adrienne

I have several friends who have taken Road Scholar trips and have been more than pleased and highly recommend them for the quality of their guides/professors.

I took 1 Globus trip and thought it was inferior because of the guide, hotel location, and food. Lots of bus time rather than sightseeing time.

nytraveler

basic tours are going to have guides providing least common denominator info. If you want a more upscale experience with much more erudite guides and docents you will have to pay more for it.

annhig

As has been mentioned on the many threads on this subject, some things to look out for are:

1. where is the accommodation? often tours are stuck outside the centre making evening strolling difficult or not particularly pleasant.

2. what time do they set off in the morning? tour companies often like very early starts.

3. Dining arrangements. again, these may not be in the best places or may be restricted menus of not very wonderful food.

4. stops en route at factories and showrooms which are simply attempts to get you to buy things.

I'm sure that there are others, but these are the ones that spring to mind.

something that hasn't been mentioned as an option for your parents is a river cruise. often these include some lectures about the places that are being visited, and can be very relaxing.

WeisserTee

annhig makes some good points. I would suggest a European river cruise. You're not packing and unpacking every day, at many destinations, you're within easy reach of the town/city.

We live in Europe and travel all over on our own with no problems, but we still think about maybe doing a river cruise one day. Two of the most famous river cruise operators are Viking River Cruises http://www.vikingrivercruises.co.uk/regions/index.aspx

and Grand Circlehttp://www.gct.com/Find-Trips.aspx?regions=europe

WeisserTee

Another thing that appeals to us about river cruises is you're not stuck on a bus with a bunch of people for hours. If you want to watch the scenery in private, you can simply sit on the veranda outside your room. Or, if you're not feeling well or you've overdone it during the day, you can skip the next day's outing and relax on board.

Attnymom

More great information - thank you! I thought about a river cruise, but I read somewhere that they can be tricky in that if the water level is too high or too low, the boats can't dock for excursions. My impression was that this happens with some frequency, hence the reason I wasn't pursuing that avenue. Other than that potential drawback, the river cruise sounds great! I have a dear friend who is taking her mother on a river cruise in Europe this Fall and I will definitely be talking to her about their experience when they return.

I have forwarded all of your suggestions to my parents and I'm anxious to hear their thoughts. This trip is for summer of 2014, so they have some time to research and think.

Thanks again,
A

thursdaysd

You have one of the same problems with river cruises as with ocean cruises - not enough time in port. And there is indeed the possibility that the tour may take place on a bus instead of a boat, some historical info on river levels might indicate the best time of year to go.

WRT Globus and Trafalgar - I haven't traveled with them, but from what I've read you couldn't pay me to do so. The groups are too big, the hotels are out of town, the food is bad, the day starts too early, there are too many drive-by sightings instead of actual visits, and too many shopping ops. Not to mention too many "optionals" and too many one night stops. UGH!!!

If RS doesn't appeal, I would take a look at Adventures Abroad and Odysseys Unlimited. If you have the money, maybe Tauck, although I think their groups may be big, too. BTW, if you go to http://tours.ricksteves.com/tours/ you will find scrapbooks and feedback from previous tour members.

tom18

I have traveled with Trafalgar, Insight, and Cosmos, and can give you some first-hand insight into “coach tours.” In my experience, all of them give you a good tour. They arrange for your transportation and your luggage handing. If you don’t want to deal with driving or schlepping luggage onto trains, or having to take luggage from the train station to the hotel and back, that is a plus. They give you interesting information about the places you visit, so you don’t have to have your nose in a guidebook all the time. Their tour directors and local guides are generally quite good. It’s a myth that you “spend most of your time on the bus,” and even when you are on a bus, you get to see a lot of the scenery as you go. Yes, depending on the tour, there can be a large number of people, but part of the fun of a coach tour is getting to know other people from lot of other places and being able to share your adventure with them. However, tour hotels are generally not as centrally-located as you might want, you are bound to their itineraries, you usually have to pay extra for the “optional tours,” and the included meals are not always of high quality.

