Favorite Rick Steves tour

Great post Cheryl!
I have only been on 8 tours so I do not have as many to choose from. I have only been on one of the tours you listed as favorites.
(Greece), and it was amazing. Greece was my favorite tour so far out of the eight. Central Europe, Paris and the heart of France and then Scotland in 14 days were really great.
I am so interested in the Best of Turkey and I think that will probably be my next RS tour. ( Or the village Italy tour)
You are so right in regards to tour guide, tour mates, and who you are traveling with.
Thanks for the post Cheryl!

I’ve done 12 as well. My all time favorite was the 21 Day Best of Europe. 2nd was probably Best of Paris which I did back to back. Rolinka instilled a love of Paris that makes me keep going back. I also loved Paris and the Heart of France and Heart of Italy (my first tour). Village Italy was good for being more experiential than others.

Yes, guides can have a huge impact on enjoyment as well as group size - the bigger numbers definitely have a negative impact for me. Groups have all been good with the exception of one where a group of 11 were traveling together and that completely changed the group dynamic.

We are currently on the Village Italy tour and so far out of 11, this is my favorite…so far. I totally agree that the guide, group size and group dynamics can make or break the tour. Our guide Nina is a character, knowledgable and a lot of fun, we only have 21 people which has been a good number especially with remembering names and staying together and the group, well people are people, you go with the flow and laugh when you can….

I've taken 9 or 10 tours=can't get on my tour account right now to verify. I've enjoyed them all, but the ones I rank as 'best' are the ones that had the best guides. I started in 2008 with Village Italy and Rome (at xmas.) For both I had fabulous guides. I loved Sicily and Ireland (again, a great guide.) But even when I've had a less than stellar guide, like my Best of England tour, I enjoyed being with the other travelers, the less stress of not having to plan hotels and transportation, and the itinerary. I'm taking this year as a holiday from Rick tours to have my knee replaced, but I'm already starting to plan next year's trip over the pond.

Florence.

Easy answer due to the reality we got into see David before the doors were open to public….

memorable travel experience.

Only four tours. Sicily was by far the best - great food, architecture, history, art, people, and short bus times between sights.

Best of Italy remains our favorite but we’re currently on tour #9, Paris & Heart of France, so who knows? But that Best of Italy tour had so very many greatest hits that we don’t see it being replaced as our top choice.
Margie, if you have Nina Bernardo, tell her I said hello. She was our Sicily guide in 2022 and we loved her.

Hi L2T,! Yes, we do have Nina. She’s great! She has so many funny stories to tell. I will tell her hi for you tomorrow! One of these days we’ll need to get our tour to coincide again! Hope you’re having a great time!

I've done Greece, BOEE, GAS and Sicily. Greece by far, but then BOEE, GAS, Sicily.

I've only done 4 so far (Best of Venice, Florence Rome (2016), Greece (2018), Sicily (2019) and Rome (2023). Of the 4, I liked Sicily the least (had some very problematic tour members and the vibe overall just felt off). I'm off on the Loire Valley to the South of France this coming Wednesday (tour starts Oct 6), so we'll how that one goes.

Ranking the top 5 of the 7 Rick Steves tours I've done, with #1 being the best:
1 Greece
2. Sicily
3. Portugal
4. Switzerland
5. Venice/Florence/Rome

My husband and I were talking about RS tours that we’d consider doing again (we’ve done 10 so far). Greece, Eastern France and Southern Italy were our choices. We’ve loved them all and agree that great guides and congenial tour mates make for great memories.

Lots of interesting comments- most everyone has more than one favorite too.
I still really want to go on the Best of Eastern France tour, Basque Country, and Central Europe, and maybe South Italy, but I’ve done a lot of traveling in Italy on my own and with friends.
There are tours that I would go on again: Turkey in 13 days, Sicily, and possibly Greece, all wonderful tours.
As someone said above, the tour members make a huge difference- most people traveling on Rick’s tours have been wonderful but there have been a few who really had no business being on a tour and one in particular who made what was a good tour one of my least favorites! Thankfully, I haven’t encountered many of them!
Happy Travels all- Cheryl

We have only been on 2 tours so; I might not be a good judge. But so far, we have been on 2 very different trips. One was Berlin, Vienna and Prague. The history we learned on this trip was outstanding. Just amazing local guides and conversation. I loved the format of this tour as it was 3 nights, 1 night, 3 nights, 1 night and 3 nights. We stayed extra time on both ends. Our 2nd tour was Best of Switzerland, I loved the scenery and the fact it wasn't filled with history and museums. I really like the outdoors. However, the most disappointing thing was the 2-night stays. it just isn't enough time to explore a town or even do laundry. We always arrived late in the day for the first night and left first thing in the morning after the second night. So, basically only 1 full day in each town. The guide on our Best of Switzerland tour was amazing much better than the first tour. We connected with our tourmates much better on our Berlin, etc tour versus our best of Switzerland. Both were nice but I still talk to my tourmates from Berlin, etc tour. I highly recommend both of our tours. It really just depends on what you are looking for.

Several of you ranked your Greece tour as your favorite. Can you explain why? Really- what was it about the location tour activities that you like better than other tours. We're planning our 4th tour, and I am very interested in your thoughts, as narrowing down a tour choice can be so hard!!

