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Guided Europe Tour In Summer - Suggestions?

post #1 of 12
1/16/11 at 4:36pm
Thread Starter 
I've been thinking of doing a trip to Europe this summer for around 2-3 weeks in July. I'll almost certainly be travelling solo. I'd prefer to travel with a group of people in the same age range (20-30) and see lots of capitals and hotspots. I've heard good things about Contiki Tours. Any other suggestions?
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post #2 of 12
1/23/11 at 1:45am
Quote:
Originally Posted by FidelCashflow View Post
I've been thinking of doing a trip to Europe this summer for around 2-3 weeks in July. I'll almost certainly be travelling solo. I'd prefer to travel with a group of people in the same age range (20-30) and see lots of capitals and hotspots. I've heard good things about Contiki Tours. Any other suggestions?

Yup, the best suggestion is to not do a guided tour.

Buy a few guidebooks, go out and adventure on your own. You'll have a much better time and meet the same amount of people by staying in hostels. Guided tours feel so fake
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post #3 of 12
1/23/11 at 3:58pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by sephlod View Post
Yup, the best suggestion is to not do a guided tour.

Buy a few guidebooks, go out and adventure on your own. You'll have a much better time and meet the same amount of people by staying in hostels. Guided tours feel so fake
Yup, tour's are great if all you want to do is see a bunch of shit. Some old buildings, some fancy cathedral's and go home.

If you want to have fun, do it on your own. Hostel's and the people you meet there will help you find some of those hidden gems that make cities in Europe so unique, that tour's always skip over because they have 100 more cathedral's they are scheduled to see.
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post #4 of 12
1/25/11 at 12:14am
Don't visit the spanish mediterranean coast.
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post #5 of 12
5/31/11 at 11:09am
I'd also suggest GAP Travel.
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post #6 of 12
5/31/11 at 11:14am
Don't let anyone discourage you from taking a guided tour. Planning a tour from scratch is not for everyone.

I took a Contiki tour of Western Europe in 2000 and had a great time. Their tours aim for breadth, not depth, and are a good introduction to places you might want to visit again. You will be on the bus a lot. Contiki tours tend to have a lot of youngsters who like to party, but if that's not your thing (it wasn't mine), the group is sufficiently large for you to find people who are actually interested in seeing the sights.

I have heard good things about GAP Adventures and Intrepid Travel. They have smaller groups than Contiki.
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post #7 of 12
5/31/11 at 12:54pm
Quick example: I saw the Great Ocean Road while I was in Australia. Five of us from the Hostel crammed into a rented Suzuki Swift at 4:30 am, after being in the bar until 2:30. The original driver claimed he went to bed around midnight, but instead stumbled into the hostel bar at 4:00, drunk as fuck, yelling "I'm driving tomorrow". That story in itself was worth the $175+ we would have paid (each) to take the tour bus. We ran into a tour bus about halfway through. We saw everything they did from that point on, plus 3-4 additional sites. We got to stop for food where we wanted, stopped where we wanted, left when we wanted, and didn't have to deal with the hundreds of people they crammed onto those two buses. And that doesn't mention the added bonus of getting to drive in a foreign country, or the fact the trip cost us about $70 each to drive ourselves, compared to $175+ it would have cost on a tour bus. tl;dr .. don't take a tour. If you don't like planning .. then don't. Just wing it. If you don't get to "see everything", w/e .. you will get to see/do the things you wanted. Nothing more, nothing less.
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post #8 of 12
5/31/11 at 1:31pm
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Tuesday-This.../dp/B0014BJ1AO Two week tour of Europe? Just watch the movie and stay in the basement. Two weeks pick a few (Few aka less then many) relatively close cities. Do them. Don't even think of trying to do Europe. You couldn't do Europe in three months. Two weeks you'll just waste time traveling. Believe me a train/bus station isn't any more exciting here then at home. You're young so find the hostels or other things aimed at your age group.
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post #9 of 12
6/2/11 at 5:33am
Quote:
Originally Posted by imschatz View Post
Quick example:

I saw the Great Ocean Road while I was in Australia. Five of us from the Hostel crammed into a rented Suzuki Swift at 4:30 am, after being in the bar until 2:30. The original driver claimed he went to bed around midnight, but instead stumbled into the hostel bar at 4:00, drunk as fuck, yelling "I'm driving tomorrow".

Oh yeah wow that sounds great, don't take a tour.
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post #10 of 12
6/2/11 at 8:01pm
Don't do a tour. Find one place you like a lot and stay the two weeks. You can meet people in hostels or couchsurfing or something like that.
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post #11 of 12
6/14/11 at 2:15am
I would suggest doing some research to decide what places you want to go, staying in hostels so you get to meet other travelers, and doing some tours with companies in order to give yourself time to explore by yourself.
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post #12 of 12
8/7/11 at 3:14pm
Thread Starter 
Just got back from 6 weeks on the road - and just wanted to say that I did Contiki - and it was the best decision I made the whole trip. I did a 14 day tour along the mediterranean coast of Spain Italy and France. The hotels were better than expected, the people were great (we did one of their better quality tours - so there were hardly any students, mostly working professionals in the 27-30 range.) It was nice to let someone else worry about the itinerary. They did give us a good amount of free time - although the pace was fast - 2 days in major cities, 1 day in smaller towns. There is plenty of time on the bus, but it's mostly sleeping since Contiki is sightsee all day party all night. It does get expensive fast with all the optional stuff - but I would do Contiki again in a heartbeat!
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