I have been on many contiki tours and have enjoyed all of them. Contiki is a great company and I have only good things to say about them. I have out grown them though. I am not at the age cut off yet but am soon approaching. Does anyone know of any travel companies that are as fun as contiki but for people that are a little older? Maybe 25-35 range. Thanks.
It depends on which part of the world you would like to go. If you want to go to Europe for a holiday like experience rather than a full on party consider www.kumuka.com Most people are aged around the mid 20-early 30 mark.Its a pretty flexible form of travelling which emphasizes the free time , independent travelling aspect. This video can give you an idea: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-SmQHpSV9U
Trafalgar offer "Breakaway" tours which are for 18-38 year olds. A (single) friend of mine recently did a tour with them and said the crowd was mainly older with a fair few couples on board.
I have done a couple of "normal" Trafalgar tours in the past too and, although the majority of the group was probably 40-60 there were some youngens (20's) on the bus too. I actually liked travelling with a slightly older crowd and there were still some people on the bus (say late 40's) that were awesome to hang around with without wanting to be smashed everynight!
Top deck is run in a similiar fashion to that of Contiki's. These are all predominantly party style tours with theme nights, lots of late nights and are pretty fast paced demanding experiences.
A young person, utilising a tour company like Insight, Trafalgar, Cosmos, Globus will kind of feel out of place as the predominant age group is around 60+.
If you're after a holiday like experience the only guaranteed way is to do it totally independent of tours-i.e the backpacking route or prebooked hotels, budget flights, Eurorail, local buses, car hire. This way you can decide how long you would like to stay, what you would like to do, who you would like to hang out with.
All tour companies will have their hit and miss aspect.If its a hit , then it will be a really fantastic experience , if its a miss the experience will then be a total dissappointment.
I too have also enjoyed touring with Contiki, but feel like I have out grown it. Top Deck are pretty much the same as Contiki, with the younger crowd.
I have booked next year with Kumuka (some1 already mentioned them above). As it seems to be more late 20's early to mid 30's & some 40's.. I did look into the breakaway as that was my first choice, but Kumuka had a better value for money.
Bunnie, Kumuka is a good choice if you want to have a holiday like experience.This is the only company which I've used which utilises the Eurostar to cross into continental Europe. It saves lots of time in comparison to ferry crossings. They tend to use real centrally located 3 star or above hotels( Australian standard). There is a lot of free time.
The number of participants are also smaller around the 20-25 or less mark so everyone usually mingles with each other and there aren't cliques forming- generally speaking no cool or cold cliques.Its like a group of new friends travelling together kind of situation.
They use local guides to show you the main attractions of that city, place and after that you have a significant ammount of free independent exploration, activities, anything you like to fill in the day. At night they take you to local restaurants, cafes where locals have their meals and after that if you would like to experience the nightlife, the tm's then recommend local pubs, clubs. Most tour participants tend to have a social wind down drink after a day's touring rather than initiate drinking, sculling competitions, drinking games, etc.
Intrepid is also worth looking into. There are no age restrictions, though the lower end tours tend to attract younger people. the groups are smaller too. They're not known for their europe itineraries, but more for SE Asia, but worth looking at. They tend to utilize local transport.
My 29 year old bro did a topdeck tour of Europe last year and found that the majority of those on the bus were older and/or couples, or 18-20 year olds just there to get smashed. Safe to say he didn't have the "greatest" time, and he ended up leaving the tour early.
Posts: 66 | Location: Melbourne, Australia | Registered: 26 Jan 2009
yeah thats why i chose to do NZ on my own rather than go with Contiki. Get more time at what you want to do etc. I got some girls in my dorm who are from the Magic and Kiwi Experience buses, and they said they get annoyed having to be on a strict iteniary and feeling forced to do activities which blow out the budget.
Definitely check out Kumuka, and Real Gap, also known as Gap Year For Grown Ups, who specialise in different kinds of round the world breaks for all different age groups.
Gecko's is a good one, but it depends where you want to go, as they don't do Europe tours but do Africa, Chins, India, Latin America, Middle East and South East Asia. It's not parting like contiki though....
