Too many two night stops?

I don't mind the two nights stops. It makes me feel like I'm getting to see more things. One nights stops are not the best, but I understand that sometimes they're necessary. It's true that not repacking during that three night stay is nice. It's a shame there aren't any longer tours anymore (other than the 21 day) but I guess that the RS company has found that Americans with their shorter vacation times don't really book the longer tours. I would though!

Two nights have been good for us on our 3 RS tours. Especially because we add at least one night prior and one night at the end; so those two cities get at least 3 nights. But I can definitely see why 3 nights is appealing for some locations.

The 2 night stops work pretty well for me, and I usually add nights before and after which helps.

I did the Basque tour in 2019 and it was 2 night stops like the current itinerary. One of my favorites, too.

We did the RS Basque tour this year. Fantastic trip. Fantastic guide. We had folks in their mid-80s on the trip and nobody felt rushed. The pacing was perfect. We had 3 different couples who had been on over a dozen RS tours already. They uniformly rated the Basque Tour with its 2 night stays as the best or one of the best RS tours they had been on.

I have noticed that many posters on this forum who have amazing travel experience and who give terrific advice are loathe to do a 1 night stops or 2 night stops. I understand as folks travel more they begin to savor the finer details and the ambience and they often no longer find the long train rides or flights or drives charming. Makes sense to me. Personally, I like to travel both ways-- hit the highlights and move on to the next place with great highlights and also I like to slow down and spend a few extra days places.

No matter how you travel, it's still great!!! And the RS Basque tour is amazing.

Happy travels.

“Perhaps I am getting older and slower”

Apparently so am I!

I’ve done 12 RS tours and nearly all were 2 nighters with an occasional one-night thrown in for repositioning. I didn’t mind any of them BUT…. I also started doing some Road Scholar tours which tend to stay longer and do day trips. I loved the one I did in Provence which stayed 7 nights in Aix and 6 nights in Arles. I loved that the towns started to feel familiar.

For myself I think my change of mindset is that I’ve now seen a LOT of places and find I want to enjoy where I’m staying.

Happy and proud oldster, here. I've done a number of RSTs and touring that includes 2-nt stops pacing has been and is fast to my body and packing/partially unpacking efficiency skillset. Personally I would always prefer 3-nts per stay. But, I can appreciate that to have a broader perspective of region(s) / area(s) it 'pays' to move around in order to capture as many of the experiences available as possible. I just wish there were more RST 7-day city tour options because that's my travel love-language, being in one place for all the time. Luxurious!

I agree with Pam about getting the feel of a city by staying longer. I’m a vet of 15 tours including in 2009 the SanSebastian and Basque Country. I believe it was only 7 days and did not include a visit to Pamplona. From the current tour description the activities seem to be fairly identical with that exception. I would much rather stay in one location and make the day trips than stopping in 3 or 4 hotels.

Pamplona was a great stop on the RS Basque tour! Our guide Fran captivated us with personal stories of having run with bulls and felt their hot breath on his neck before dashing to safety!

I am so glad RS added Pamplona to the tour.

It's good to know that other tour companies have slower pacing when I too inevitably want to move at a more civilized pace. Heck, someone carrying my bags will also be appreciated. But until then, I'm running with the bulls! (Or at least living vicariously through someone who has.) The 20 year version of me probably would undoubtedly think these Rick Steves are too slow-- but I was annoying back then. (Come to think of it, I still am! Some things stay the same...)

Happy travels!

After 20+ years of independent travel, I tried a Rick Steves tour. It was all two-night stops, and I won't do another! I am also old (79).

I am okay with 1-2 night stops since those are mostly my norm when traveling independently. But, what I really noticed during the RS Best of the Adriatic tour last year was the number of hours on the bus. The tour has 37 hours of transportation on a 13-night tour which averaged out to almost 3 hours/day. During my independent trips, my goal is an average of 1 hour/day taken by transportation which makes a huge difference because the 1-night stops still have a substantial amount of the day walking & enjoying the city.

Currently, I’m considering the RS Prague/Budapest tour or Poland for 2025. 7 hours on the bus for a 7-night tour (3-night Prague, 4-night Budapest) should work out very well!

The RS Poland tour has 11 hours of transportation for a 9-night tour. That one has two locations that are 3-night stops: Warsaw & Krakow. If you add the normal pre-tour day for arriving, you would have a 3-night at Gdansk, also.

Pam wrote

For myself I think my change of mindset is that I’ve now seen a LOT of
places and find I want to enjoy where I’m staying.

I find myself agreeing. As I travel more I want a more fine grained view of the place I am in. Or, I want to get out ASAP and go someplace else!! :-)

The Adriatic Tour has a lot of bus time. I avoided it for several years as it exceeded my daily windshield time standard. But, I finally gave in. , did the tour, and enjoyed it immensely. I did schedule and extra day in Ljubljana and Dubrovnik. I enjoyed an extra two days to poke around some of the other parts of the waterfront. And to hit the old town wall early before the cruise crowds arrived.

