How to Choose the Best Tour Company:  12 Questions to Ask Before You Book

 Let’s face it:  tour company travel can be expensive and if you choose the wrong company, you could blow your vacation!  To choose the right travel company for you, I’ve put together a list of twelve things you need to know about any group tour you are considering so that you can make the best tour company choice for you.  Scroll down for more detailed questions to ask, a free checklist and some other special tips on how to choose the best tour company for you.

1. Examine the Tour Company’s itinerary for your chosen destination
2. Check reviews:  before you spend too much time investigating, see if the company is worth your time
3. What is the ‘pace’ of the trip?  
4. Is the guide local?
5. Does the tour company offer any unique or special experiences?
6. Are the other guests your ‘people’?
7. What kind of lodging will you be staying in?
8. Are the meals special or tourist buffets?
9. How safety conscious is the company (this includes the vehicle and driver as well as adventure activities)
10. Is the provided equipment of high quality and in good condition?
11. If important to you, is the tour company eco-friendly and do they use local businesses?
12. Examine the costs:  look at what is and what is NOT included

There are thousands of tour company’s competing for your business.  Choosing the best travel company is as much about eliminating potential tour companies as much as it is finding the right tour company for you.  So first things first:  you want to match a tour company with the ideal itinerary you’d like to do.

1. Examine a Tour Company’s Itinerary

Look at potential tours to your chosen destination.  Are they going to and doing the main things you want to do?  Some companies shave costs by not including some key activities or will make it an expensive add-on so they can lure you in with a lower price than their competitors.  We will review comparing costs in a bit, but for now, make sure that any company you are considering at least offers the opportunity to see and do what you most want.

4. Is the Guide Local?  Tell me about my Guide.

Does the tour company hire a licensed local guide who speaks the local language?  Is the guide an employee or a sub-contractor? Do they always use the same person or people?  Some tour operator trips get the local guide from a pool of guides available that day so it can be hit or miss as far as quality.  The guide also may not have an established relationship with your tour group.

A passionate, knowledgeable local guide can make your trip.  My guide in Beijing had a goal to become the curator for the Forbidden City.  Without him I never would have appreciated so many of the nuances he brought to life for me of a culture so completely alien.

A. Does the guide actually explain what you are experiencing or does she simply plan the logistics and drop you off?  That’s what I had in Egypt: the guide was very knowledgeable but only spent a couple of minutes telling us about what we were seeing and then left us wandering aimlessly for an hour while he went off for coffee and a cigarette.  Contrast that with my excellent Beijing guide who made me FEEL the history of what I was seeing and made China history come alive.  Know what you are buying!

B. Does the guide speak your language fluently?  If not, how well do you understand the language of the tour?

Look at the itinerary to see if your guide is picking up extra money by taking you to special shops. Sometimes guides don’t make a lot  of money and supplement their income with shop commissions. While I don’t begrudge them their commission for bringing customers to the store, if you see that you are making a lot of shop stops, your guide may be more interested in getting a commission than guiding you around their culture.  What bothers me more is spending too much of my precious vacation time feeling like I have to buy something rather than seeing the sights I traveled so far to see.

C. What is the Guide to Guest ratio?  On adventure travel trips, are there at least two guides so that one is in the front and one in the rear to accommodate differing paces?  And especially on adventure trips, does the guide have special training in first aid?

D. Does the Tour Company Offer Any Special Experiences?  – Especially those that would be difficult for me to arrange on my own?

This includes things like homestays or meals at a local’s home.  I’ve had tea with Coco in her Masai hut in Tanzania, lunch with Chunhua in her hutong home in China, and learned to cook tangine in Morocco with AishaOne.

What kind of cultural immersion opportunities are there with the tour?  Some companies like G Adventures have local projects so you might visit a school they help support.  Maybe you can be one of the few to actually sleep in the lodge at Milford Sound like I did with Active Adventures because of their tight and long term relationship with the owner.  Other visitors to New Zealand’s iconic sound had to get up at 3 am for the five hour drive (and then head back on the same day).

For popular sites, does the tour company get special access?  This could mean tours before the crowds arrive or skip the line privileges.  Maybe you’ll get special behind the scenes access.

• Ask how long the company has run the tour you are considering.  New tours often have logistical kinks, but can sometimes offer value while they work out the kinks.
• Who actually RUNS the tour?  Many companies simply market tours but don’t actually run the tour.  This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it is something that you want to know so you can check out the company actually running the tour.
• Ask the tour company what makes them and this tour special and see how they answer.

5. Group Dynamics and Size: Are the Other Guests My People?

Especially if you are traveling solo, you want to make sure that you join the group with your own demographics.  At 60 years old, I do not want to travel with a bus load of 20 year olds, no matter how nice they are. How do you find out?  Look at the photos on the website…who are they trying to attract? How nice is the lodging? If you are staying in hostels or 2 star lodges, you can bet that the group will skew young, probably in their early 20’s.

Check out the “About” and “FAQ” sections of the company’s website for clues. You can find group tours that cater to solo travellers, female only travelers, the same country of origin groups, young backpacker traveling on the cheap, older adults, family friendly, etc.  Look and you can find your people, which makes for a much more satisfying trip that often ends up with lifelong friendships.

 What is the Size of the Group?

I personally prefer groups of 8-12 people.  This is small enough for us to get a table in smaller restaurants and rooms in cool guesthouses, yet large enough that I am sure to make a new friend or two.  It also is small enough that you don’t spend a lot of time waiting at pitt stops or at check in.

A large bus load of almost 50 people means you can only stay at large hotels and restaurants where the bus can fit to drop you off (forget staying in the Medina in Marrakesh).  And plan on eating touristy buffets for your meals if you go big bus style.

 

6. What Type of Lodging Will We Stay In?

The lodging can give also you an idea of the average traveler for a particular group, but not always.  In some unique areas there may not be much selection.  When there are options, does the tour company choose unique or boutique inns to that offer a real flavor of the destination?  Are they in excellent locations that allow you to explore independently?

When we hiked the Angeles Circuit in New Zealand, the only option was a mountain hut.  Some small villages may only offer a two star inn. What you need to do is look at the overall quality of accommodations :  are they modest or upscale? Are they large chain hotels or boutique inns that will give you a greater feel for the local community?  Does the tour operator select choice boutiques in the heart of the historic district? Or are you spending precious time each morning getting shuttled to town because you are staying outside of town either to save money or to fit your bus.

