First Trip to Europe
 

Our family would like to travel to Europe for the first time this summer-late June. Can anyone recommend a tour company? We are considering Brendan Tours, Trafalgar, Cosmos or Globus??? Also, are we better off going to one country (we're leaning toward Germany) or touring a wider area? We only have about 10 days. Our daughters are 14 & 16 and really want to go. Will they be bored on the trip? Any other recommendations would be greatly appreciated!

We took our two teenage daughters to europe several years ago with trafalgar and they still talk about it. we had a wonderful guide and traveled with people from canada, austrailia and the u.s. which was a cultural learning experience as well we had a wonderful time. we heard others complain about stopping too often in tour guides favorite gift shops (kick backs??) - but we didn't have that problem. What you can't control is who is on your trip and that can make or break it, we've been very fortunate on the three trips my wife and i took - all with different operators. A lot of tours sell options for the evenings and we decided to take all of them which adds to the cost, but it beats fighting about what to do or trying to go it alone. Unless you plan on going again soon, i recommend seeing at least the big major cities, paris, london, rome. our trip started in london, then went to belgium, germ, switz, italy and france. we traveled a lot but it certainly showed the girls a little bit of everything in the shortest possible time.
good luck and enjoy - feel free to e-mail me if you have any specific questions.

I have been to Europe 4 times in the last 1.5 years and found that if you go for 2 or less weeks, unless you are going to small countries like belgium and holland, its best to stay to one country. I took two tours and found children are at least looked after by other tour members. Its best if the tour members are retired. NOTE: Consider the Trafalgar Cost Savers Tours - if you go to southern parts of Europe around shoulder season, you save mucho $$ and the weather is great.

Sounds wonderful anyway you do it, but you might wish to consider just doing it on your own. That can be part of the fun, and your girls are old enough to help. We did 2 weeks in Germany with 2 girls, 6 and 9, last year, and we were all sad to leave Berlin at the end of the trip. You can access the rail schedules on the net and plan your travels ahead if you like, or be more spontaneous. The least enjoyable part of our trip was the time spent on a tour bus on route to Neuschwanstein. We'd do that on our own next time too!

I admit I just don't understand at all why people want to travel on these tour buses. Everything is just rush rush and brief stops and many hours riding buses all over the continent. This is not seeing Europe. You might as well stay home and rent a videotape of 30 minutes highlights of Italy or some such superficial clap trap. Anyone who takes these tours can NOT say they have seen Europe.
You stay all together with other people from the States and spend most of our time eating packaged bland meals together or sleeping on the bus while it rushes to cover a 'if it's tuesday this must be Belgium' type deal. It's a joke if you think you have then 'done Europe'.

I agreee, for 10 days, stick with one country, espeically one as large as Germany. You can spend a month in Berlin alone! I also agree about the tours--most of Europe is very easy to navigate without a tour. Especially the West, like Germany or France. Trains run on time and will take you almost anywhere. Even if you don't speak the language, most anyone involved with tourism knows enough English to help you out. And that can be a fun way to prepare, start learning some basic German. Make it a family project.