Pack your bags and grab your camera
Do you have the travel bug? Our tours take you to the places across the globe you have always meant to see — at a pace you choose, with as much or as little arranged as you like.
Somebody else drives, or you do
Almost every touring question comes down to this one choice. Neither is better — they suit different travelers, and often the same traveler at different ages.
Guided touring
A tour director from arrival to departure, a coach, a fixed itinerary, and everything — hotels, most meals, entries, transfers, tips — arranged in advance. You unpack in a new city knowing the day is already handled.
Best if it is your first time in a region, if the language or driving worries you, if you are travelling solo and would rather not eat alone, or if you simply want to think about nothing for two weeks. Group sizes run from around 40 on a classic coach tour down to 12–24 on the small-group products.
Independent touring
Foreign Independent Travel: we build the itinerary — flights, hotels, rail, car, transfers and any private guiding — and then you travel it on your own schedule. No group, no coach, no fixed departure date.
Best if you have travelled the region before, want longer in fewer places, are travelling with young children, or want to eat where and when you feel like it. It usually costs a little more per day than a coach tour and gives you back every hour of the itinerary.
How much walking is on that itinerary?
Tour operators grade their trips, and the grades are meaningful. This is the single most useful thing to get right before you book — the brochure photograph never shows the cobblestones.
Easy
Two to three miles of walking on a full day, mostly level, with the coach close by. Lifts in most hotels, and a seat available whenever you want one. Suits most travelers of any age, and anyone using a stick.
Moderate
Three to five miles, cobbles and hill towns, some stairs and uneven ground, longer days on your feet. The grade most European classics fall into. Comfortable shoes stop being advice and start being equipment.
Active & challenging
Sustained hiking, altitude, early starts, and days that do not have an opt-out. Inca Trail, Alpine walking, safari and expedition itineraries live here. Worth training for in the months before you go.
What nobody tells first-time tour-goers
A guided tour is a particular way to travel, and knowing the shape of it in advance is most of the difference between loving it and enduring it.
- The days start early. Bags outside the door by seven is normal. The upside is you reach the sites before the crowds.
- Optional excursions are extra. We will tell you in advance which are genuinely worth adding and which duplicate something already included.
- You may skip things. Nobody minds if you sit out a morning and drink coffee in the square instead. Just tell the director.
- Single supplements are negotiable-ish. Several operators waive or reduce them on selected departures. We watch for those.
- Add nights at each end. A day either side of the tour, in the arrival and departure cities, transforms the trip for very little money.
Where our tour travelers go
Guided, independent, or somewhere in between
Tell us the region and roughly when. We will bring you the operators worth considering and current pricing on each.