Remember that if you are traveling with a large bus, where it is convenient for the bus to park will often dictate the size of your accommodations, whether the tour is luxury or cheap.  A big bus almost always mean an impersonal hotel.

If you have any special needs, are you able to comfortably stay in the lodging selected? Do you need an elevator (many places do not have one)?  Do you require signage in Braille, etc.?

10. Is the Tour Company Eco-Friendly and Does it Support the Local Economy?

If this criteria is important to you, you can vote with you wallet to support tour companies that are conscientious about helping the planet and the local economy.  Ask how much of your tour dollars stay within the villages you’ll be visiting. Do they hire locally? Do they take you to local, privately owned restaurants and inns or are you going to chains?  What is their policy or commitment to the environment? Ask for examples as many companies, realizing that this is important to clients might fudge a bit in their generalities.

11. Consider the Cost of the Tour

I purposefully left the tour costs to the end because if you don’t select the right tour company for you, it won’t make a difference how cheap the tour was because you won’t enjoy it like you should.  You will remember forever how much fun you had but you probably won’t remember how much it cost you.  I’m not saying cost isn’t important, but I am saying that cost should be way lower down the priority list of the factors you need to consider before buying a tour.

There are several components of ‘cost’ when it comes to a group or even a self-guided tour.  It is as important to know what’s NOT included as it is to know what IS included.  I’ve prepared a handy spreadsheet you can use as a checklist to compare companies and tours.  You can download it for FREE by clicking the box with the balancing scales.

If it is unlikely that you will ever visit a place again, provided you can afford it, cost should really be minimized as a consideration.  If the place is important enough that you are willing to spend your precious vacation time and money going there, make sure you experience it the way you want to.  This doesn’t automatically mean ‘expensive’… just buy the tour that best fits all the criterion and vetting you did above.

Here’s a sneaky expense you need to consider:  Pay attention to where the tour begins and ends.  It can cost more than you would expect to use one way tickets or to get back to your starting point to use a round trip fare.  I like the free app Rome2Rio.comto help me see the cost AND TIME it will take me to get back to my starting point or to see my one way options.  Google Flights is helpful for fare information as well.

Does the tour company offer different prices for different seasons?  I actually prefer the shoulder season because it’s less crowded. I also the fall weather is more stable and often more comfortable.  Plus I usually get a discount off the high season prices.  Also check to see if they offer sales.  Some companies have to pre-book certain lodges or permits and they lose them if they can’t fill them.  You can sometimes get a great last minute deal.

What is the tour company’s cancellation policy if you need to cancel AND if they decide to cancel.  On that same trip to Morocco, I was to also visit Jordan, Egypt and Israel.  With little notice and well after I had booked my flights, the tour company cancelled my Egypt and Jordan trip.  Luckily I had travel insurance so I could have gotten my sunk costs back, but luckily was able to find substitute tours.  Find out what the tour company’s cut off date for cancelling a trip is.  Ask what the refund policy is if you need to cancel.  Are you able to apply the money to another adventure?  What happens if the trip or a major activity is cancelled due to inclement weather?  Is it rescheduled or simply cancelled?

If you carefully consider these twelve criterion before choosing a tour company for your next vacation, you are likely to have an epic time!  Before we finish, here are a few final tips:

Special Tip On Choosing a Tour Company

• If the company is slow in responding to your emails or chats (remember they might be on the other side of the world, so give them some leeway), it might be a red flag indicating that you should move on to a different company.
• If I’ve covered a destination on my podcast, I offer a FREE Travel Planning Guide for the destination.  You can check out my Active Travel Adventures searchable directory and then simply click on the link for your free download.  You can also join my email list where I send out just one email a monththat includes the free guides and I can send you any one you missed.  I don’t spam you and you can unsubscribe at anytime.  To learn about cool destinations, be sure to subscribe to the Active Travel Adventures podcast.

   

  Keep track of your tour company hunt with this FREE handy checklist below:

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Complete Transcript

Note that this is a machine transcription and thus will likely have several boo-boos, hopefully none too awful.  If you see something, please let me know.  I transcribe it this way for those who prefer to read rather than listen to the podcast.  Thanks for your understanding about any weird translations:)

I totally blew it this time and I don’t want you to make the same mistake I did. It was expensive. I spent several thousand dollars on a tour where I felt trapped and miserable, so what went wrong? Let me count the ways, but also let me start at the beginning. A few years ago I heard a very nice woman, an American woman who lived in Egypt at the time and had a tour company that hired only local women guys to showcase the middle East. Her dream was to share this amazing region with others. I was so inspired by the interview that I actually wrote to her to say that while I had zero interest in visiting the middle East, if I ever changed my mind, I would go with her. This put me on her mailing list. Fast forward 18 months ago, I get an email from her announcing a new tour to Jordan, to Petra.

Now my interest is peaked and as I’m looking through it, I see it’s a hiking trip being guided by the very first Mideastern woman to summit, the seven summits. This woman is a badass and I want to meet her in my regular life. I’m unlikely to meet anyone who’s ever climbed the tallest mountains on any of the continents and for this woman to not only do it, but also to come from a region where women are sometimes considered chattel or second class. She must be amazing and strong and so without any further consideration, I pushed the buy button, I’m going, I’m excited. I’m a little nervous about this big scary middle East part, but I’m excited nonetheless. Then I checked the airfares. Ouch. It’s really expensive, especially coming from my Podunk area of North Carolina where it’s so time consuming, expensive just to get out of this region.

So I make a big bold plan. I am going to bang out the middle East in one fell swoop. One trip I’ve interest in visiting, not just Jordan, which my friend and travel blogger, Sherry OTT from arts world tells me is the friendliest place on earth, but also Israel, which many friends have loved and mysterious Morocco, which I’ve heard wonderful things about and I always was interested in the Sahara. And yes, I realize Morocco is not the middle East, but mentally I lump it together because it is the Arab nation. A lady I met on a plane once told me, and she was a very well traveled lady, she tells me that Egypt was her very favorite country. What’s not to like about sphinxes and pyramids. So I add that to the list. Four countries. Wow. But I’m going to do it and I’m going to do it all in one fell swoop.

