tour companies like rick steves

The Most Popular Tour Operator Comparisons by Travelers

September 21, 2021

Tour Companies for Seniors 

European Tour Companies

Tour Companies for Young Adults

River Cruise Companies

Small Ship & Expedition Cruise Companies

The Best Tour Companies Compared

With so many tour companies out there, it can be hard to determine which one is the best for the type of trip you want to embark on. From luxury safari outfitters to budget adventure companies, there’s something for every type of traveler- but not every operator stacks up the same.

Besides reviews, there are few other factors to keep in mind when comparing reputable travel brands: their price points, the type of trips they organize (like small groups, private, cycling etc.), the regions they operate in, who they cater to, and what they’re known for. 

We’ve made it super easy for travelers to compare individual travel brands- from the big tour operators like Intrepid Travel and Contiki, all the way down to smaller regional brands. Here are the most popular tour operator comparisons that travelers make when planning for their next adventure:

Top Tour Companies for Seniors Compared:

• Road Scholar vs Smithsonian Journeys
• Go Ahead Tours vs Trafalgar
• Tauck vs Odysseys Unlimited
• Trafalgar vs Globus
• Tauck vs Senior Discovery Tours
• Collette vs Trafalgar
• Tauck vs Alexander + Roberts
• Abercrombie & Kent vs Tauck
• Trafalgar vs Tauck
• Tauck vs AHI Travel

Top European Tour Companies Compared:

• Trafalgar vs CostSaver
• Road Scholar vs Rick Steves  
• Rick Steves vs Insight Vacations
• Trafalgar vs Brendan Vacations
• Rick Steves vs Tauck
• Road Scholar vs Fjord Travel Norway
• Rick Steves vs Azores
• Trafalgar vs Cosmos
• Trafalgar vs SITA World Tours
• REI Adventures vs Fjord Travel Norway

Top Tour Companies for Young Adults Compared:

• Contiki vs EF College Break (EF Ultimate Break)
• Go Ahead Tours vs EF College Break (EF Ultimate Break)
• Contiki vs Intro Travel
• Backroads vs EF Gap Year
• Intrepid Travel vs G Adventures
• G Adventures vs Contiki
• Topdeck vs Contiki
• Intrepid Travel vs Contiki
• EF College Break (EF Ultimate Break) vs G Adventures
• Topdeck vs Intrepid Travel

Top River Cruise Companies Compared:

• Viking River Cruises vs AMA Waterways
• Viking River Cruises vs Tauck
• AMA Waterways vs Uniworld
• Tauck vs AMA Waterways
• Tauck vs Uniworld
• Uniworld vs Viking River Cruises
• Tauck vs Crystal Cruises
• Tauck vs Insight Vacations
• Crystal Cruises vs Uniworld
• Viking River Cruises vs Avalon Waterways

Top Small Ship & Expedition Cruise Companies Compared:

• Lindblad Expeditions vs Un-Cruise Adventures
• Lindblad Expeditions vs Quark Expeditions
• Quark Expeditions vs Hurtigruten
• Quark Expeditions vs Silversea
• Quark Expeditions vs National Geographic Expeditions
• Lindblad Expeditions vs National Geographic Expeditions
• Lindblad Expeditions vs Silversea
• Hurtigruten vs Silversea
• Silversea vs Crystal Cruises
• Lindblad Expeditions vs Hurtigruten

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6 Unbiased Reviews of the Best Known Guided Tour Companies Worldwide

All reviews based on personal experiences gleaned from spending nearly 8 months on nearly 35 tours with these companies worldwide.

Reviews of the Best Known Guided Tour Companies

Overseas adventure travel (oat)  .

• Crossroads of the Adriatic : Croatia, Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Slovenia (including an extension trip to Budapest);
• Ultimate Galapagos, Ecuador Exploration, and Amazon Wilds
• Route of the Maya : Guatemala, El Salvador, Belize, and Honduras. 
• Market visits.
• Public transit rides.
• Visits to schools and other non-profit projects (that are funded in part by OAT),
• Meals hosted by locals in their homes help participants to get a little taste of the everyday life of residents in the places they visit. 
• Up to a ten percent discount for early prepayment by check;
• Deals for past tour participants and a credit if you refer someone to OAT who signs up for a tour. 
• OAT has also won several awards for offering some places on most tours without a single supplement. I have always taken advantage of this benefit and will remain loyal to OAT partly because of this policy. 
• Its parent company, Grand Circle Tours, has been primarily oriented toward the senior market.
• Most of their tours last at least two weeks, which tends to dissuade younger travelers who cannot take off so much time from work.  