We have both toured on our own and gone with groups, and have enjoyed both experiences. One of them is not necessarily better than the other. They are just different types of travel. The important thing is that your parents understand the nature of each different type of travel and then decide for themselves what they would be most comfortable with.

thursdaysd

The choice is not just between independent travel and group travel. Some group tours are (much) better than others.

Leslie_S

thursdaysd-- if you see this thread again -- have you used Adventures Abroad? -- I'm interested in their S. Caucasus itinerary (would prefer a group not indep.).

thursdaysd

Hi Leslie - no, I haven't used them, although I've thought about it several times. I've used very few tour companies - Smithsonian, Geo Ex, Rick Steves, Intrepid, on the good or fairly good side, Explore! on the not so good, and OAT on the absolutely awful.

Ackislander

Some places are more compact and thus more amenable to bus travel.

Croatia and Italy both have a lot to see in relatively small areas; they are "attraction-dense", if you will.

Touring Spain by bus means hours looking at cork trees, olive groves, or condos. Some parts of France have as many corn fields as Kansas. Not attraction-dense. Not great bus tours.

thursdaysd

Disagree about France. I once did a bus tour of Western France, and thought it had plenty of attractions. Later I did Eastern France by train, ditto. And then there's the south coast, the Loire valley - I don't think you've been trying!

Leslie_S

thanks thursdaysd - I might be giving AA a try with their south Caucasus tour. If they end up being fabulous or horrible I'll let you know for future reference.

latedaytraveler

Hi Thursdaysd,

You wrote …”and OAT [is] the absolutely awful.” Just wondering why? I have never used them but I have a travel savvy friend who has enjoyed that company.

Thanks…

thursdaysd

This is a cut and paste from my post on a previous thread:

"I went to Thailand with them in 1997, and swore I'd never use them again (on the positive side it was an incentive to move to independent travel!). The guide was uninterested (and uninteresting) and spoke poor English. The trip was badly planned, with AC coach travel in the cooler mornings and outdoor sightseeing in the hotter afternoons. The hotels were out of town. The food was dumbed down for westerners until some of us complained, and not great thereafter. The paid-for business-class upgrades for the return flight only came through as we were actually boarding the flight".

I should add that the guide's English became worse when smeone asked him a question he didn't want to answer, and that he was seriously opposed to me going off on my own, especially went it meant skipping a shopping op....

Leslie_S

That does sound abysmal. I can't speak to their Thailand trip or any other but Iceland -- but they did a great job on that this year. Maybe in 16 years they've improved or maybe I just got lucky!

latedaytraveler

Hi Thursdaysd,


Thank you for your reply. Sorry that your OAT trip was so disappointing.


So where are you going next???

WeisserTee

"You have one of the same problems with river cruises as with ocean cruises - not enough time in port." I don't see the validity of this point. For one thing, you get as much time in a town or attraction with a riverboat cruise as you would with a coach tour. The ships are moored close enough to the attractions that if you're staying overnight, you can easily catch a taxi to and from the heart of town (and coach tours can park you in hotels well outside town). Moreover, the strict schedule of any tour - whether river cruise or coach -- means that somewhere along the way you're likely to get less time than you wanted for a particular part of the itinerary. River cruise or coach tour, you're trading flexibility for convenience. I would prefer a river cruise to a coach tour because I'd rather be strolling around the boat, admiring the scenery (river tours take you MUCH closer to the scenery on land than an ocean cruise), or relaxing in my room instead of sitting on a bus. Someone else may enjoy the camaraderie of a coach tour.

thursdaysd

@WeisserTee - irrelevant, on the rare occasions I take coach tours they are small groups which stay IN town. Usually for two nights minimum. I do not take tours which park you outside town, feed you pablum and expect you to enjoy shopping ops. Traveling independently I'm likely to stay three nights at least.

@latedaytraveler - well, I just survived a major renovation of my house. I'm going up to the mountains (Shenandoah NP and Blue Ridge Parkway) to recover, but only for six nights. Plan is to sell the house next year and go nomad for a while before settling back in Europe.