And as long as I want to go with this Jordan hiking company. But this lady, I signed up for her other trips to Egypt and Morocco. I do no comparison shopping, red flag number one, red flag number one. And I frankly only give a passing plants to the itineraries to the other countries seeing that, Oh, there’s a little bit of hiking in there and we’re doing some camping and Campbell. So I figured it’s gonna be pretty good at the Jordan things all hiking, this should be fine. Well red flag number two remembering her podcast interview when I was so entranced with her passion and her desire to show everything off that I was like, that’s sure it’s going to be great. Hilary views I’ve read are those that I see on her website. I know no one who’s ever been with this company. Red flag number three and like everybody else, I’m spinning plates, just trying to get things done.

I was like sure, I’m sure it’s fine, you know it’s fine. So I just book them. The lady doesn’t do a tour in Israel and I felt pretty safe going there myself. So I just decided to do that trip solo and hopefully when I get there ahead of time I’ll reign some self guided tours. I’d like to do some hiking. So push, push, push. I’m buying all the buy buttons. I have now booked three Epic tours and I’m booking one way airfares cause I gotta get carted all around the middle East. I don’t want to be going back and forth again. I just push all my chips on the table. I’m going to go in, I’m going all in and the tour dates don’t necessarily line up one right after another. So I have free time in between, which I kinda like because I’ll be able to explore a little bit.

But again, I’ve arranged this whole trip based on the itinerary of the three tours that were available, which left me in Israel for 19 days, which is longer than having a light too. But I was like, what the heck? I heard Israel is nice. I’ll figure out something to do around the same time right before this middle Eastern venture, I have two conferences and a rafting trip out in Idaho. So I decided what the heck I’m going to make this one bodacious continuous trip one way flights all around. I remember I lose four days of travel for every trip that I take just because of my location, where I live here in the States. If I were to do these trips separately, I would lose 28 days just in travel, but by doing it in one fell swoop, it’s only going to take me nine so I figured that’s a huge savings of my time and I’m now going to be gone three months.

Wow. Using the tips and tricks I taught you in the how to get cheap flights, episode on adventure travel show podcast. I booked my flights. I’ll put a link to that show in the show notes. I see that my flight from Orlando to Boise is going to stop a Minneapolis anywhere. I was like, Hmm. Never been to Minneapolis, never been to Minnesota. So I’ve got a couple of days before my trip. I could either do an Orlando, which I’ve been to many times, or I can spend some time. Minneapolis hit the buy button. I’m often Minneapolis, spent a few days there. Great city, by the way. Really enjoyed it. I’ve never been to Boise either, so I flank that trip, the rafting trip with some exploration time before and after there. I absolutely fall in love with Boise. That’s now one of my favorite cities and then I’m going to have time from the rafting trip before I have to go to my conference in billings, Montana, a travel conference, and I’ve got Ellis, my girlfriend that you met from Bhutan and also on the glacier national park episodes.

She lives in Montana, so I was like, shoot, I’ll go visit ELLs. And also I heard from my sister whose husband was a Delta pilot and the all the pilots love Missoula. I was like, go to Missoula, go to Bozeman. So I am just building this massive trip. Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, hit the buy buttons. Again. I am making any serious dent in my travel savings account, but this is going to be worth it. This is Epic. I can’t wait even though this is by going to be the most expensive trip I’ve ever taken in my life. In fact, I’m going to explain in a future episode how I can’t afford to do all these trips. I’ve got some tips on that, but I’ll leave that for a future episode. I’ll put that on the itinerary to come up sometime a little bit later this spring, but for now, let me just say that this trip is going to be comprised of one month in the U S going from North Carolina to Florida out West and then from billings for my conference there.

Then I head to the middle East and I’ll be in the middle East a little over two months and when I travel, I like to actually enjoy the travel unlike a lot, but I don’t want to say bad about travel blogs, but a lot of them spend their time getting the right shot and doing the right blog posts and all that. I want to actually be in the moment of my travels and I write about it when I get back. So this means for me not to have to do work either on the podcast or my paying job as a rental manager. I’ve got to get six months worth of work done in three months so I can go and really just relax on this trip. I’m not sure how I’m going to pull it off, but I’m determined to do it.

My one month us portion of this classical trip was fabulous, enlightening and fulfilling. Once I headed East for the rest of my trip, there were some that was great and some that was not so much. I made a ton of silly boo-boos and I don’t want you to make those same mistakes. In the past I’ve been super lucky with the tour companies I’ve gone with, but I’ve also had personal references that guided me to those tour companies. But I learned on this trip that tour companies have personalities and it’s really important that you match your personality to the Turk company’s personality for you to have a happy experience. So when I got back, I did a ton of research to find out what are all the different things I should be looking at in order to choose the right tour company for me. And I put together a system so I don’t make that same expensive mistake again. And that’s what I want to share with you today because I don’t want you to make the same expensive mistakes that I did. Okay, so let’s cross the pond. I’ve got to get to Casa Blanca, Morocco, and then from there take a trained AmeriCash to meet up with my tour group.

I’d never been to a Muslim country before and frankly I was a little bit twitchy about it as I think many people would be if you read the press these days. I wasn’t quite sure what to expect. When I got to Morocco and I read online that I was going to have to take a female only car on my train ride from Casa Blanca to AmeriCash and I wasn’t sure if I had to wear a headscarf, but I bought a Haji just to be on the safe side and was prepared. I figured I was going to follow suit with whatever the local women were doing. If they were wearing headwear, I’d wear it. If they didn’t, I wouldn’t. When I arrived in Casa Blanca, I splurged and paid an extra $2 for the first class train ticket, but it turns out I was the only one in the car, so I still wasn’t really sure about the head gear, but it seemed more casual than I was expecting. And so I had the scarf around my shoulders. I just kind of left it that way. I look ridiculous and his job anyway,

At some point I had to change trains and I was a bit confused with my ticket and somebody I’ve showed my ticket to said that I had an assigned seat for this next train and they pointed me to a car a little bit further up the track. I look at my compartment, there’s this glass window front and then inside is too like little booths and there’s four men sitting in there all sound asleep. And I’m like, well, I thought I was supposed to be in a female only car, but that man that I asked seemed insistent that this was the car I was supposed to go in. So I said, what the hell? Whatever. So I go, I sit in the car again. I just kinda go around. I try not to wake anybody up and I just sit there with my suitcase and eventually the conductor comes by, looks at me, looks at my ticket and never says anything. So I figure everything’s all right. Every once in a while, one of the men would wake up, eyes would open, they’d see me, no surprise, look, no horrified looks. I said, okay, I must’ve done something. All right. Nobody seems to be concerned one way or another about me, and eventually I make it to Marrakesh. Okay. That’s pretty easy. I even took a nap on the train.

