Looking for a good tour company for Paris and London. Would prefer small groups ,no more than 16 people. Thanks for any suggestions.

Try Paris Walks and London Walks.

try Viator.

Many day trips can easily be done on your own by using local transit. Just another thought.

Some of the walking tours are very good - either in town or to one place outside. What you need to avoid are the group bus tours that try to stuff 3 different places in one day - spending much of the day on the bus and having little time to actually any of the sights.

We do tours rarely but when we do we focus on the credentials of the guide- preferably either a graduate student or professor specializing on the topic or area. We had a fantastic tour of the architecture o Old Town Prague by an architecture grad student that was brilliant for only $5 per person. We picked up the tour at the Town Hall.

That is the type of tour I would look at - not the commercial ones which are very often least common denominator.

Or, get a really good guide book (we love Michelin green) and just travel to wherever and guide yourself. They can provide way more info than most commercial tours.

When you say day trip, I presume you mean to go outside of Paris, I've never heard anyone use that term for a walking tour around the city. But maybe you should clarify.

For Paris, I did use Parisvision/Cityrama for a day trip to Vaux le Vicomte chateau and they were fantastic. That place isn't as easy to get to on your own logistically, so it made it very convenient and wasn't that expensive by my terms. The guide was excellent, also. I wouldn't use a day tour company for places real easy to get to on your own, though (like Versailles, and really most day trip destinations around Paris). But some people may want that depending on personal circumstances or desire for a guide, which I can understand. Anyway, that's the only one in Paris I have personally used.
http://www.pariscityvision.com/

When I did it, it was a half day tour, now they seem to only have full day tours and combine it with a visit to Fontainebleau. I went there on my own. That place is a little nuisance in that you have to get another bus to get there from the RER station, but not too bad. That full day tour wouldn't be bad, though. http://www.pariscityvision.com/en/pa...aux-le-vicomte

The 69 euro tour is mainly transportation, you use an audioguide when there. The 99 euro day trip includes personal guide. I'd probably spring for that as long as I was doing it with a company. I find I sometimes can pay more attention to a real person, and they may also give info on the bus while traveling.

I took a Parisvsion/Cityrama tour to Giverney some years ago and enjoyed it. My SIL, at the time, had very severe arthritis in both knees and this was a convenient way to keep walking to a minimum and we really had quite a bit of time there to tour the house and grounds.

I'd do it again.