Tour members and guides are a moving target when choosing a tour. An uncontrolled variable, so I am hoping for other reasons why this tour was your favorite.

Thanks!!

Several of you ranked your Greece tour as your favorite. Can you explain why?

We've been on several tours over the years and I'd say my two favorites were Village Italy and Greece. The videos on the RS page for the Greece tour give a good overview of what you'll see and where you'll be. On the Greece tour you visit so many sites that were key in the ancient world so if you have an interest in history it really ticks off the boxes. The scenery thru Greece is great (if you like a Mediterranean climate), the food of course is spectacular, and it doesn't hurt that Greece is a much more affordable country than most. As a downside the tour stays in several smaller towns without as much to do as stops on other tours such as on Village Italy.

I'll throw in my perspective on two My Way tours we took - BOE in 2013 and France in 2016. BOE was fantastic. We had a great guide (Dave. Many of you probably know him). It was an early June departure and we took our daughter who had just graduated from high school. There were several other families who also had kids in the same general age range, there ended up being 6 or 7 kids who all got along well and hung out together in the back of the bus after the first couple of days. The families all bonded and we still keep in touch with a couple of them. Daughter is still online friends with several of the group, too.

The France tour was completely different. Guide was not our cup of tea. (Even though it was a My Way tour, she insisted on talking non-stop through entire bus rides. She was like an annoying school teacher.) Other people in the group were kind of snooty. Made all the difference in the enjoyment of the tour itself. We enjoyed the sites we visited but had hardly any interaction with other tour members.
We won't do any more group tours until we're physically unable to do independent travel. We do book local guides for private tours when we go to a new city or in a museum where we feel we would benefit from a guide (Louvre, Uffizi).

I ranked the Greece tour as #1 due to:
-spectacular historic sites
-beauty of the countryside
-2 free days (Kardamyli and Hydra)
-superb food

Unfortunately for our subsequent tour guides, our first tour was guided by Virginie Moré (Best of Paris). 8 tours later she hasn't been surpassed.

I find that my "favorite" tour(s) seem to vary over time. Sometimes the extra activities in advance or after a tour gives it an extra patina. We just completed the Greece tour with Apostolos Douras and were pleasantly surprised with him. Also, our group seemed to be exceptional people who simply bonded really well. The exceptional weather (80 and sun every day including our extra week there) certainly contributed.

A terrible mix of tour group participants has marred several tours. One group had 8 people who always traveled together which really tried everyone's patience. Another tour curiously had 12 people from Minnesota who weren't actually traveling as a group. Then there was the guy on the V-F-R group who constantly whined that he hated art ?! He was simply traveling with his boss who chirped often about his possessions. I really appreciated the Greece group!

Last year we combined 2 tours - Holland & Belgium with Berlin, Prague & Vienna. We spent additional time before, between and after for a total of 6 weeks. It was rather magical as we timed it to see the Vermeer retrospective and tulips at their peak and ended with Dvorak's 9th and the Vienna Symphony at Musikvarein on our last night. That trip is usually considered my favorite.

Silas Marner, 12 folks from Minnesota would be 'interesting.' In MN, that's our way of saying "hmmmmm" and not necessarily in a good way. However, to be fair to 'my people,' I have to say we are usually MN nice and could really make a tour a fun time. I've been on 9 or 10 tours and have never met another traveler from my home state, but if I do I'll let you know how it goes.

Laurie Beth, I just experienced a first on our Greece tour - 6 people from Michigan! We represented metro Detroit, another couple from Kalamazoo and another from Munising. We formed a perfect MI triangle yet didn't form any sort of clique. BTW most of the Minnesota contingent were great comrades for us.

After reading Silas Marner's post, I remembered there was one other reason (in addition to those I posted earlier) why I rated the Greece tour as my favorite RS tour: superb local guides.

Silas Marner, one of my friends had Apostolos as her tour guide on a RS Greece tour in 2019. She thought so highly of him that she has since gone on a NW Greece tour he offers through his own tour group..

We have done 6 RS tours. Many of the comments ring true for us regarding group size, guide, etc. Our favorites so far are Greece, 14-day Ireland and Sicily. The reason I chose Greece is because of the combo- history, beautiful scenery and great food. I did like the 3 night stays too!

Best of Turkey, I was lucky enough to get Yaren Turkoglu for our guide. Amazing trip! I’m planning on taking the immersive 7 Days in Istanbul tour within the next two years. I normally travel solo on my own and was trying to plan my own trip, but the connections weren’t working for me. This tour visited all my must see places plus many more. So much archaeology! And since Yaren is an archaeologist she had the inside scoop on all the sites. She shared so much Turkish culture with our group! I learned SO much on this tour. I recommend it to everyone. It was my first group tour and I’m so grateful I found it. I’ve taken 3 more Rick Steves tours since and I’ve loved them all. Can’t wait for my next one!

This is the order I would rank my RS tours, although they were all very good, and I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend them.

1. 17-Day Best of Italy
2. Germany, Switzerland, Austria tour
3. Adriatic tour (Slovenia & Croatia)
4. 1-week Paris tour