Youthful Tour Companies

July 22, 2004 7:20 AM

What are the big "youth"/age-limited guided tour companies around the world? Contiki is big in Europe but I'm looking for something elsewhere due to the sucky dollar.
posted by smackfu to travel & transportation (5 comments total)

The Experience network (Oz/Kiwi/Feejee) do adventure tours for independent travellers in Australasia, which is still cheap compared to the US. They tend to draw a young crowd.
posted by rory at 8:29 AM on July 22, 2004

Nomads covers Oz, Canada, Fji Indoesia, NZ, Thailand, UK, & Vietnam.

Stray covers NZ after having the EU branch go bust.

Moose Network and Busabout hits Canada and Europe respectively while Baz Bus covers South Africa.

Those are the ones I can think of off the top of my head, but I am more familiar with the EU based companies.
posted by romakimmy at 8:52 AM on July 22, 2004

Baz Bus is not guided, nor are Oz/Kiwi/Fiji Experience. In fact, excepting Nomad's, none of the ones listed above are tours, per se. They are hop-on hop-off bus networks.

The key difference is that you are not tied to a group. Instead, you have a ticket has a defined validity in terms of length (6 months/12 months) and route (including the number of times you can traverse certain sectors). Also your accomodation and food is not included in the price you pay initially.

They are great if you want to get from a-b via x, y and z and have all the time in the world. They are not so good if you want to get from a-b, via just v and w in a very short amount of time.

Try Toucan tours for South America, Acacia for Southern Africa or Trek America for some incredible US tours.

There is a direct competitor for Contiki in Australia/New Zealand. I'm buggered if I can remember what they're called though! I'll track it down tomorrow and post.
posted by davehat at 9:30 AM on July 22, 2004

Just to note, the one's I've listed above are not age limited, but since the bulk of their orders come through being prefered suppliers to STA travel, the bulk of their bookings should be the demographic you're after.
posted by davehat at 9:32 AM on July 22, 2004

(I meant to add originally that I like Contiki but they raised their prices insanely from the ones in the 2004 brochure I have. $1200 to $1800 in one case.)
posted by smackfu at 11:14 AM on July 22, 2004