Has anyone taken Trafalgar tours in the western US? I am considering the 14 day Scenic Parks Explorer, and am comparing with Insight and Caravan. How much extra should I expect to spend on optionals? Most of the postings concern travel in Europe. Thanks for any info.

Hello,

We're going to take the National Parks tour in August - I'm looking around also for some input on the U.S. tours and I haven't seen anything. Maybe this is new for Trafalgar?

Hopefully it will be a fun trip!

I have posted a message concerning the Scenic Parks Explorer also. We are thinking about taking the tour next August. I am looking for some input also. We have taken a Tauck Tour and I am looking for some comparisons. I am interested in the hotels and the meals, also the expense of the the optionals. Let me know if you get any info. Can you tell me what sold you on the Trafalgars tours?

Caravan Tours is great and very reasonably priced. Their tours are all $995 and usually includes everything. I took them with family to Copper Canyon, was super great. They have a western us tour for $995 Yellowstone, Mt Rush etc, have not taken, but have heard good.
Tauck is also really great, but a bit more pricey. Trafalgar sells a lot of stuff on tour, so actual travel price is higher than when bought. Collette is also good.

My daughter (10) and I just returned from the Scenic Parks Explorer trip. This was a wonderful trip - we left with may wonderful memories.

We started out at the Las Vegas Hilton, which was ok. A nice hotel with a nice pool, but it was off of the Las Vegas Strip. The LV monorail is now running, but we didn't use it on this trip.

I was very afraid that everything would be very hot and very crowded at this time of year, but the only park that I really felt was crowded was the Grand Canyon. All other parks were lovely and we had wonderful weather the entire time! (However the day after we left Denver we heard that Denver got completely flooded wtih rain and the streets were also flooded - we were lucky!)

The bus was wonderful. Occassionally they would should a movie (one time a John Wayne movie, one time an informational Indian movie, and Chevy Chases' Las Vegas Vacation). . Other times they would play music that was appropriate to the area.

Before each stop our tour guide would tell us the history of the area and interesting things to know about the places we were visiting.

We had a wonderful bus drive (Richard) and a wonder tour guide (Donerd). . They were both very laid back and never got upset over anything - or at least never let it show!

The stops between places were varied - sometimes at a supermarket to pick up picnic lunches or fruit or things you may have forgotten to pack, sometimes right in a city (like Vail) where you could walk around, and sometimes at tiny rest stops.

There weren't a lot of optional excursions, however we went on most. The Rapid City Bear Country / Mt Rushmore at night was very nice - the baby bears were a ball to watch; we took a Canyon river boat ride that was ok - but the light show on the boat ride broke / the Grand Canyon IMAX movie was nice / and the Grand Canyon helicopter ride was absolutely incredible and shouldn't be missed!!

We met wonderful people on our tour (Hi Betty from New Zealand and Pam and Mike and Charles), from all different age groups and all different parts of the world.

The breakfasts were mostly buffet (eggs, bacon, cereal, juice). . The dinners were varied - some ok, some incredible. The hotels were also mixed - some lodges, some very nice hotels.

I like Caravan Tours as they sell no optionals on tour. This suits me fine as the tour director does not badger me with sales pitches. But, I suppose you miss out on some cool optionals. In life you gotta choose.

Ive done tours in america and ive always chosen to go with ATI (american tours international) they have good itineraries, great optionals and also amazing tour directors.