New RS 2023 tours are up!

YAY! Always exciting too see. Just one May departure for the Poland tour. Still excited

Yay!! Now I have to decide which one of my three preferred tours I want to go on. Tour has to end in Vienna. Decisions, decisions.
Wonder what the “change your mind” policy will be. I haven’t gone on this year’s trip yet and that may help decide next year’s.

It'll take us most of the day to activate ~1000 dates/departures. But yes, all 2023 itineraries are available for viewing.

Cheers!

Hooray! Thank you, Webmaster!

I'm so excited! This is my first Rick Steve's tour and my mom and I will be traveling together for the Best of Europe 14 day! My excitements will continue to expand and I'm looking forward to planning and learning from all of the tour forum members. I've enjoyed reading the forum daily. All of you tour forum participants have inspired me and taught me in so many ways. I look forward to chatting with a bunch of you soon!

And there was much rejoicing.

March 2023 Portugal booked. 😁

Paris & Heart of France, booked. woo hoo

Barely back from my 2 Turkey tours and now Bulgaria is booked for 2023! Super excited!!

For multiple tour people…what was your favorite RS tour and why. Also what time of year did you go? Might help me make my decision for my 3rd tour.

Jill,
I just completed Scandinavia which is outstanding in every way, I would go again in a heartbeat. It was my 8th tour.

I’m considering South of England or Loire & South of France, both in the spring. Late April to early or mid-May. I would only do one, not back to back.

Someone asked about favorites.

We have taken 3 tours so far, all in Italy:

Best of Italy (17 days)
Best of Sicily
Best of South Italy

All three are great. I think South Italy is my favorite, but I'm not sure if that's because we just took it this year! I think the surprise of seeing Matera and the Buffalo Mozzarella Farm were both highlights for me.

Just booked Eastern France for next year! Very excited.

Thanks for the "heads up", now I can go and check if there are any major new offerings in 2023 compared to the current level.

I've taken 9 tours (#10 is Ireland in August). I have enjoyed them all, but my favorites remain Eastern France and the Basque Country. I did both of these tours in early September and the weather was fantastic. For a winter tour, Munich/Salzburg/Vienna during Christmas markets season was magical; took that one the very end of November into December and stayed a few extra days in Vienna. Sicily in early/mid April was also fine, great weather, great food and interesting history. Probably my favorite tour guides were the ones I had on Village Italy and Sicily.

So what does this say? Pretty much any tour you take is likely to be a wonderful experience.

We are doing Germany independently next year, but still want my tour fix. IF my DH retires next year, I am thinking of signing up for the late October VFR tour.

Edited to add-We will not sign up for a tour till testing requirement is gone. After our Paris & HOF experience, it is not one we want to repeat!

Favorite tours? Village Italy and Eastern France. We like tours where you get to do things, not just look at things. Third place? Hard to say. Best of Europe, Belgium and Holland, or South England.

diveloonie, I think I now know what you mean by your "tour fix." I guess I'll be getting mine!

Just booked my first tour "Best of Europe 21 days" will be traveling in October 2023 with My Daughter so very excited !!!

Thanks for the heads up! Just booked the dates that I wanted for Best of Switzerland departing September 3. Countdown begins. Usually an independent traveler but this tour handles the logistics so well and the itinerary is a good value.

I hope that everyone gets their travels dreams booked and met in 2023. 🌍❤️

Heather, we are on the Best of Switzerland this September and can't wait!

Well, I just signed up for South of England late April early May! Yay, now I have something to look forward to!!

Jill, have a great trip! No changes to the itinerary for 2023...it looks like a terrific variety in the different regions. I was on a My Way Alpine tour in early September 2017 with freakishly bad weather. Thankfully our two good days were in Lauterbrunnen and the Dolomites.

We still have no idea; I'm telling Stan that he needs to get on the website and look at the tours. All of them. We've tossed some ideas around, but keep adding possibles. I'd love to be able to plan two separate trips next year, but that isn't likely. Unless I go without him for one of them ... Hmmmm....

Just signed up for The Best of Europe 21 Days May 2023! I’m a happy camper! I’ve been waiting patiently (or maybe not patiently) for the release of the 2023 Tours! Can’t wait to get my confirmation so I can start planning my pre-tour and post-tour hotels and activities!

I'm in. Earliest Best of Spain, March 2023. See you all there.

Thanks for the heads up everyone! I have been looking every day and was really excited to see this when I logged on this morning. I just reserved Best of Eastern France for September 3 - 16. We had this reserved for this year but I cancelled as I could not risk having to quarantine after a two week vacation. Fingers crossed this won't be an issue next year (and I will have more vacation time saved up by then).