I arrive AmeriCash and my Airbnb host is kind enough to send a driver to meet me. I’m going to be staying at the Medina, but you can’t fit a car there. So he talks to my driver and arranges a meetup point where he collects me and then walks me through this charming maze of streets and alleys before we finally get to my place by telling, before I get there, I said, I’m starving. I haven’t eaten in forever and I need some food. And so he takes me to a restaurant and again, there’s no women sitting in the restaurant. I have no idea what the protocol is in this country. I’m still like a little bit twitchy about what’s going on. My host seems perfectly fine with everything. I order a sandwich to go and off I go

[Inaudible]

And when I get to my apartment, I love it. It looks a Moroccan, it’s all red upholstery and it’s got the little bronze lanterns and I was like, Ooh, I am definitely AmeriCash I, this was perfect. The great way to start my trip

And the next morning to meet peg in person. Peg is an act of travel adventures listener. And we had connected because of the podcast and found that she was also interested in going to Morocco. So we end up being roommates, saved us a little bit. Neither one of us had to pay the single supplement and we got a chance to hang out with somebody that we already knew we were going to like each other. We talked on the phone and emails and all that, so that was pretty cool. And she had gotten there a day or two before I did and arrange for us to take a cooking class, which we had a marvelous time. And then the next day we started our tour with the lady I had originally heard on the podcast interview that I booked three total tours with.

Okay.

Day one of our tour went really well, but as the tour progressed I realized that this trip was nothing like the Jordan tour. I’d signed up for even my cursory glance at the itinerary beforehand, I saw that it wasn’t going to be as active as the Jordan by any stretch of the imagination, but I did see that we did have a day of hiking. We were going to go on a camel Safari, et cetera. So I was like, well, it’s going to be more cultural than adventure, but so it’d be like a level two or so or so. I thought it wasn’t long before I realized I was on one of those dreaded get on the bus, get out, take a picture, get back on the bus. I about died. My brain was having difficulty processing the fact that the hiking Jordan trip was so radically different than the Moroccan trip.

It was almost like split personalities for a tour company and I came to realize later that I think they just haven’t decided who they’re appealing to and so they’re throwing out tours with all different audiences instead of trying to just grab onto the one that fits the personality of their company. They’re just trying to find their way still. Again, that’s just my opinion. To me, it trying to be all things to all people instead of finding their niche. The target audience for the Jordan trip is so radically different than the target audience for the Moroccan trip night and day different. I’m not saying one’s good and one’s bad. It’s just one’s good and one’s bad for me. So I’ve discovered it’s super critical to match your personality and your expectations with the right tour. That was a huge, huge booboo on my part, so that’s my red flag.

Number three I chose a tour company that is still relatively new and still trying to figure out who they are and who is their audience and then guess what happens a couple of days into the tour, we find out that she’s canceled the hiking day and so we will now instead have a free day. Apparently she realized on her spring hiking trip in Jordan that was pretty intense hiking that maybe she shouldn’t be doing hiking after all, so she cancels the hiking day on this trip that I’ve already paid for. So I ended up hiring my own private guide to take me and drive me out to the mountains to do hiking in the mountains. Like I said, she’s still trying to figure out who is she catering to. I wasn’t very happy about that change of plans, but I’m getting a little ahead of myself. On one of the early days, we spent over nine hours sitting in the van and I told her that’s way too long for her to be having guests in vans and we would get out for a pit stop and coffee.

Sometimes we’d stop at a shop where the guides get a commission, but I realized I had just really made a really serious mistake on choosing this company. We were also being nickel dine on tipping museum guide and I’m talking like 50 cents or a dollar. She’s telling us to tip at the end of whatever the activity was or for Pete’s sake, when you’re spending $4,000 the whole total of all these extra tips, we’re not even talking 20 bucks over the course of the whole tour. So not only was I feeling like she was being cheap, but we always had to have all the small chains with us, which is a nuisance on tours. I expect to tip the main guide and the drivers, but I like how they did it on my Jordan trip where we had multiple different drivers because we would stop and start depending on if we were camping or going into country or whatnot.

And so at the beginning of the tour we were given an estimate of what the tips should be for the various drivers and we pulled our money there, gave it to one of the guys. It was his job to tip in all of our behalfs and it just made things so much simpler. I wish he had done that. If she didn’t want to add that extra 20 bucks to the cost of our trip. I also felt how she handled the water at the drinking water was fairly petty as well. I mean, if you go on a trip with my affiliate active adventures, the bus is always filled with drinks and snacks and whatever. You need to be comfortable on this trip. A country where you cannot drink the water but the water is cheap or bottle of water is cheap. We’re talking like 50 cents or so for a liter and a half of water that again, we’re always looking for change to go get the water.

Instead of just having a cooler there, what is it going to cost us? Add another 20 bucks to the cost of the trip and have the drinks provided. It just seemed like a simpler solution to me and certainly more client friendly. Those things just bugged me because I found them petty, but what I found really deceitful was that most of the lunches were not included the tour yet. We had no choice as to where we’re eating or even what we ate. I think she’s just trying to hit a price point in our advertising, but in her defense a lot of the things were right with with the tour company as well. We had an outstanding female guide Chama who I will remember the rest of my life. She was vibrant, knowledgeable, fun, and really enhanced the trip overall. They also made sure that the vans that we were in were very safe and comfortable.

And the driver in particular was very safe, which in that region is super important because the driving is absolute craziness. They have lines in the road, but those are there just as I used to paint because nobody pays any attention to the lines and the roads. And so you want a driver that’s going to be conscientious. So a double kudos for them for making sure that we were in a safe environment, a good van, and with a great guide. So if this was the kind of tour that I was looking for, this would have been a good company to do. So it just was not what I was expecting at all. That was the big problem. I like the little boutique Inns that we stayed in for the most part, and we got to see the highlights of the country. But I think the biggest mistake that she made was in failing to manage her guests expectations.

