My way Germany Austria Switzerland not a 2015 tour.

Hi Patricia,

I know the RS organization does make changes to its' itineraries over time. Who knows exactly why one stays versus another (although I suspect it's because of how well it sells)? However, there is also a My Way Alpine tour that covers some of the same locales, plus a few different ones. Perhaps, some tour members have already takes the fully guided G, A, S tour and would like to do the area again, but without repeating the same exact locations?

I am always surprised by the tour changes each year. I see they added Bulgaria back in but took out French Riviera for next year. I just returned from RS Loire/South France and now would have considered the Riviera trip, but now it's gone. It may return again, every other year or so though. We'll see. That's what happened to Bulgaria. Enjoy your trip!

Patricia,

Regarding the 2015 RS GAS (and other) tours......

I've been following RS for quite awhile and this is just a hunch so take it FWIW.

This is still VERY early and I don't think you'll see all the tours for next year listed until about October or November. It's possible that most of the tours from this year will be returning. They also add tour dates to some tours throughout the year (at least that's what I've noticed).

RS, the guides and staff all get together in mid-January every year at the same time as the tour reunions, and review what's working and what isn't. That's when they decide on the "fine tuning" for each of the tours. I noticed this year that they've reversed the direction of the Sicily tour, which I took in 2012.

Patricia, I have every reason to believe that you will love this year's tour as-is! My Dad loves to say, "Change is progress." That's an engineer, for you. We made a conscious decision not to change Rick Steves' Tour itineraries in 2014, for convenience of booking and planning, and made only a few changes for 2015, based on a combination of sales success, resources available, and customer and guide feedback. The tour planning team is considering other changes to the Germany offerings for 2016, so a Germany or GAS My Way will probably return with a slightly different route, probably not ending at St. Goar. Since St. Goar train station is not staffed and the ticket machine requires exact change, your guide will advise you to buy tickets from there to your next destination (such as to Frankfurt Airport) either online from DB to print at home or at a hotel, or in Munich train station when you're there (visit the knowledgeable Euraide office at window 1 in the Resisezentrum).

Thanks for the replies. The unmanned rail station is indeed a problem. Our guide will help us in buying rail tickets in advance, right? I don't want to do it in over the internet from home. I need advice from our guide.

Your escort may help a group of people to navigate the train station and find the Reisezentrum. He or she will answer questions about departure timing and about buying tickets. But the My Way is not a fully guided tour and they don't book tickets for you. In Munich main station, the staff at the Euraide window are Americans, so you can communicate easily with them. You can also buy tickets from machines or at any other train station that's convenient during the trip. If you decide to try the DB web site, it's one of the easier European web sites to work with.