As a Europe Expert I am often asked how to choose the best European tour and believe me there are quite a few tour companies to choose from. Trafalgar, Globus, Brendan, Cosmos, Tauck, Contiki, Collette and even more, so where do you begin, what do you look for?

Let’s start with the itinerary as that’s pretty important, first you need to choose which itinerary you’d like. For that you could decide to see just one country in depth, like France or Italy. Or you can choose a region, such Scandinavia or Eastern Europe including Prague or Tallinn or maybe just go for the gold and see a little of a lot of places for a taste of each.

Once you’ve chosen a place or region, next figure out how long you can be gone. Escorted tours start at about 8 days and range on up to traveling for more than a month. I find that most settle for somewhere in between. A couple weeks is just about perfect for me, I think that when traveling you should always come home just a bit BEFORE you’re ready rather than waiting until you’re tired of traveling.

So let’s say you’ve decided on a country, like Ireland, with timeframe of 2 weeks, now we can narrow down the tour company that is right for you.

Cosmos is a budget company that offers wonderful tours with 3 star hotels a bit farther out of town, daily breakfast and a couple excursions included.

Trafalgar and Brendan are a bump up with 3-3 ½ star hotels nearer the center of each city, daily breakfast, some dinners and more sightseeing excursions included.

Globus and Collette bump up another notch with many very central 4 star hotels, daily breakfast, a few more dinners, a maximum of 40 seats on each coach and even more sightseeing excursions included. Collette even adds in door to door service, they’ll pick you up and drop you at your door, so from the time you leave home Collette is taking care of you.

Tauck is one of the most inclusive with 4-5 star city center hotels, daily breakfast, dinners included almost every night and all sightseeing excursions included with some added benefits such as small groups and special personalized service.

Contiki is strictly for 18-35 year olds that would rather travel with a younger crowd and has excursions with a more adventurous flair.

As you can see, no matter your personality or travel preferences there is an Escorted tour company that will fit for you. So when you are ready to plan your European tour call or email the Europe Specialists at Totem Travel. We look forward to working with you!