When I got home again, I was like, I did not want to repeat that booboo again. So what, what was I missing? And so I compared her tore to some of the others. A lot of them are going to the same destinations and we’re just as bus heavy but they manage their guests expectations by saying you are going to be in the vehicle a lot but you see no mention of the bus time in the brochures on the particular tour that I took and because by looking at the itinerary it appeared that the middle of the day we are going to be free to find her own place to go to lunch and I incorrectly assumed that we were going to be wherever we were going to be for the day and out exploring on her own. I just thought there’s going to be a lot more autonomy to this trip.

So again, I just, and that to me is what lunch on my own means is that I’m someplace where I can go choose the lunch. I did not realize we would be driving all day, stopped at a preselected restaurant as a group, get off, eat as a group, generally speaking all but one time the exact same meal. And then get back on the bus to continue driving. I did not ask enough questions. I didn’t ask any questions. I think I just got careless because I’d had such extraordinarily apparently good luck in going with great compatible companies in the past. It never crossed my mind that this would have be because I was so impressed with her and her goals and her mission when I heard her on that podcast. It just never crossed my mind to do just a little bit more investigation before I hit that buy button again, I did not do my homework and when I get finished with this little saga, I’m going to go through the 12th thing she needed to make sure you check on before you book a tour to make sure you don’t make the same expensive mistake that I did.

Granted, I’m doubly at fault for not clearly studying the itinerary and looking for the white spaces. Look for what was not being said. I should have checked that the country Morocco against the scaled map. I had no idea how big the country was. It’s 10% larger than California and we tried to see the whole country in less than two weeks. That’s my bad. That is a recipe for sitting on a van. In hindsight, I wish we’d done half as much touring but explored more deeply, more slowly when we got there. Slow travel is my preferred method these days and this Moroccan trip was definitely not slow travel. I came so close to baling peg, God bless her, had studied the itinerary. Good for you. Peg, you did your homework. So she was more mentally prepared than I was for this to be more of the snap and get on the van kind of a tour.

So I guess the bottom line is that I loved the country of Morocco, but I definitely did not mesh with the tour company. They were really nice. So it wasn’t that and I felt they were over ambitious in what they were trying to show their guests and I also felt like I was being nickeled and dimed, which I didn’t like. One really nice thing they did do was at the beginning they gave us a roll of small coins. For the pay toys in Morocco, you always have to pay for the toilet and it’s in the small little coins that I never got as change, so that was at least solved one major problem. And there’s one last thing before I get on. This is the kicker. I’m getting ready to leave for my trip. This is, I’m still in the U S getting ready to go on the first leg in the one month us and I get an email that my tours to bow the Jordan.

Remember this is the chore that started this whole big adventure and Egypt had been canceled because they didn’t have enough people. This is long after I bought my airline tickets and I had travel insurance so I could’ve gotten my cash back for the trips had I decided to cancel Egypt and Jordan, but shoot, I’m all the way over there. I had to scramble, but I was able to juggle the dates a little bit and find some other tours that had not been sold out and I was having problems finding unsold out tours. Again, another problem going a small, nondescript little company that most people don’t know about. She couldn’t get her tours filled up yet. I was having problems finding vacant spots in other tours at this late date. Fact, another adult listener, Margaret, who you met on the Antarctica episode mentioned afterwards that she was going to Petra and so I ended up going on the same tour that she went on except for a week later and I had a ball that was a good fit company that turned out great and for the Egypt trip I knew that was going to be strictly cultural and I was able to find a company that fit the bill for that that I was satisfied with.

I guess a bottom line is I got a bad taste in my mouth about my experience with this company, which I mainly blame on myself. And again, if you know what you’re getting into and the company manages your expectations, you’d either be fine with it or don’t book with them.

Yeah,

I truly consider myself more to blame for my dissatisfaction than with them except for the nickel and diming and I think a little bit of the falsifying about the lunch stuff. But like I said, I’ve had a lot of time to think about it and you know me, I’m a researcher, so between my notes and my research I’ve decided that this kind of expensive mistake will not happen again. So I put together a system to make sure you and I don’t make the same expensive mistake. So here we go.

Yeah.

These are the 12 questions that you need to have answered before you push that buy button before you book your next tour. Number one, we just want to kind of narrow down the field. There are thousands of tour companies out there and in particularly with the adventure travel, more and more popping up like mushrooms and it got to be particularly careful because there’s more of a safety issue involved with the venture tour companies. So you just want to kind of get like a, a brief overview of of a tour companies itinerary. If you’ve already chosen your destination, find some that are going to there and then look to see are they going to at least the key things that you would like to see in that destination. For example, Margaret on the Jordan chose to go with a company called explore because they were going to spend two days in Petra. Most companies only spend one day, so that was a, a very defining characteristic of the company that she chose.

I’ve got some links. I’m going to put it in the show notes of companies that can help you fine tune if you have no idea even where to start. There’s three good companies that will tell you these are good for solo or this is good for a specific destination or if you want to make sure that a company carries some heavy insurance to make sure they’re very safety conscious. In the show notes, I’m going to include three websites, tour, radar, stride travel and trip wing that can help you find tour companies. At least start your list. Cause like I said, there’s thousands of companies out there and we’ve got to at least start winning going down that list.

Yeah,

So once you’ve narrowed down to at least a handful of companies that are possibilities before you spend any more time investigating them, let’s first find out if they’re reputable. So here I’m going to recommend that you go to Trustpilot, Yelp, TripAdvisor, check out Facebook groups for the destination and look at the travel company reviews. Now remember, if you see a one star,

If people are upset, they’re going to usually take the time to do the bad reviews, but read the bad reviews because it could be some ridiculous thing like they couldn’t speak English in the country I was going to. And you’re going to a foreign country where that’s not their native tongue. You can’t expect everybody there to speak English. The taxi drivers couldn’t speak. They’re not expected to. So see if the review is something ridiculous like that. As long as your main guide speaks English or your native language that you’re going with, you’re fine. But just like I said, you might see some ridiculous things or is it something that you should be paying attention to? In general, you want about 80% or more of the reviews to be four or five stars.

If you start getting less than that, I’d probably cross them off the list, but I wouldn’t let one star reviews here and there eliminate that company because it could just be a disgruntled person or somebody that is totally unrealistic in their expectations. Like I couldn’t give them that Moroccan tour company a one because I was disappointed because I’m the one that should get the one star on that for not doing my homework. If I were looking for a get on the bus, get out and take a picture tour, they did great at that. Outside of the fact that they conned us a little bit on the lunches where it was not really free time, they would just trying to camouflage the true price of the tour. Other than that, I’d give them probably a three to three and a half stars. So once you’ve got a core group of tour companies to evaluate, now it’s important to check out the details and the pace of the tour. Is there a good balance of activities and if this is a heavy physical adventure, does the itinerary allow time for your body to rest in between activities and are you capable of doing the activities mentioned?

