We did two international trips in 2025. I don’t have anything big planned for this year. I’m hoping I can convince my husband it’s time to look into tours. The only time we used tour guides was when we went to China. Even with that we weren’t on a group tour but had guides in each location we visited.
What do you look for in a tour company? I’d think I would like nice accommodations but not five star. My husband isn’t a fancy hotel person. I don’t see us on a big bus or walking in a big group with a leader with an umbrella.
Has anyone visited Tasmania?
We spent a day in Tasmania when we did our New Zealand/ Australia cruise 3 years ago. It was interesting and worth going to but one day was enough.
I’d ask people you trust for recommendations, for tours that sound like what you might enjoy. They have differing activity levels, differing accommodations, differing amounts of time that is planned vs “free,” and different “add-ons.”
In HI, my siblings like Air&Sea, which holds your hand (figuratively) and accompanies you from HI to the destination and makes sure you have meals for everywhere and moves your luggage from one hotel to the next. Their prices are pretty low and they have a guide from HI as well as a “local” guide.
They’ve also tried GateOne, which is a bit more expensive but higher class hotels and not all meals are included and there is more time when you are on your own.
We have tried Supera, which my friend wanted to do because a bunch of her friends from LA were doing it. Their lodging was 5* or similar and when we went we had 3 guides, one of which was the VP of the company. Everyone had a great time and everything was included and when a meal wasn’t included, they gave you some money in local currency to buy your food and took you to a food court to purchase it. They originally started in Taiwan but now have a branch in LA. The people on our tour were from all over the US.
@mom60 - is there a specific reason you want to look for tours?
I’m tired of planning. I’m not sure if tours are for us as we have always traveled independently. I’m hoping I’m just tired and my travel energy will return.
I can relate to that. The planned tours are usually so much easier - you don’t need to fret about the arrangements or research as much, just show up when they tell you to.
But knowing H and I, I know we are not the type to be happy with these tours. I like a couple of the aspects of the tour, but not everything. So, we end up planning our trips (the royal “we” here - I usually do all the planning). But I have used guides/shorter activities in places to make it easier.
Until last summer, the only tour we took was in 1981 in Alaska with a company called WestTours. Basically you put together a bunch of land segments, then ended with a three day cruise. It was before the era of mass cruising.
All of our other vacations and trips were independently planned, although none internationally. I enjoy that kind of
research and am happy to do it.
But I ran into the Road Scholar Yosemite trip last year and it seemed just right for trialing tours. And we’re doing Globus in New Zealand - we compared a number of companies and they hit the most places that interested us. Admittedly I am busy researching what to do in our partial free days! But it will all be easily reachable from the hotels.
Could we plan a trip ourselves at a lower cost? Yes, but honestly, now that we’re in our mid-70’s, I’m not so sure I want to get ourselves everywhere anymore. We had a successfully planned short 40th anniversary trip from home but it ended up being more exhausting than I expected- particularly the driving.
We are independently planning the four day extension in Sydney because (1) a home base hotel, (2) no driving - Ubers and day tours only, and (3) we are very familiar with dealing with big cities - especially when they speak English!
When we do tours, we often add a few days at the beginning and/or end so we are sure we are ready to go once the tour begins and we can explore a bit on our own. Tours are easier in many ways and can be cheaper but there are definitely aspects where you might find “too much togetherness,” especially if there are tardy or inconsiderate people in the tour.
We did our first alumni trip last year. You know the ones that send brochures that come from the alumni association. We had a good time and are doing another one this year. Until 2025, we had always independently arranged our travel with rental cars and small hotels and AirBNB’s.
We usually try to get to the start of our tours early too, just in case travel gets messed up.
One company we travel with, VBT (I know there aren’t a lot of bikers here, but they have a sister company, Country Walkers, that might interest people) offers a trip inclusive of plane travel, getting you to the destination, and handling all connections/travel from/to airports, etc. They also offer a pre and post trip you can add on to the cycling part. We really like that once we pay, we don’t have to worry about those details.
I have been on a group tour every year since Covid. It is with the same tour company. It was started by a wine expert. After covid, he couldn’t do large wine tasting events any more, so he started a wine tour business. Each tour has only around 15 people. We started in Italy where he used to source a lot of his wines then he branched out to Portugal, France and recently to Japan/New Zealand.
He usually booked 4 star hotels, but we would go to a lot of places that most tourists wouldn’t go. In the beginning he would have multiple wine tastings a day and included all meals. We gave him feedback that we would like to have some time to ourselves and eat on our own sometimes. His tours now would include breakfast/lunch or breakfast/dinner each day. Everyday we would have a small tour bus to take us for sightseeing. In the last few years I have seen same people on tours, so it is nice to see familiar faces.
I recently went on the Japan tour, which I wasn’t too happy about. It was his first tour there, so there were some missteps.
I would avoid large group tours (40+ people on a large tour bus). If I were to arrange my trip I would get a private tour guide to take me around an unfamiliar place because I would be able to see more places and not have to wait in line.
I had to take a look at Country Walkers. So interesting!
Who wants to take this trip with me?
It’s a Canadian Rockies walking trip! 
@abasket I’ll go with you!
Looks like a nice way to travel. I’m a wimp… would love the good weather walking, bad weather not so much.
One of things we Viking river cruise fans like is that they do all the planning. Now we added some planning chores by arranging our own days before (2 night Amsterdam) and after (train to Florence - 4 nights, drive to Rome - 1 night at airport). That did add a lot of work. But our travel partners agree that the week on the boat was lovely…. let Viking take care of everything. (Down side is that with all meals on the boat you don’t get as much local color; we should have opted to stay in town for our own lunch once or twice.) Ahead of time we picked out a few extra tours but mostly did the included/free tours. Viking offers packages pre/post… they cost more but mean less self-planning.
Apologies if this has already been asked: does anyone know of a good tour for single travelers? I would like to explore more of Europe ( either land tour or river cruise), I’m willing to pay a single supplement ( but not double the cost) and am open to all singles, women only or tours with couples and also other singles.
I have a friend who likes OAT, uses it for trip detinations where his wife has no interest. (We also have other friends that use OAT as a couple or family - the wife claims their prices are less than she could arrange herself.)
I have a friend who has done Smithsonian and Road Scholar as a single. She may have done Nat Geo, but I’m not sure about that. On our group cycling trips, we’ve had plenty of singles. I like the idea of a women only singles trip. I can’t recommend a specific company, but I have googled and seen there are some out there.
Our single friend really liked REI tours. They have been discontinued but this year REI decided to bring them back!