techwrite

Hi -

We are going to Peru (interested in Lima, Cuzco, Machu Pichu and the Amazon). We are considering the Road Scholar tour that goes to these places. Has anyone ever taken this Road Scholar tour and if so, what did you think? Can you recommend other quality but reasonably-priced companies? We (my husband and I) are very active older adults (early 70s) and have been to many places in the world independently but for this trip we are considering a tour. Thanks for answering any of the questions above that you can.

Kathie

I don't take tours, so can't help you with Road Scholar. Sometimes I use a local agent to make arrangements for me (local transport, lodging). When we went to Peru in 2014, I used Totally Latin America (google them) and they did a great job for us. You can ask for guides to be arranged (or not) so you have complete freedom to design your own package.

eliztravels2

We also have been considering a South America tour with Road Scholar. We have travelled with them to New Zealand and Kenya and Tanzania and think their organization is top notch. However, hubby decided he didn’t want to go to the steamy Amazon, and we don’t want to do the Galapagos this trip so haven’t found an itinerary with RS that seems to suit. At the moment I’m considering an Ecuador/Peru trip with G Adventures but wonder if it would be a much younger group than ourselves (mid to late 70’s)

We have done independent travel but at this point prefer small group adventure tours if we are going somewhere new where we aren’t fluent in the language. So much less stress, plus it is nice to have other like-minded people to share the experience with.

If you haven’t discovered it already, RS has a discussion board where you could ask other travellers about their trips. Look for it under ‘community’.

crellston

Like Kathie I don’t take tours. If the company of like minded people is important to you then fine, but travel in Peru is really easy to self organise.

Lima, Cusco and the Sacred Valley and the Amazon is a fairly standard "gringo trail" and the lack of fluency in Spanish is not really an issue in those areas.

Once you have identified an itinerary that suits your requirements it is straightforward to arrange accomodation, travel and entrance tickets online. Local guides can be organised either online or on arrival for most places either directly with tour operators, through an agent or individual guides.
Andean Travel Web Guide to Peru Is a pretty good resource for info on tour operators both in Peru and your home country.

In many places guides are not really necessary a car and driver will suffice and are easily hired by the day or trip, either directly or through your accommodation. https://taxidatum.com are very good and I believe even offer a discount for seniors. Amazon lodges include guiding in their rates anyway.

mlgb

I took my first RS tour last December. I found the itinerary poorly designed. We had some good lodgings and one especially bad one in Bogota. The pick a few good lodgings to entice you in but often only one night there and then another one to save a few $$ which adds hours of transfer time. They also screw around with your international and internal flights. Most people knew to book their own international flights.

If you can afford a private tour, I think that's a better option. Peru is also extremely easy to self-book. Look through some of the old trip reports for recommendations on guides and lodgings.

shouldbewriting

Just saw this. I can highly recommend Greentracks out of Colorado.

See trip report I wrote of Amazon cruise last June.

amyb

I’ve also booked with Greentracks for my trip next month. I spend 5 days in the Sacred Valley and 6 in the Amazon. Booking it with George there couldn’t have been easier. Greentracks came highly recommended to me by safari friends who’d used them a few times.

abram

Friends have loved OAT small group trips.
I was in the midst of planning a trip wirh "Peru for Less" when DH had 2 cardiac arrests in one day.

lovtrav

I was traveling with my parents (60 year old) for 3 weeks in Cusco, MP and the Amazon (Sandoval Lake) and can recommend two great agancies we used. The first is a local guide we contacted from advanced, helped us plan everything in general and most things in specific, including bookings (and after we traveled the area we saw his prices were very good). We started planning base on this suggestion. The other agancy, which we found in Cusco and used them to go to the Amazon is called Havitush. They we're really nice and booked the flights, Lodge and guide for us (but actually if we knew we could have just talked to the guide ourselves. I can find his number if you like).