Small Group Tours

[Gator Fan 79]

Originally Posted by michael917

My last trip was a California national park tour, exactly this time last year. Interesting that you mention Ireland as that is where I want to go next. I think I was on Intrepid's site, but I wasn't sure about their average group size. I will check again.

FYI, most of Intrepid's "original" tours have a maximum group size of 16 but the Ireland trip has a max of 12. Not sure why but 12 > 16?

In Amsterdam now after 5 lovely days in Porto. Going on a canal/food tour this afternoon and will sample bitterballen, stroopwafel, apple pie, and craft beer. We avoid carbs at home so this carbfest will be a real treat. When traveling on our own we often book day tours and we very much enjoy walking tours of new cities.

Going to the Cotswolds next and while it's not a small-group tour it is managed by a travel company. Mac's Adventures has booked all of the accommodations in BnB's and will handle luggage transfers as we walk from place to place. We used them for the West Highland Way last year and it was a great trip.

[Gator Fan 79]

Originally Posted by Teacher Terry

EF Go ahead tours. Depending on the tour it can be capped at either 27 people or 38. Both sizes were fine. They will not wait for people that aren’t punctual. If you are 15 minutes late for the bus they send someone to your room. If not ready they go. At tourist sites they wait 15 minutes. People learn to be on time. If you can’t keep up on the walking part of the trip they will call you a cab to take you to where the rest of the group is walking.

Most of our fellow travelers on Intrepid and G Adventures are experienced travelers who've been on multiple tours with these companies. We have never had to wait more than a few minutes on any of our tours. On our RS (not Road Scholar) tour with 26 people in Spain, one couple didn't show up for a morning departure and we left without them after 10 minutes. We never had to wait again and the couple didn't make that mistake again.

We've enjoyed the company of the vast majority of our fellow travelers and prefer smaller groups if we can afford it.

[dsb1067]

We've done a couple of Overseas Adventure Travel trips, they claim no more than 16 people on land tours. One trip to Peru/Galapagos had 12 people, our trip to Jordan/Israel had only 9 people in our group. We have one booked for Japan later this year, hoping we have good luck again.

[Teacher Terry]

Gator, we had very few people that were late so not a big problem. I think if you find a tour company that you like it’s probably best to stick with them. That’s what we do and are taking our third tour to Europe in 2025.