Okay.

If it’s something like a, a long distance hike or a bike ride, is there support van in case you get injured or your body just needs a rest, really check to make sure this trip meets your expectations and the tour operator has outlined those expectations for you.

Okay,

And really super important. Remember Margaret and Petra, how much time are you actually gonna be spending on the activities that most drew to this destination in the first place? If you’re an antiquities lover and you only get an hour at the main museum, is that going to be enough for you? Ask the time to ask is before you booked the buy button

[Inaudible]

You want to know does the activity level match your fitness level and your expectations? You don’t have to be at the fitness level to start with when you book it, but you have to be willing to train for it both for your own enjoyment and also in fairness to the other people on your trip. I’ll put a link to my podcast on training for your next adventure travel trip on the show notes for you. Even on the less adventurous trips you need to match you and the tour as far as how much you’re gonna be standing and walking and then you to look at how intense is the itinerary, how much time you actually can be spending on the bus. And this you’ve got the might have to ask cause it may not be laid out for you unless it’s really heavy like I saw in some of the competitive Moroccan tours. You want to know what is the pace of the tour

And don’t just try to read between the lines. Like I said, ask, ask how much time are you actually spending traveling from one place to the other and a really good indicator as how many times are you switching lodging? If when you’re looking at the itinerary, you see a lot of one night stands, that jelly means you spending a lot of time on the bus and spending a lot of time packing and unpacking, checking in and checking out. So keep that in mind. So for most trips, unless you’re backpacking where you’re going from one place to another, spending a couple of nights in one place multiple times is preferred.

If you’re going at a dizzying pace, you’re going to be on a check a lot of boxes like yeah, you saw this, you saw that, but you’re going to be frazzled. And for me, I find that a less satisfying experience. And do you want to come home and figurated or exhausted? The pace of a trip is really important and most trips are going to have travel days. So another important thing to check on as how is a tour company managing those travel days? In Morocco. We usually just had a pit stop to go the restroom or a shop stop. Even on the nine hour drive days of which there are many. We’d get out and take a picture and get back on the bus, have a pretty scenic thing, but it was some days, literally it was all van and maybe total an hour of activity, but compare that with my active adventurous trip to New Zealand and even on a long travel day, which I think we had two one one in particular long day, but they made sure that every couple hours we got out and we hide for a little bit and we saw something cool so they made an adventure even out of our travel days.

That was not my experience in Morocco.

[Inaudible]

Big difference in the company styles. Number four is super important. Do you have a local guide? Ask them about who, who’s going to be my guide? It doesn’t have to be the the specific name you want to find out, is it an employee? Is it somebody that they just go to the pool of available guides that day. Some tour companies do that, do they use licensed local guides and does the guide speak the language that you understand? Did they speak the local language so they can communicate with the locals? Is the guide an employee or a subcontractor doesn’t make a subcontract, doesn’t mean it’s a bad thing. You just want to understand what you’re getting yourself into. Did they use the same people all the time or do they get different people? Did they have a longterm relationship with the company? A passionate, knowledgeable local guide can make your trip. My guide in Beijing had the goal to become the curator of the forbidden city. Without him, I never would have appreciated so many of the nuances he brought to life for me in a culture I found so completely alien

[Inaudible]

And you want to know, does the guide actually explain the things that you’re experiencing or does she simply plan the logistics and drop you off? It’s pretty much what I had a bit in Egypt. The God was very knowledgeable, but he would only spend maybe 15 minutes explaining something important, telling us about what we’re about to see and then he left us wandering for about an while. He went off for coffee and a cigarette. Whereas the things that we were seeing in Egypt would be like the Beijing. I’d be totally clueless knowing when I was looking at, I really needed the guide to really hold my hand to really show me some of the things that I was seeing so I could really appreciate them. And if you contrast that with Beijing where literally that’s what he did, he was with us the whole time.

If we had free time, it was for things that it wasn’t important that we understood what we were looking at. It was either taking a walk or doing something fun, climbing the great wall. You can tell us about that. Then we climbed, he didn’t need to hold our hand climbing the wall, but when we were in the forbidden city or Tienanmen square, he was with us the whole time pointing out things to bring that area to life for us. Unfortunately, that’s not what I got in Egypt. Like I said, he was good but he wasn’t there the whole time. I’d give him a a for knowledge but a B minus for being there to find out and again you want to make sure the guide can speak your language fluently or else you’re fluent in the language of the tour

Asked to or look to see are you going to, a lot of the little craft shops if you’re doing that, and I don’t begrudge the guides this, they usually get a commission from the shop for bringing the tours to them and I bought things from them, but just because it’s easier and they definitely are of better quality than sometimes we’ll see in the markets, but if you’re spending a lot of times going and being ushered to these shops, the guide may be more interested in getting his commissions for the sales. Then he isn’t showing you his culture.

Plus I don’t like spending a whole lot of my time in the shops. I’d rather be out exploring and seeing the city or the countryside or wherever it is. I am a good question to ask too is what is the guide to guest ratio on a venture travel trips, you wouldn’t have at least two guides, particularly if you have any group more than six or so because if you’re on a hike, you want somebody in the front, in the back of the pack that knows where they’re going just for your safety and to accommodate people of different paces and you want to ask too, on adventure trips, does the guide have special training and first aid? Kind of important. Number five, does the tour company offer any special experiences, especially at the kind that would be very difficult for you to arrange on your own? This can include things like home stays or meals at a local’s home. I had tea with cocoa and a Messiah, Hutton Tanzania. I had lunch in Hutong in Beijing. I learned how to cook [inaudible] in Morocco. I love being able to see how the people actually live and to go into somebody’s home, but it’s kinda difficult doing that on your own. Sometimes that’s something a tour company could provide. You want to find out what kind of cultural emergent opportunities are available with the different tours that you’re considering.

