Question about different group tours.

I have traveled with Globus and Cosmos (Cosmos is just the budget arm of Globus) in the past. The company has been around a long time, and has a pretty good reputation. I have also been on a couple of Trafalgar tours. When evaluating a tour, check to see how much time you are spending in transit versus time spent at your destination. Some tours have entire days where you are doing nothing but riding on the bus, with an occasional "photo stop" along the way. Try to avoid these. Check to see how many one-night stands you have. If you are moving from city to city several nights in a row, I can tell your from experience that packing and unpacking gets old very quickly. Also check to see how much sighteeing is included in the price. If very little is included, you will be charged extra for "optional tours" or you can venture out on your own. Globus and Cosmos tend to have hotels that are not centrally located. This can be inconvenient if you are only in town for a short amount of time, and if you don't feel comfortable with taking public transportation. You can sometimes save money by booking your tour through affordabletours.com. There are numerous sites that you can search for airfare. I like bing.com because it has a price predictor for many of its routes (i.e., predicts whether the fare is likely to go up or down). I also use kayak.com and itasoftware.com. Vayama.com is also good for booking international flights. If you use one of these sites, I recommend that you also check directly with the airline's website because they sometimes have lower fares. The key to getting a good airfare is to start looking about 4 months out , and then keep checking flights because airfare can fluctuate quite a bit depending on what day and time of day that you check. Good luck!

These countries are very easy to travel on your own, but if you really want a tour you might look at the chapter on surviving tours in Rick's "Europe Through the Back Door". You might also look at his tours (click the tours tab) to see how the itineraries match up. I would not go with the companies you suggest - the groups are too big, and in general there is too much bus time and the hotels are too far out of town. But the small group companies I usually check for tours don't run tours to the UK - probably think it's too easy to go independently. Not sure there are any good deals on airfare to Europe this summer. You might start at www.farecompare.com and www.kayak.com. I've sometimes had good luck with onetravel.com.

Linda, I'm a little curious why you came to this website but didn't list RS tours as one of the ones you considering? As far as the airfare you don't say when you are going, but with the combination of rising oil prices, the airlines tacking on various surcharges and the summer season starting prices are going to high, also where are you traveling from, Hayden, no idea where that is, the reason I ask is east coast vs middle America west coast fares come into play too.

Several years ago, I compared Rick Steves tours to several other tour companies. Did a lot of research, concluded that Rick's really is the best, so we took one of his trips. (England in 14 Days). I enjoy the emphasis on art, architecture, and history that Rick's tours have. You should seriously look at the RS tours and read the detailed itineraries. I believe you would be very happy on a RS tour. As for the airfare, I will let those other posters who know all the sites to go search answer. My one suggestion is that you go to www.ba.com to see what specials British Airways is running. Sometimes they have a package deal, like round trip air and 4 nights in a London hotel for $595, but that's usually off season. Be sure to look at "Flights and Holidays" in the upper left corner of their home page, pull down the menu under that, and click the first option, "Special Offers".

You can't go wrong with the Tauck Tours. Elaine
[email protected]

Personally I wouldn't touch any of the tours, I can't see the point in the UK where you can get around so easly using public transport. By all means use the tour itineraries for ideas but it will be cheaper doing it independently, you will see places when you want at the pace you want and if you need a guide then get a local one always much better than the tour guides. You will also be talking to locals and fellow travellers who can provide valuable information and insights into UK culture.
On a tour you'll just listen to people bragging about all the exotic places they've been to and their kids. Tours also tend to use bland, chain hotels on the edge of town, you can get much better quality and value doing it independently. Of course the one thing you will have to do is a lot of research which for many people is half the fun.

I'll chime in since I'm a former tour director and have worked for some of the companies mentioned. The first thing you have to decide is if you really want to go on a tour. Many people here are independent travelers and find the idea of a tour to be torture. If you don't mind doing all your own planning and research, then this is the way to go. (This is the way I travel.) But, if you don't want to do this, then a tour is the way to go. When checking out tours, look at the numerous itineraries and see which ones you prefer. Check to see what is included and what is optional. Sometimes the tours that include more actually turn out to be cheaper in the long run than the budget tours that make everything optional. If you want to see England, Ireland and Scotland in one tour, the Rick Steves tours are out since it's not offered.
Globus and Cosmos are the same company with Cosmos being the "budget" sister. Trafalgar is also an excellent company as is Insight. All are fairly equal to what is offered and what you get. I'm not very familiar with CIE. Tauck Tours are one step up from the tour companies mentioned above. Excellent tours and they usually cover less ground, give you more time in places, and stay in nicer hotels. Of course, they do cost a bit more. I should also mention that the average traveler with any of these companies is usually "older." The other choice would be to take a few mini-tours rather than one big one. Say one for England, one for Scotland, and another for Ireland. You could go with smaller local companies that give more in-depth tours that only last a few days.