Contiki Tours
The main company offering organised tours around Europe for young people is Contiki who cater for the 18 to 35 age group. There are loads of different tours to choose from going to pretty much every destination in Europe for varying legths of time and with choices in accommodation ranging from camping to top hotels.

The tours are quite expensive when compared with organising the same thing on your own, but Contiki is sold as an entire experience rather than just as a way to get around Europe. Partying is a huge part of Contiki and you're guaranteed to meet loads of new friends and have a lot of drunken nights if that's what you want out of your trip.

People who want to concentrate less on the drinking binges and more on the sights will be pleased because Coniki Tours generally cram a lot of places into a short amount of time. So travellers who only have a little while to spend in Europe will still be able to get to see a lot of different countries and many of the main attractions.

Thoughts from a Contiki Customer
Apparently my Contiki tour covered 11 countries - though maybe we didn't necessarily stop in all of them. I can barely remember everywhere we went now actually - party due to the fact that it was over two years ago and partly due to the fact that I was drunk nearly every day.

Our tour group consisted of about 40 or so people, mostly Aussies, quite a few Americans, a few Kiwis, couple of Canadians couple of Malaysians and and one Saffa. Everyone got on really well - we had an awesome group of people. Contikis have a reputation of being basically a feral, Aussie dominated drinking binge/sex tour. This is pretty spot on.

It is worth adding that if you're not into the above you will still have fun on a Contiki tour. You get an extremely well organised, informative tour while seeing all the main sites and getting to spend your time with great people. You are totally spoon fed all the information you need on all the countries you visit, told when to meet back at the bus, how much spending money to take for each activity, what time to wake up etc etc. As a result the trip is a little inflexible but on the other hand is great for a no brainer holiday - particularly if you're limited with your time.

Depending on what sort of trip you're after, this could sound attractive or possibly a little off-putting. In my situation I was a first time traveller and I found it to be a great orientation for Europe. Personally, I would not be a tour gimp on an organised holiday again and since this trip have preferred to travel independently. The Contiki was a great start to my travels though - I met some friends for life and had so much fun.

We had a few couples on our tour who were great however the best advice I can give anyone going on a Contiki is this: leave your girlfriends/boyfriend behind - as featured in the Contiki what to pack/leave behind booklet!

Kim Ryan
July 2004