Escorted Tours: How much to spend?

A guide to escorted touring companies, what they are best at, and which is right for you

Have you ever tried to book a touring holiday and found it difficult to choose between all the different escorted tours on offer?
If so, then it's not surprising given the numbers available and widely different costs. But which ones would be most suitable for you. To help, I'll take a few different tour companies in turn and try and highlight their main selling points.

1. Cosmos Tourama - these tours represent fantastic value for money allowing you to see a lot in a short space of time, and by staying in cheaper medium class hotels, the prices are kept down. As an example, they have a 2 week holiday called "Western Wonders" which starts in Los Angeles and goes through Palm Springs, Grand Canyon, Las Vegas, and Yosemite before arriving in San Francisco. It's a great itinerary and costs from just £1290 per person, although slightly cheaper when booked through 'On Your Travels'. You can even extend your stay in either San Francisco or Hawaii to make it really special. Meals are not included but all flights and transfers are, and you get a professional tour director, and it is still cheaper than putting a similar itinerary together yourself.

Cosmos Tourama have recently introduced their 'Platinum Tourer' concept, and as it has proved increasingly popular, so more tours now feature it. Basically, pay a supplement and get a better coach. This includes extra legroom, fewer passengers on the coach, leather seats with headrest, toilet and washing facilities, free tea and coffee, headsets, satellite navigation display and a video / DVD sound system. Where longer journeys are involved it's certainly worth having because the premiums are not that large. For example, it is available on their 'Canadian Rockies' tour which lasts a couple of weeks, starts and finishes in Vancouver, and visits the best locations in the Canadian Rockies. Again there are options to extend your stay in Vancouver, Hawaii, or even do an Alaskan cruise. Prices for the main tour in June 2010 are approximately £1760 for the standard coach and £1895 for the platinum tourer. Not a vast difference. Again both prices are slightly cheaper when you book through us.

2. Cox and Kings - Cox and Kings are a good example of a premium brand escorted tour company, and feedback from our customers is consistently excellent. As a top end company their prices reflect this, but you do get several advantages over the cheaper tours:

1. The best 4* or 5* hotels are used throughout your journey
2. Smaller group sizes - the maximum is just 25 which means that everything runs more smoothly and more quickly
3. The best, and most knowledgeable guides and tour managers are used
4. All the arrangements work smoothly throughout, for example transfers

As an example the 'Wonders of Egypt' tour lasts a week and includes 2 nights in Cairo at a 5* hotel near the pyramids, a 4 night Nile cruise on the M/Y Mirage and a night back in Cairo. Prices for 2010 start from just £925 with some meals included, however again it will be slightly cheaper when you book through us.

Cox and Kings also allow you to do almost any group tour as a private journey which gives you much more freedom when you are there, allowing you to stay longer in some places and spend less time in others - there's no one but you to worry about. The 'Wonders of Egypt' tour above starts from £1275 as a private journey, again less when you book through us.

3. Insight Vacations - these tours fall somewhere between the value of Cosmos Tourama and the luxury of Cox and Kings, and have an especially good programme to the USA and Canada. Hotels used are the better 4* hotels, and a lot of thought goes in to making the tours just about the right pace. Here are a few other features of these types of tour:

1. VIP door to door transfers from your home to the airport
2. High quality hotels which are chosen for their character and location
3. Maximum 40 people in the group, and extra space and legroom on the coaches
4. Some quality dining meals are included
5. Premium Highlights, for example a stroll along the rim of the Grand Canyon at sunset on the 'Enchanting Canyonlands' tour

As an example of prices, the 'Enchanting Canyonlands' tour mentioned above starts from £1699 , again slightly less when booked through us.

Wendy Wu - they are the leading tour company to China, and now also feature tours to Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos. Their tours are run on a fully inclusive basis - even the visa fees are included. Hotels are a minute of good 3* standard and 4*, but what really sets them apart is the way things work on the ground. We have heard many tales of Wendy Wu customers getting priority treatment in many places and enjoying a much higher standard of service overall than other tour groups. For this reason we always recommend you at least consider one of their tours if you are planning a visit to China. Prices start from just £990 each for a week in China, with a small discount when you book with us.

Just You - are a tour company that specialises in holidays that have NO single supplement - again prices are slightly cheaper when booked through us. Not only is this a highly cost effective way to travel if you are going alone, but you will also meet several like minded people.

In conclusion, there is a terrific selection of escorted tours available, choosing the right one if all about weighing things up such as hotel quality, smoothness of the travel arrangements, do the do VIP door to door transfers? do they cater for single travellers well? what are the group sizes, what meals are included? and so on.

To discuss an escorted tour just pop into the shop or give us a call and we'll be delighted to go through all the different options and the advantages and disadvantages of each. Plus you'll be guaranteed a saving off the normal price when you book through us!

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Monday to Saturday 9am - 6pm     65 Station Road     Letchworth Garden City     Hertfordshire     SG6 3BJ   01462 677 111         holidays@onyourtravels.co.uk

All the extra government taxes are INCLUDED in the prices quoted.

All Red Sea holidays include Transfers. Unlike some travel companies, we do not charge a booking fee.

Payments by credit cards are charged at 2%, however there are no surcharges for payments by debit cards or Switch / Maestro.

IT IS ESSENTIAL THAT YOU HAVE FULL 10 YEAR BRITISH PASSPORTS WITH AT LEAST 6 MONTHS REMAINING

Please note that holidays at these offer prices are subject to availability the time of booking. Offers may be withdrawn without prior notice, and may be sold out before it is possible to update the website. However, all offers are correct and available at the time of writing. When they're gone, they're gone.