I understand why Rick does 2-night stops and I loved the Basque tour with its 4 stops of 2 night each but that was 6 years ago and now, ahem, I prefer more nights per stop and a more relaxed pace.

”…it exceeded my daily windshield time standard”

Good one, Barnstormer! ; )

My first RS tour was Barcelona & Madrid in 2016. Chosen specifically because it used the train between cities and I was sure I would dislike bus time the most.

I'll be taking my 12th RS tour in Sept., and I no longer worry about bus time. I enjoy the scenery, the coach is comfortable, and longer distances are broken up with interesting stops.

I still have lots of places I want to see, and RS suits my needs for the European destinations.

I've been known to take a look at an RS tour and design my own around the itinerary, allowing for a little more time at several places. For example, I spent four days and 5 nights in parts of Southern France that RS covers in one two night stay. On our third visit for a meal a local restaurant worker wanted to know if was going to buy property in the area. He seemed relieved when I told him that the best I could do is perhaps visit again in a few years. I say that because he later brought us a dessert "gratuit".

Our first RS tour - Venice-Florence-Rome / 3 nights-in-each was a perfect pace, setting the bar very high for later tours. Arriving in Venice a few days early and extending in Rome was ideal. Regarding Rick’s “aging” clientele, most of us are still comfortable with the bus rides, 2-nighters and hours of cobblestone streets and country paths. Long bus rides to one-night stands are less enjoyable.

But as we age into our ‘70s, it becomes more tiring to patiently mill about in bright sunshine, listening to a local guide talk for 10 minutes or more on the local history. There might be shade trees just 20 yards away but we’re parked in the midday sun. This has been our experience on every one of our seven tours: lead the group out to a sunny spot and talk. And talk. One guide in Greece set us up in the blazing sun while he spoke from under a huge umbrella, oblivious of the trees behind him. It was a long tiring day.

We’ve done 9 tours and find that as time goes on and our bodies age, we really dislike the 1 night stops. 2 nights minimum and strongly prefer 3 nights. I need to take a closer look at Road Scholar, Pam, if they do longer stays in one place. We’re starting to think about/take longer looks at river cruises because of the unpack once premise but worry we’d dislike the inability to really “see” a town being visited. We’ve been spoiled by Rick’s philosophy!

@Luv2Travel, 2 of my favorite Road Scholar tours were in France.

• Provence: The Art of Living where we stayed 6 nights in Aix-en-Provence and 5 nights in Arles. I had gone down to Aix from Paris 2 nights before the tour started so had 7 nights there and that was great. The tour did day trips every day except 1 full day for Aix and 1 for Arles. (Did this in Oct 2019)

-SW France and the Perigord which moved a bit more but had 4 nights in Bordeaux, 3 in Sarlat, 2 in Rocamadour, 4 in Toulouse. That itinerary has changed a little bit with the intermediate nights but still is slower than Rick's tours. (Did this in Oct 2021)

I've also just done my 3rd trip with Seymour Travels, a small group tour company owned by former Rick Steves guide Mark Seymour. He prefers to stay multiple nights in fewer locations.

I agree with Luv2Travel on the tour boat issues. I have known a number of people who have taken the river tours of Europe. While they enjoyed them, they also realize they miss out on seeing a lot of the city and cultural highlights due to the limited time onshore.

I am amazed that this thread has such long legs, and is still being discussed. I am sure the RS tour folks know what they are doing. How can you argue with success? And I have seen so much of Europe thanks to RS Tours. Time and time again when talking with people, somebody brings up seeing this or doing that, and I think "Yea, I was there and I am glad I was". But, there is something about the slow-travel philosophy that just attracts me at this point in life.

This is by no means a criticism, so please don’t take it that way. Background: my husband and I travel at glacial speed, often taking more than 10 days in bigger cities and I know an RS tour would not work for us. I understand that if you’re working, you may not have more than a week of vacation time. My question is: as I plan, I devise a list of must-sees, none of which could be accomplished in a two-night stay (or even by adding a night or two.) How do you reconcile wanting to see more, or even just spend an hour or two more somewhere, with the average pace of a tour? How do you decide what’s OK to give up? Have you ever regretted your choices?

Besides Barcelona & Madrid, does Rick Steve have other tours with several days in one city? That one was perfect - and we had been there after spending 5 days in Florence. We took another Rick Steves tour through Austria, Germany, and while it was great, we didn't feel like we got to know those cities as we'd like. We had to scramble during our free time to get to other places.

We're travelers that like to stay 4 nights or so in each city and spend less time traveling (we're in our fifties).

Besides Barcelona & Madrid, does Rick Steve have other tours with several days in one city?

Best of Rome
Best of Paris
Best of London
Best of Istanbul
Best of Prague & Budapest
Best of Venice, Florence & Rome

Best of Berlin, Prague & Vienna (1-night stays plus mostly 3-night stays)
Best of Poland (includes 1-night stay)

I really enjoyed the Best of Berlin, Prague and Vienna when I took that tour. Especially Berlin, which I initially thought would be the least interesting of the three tours. Silly me!