This is essentially how I planned the trip.
I ended up booking a xmas week in Switzerland with an australian tour company - excellent and great value. I could see that otherwise we could end up somewhere on our own "looking for xmas"! It was organised but not 'escorted". We had to get ourselves to the designated accommodation but otherwise were provided with most meals, swiss rail passes that covered all the travel we needed in Switzerland and were given suggested itineraries for the week that made use of the rail passes. It was a fantastic "white xmas" - we could do what was 'suggested" each day or go off on our own adventures. There was no need to fit in with anyone else's plans.From Switzerland I organised a 10 day trip through Bavaria mainly,finishing up in Frankfurt and then a week in Paris. All travelling was by rail and it was trouble free. I picked about 4 places in Germany and we stayed in each 2 - 3 days. Fortunately we didn't get caught up in any of the travel nightmares caused by the weather and the rail systems in Switzerland and Germany were very efficient and easy to deal with. In Paris we had an apartment and otherwise I always tried to get at least 2 rooms so we could all get some space. Accommodation costs were very reasonable and there were no 'nasty surprises'! All accommodation in Germany was near the rail stations and we stayed in some lovely places. Essentially we'd hop on a train for a couple of hours, arrive in a new place, walk to the accommodation and then leave from the same station a couple of days later and repeat the process. I deliberately tried to keep the destinations 'limited' as the winter weather can easily throw well made plans out the window. If you'd like any more info please ask.

As mentioned, the first thing to do is get a good, detailed map and plan a route. You know you're flying into London - now, figure out where to fly out from and plot the stops in between. I should think open-jaw tickets would be perfect for this sort of trip.

It sounds if you have the 6 weeks that with travel time there and back and in between you can do about 6 places for days each.

You might consider

London
Paris
Switzerland
Austria
Rome
Athens, Barcelona or Amsterdam depending on your preference and ability to get a return flight to Australia

Then you could spend 5 days to a whole week in one location (consider rental apartments for space, budget, flexibility) and take day trips. It can be a little trickier in the winter to get to some of the "country" sites but don't just stick to cities and do try a castle or two or a medieval village or two.

Consider this. You live in Brisbane. Would you take your kids on a bus trip in Australia. Brisbane/Toowoomba/ Dalby, returning via Armidale, Coffs Harbour and the Gold Coast.

If the answer is a resounding “NO WAY” then think hard about doing a bus trip (aka tour) in Europe. You’ll encounter the same problems.

Trains, hotels, apartments – yes.

Bus, hotels in out of the way places, hounding your kids to be ready for when the bus leaves – no.

Rent an apartment in Venice for a week, boot the kids out the door in the morning with a handful of euro, and tell them that they are expected back at 6:00 PM. They will have a ball.

http://www.fodors.com/community/euro...-teenagers.cfm

Hey, the Australian dollar vs the euro exchange rate is pretty good. Go for it.

We took our tween/teen kids to London, Paris Rome and Munich/Bavaria. They loved all of it - but liked Paris the best - probably because they were both studying French (they ranged from 11 and 14 to 14 and 17) and felt very sophisticated being able to use their French to order in restaurants, to shop and to go out in the evening with local kids.

Obviously they were able to cope in London and in Germany also felt comfortable. They were a little less comfortable on their own in Rome - since some of the local youths were too appreciative (which wouldn't be allowed in the US) in public - even thought they could sort of figure out Italian from their French. But in all places they did a lot of the planning and spent time without us doing things we just weren't interested in.

I can't imagine how they (or we) would have survived tours instead.

Ozziegal - if you have the time can you tell us a little more about your Christmas week and the arrangements?
I have a good friend wanting to do this and it sounds a good way to go if you are not familiar with the area - and especially at that time of year.
Indeed I would love to spend a Christmas somewhere in Switzerland as well so if you have the time...

EllaViv - some excellent advice overnight so you have lots to go on planinng with.

We booked the xmas week through Albatross travel, based in Brisbane. They have lots of xmas and new year trips - just google them and you'll get to their website. Most of their tours are 'escorted" i.e. coach tours but ours was not. TThe swiss accommodation was good (although my husband and son found the ceilings in the rooms a bit low...) and all breakfasts and dinners were included - even a great xmas eve meal and celebration (as per swiss custom).