Road Scholar Tours (formerly known as Elderhostel) 

• Short and long trips (from three days up to several months).    
• Traditional bus tours that visit several places for 1-3 days each in a given region. I enjoyed their tours of the Maine coast (no longer offered), from Asheville to Nashville (no longer offered), and northern New Mexico . (the tour now includes a visit to Los Alamos to learn about the Manhattan Project)
• Many tours concentrate on exploring one place or small region in-depth. The majority of my Road Scholar experiences are ¨signature city¨ tours, which spend five days in one city and visit many of the cultural attractions in the given city. I particularly enjoyed their ‘signature cities’ tours of  Philadelphia ;  San Antonio, Texas ; Burlington, Vermont (not offered currently); and Detroit, Michigan . They also have some tours in one hotel and feature day trips from that hotel. I have been on these tours of the S aguenay and Charlevoix regions of Québec , Amelia Island, Okefenokee Swamp, Cumberland Island, Florida, and Georgia .
• Visits to attend special events (like film and theater festivals and significant events like the Kentucky Derby),  
• Special tours for grandparents and their grandkids,  
• Volunteer programs (also called service-learning projects-I attended one of these for 12 days- where we helped repair a high school and provided brief English lessons near Cochabamba, Bolivia while visiting the tourist attractions as well). 
• The civil rights movement (with visits to Atlanta, Birmingham, and Montgomery.  (One of my favorite of their tours. While I knew that African Americans were poorly treated in America’s history, I didn’t realize how genuinely insidious and cruel the treatment was until I went on this tour),
• Julia Child’s life in Santa Barbara, CA (great tour, but Road Scholar does not currently offer it).
• Christmas music, lights, and decoration (mainly at historic plantations) in Charleston, South Carolina . (The tour currently stays in a fancier hotel and is more expensive. When I took the tour, we stayed at a church retreat; thus, the trip was cheaper than most other Road Scholar tours. I am glad I went on a tour that remained at the retreat. The place had a fun, informal feel that couldn’t be captured elsewhere). 
• Tour about Franklin Roosevelt’s life in New York’s Hudson Valley. The tour was hosted at Mount Saint Mary’s College in Newburgh. The campus accommodations weren’t fancy, but the tour only cost around $600 for five days and included all meals, and the lectures and activities were very informative and well-organized. (Road Scholar doesn’t offer this tour now):

Caravan   Tours

Rick steves’ tours, intrepid tours, trafalgar tours, want more suggestions and reviews for excellent worldwide guided tour companies.

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Paul Heller has been a lifelong avid traveler and language learner and teacher, Even as a child, he told Santa Claus that he wanted to visit all the children worldwide. At seven years old, Paul wanted to retire to Mexico. At eight, he memorized the name, capital, location, and some facts about every country worldwide. At twelve, he found a book "Lonely Planet: Southeast Asia on a Shoestring" and started developing his own itinerary for a future round-the-world trip. He remained obsessed with travel; after getting a Master’s Degree in Public Administration from the University of Southern California and working as an administrator, He spent his vacations going to different countries around the globe studying language, touring, and volunteering. In 1994, he quit his job and lived in Russia as a volunteer English instructor. He discovered that he loved teaching languages. In 2004, he decided to make a living out of his travels and founded a community of people who love to travel just like him. He developed 5 three-hour classes about living and traveling long-term worldwide which he taught in over 50 adult education programs throughout the US. After his parents passed, he realized his dream of traveling around the world; cruising and touring some of the most remote places like the North Atlantic, Patagonia, and Oceania; and learning new languages (he knows Spanish, Italian, French, and Russian). Paul encourages everyone to learn foreign languages. He knows that it can be frustrating and slow but that anyone can learn a language if they put in the work and, most importantly, learning a language is well worth the time and effort because it opens up a whole new set of people, ideas, and cultures. He is currently spending the next chapter of his life in Mérida, México. He is excited about using this blog and his classes and workshops to inspire and equip fellow Fifty Plus Nomads with the language, cultural, and psychological skills necessary to be successful and happy long-term travelers and expats over 50.

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