Sometimes the company may have special access like we did with active adventures in New Zealand in two places. We went to one, a lodge was built specifically for them and their needs because they were such regular customers and then another we were allowed to actually sleep at Milford sound. Most people have to get up at three o’clock in the morning, get on a bus for five hours, go down, see the sound, get back on the bus and go back. We got to spend the night. That is a plus and that’s a special experience that only certain tour companies, in fact I think they are probably the only ones down there that could do that and that’s because of their special relationship and being based in that country. They know the people, they’ve been doing business with them for years, if not decades and they found some good companies.

But now I’m going to make sure it’s the right company for you. So now we want to look at the group dynamics and the size and finding out are these people, your people are the other guests, your people, and this is particularly important if you’re traveling solo because you want to make sure you’re joining group that matches your own demographics. I’m almost 60 years old. I do not want to travel with a bunch of 20 year olds. I don’t care how nice they are. I want to be around my people. I want to be with people that have had life experiences and not out to seeing how much they can drink that night. So how do you find out one good close. Look at the photos on the tour companies websites. Who are they trying to attract? That’s who’s going to be in the photos. Another thing you can look at is how nice is the lodging when there’s options. If it’s like down and dirty, you’re probably with the 20 year olds, but if you’re in a city and you’re in some little boutique in, it’s probably gonna skew a little bit older. You can also check out the about and the FAQ sections. The tour companies website for clues.

[Inaudible]

Look and you can find your people and this makes for a much more satisfying trip. That often ends up with some lifelong friendships.

I also like to look at the size of the group. I personally prefer like eight to 12 people. I find that small enough that you can fit into the little boutique Inns and other cool little guest houses, nice restaurants, the small little restaurants, but it’s large enough that I’m able to find several new friends. It’s also small enough that you’re not waiting forever at pit stops or checking in and checking out and all that kind of thing. That can be a little bit cumbersome with a large group. A large bus load of almost 50 people means just by nature. You can only stay at the large hotels. You can only eat at the big restaurants where the bus is able to fit in the parking place, so forget staying in the cute little Medina’s. In Morocco, you’re most likely going to be eating at touristy stops and touristy buffets for your meals. If you go to the big bus style, then now let’s look at the lodging. What kind of logic are you going to be staying in?

Like I mentioned, the logic can give you a clue to who the average traveler is for this particular tour group, but not always. You might find situations that you may not have other options. Again, I’m gonna go back to the New Zealand trip. When we were hiking the Angeles circuit, there was only one option, the huts, the mountain hut, so we were in like a dorm style cabin on top of a mountain and that was great. I had no problem with that, but I can’t judge the quality of the tour based on that because that was the only option. When there are options, that’s where you can tell do they put you in a cute little boutique Inns or put you in a yurt or something really interesting that makes it a really fun experience. Or are you going to a big box chain hotel? Are you in the heart of the historic district or are you out in the outskirts where a, the bus can fit and B, it saves the tour company some money, but now you’re spending time going back and forth to town every day. Remember when you’re traveling with a large bus, you’re often going to stay where it’s convenient for the bus to park and that’s also going to dictate the size of your accommodation. Whether your tour is a luxury one or cheap one, a big bus is almost always going to mean an impersonal hotel

And should you have any special needs, you got to find out whether you can comfortably stay in the places that they’ve selected. Do you need an elevator? A lot of places in the world don’t have those

And the lodging works out. Number eight, what’s the plan for the meals? Which meals are included and do these meals showcase the local flavors and dishes or are you going to the touristy buffets? What kind of choices do you have of restaurants for meals that aren’t included? And like I said, find out the meals that aren’t included. Do you have a choice of the restaurants? That was the big no-no of probably everything that got my craw. Morocco was, I’m just not included as part of our tour yet all but maybe one day we were forced to eat the same meal with everybody, so there weirdly was no freedom of choice or time to me, all group activities should be part of the group price, the tour price, and when you have choice, that should also indicate freedom. I had mistakenly assumed that we’d be wandering around some cool town during lunchtime and be able to pick out our restaurant, but that was not the case.

We would be driving, get out to eat at the pre-selected restaurant with a preselected meal at the preselected price and then individually pay for it, which to me, like I said, if we’re doing a group activity that should be part of the tour price and should be built in accordingly. I didn’t like the fact that, Oh, it’s 39 95 for the tour, but then we have all these meals that we’re doing as a group that we paid for separately. Again, I just thought that was a little bit misleading. I also think she was trying to keep the tour price under that $4,000 price point. I did not think that was right. If you have any special dietary requirements, can the tour company accommodate you and at the reviews people are into their food. Look at the comments about the food. Did they say, Oh my God, the food is fantastic or are there no comments about the food or their bad comments about the food?

Number nine, this is particularly important for venture tours. How safety conscious is the tour company. Those of us from the U S and some other countries might feel, ah, you know everywhere we go is always perfectly certified and all that. A lot of countries, that’s not the case. So particularly for traveling to some countries that their safety standards may not be what you’re used to find out. If the tour company holds themselves to a high standard, you want to ask if the guides are trained in first aid and carrier supplies in Nicaragua. They didn’t. I was comfortable with that answer, but I made sure that I brought my own beeped up. Emergency kit, I’ll put a link to the show on what to pack in your emergency kit. Also in the show notes,

If you’re going really deep in the wild, are the guides trained in wilderness first aid? Did they carry a satellite phone in case of an emergency? If, if there’s no cell reception. If you’re going in equipment like bungee cords or zip lines, do they have to have the equipment certified or inspected? Find out that’s kind of important and speaking of equipment, let’s move to number 10 provided equipment. If there’s equipment being provided, is it a good quality and condition? You certainly don’t want to sleep in a ratty old sleeping bag that hadn’t been cleaned or discover while it’s raining that your 10 has been poorly patched. If any equipment is being provided before you book any adventure tour, ask the company that’s providing the gear about the brand’s quality and condition of the equipment. How old is that key equipment and is it being melt, well-maintained?

Number 11 if this is important to you, is the tour company eco-friendly and is it supporting the local economy? What chunk of the dollars that you’re spending is going to the local economy? Are they hiring local guides? Doing the local homestays shopping in the local stores, buying the food for the trips and the local stores? What is their commitment to the environment? But that’s a big trend right now. So don’t just pay attention. Oh yeah, we’re eco friendly to ask what their policy or the commitment is to the environment and then ask for examples because many companies realizing that this is important to their clients might fudge just a little bit in their generalities. And lastly, a note, I waited to the very end to compare the cost of the various tour groups and I purposely did that because if you don’t select the right tour company for you, it’s not gonna make a bit of difference how cheap that tour was because you’re not going to enjoy it the way you should.

