Unguided RS Tours

Hi Ken At first it sounded interesting but I have to agree with you that the guides that I have had on the RS tours have been one of the best things about the tours. Also, I think a person would miss out on some of the fun of the group dinners, wine tastings, walks, hikes and such. Hope you have a great new adventure planned. Leslie

"Rick has also booked himself on one of his own tours, but he's not telling us which one. Interesting......" I wonder if he will bring Trish on the tour?

Swan, Unfortunately, there only appears to be one "guideless tour" at the moment, the 14-day Best of Europe. I suppose it's possible they'll add more if this one is successful?

Not for me. The guides are the best part of the tour. But interesting that Rick's trying a new concept. Isn't this similar to Untours?

About 10 years ago I took a "BBB" tour thru ETBD. It was bed, bus, and breakfast. One escort/guide accompanied us. We got some orientation from her at our stops, but then were on our own. The tour was somewhat less expensive than the regular tours covering the same route. The guideless tours can work for travelers who want the main parts of travel organized and taken care of for them. There is a lot to be said for not having to figure out all the logistics yourself. Self-starters who are willing to do their homework and do their own touring within the tour should do well on such an arrangement. This may not be the best system for inexperienced travelers. I'm going to look up those guideless tours and see if there is one I want to take!

This is an interesting service, basically transportation and rooms (and breakfast), plus whatever advice the escort provides. Is about $1,000 less for a 2-week tour, so $500 per week, but you get your own meals and do not have the benefit of the full guide.

I am all over this! I hope they offer this kind of tour on all their itineraries. I have been on four RS tours and enjoy the quality of the guides.....but, there are times that I would rather use my RS book and do his guided walks on my own. I also like to find fun off the wall places to eat on my own or using his book. Go Rick! His company rocks.

As Swan mentioned, this isn't actually new. I took ETBD's 22 day BB&B (Bed, Bus, and Breakfast) tour of Italy back in the early 90s. It was great for me at the time as I really couldn't afford one of the fully guided tours. I was perfectly happy having the bus pull into a hotel in a place like Rome and dropping us off for 3 full days on our own. Our escort was fantastic. She really went above and beyond the requirements of an escort organizing group activities. I still enjoyed the cameraderie of the group, but also enjoyed the freedom to decide what I wanted to do. I like the fully-guided tours, but I think this type of tour will attract some people that either want more freedom or need to save a bit of money.

Having taken 8 RS tours (#9 in Aug) I like the way the current tours are set up. As some have posted, there use to be BBB tours years ago. After taking a 21 day Best of Europe tour, I always thought it would be attractive to take the same tour BBB so that I could go back and see the stuff we didn't have time for on the first tour. Now we will continue to take his tours until we run out of ones we want to take and just go to Europe and "hang out" for a month or two seeing the places we really enjoyed. Of course, we have to wait until my wife retires to pull that off. Happy travels everyone.

I believe you may also have to cover admission fees, reservations for museums that require them, etc. since after all you are essentially on your own once you depart the "bus". I do like the concept since it takes care of a significant portion of the logistics and leaves the sight seeing freedom to the individual. Edwin

Maybe they can't find anyone to lead the tour. I think I just heard dozens of people on this site gasp and raise their hands. "Oooh! Me! Me!"

I see some positives in a RS tour w/o a guide. Last RS tour I took had 28 people and the guide did not use a wisperer or microphone and it is impossible to hear all of the tour guide comments. With the aid of the RS guidebooks you can plan your own day to day sightseeing plan. As far as meals I prefer the times we had to find our own restaurants to eat at and the escort and RS guidebook will help.
I did take a tour with another company that covered Netherlands,Belgium with an optional finishing trip to Paris that included the train ride/hotel in Paris for a set price along with an escort that helped people with their plans.

I actually think this is a brilliant idea. While I do really enjoy the guides and think they are more than worth the extra "splurge", I also see a lot of benefit in having a tour where one arranges one's own sight-seeing. It would've been nice if this type of tour were available for our upcoming Sicily trip, which has been a big challenge to plan. I'm excited about having the freedom of not doing a tour, but some of the transportation logistics would be so much easier if we had a private bus. I could see these tours working well in places that are not as well served by public transportation (i.e., Tuscany).

Swan summed it up best. It's a good option for those who "do their homework" and want to plan their own daily sightseeing and dining options, but probably not ideal for an inexperienced traveler. I'd love to see Rick Steves develop a Hop On/Hop Off Network of "unguided" buses that give travelers even more freedom to tailor a trip that best meets their timeframe and interests and to stay for as long (or short) of a time as they want at the designated stops until they are ready to get on the next bus out. This way, a traveler is never stuck with the exact same 20-30 people throughout their trip and if they get off the bus in, say, Berlin, and discover they love it and want to stay 5 nights instead of the 2 they originally thought they would, they have the ability to do so. Conversely, if they hate it they can catch the next bus out and move on. At the same time the hassle of finding decent lodging has been taken care of by staying in one of the network of hotels used by the "unguided" bus group. It's like Busabout for people who are 30-70 years old and just want to leave the driving and the hotel arrangements to someone else without following a strict timetable like most tours.

Wow Ceidleh, I LOVE that idea. What is Busabout exactly?

Unguided tours are much more profitable than guided tours. The current unguided tour is $1000 less for a 14 day tour. I can guarantee that the guide is making more than $1000 for a 14 day tour. Plus savings on admissions, included meals.....a smart move in this economy to pick up passengers who may not want a fully guided tour but have some of the logistics taken care of.

From my perspective, having this as an option in addition to the regular RS tours is good thing. I tend to try to balance time and cost in making vacation plans. The RS tours I have taken before are cost effective, for me, if they cover about 75%+ of places/sites I have not been before and these are places/sites I am interested in. The other 25% and less is what I consider mental health time. While on the RS tours I have taken, I end up covering about an equal number of places/sites on my own as are provided by the tour. I tend to go non-stop from sunset until late in the evening and eat food on the run. Most of the RS tours cover places I would love to go but not necessarily the sites I want to visit. Hence, I cover these places and the sites on my own and take care of the logistics. For the 14 days Europe guideless tour, if I figure $100 a day for a hotel room and $100 a day for transportation/local guides and I receive escort assistance then this is a good deal since I don't have to deal with the logistics of a hotel and transportation between cities. On the plus side, except for transportation times, I can start in the morning when I want and stop in the evenings when I want as opposed to being on a set group schedule. Down side, there is no local guides which do add a lot to the experience. But logisitically, you might be able to work with the escort and arrange for a local guide to provide a private tour covering the sites of interests. Additionally, Some of the places tours cover I would love to visit again, just not to see the same sites again. For example, Barcelona and Madrid city tour. If RS offered a guideless tour for these two cities I would jump on it i a heart-beat. There are several other examples that would apply to myself as well. Edwin