September-October 2003
Sadly, I have to admit I have done a Contiki tour 
Not my first time to Europe, but I wanted to see some slightly more out of the way places than Paris and London. So I was in the UK for a year for various reasons and decided that I should see more of Europe before I came back to Australia. A visit to a local travel agent in England resulted in the suggestion that a Contiki tour would allow me to see a widely varied number of places in Europe in a reasonably short period of time. It sounded like a great idea at the time, since I was working and couldn’t take a great deal of time off. Hindsight is always 20/20 isn’t it?
I booked myself on a multi-country Contiki tour, which I am struggling to recall the name of. It went through the UK, Belgium, Netherlands, France, Italy, Austria, Switzerland, Germany, Czech Republic…Probably a couple of others that elude me right now. And it did all this in about 3 weeks!
The people on the bus were a varied bunch. It did of course have the 18 year old high school grads who were on their first overseas trip and were just there to piss it up. Then there were the odd few in their mid-30’s who were just looking to relive a bit of their youth. Most were somewhere in their mid-20’s. It wasn’t a massive party group that’s for sure, but we all liked to go out for a few drinks. The funniest of the group were a couple of London boys of Indian descent. Imagine Harold and Kumar go to White Castle? These two were Harold and Kumar down to a tee! They actually missed the bus one morning as we were leaving Munich (by sheer luck we happened to be there for Oktoberfest!). They managed to catch us up in the next city IIRC. But fuck they were funny.
Moving on, the hotels? Not the best by any means, but Contiki generally sticks you in to share a room with a member of your own sex if you’re travelling on your own. Means you don’t have to pay a single supplement which keeps the costs down. But the rooms were ok, you got your own bathroom and there were twin beds. Some of the hotels don’t have lifts though, so having to carry your backpack/suitcase up lots of stairs can be a bit of a pain in the ass.
The costs? Be aware that very few meals are provided on these trips. You’ll generally get some kind of continental breakfast when you’re staying at the hotels. Very basic though. Aside from that, you’re largely on your own for lunches and dinners. So be aware that the cost of eating out twice a day can add up very very quickly. Especially since you’re always in tourist towns that are notoriously expensive by default. Also, be aware that your tour director for the trip and the bus driver expect about £3-4 /day each as a tip at the end of the tour. So for a 3 week tour, be prepared to be asked for at least £80 from each of them. It’s fucked, but it’s kind of just sprung on you. You also need to budget for all of the optional extra bits. Like for example, they’ll drop you in Paris and you’re left entirely to your own devices. So you’ll need to go buy your own Metro passes and buy your own ticket to go up the Eiffel Tower and buy your own museum entry tickets to Musée de Louvre or Musée d’Orsay. Contiki offers all that stuff at an extra cost, so don’t expect anything like that to be included in your original tour price. Whatever the base price is for your particular tour, you can basically expect to spend almost that much again to cover the costs of food, tips/local payments and the optional extras. Souveneirs on top of that.
What I liked about it? I did get to see a lot of Europe that I may not have otherwise visited. I was travelling with a good group of people who weren’t all about the legendary party reputation that Contiki seems to have. I went at a good time of year, the summer rush was over and it was starting to cool down and the crowds weren’t quite as chaotic.
What I didn’t like? We were never in one place for long enough. I know that this is sort of the point so that you can get to see as much of Europe as possible, but it really annoyed me in the end. I have since been back to Europe several times and gone back to places that I visited on the Contiki tour that I wanted to spend more time in. I didn’t like the fact that they sprang extra costs on you that were never outlined in the original tour brochure. Perhaps things have changed since I did my tour and they actually tell you the additional costs in advance. I didn’t like the fact that we were just regualrly dumped in the middle of a new city and left to fend for ourselves without maps or anything. I thought the tour director was there to occasionally guide us around a new city rather than just someone who sits on the bus with us and then disappears as soon as we got off the bus somewhere. It’s not that I’m incapable of finding my way around a new city and doing my own thing, it’s just not what I thought I’d paid for.
Would I recommend Contiki? It depends really. If you’re interested in certain cities in depth, then no. You never spend long enough anywhere to actually get any real appreciation for a place. If you’re just looking to see a lot of Europe and taking lots of photos and don’t really care about spending any time getting to know a place, then sure. If you’re looking for a party and to piss it up in as many places as you can rack up and don’t care as much about the sightseeing, then absolutely!
I can’t say I made any lasting friends on that trip. I wouldn’t do another Contiki tour, but that’s just me. Contiki really isn’t for eveyrone. I imagine it’s probably good if it’s your first overseas trip, but for people who’ve done a bit of travelling before, you’ll find it pretty restrictive.
I’m not averse to doing other group tours in the future, in fact I’m doing one over the summer, but that’s more of a grassroots type tour in a country that I would never ever consider travelling around on my own. I’ll post the details of that trip when I get back in the new year!
