We have never been to Europe. We need a good tour company. We are not sure yet which countries we want to see.

What is your budget? The best and highly expensive are Travacoa and Ambercrombie and Kent. After that comes Maupintours and Tauck. Followed by Perillo (Italy only), Insight, Collette, and CIE. First class tours are Trafalgar, Globus, Go Ahead Vacations(book on your own), and several others I may have forgotten. The next several posts I'm sure will be from people telling you to do it on your own even though you're asking for tour companies but these will hopefully give you a good start.

Europe Through the Back Door (www.ricksteves.com) offers two kinds of tours:
1. Fully-guided
2. Bus, bed & breakfast tours which give you more free time each day (and are cheaper for the same route).

See the Web site for all the details.

I echo 'strings' in that the first place to start is budget. 2nd is how long do you plan on being gone?

I've traveled throughout Europe with Globus, Trafalgar, Brendan and Cosmos. Have also done several trips on my own. But for first timers, I see nothing wrong with a tour, with many advantages. You know approximately how much you're going to spend, where you're going and what you'll see. Some meals are included and you'll always know where you're going to sleep. On the other side, most tours are rigid and regimented, but still give you the most bang for your buck.

Either go to a travel agent and pick up brochures from several tour companies, or surf the web--there are literally thousands of tour companies which will be happy to send you a free brochure.

Some words of caution regarding tours, learn how to read their brochures. If it says 'see' some sights, that probably means a drive by. Be wary of 'optionals' as they're often unexpected and expensive.

Once you do a bit of homework you'll have a much better idea of who you wish to travel with.

We have traveled with GoAhead,Uniworld and Grand Circle Travel and can see no difference. we have had excellent accomadations, guides and tours.

Some tour companies put the travel days as part of their tour days.....such as, a 16 day trip of Italy, but they count when you leave home as your first day on the tour and the day the tour is over as your last tour day......companies like Tauck do not count travel days to or from the location of your tour.....the tour starts when you get on the bus and join the group.......

We thought Tauck did such a good job on its tour of Southern France we are now considering it for Great Britain. However, we will check out Brendan Gold, which we heard good things about.