This will be my 8th trip with Rick Steve's. All of my trips have been great but my favorites to date (if I had to choose - they were all great) would be Best of Spain and Germany, Austria & Switzerland. I would tell all newcomers to not hesitate to sign up for your first trip.

Good luck to everyone - I hope you get your first choice of tours and dates!

JEFF

Cheryll Have you gotten your first and last hotels yet? I’m showing a hotel in Amsterdam instead of Haarlem for the first night. Thx Larry

I did it! Pulled the trigger for Berlin, Prague, Vienna, June 4-15.
Why this tour since it’s not one of the popular tour? 1) I want a tour that ‘ends in Vienna for an extended visit. 2) I was last in (West) Berlin in 1969 and watched Armstrong walk on the moon as we huddled around the TV in the hotel lobby. 3) As a bonus, I hear Prague is beautiful.

I wonder if RSE will be issuing a printed catalogue this year? It sure is easier to peruse the tours that way. I dug out our 2020 catalogue so we can compare tours more easily. There are only a few major changes since then, so we can at least get the broader picture of what tours there are, and which might interest us the most.

Happy hunting!

Jane,
I did the same thing....pulled out the old tour catalogs. I do like having the printed ones for ease of comparisons.

No printed catalog this year. We may release a digital copy later this year, but there is no eta. As you've noted, there are few updates, so using a 2020 catalog will get you most of the way.

I am so excited! We had to cancel our Best of Spain tour for 2022 and have already signed up for 2023.

Horsewoofie,
You will love the Berlin Prague Vienna tour, it is simply amazing! I did it in June 2015 and it seems the tour is still very similar to mine. If you have any questions, let me know. I arrived 1 day early to Berlin and since then wish I had had more time there. One of these days I will visit again.
You will love Vienna!

Just signed up for tour 6 and 7. Doing Best of Sicily in late March followed by Paris and the Heart of France. Looking forward to seeing again Paris after 50 years.

We just signed up for our first RS tour! I'm very excited and look forward to preparing for it by participating in this forum.

Just signed up for Best of South Italy in Oct 2023. Still debating between that or going with PacSet to Okinawa.

OK, we've chosen our (probable) tours: it's all Iberian: Basque County, Andalucía, and Portugal. Now, I have to play with the schedules and try to fit them into a 6 week or so span, with a week at the end for us to spend on our own, probably either in Barcelona or Leiden. (Whoops, there goes the Iberian theme!) Fall or late summer. Stan is busy from late February until probably mid-June.

I'll let you know what we come up with. It may be tomorrow before I figure this out.

Andrew, thanks for the comment about the catalogue. We do miss it, you know. Hint, hint.

Just signed up! Best of Portugal, September 4 - 15; Basque Country, September 22 - 30; and Andalucía, October 8 - 17.

I put Andalucía last, on purpose. If we decide that three tours are too many, we can drop Andalucía and instead spend a week or two on our own, probably either in Spain or the Netherlands. We'd be more likely to tour Spain on our own than Portugal or the Basque region, and besides, those two tours have been on my wish list for years!

Our recent trip to Europe lasted 7 weeks, including two RSE tours, and may have been too long. Because of some unusual things that happened earlier this year, we were not as prepared physically as we usually are, and were dog tired toward the end of the trip. So just in case this happens again, I'm scheduling the option of cancelling one of the RSE tours.

So, now it's time to start preparing. Portuguese, here I come!

We just registered for Best of Spain in May. Now we are on pins and needles waiting for our trip to be confirmed. How long does it usually take?

Kathy, we were just confirmed on all three tours, less than an hour after we signed up!

It can take much longer; I think last year it was about a week before we received our confirmation.

kathy, we submitted our request (Holland/Belgium) June 20 at 9 pm EST and it was confirmed one hour later at 10 pm. It was a real surprise to see that so quickly.

I was confirmed within an hour or two, too.
I think sign ups this year will be a bit different than last year, not as crazy fast, so the RS office won't get as backed up. Remember when 2022 tours opened up last year, you didn't have to pay right away, and we were all VERY excited to plan a trip. Things are a bit more realistic this year.

We signed up for the Berlin, Prague, Vienna tour on October 1st! We are not 100% as we will only do the tour if my DH retires next year and if RS drops the pre tour covid test. Next year is really filled up now! Germany on our own, rafting the Colorado River in GC, and now this!

Kathy, I submitted a tour request Monday night and had an email confirmation this morning. I was bit nervous even though everything shows available. Always satisfying to get a confirmation!