Hi, <BR>I am interested in travelling to Europe, but a little anxious about travelling alone (I'm a 30 year old female). Can anyone recommend group tours to join up with once I'm over there. I am particularly interested in group tours for people my age. Thanks

cris, <BR> <BR>i don't know any particular single travel groups but i know that in atlanta (where i live) there are many singles groups that occasionally travel together. so you might check your town for singles groups and then check to see if any of them do travel. <BR> <BR>

I went to Ireland in March as a single. I paid about $200 supplement for the week in Ireland. But I had my own room. <BR> <BR>Our group was 48 people. Mostly couples, and the couples ages ranged from college age couples to one pair in their 70's. There were a number of singles as well. I think I was the only single male. But there were some single women. <BR> <BR>But it won't matter. We all went to dinner at the same time. The tour guide would say - "Dinner at 730PM". The coupled people will more than welcome you to join them at meals...as usually they seat the groups at tables for six or eight. So you will fit in. Don't forget you will traveling with these people and you will see them on the bus, and you will visit the castles, or museums in groups, and you will need to ask someone to take your picture. <BR> <BR>Can you tell us where in Europe you are going? I used CIE Tours, and they specialize in Ireland, but they also have tours in England and Scotland as well. And I thought they were just terrific. <BR> <BR>Michael <BR>PS: Email if you have any questions about CIE... <BR> <BR>

There is an English company called Con Tiki Tours that specialises in group tours for Under 35s. <BR>Most fellow travellers are young singles, a lot of them from Canada,Australia, South Africa and New Zealand, so most of the action is in English. <BR>Tours vary in length from 6 days to 6 weeks, throughout UK and Europe, and the company is very well organised. <BR>I have'nt looked, but I'm sure they will have a web site.

There probably are such a thing, but I think you'd better plan the tour thing before you go, not count on finding anything local once you get there. Most group tours you sort of join up with once you're in Europe, anyway, as people just fly to a certain starting tour city and they're obviously on a lot of different flights; tours affiliated with airlines usually will book the whole thing for you with convenient connections and times and usually you get better prices that way on the air, I think, but you don't have to book their air. Anyway, in addition to Contiki (which I've heard of but may be a tad young for you from what I've heard), you can try Rick Steves tours (www.ricksteves.com) that will book singles and get you a roommate (in fact, they require it, at least, used to) and they're fairly small and relatively youthful-oriented as they may be slightly more active than some tours more popular with retired folks (but they're not young-young). Also, you can look at www.osolomio.com There are quite a few activity-oriented tours for singles in Europe, I think, biking or hiking type things.

While touring the Heineken Brewery in Amsterdam last year, we ended up hanging out with several Aussie and Kiwi guys who were on a Con-Tiki tour. They appeared to be in their mid-20s (probably 23-25) and were having a ball (and we really enjoyed their company). The larger group they were with appeared to have a range of ages, from late teens-early 20s to early 30s. <BR> <BR>Con-Tiki's official age range is 18-35; I'm 33 now and am hoping to take a Con-Tiki Tour in the next 2 years before I'm "too old." While I'm an avid independent traveler, the Con-Tiki groups look like they have so much fun that I'd like to give it a try!

Contiki Tours are more of party tours (late nights, super early mornings), so if that's what you're looking for then hop on to their website and start researching. I went in my early 20's (I'm also 30 now), and the most I saw of Europe at that time was from the bottom of the bottle. Not really the best way to see it haha.

My cousin went with Globus a couple times (once to Europe but I forget where and Turkey). She's in her early 30's and said that there were mostly older people on the tour with some people her age, but most were couples. But as Michael said, you'll be doing everything with these people anyway (except for sleeping) so you won't really be alone.

You can also try Busabout: http://www.busabout.com/
You can make your own schedule based on where their network goes but along the way be meeting people also.

A great way to meet people is at hostels, not on tours. Loads of young people travel alone and stay there in hopes of meeting others. I have pictures of my first few times in Europe with a bunch of strangers I met in hostels, no idea what their names our but definitely remember the fun times.

When and where are you planning on travelling to? If you'll be in Basque Country in the 2nd week of July (BBK Music Festival, Running of the Bulls), let me know. I'll be travelling there alone but planning on meeting up with some Couch Surfers.

DId not even look at the date for this! Haha.

OOPS. Well, there's some info now for solo travellers