<p>My daughter wants to travel to Europe as her graduation gift. We are looking for a tour group for her. Anyone know of any good, dependable tours we can look at for this? </p>
<p>Elaine</p>
<p>How about a Mother(and/or father)/daughter trip? For the price you would pay one of the “student group” companies, you could easily book yourself and your D. I know a couple of people who did this with their kids and it really was a nice bond before sending them off to college. Wish we could have done it!</p>
<p>Second vote for a parent/child trip!</p>
<p>Third vote, plus you can see what you want on your own timeframe.</p>
<p>Globus does many kinds of trips. You can book one where they have you scheduled to do things night and day, or you can do a more freestyle approach and do things on your own. You can save money on hotels and airfare by booking with them as they get a good group rate.
If you have any hotel point programs, like Hilton,Marriott or Intercontinental, see if you can get a night or two free.
When my D and I went to Europe in 2006 and the Euro was starting to really go up against the dollar, we did a 12 night Med cruise with Princess (paid in US dollars) and spent 5 days precruise in Rome. I got 2 free nights at the Intercontinental hotel, frequent flier miles for my airfare so I did save a bunch,but it was still not a cheap trip. But it was the best trip ever!
If you decide to visit Rome, Paris, Florence, Venice or London, check out a tour company called Context Travel-<a href=“http://www.contexttravel.com”>www.contexttravel.com</a>. They had the most fantastic tours ever and all tour docents have at least a masters degree in history, art history,fine arts or architecture. Each tour has no more than 6 people. They do not book hotel or airfare, though.
I hope you have as much fun as we did,and I can’t wait to go back to Italy.</p>
<p>My understanding is that the Rick Steves tours have a variety of ages and try see more of Europe’s “backdoor”. I’ve used his guide books but never used the tour company. For the web address just type his name and add dot com.</p>
<p>Some friends of ours did a Rick Steves tour and didn’t like it at all - there was some problem with bus equipment, the driver, and preparedness of the tour company.</p>
<p>I nth the idea of traveling to Europe with your D if you can afford it - especially if the whole family goes.</p>
<p>We have our summer family vacation for bonding, and other special bonding trips we have done together. This is something she wants to do without parents, as an adult, her first big trip with another friend her age. Her sister did it after high school graduation, and now it is her turn. The tour group we had used before was an educational tour group but is no longer doing them.
I will check into Globus and Context Travel, thank you!
Any other companies?</p>
<p>Elaine</p>