Tours
Guided, escorted, specialty, and packaged tours to the U.K.
Leave the planning to the experts and the background research to a trained guide with a tour—whether the classic motorcoach trip, a more active trip by horse, bike, or foot, or an educational tour or study trip.
In this section you'll find information on all the ways to see Great Britain with someone else doing the planning and taking care of all the details. That means resources for finding and booking tours in all of the following categories:
Hiking, biking, kayaking, ballooning, horseback and other active tours of the United Kingdom
Tours for women, gays, the disabled, seniors, pilgrims, families, and students
Guided tours let you sit back and enjoy yourself while someone else does the driving and an expert guides you around the top sights
Escorted tours
- Viator.com - Offers a multitude of multi-day trips, from two days exploring beyond London, to three days of Welsh Castles, to five days of Cornwall or a week in the Scottish Highlands and Orkney Islands.Partner
- Cietours.com - Specialist in British Isles Tours—Ireland, Scotland, England, and Wales.
- Bmit.com - Specialist in British Isles Tours—Ireland, Scotland, England, and Wales.
- Gate1travel.com - Good generalist tour company.
- Realadventures.com - Several dozen tours from multiple companies and on various themes across the U.K.Partner
- Ricksteves.com - PBS superstar Rick Steves runs a highly successful tour company that really tries to highlight all the best of the independent travel style espoused in his books and TV show in a group format. I've bumped into several of his tour groups in Europe over the years, and the participants always gush about what a great time they're having. He also keeps his groups smaller than most (24 to 28 travelers versus the 40 to 60 many big companies cram onto the bus), and the smaller the group, the more authentic the experiences each member is going to have (to say nothing of more room on the bus). (Disclosure: I know Rick, but have recommended his product long before that, even if we were once guidebook competitors!)
- Sceptrevacations.com - Escorted and custom group tours of England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland, plus many great vacation packages.
- Roadscholar.org - The travel company formerly known as Elderhostels (and, briefly, Exploritas) is devoted to "Adventures in lifelong learning," and aimed at travelers 50 and over. These are educational trips, often coordinated by universities, with nearly 70 trips in or including England, Scotland, and Wales. Your days are packed with seminars, lectures, field trips, and sightseeing, all led by academics or expert tour guides. Programs range from one to four weeks. They also offer cruises, intergenerational trips (i.e.: bring the grand kids), and outdoors adventures.
- Abercrombiekent.com - One of the best tour companies in the world—with prices to match! If you can afford it, you will love it.
- Oattravel.com - Small group adventures, with a focus on mature solo travelers.
- Contiki.com - Tours of England, Scotland, and beyond, aimed at younger travelers.Partner
- STA Travel - Tours of England and Scotland aimed at students and other young travelers.Partner
- Goway.com - Good generalist tour and package company.
- Tripmasters.com - Another good generalist tour and package company.
- Smartours.com - Good, basic tour company with a smaller roster of carefully crafted tours at decent prices.
- Brendanvacations.com - Specialists in Ireland and Scotland.
- intrepidtravel.com -
Though rarely do they have U.K. offerings, Intrepid Travel is well worth checking out. it is one of only two only major tour outfits I know (along with G Adventures) of that makes a concerted effort to travel like real independent travelers—small groups (max of 12 people), staying in mom-and-pop accommodations and getting around by public transport rather than a big tour bus.
This fantastic Australian company marries an independent travel style with the expertise of truly knowledgeable guides and a focus on the cultural experience of travel.
Intrepid really does run a different breed of group tour. Let me put it this way: When my parents—who travel widely and on their own and normally would never have even considered taking a group tour—suddenly found themselves with airfare to Japan but no time to plan a trip, I suggested they try booking with Intrepid. They did—and they have raved about it every since. Nearly seven years later, they were still in touch with their guide via email.
Partner - Gadventures.com - G Adventures is an excellent small-group adventurous tour operator. Not much on the U.K. at present—save for a small ship adventure sailing the Scottish islands and Norway coast—but worth checking out.Partner
- Backroadstouring.com - British-based tour company devoted to getting off the beaten path and avoiding the highways.
Vacation packages
- Go-today.com - Hands-down the cheapest and best packager of air-hotel vacations out there (along with fly-drive packages). They seem to operate under a "we will not be undersold" attitude, and their exceptionally low rates on basic, (largely) six-night city breaks reflect that. I used them once for a family trip to Paris, and everything went pretty smoothly. One drawback: it's Net-only; you have to pay extra for customer service on the phone
- Gate1travel.com - One of the consistently cheapest tour providers around. They cover the entire world and offer a range of travel "products" from air-hotel packages to escorted tours.
- Sceptrevacations.com - Among other packages, does excellent air-car-B&B week-long escapes in England and Scotland (I've done the Ireland one, and it's a great deal). Also has standard air-hotel packages.
- Untours.com - Sort of like the Platinum Edition of a vacation package, taking care of all the major costs, details, and logistics but leaving you to plan your daily sightseeing and travels. For one price, you get airfare over there, some form of transport (rental car in Scotland; Travelcard in London), an apartment, and a local contact who will help you get settled in, show you the ropes, then be on-call to help with questions. You also usually have one activity during the course of the week when all other "untour" participants in your area are invited to get together.
- Expedia.com - The big booking engine can also bundle air-and-hotel, air-and-car, or air-hotel-car into a vacation package.Partner
- Hotwire.com - Hotwire can bundle air and hotel together, or air-car, or even air-car-hotels.Partner
- Hotels.com - This famous lodging booker can also bundle in airfare.Partner
- Tripmasters.com - Good generalist vacation package and tour company.
Active tours
- RealAdventures.com - This is not a tour operator or travel agency, but rather a clearing for independent tour operators, local adventure outfitters, and vacation agencies to offer their trips and tours direct to consumers. As such, it offers a potpourri of trips around the world, from single-day experiences to two-week tours, and they run the gamut from ballooning or biking to walking holidays, cooking schools, and much, much more.Partner
- Infohub.com - Not a tour company, rather a kind of aggregator of trips offered by tour companies—hiking and biking tours all across the U.K., plus barge-and-bike tours of the Thames in England, birding or fly-fishing in Wales, and kayak tours of Scotlands lochs, islands, or coast. Infohub casts one of the largest nets over the industry, listing some 14,000 tours offered by 4,000 operators in more than 100 categories, with more than 200 tours in England, nearly 100 in Scotland, and 65 in Wales.Partner
- Viator.com - Best place to search for one-day active and outdoor adventures (along with a few mutli-day treks)—from hiking and biking to kayaking, surfing, fishing, caving, whitewater rafting, rock climbing, sailing, skydiving, off-roading, and more. You'll have to search England, Scotland, and Wales independently, but there are dozens upon dozens of adventures in each. Partner
- Rei.com - America's greatest co-op chain of outdoors gear stores also offers active vacation—like walking tours of England and Scoltand, and some family multi-sport tours.
- Gadventures.com - G Adventures is an excellent small-group adventurous tour operator. Not much on the U.K. at present—save for a small ship adventure sailing the Scottish islands and Norway coast—but worth checking out.Partner
- Djoserusa.com - Excellent small-group tour company based out of the Neterhlands. Not much in the U.K.—though the 8-day Wales Walking tour is nice—but also worth checking out.
- Sierraclub.org/outings - Yes, the premier outdoors network of the USA also plans lots of trips abroad, including ones in Europe, like the England Coast-to-Coast walk, or Adventures in the Scottish Highlands.Partner
- Exodustravels.com - Adventure travel and trips, including self-guided walking adventures in the U.K.