You are going to remember forever how much fun you had or how much fun you didn’t have. But you’re probably not going to remember how much it costs you. I’m not saying that cost isn’t important, but I am saying that costs should be way lower down the priority list of the factors you need to consider before you buy a tour and there’s several components of costs when it comes to a group or even a self guided tour. You need to know and it’s very important to know what’s not included and that is just as important to know what’s not included as it is what is included

On the download that I’ll be providing for this episode, I put together a handy little spreadsheet to help you compare the different tour companies so you can see in black and white on one piece of paper what a tour is offering or not offering to make it easy for you to make a good solid choice. You can also download it free by just going to the website for this episode when you’re on my website, just type in tour in the search bar and that’ll bring you right to the corresponding page for this episode. If it’s unlikely that you’re ever going to visit a place again provided that you can afford it. Costs should be minimized as a consideration. If the place is important enough that you’re willing to spend your precious vacation, time and money getting there, make sure you experience it the way that you want to. Even if it means less travel, do the trip the way that you want to do it. This doesn’t necessarily mean it’s going to be expensive, but you want to buy the tour that’s best fits all the criteria and all the vetting you’ve done on the above items

And I want you to pay attention to to a sneaky expense that you got to consider. Pay attention to where the tour begins and ends. It can cost you more than you expect if you have to use one way tickets or you need to get back to your starting point in order to take advantage of a great round trip fare. I like the free app, Rome to Rio. That helps me see at a glance what my different options are for travel one way as well as what the costs are.

Google flights is also helpful for getting an idea of fair information as well. If you carefully consider these 12 criteria before you choose a tour company for your next vacation, I’m betting you’re going to have an Epic time, but before we leave I’ve got a few final tips on choosing a tour company. Number one, pay attention to the company’s cancellation policy. If for some reason you need to cancel or they decide to cancel like what happened to me, what’s the deal? I was lucky. I bought travel insurance for my trip and I hope that you’ll use my link of it when you buy travel insurance that helps support the program. I’ll put a link to that in the show notes, but anyway, the travel insurance, if I wanted to use it would have given my money back for the two tours that were canceled. No, I wouldn’t be out any out-of-pocket for the fact that the tour was canceled through no fault of my own, but sometimes you might have to cancel for family reasons.

Let’s say something happened to my mom and I couldn’t go or I had to leave right away. That’s when the travel insurance would kick in for there, but the tour company is not going to give you your money back. That’s tough to hoodies for you on that. But often they’ll have a percentage that they’ll give back when you’re certain days out, up to usually like 90 days or whatever, but some do, some don’t. So check to see what is the cancellation policy particular, if you’re not quite sure what you’re going to be able to do or you’ve some things in life that might be a possibility that could put a snafu into your travel plans.

Yeah,

Pay attention to whether the company is faster, slow and respond to your emails or chats. And just remember sometimes who you’re talking to might be on the other side of the world in different time zones. So give them like at least some leeway there. But if they’re really slow at getting back to you, like I had some real problems with the companies I was trying to deal with in Israel, that’s a red flag. Figuring that maybe actually move on to a different company.

You can also look to see does the tour company offer different prices for different seasons? Particular if you want to do something that’s a little bit more expensive going in the shoulder season might save you a significant amount of money. And for me, I usually find the weather’s nicer and it’s less crowded so I actually prefer the shoulder season myself. And does the company offer last minute deals if they have unsold slots? That’s how Margaret snagged a great deal to get Tay Antarctica. Some tour companies have to book the permits in entrance fees long time in advance and then if they haven’t sold those, they’re out of pocket on those things. So you might get a little flash sale if so, get on their email list. So you’ll be aware of those if you’re able to do last minute travel.

And lastly, if I’ve covered the destination on the actor travel adventures podcast, I do a free travel planning guide for every single destination. So if you go to the website, active travel adventures.com and use the searchable directory, put in the location that you want to go to and see what pops up. If I’ve done that, I’ve got a free download that saves you a ton of time. These travel planners are super helpful. On one page you’ve got everything you need to know about the country in order to plan your trip from the average weather to figure out when to go the state department safety recommendations as well as visa requirements, a currency converter, a language converter, airport information, best ways to get to and from other helpful hints, itinerary information, and a recommended tour company. If you’d like to do something similar to what we discussed on the podcast and so much more and it’s free, I hope you’ll also join my email list where I send out one solo email a month that includes whatever free guides or downloads I did for the previous month and sometimes it’ll have some deals or whatnot, but it just allows us to have a conversation back and forth off the podcast and via email.

You don’t have to write me back, but if you want to, I’d love getting your emails back. [inaudible] That’s, that’s how I met peg. That’s how I met Margaret. So please, you know, respond when, when you get my email, write me back. Let me know what’s going on in your life. I loved hearing from you. So I’m not, not just me and a microphone and I promise I don’t spam you. You can unsubscribe anytime you want. Like I said, I want this to be a two way street, so it always just write me at kit, at active travel adventures.com and here’s another important thing to check out before you choose a tour company. Ask them how long the company has run the tour that you’re considering. If it’s a new tour, there’s probably going to be a couple of logistical kinks, but they can sometimes offer some value while they’re working out those kinks. You may want to know who’s actually running the tour. Is it being subbed out? My tour on my rafting trip was with adventure women who subcontracts that with Roy adventures. I haven’t got no problem that road ventures is a great company. So, but I like to know who’s actually running the tour because I certainly want to check them out as well. Another good question. As you tour companies, what makes them and this tour special and then wait and see how they answer.

I hope you’ll use this 12 point system the next time you’re choosing a tour company and I hope it helps you. If I missed something that you think I should add, please let me know. I’m trying to make it exhaustive side did not make that booboo again and I want to make sure nobody else does either. I think that’s been pretty comprehensive, but if I miss a thing, be sure to let me know. I’ve got a really cool trip coming up that I’m working on in training for right now. I’m going to be walking the Portuguese El Camino and who I’ve got less than two months to finish training. Excited about that. So after you’ve done that, please let me know if you’ve got some tips or advice on that. I’m looking forward to doing that as well. And I’m sure I’ll have a show about that sometime this summer. And with that, I’ll sign off. I really appreciate you listening and I hope you’ll share this program. Until next time, this is kit parks at venture on.