Would love to hear your experience with Road Scholar trips. We have done Tauck and my guess is based on the price this may be a lower "level" than Tauck offers but was curious if you have any other comments about the trip. This would be a family trip (us in our late 40s and kids 10 & 8) and were thinking of the Badlands & Mount Rushmore one. Thanks!We recently did a Road Scholar tour and while we were much younger than the average also, I was happy that the mix was not doctors and lawyers. (Full disclosure, I AM a doctor.) It was a great mix of careers from engineers to musicians to a Red Cross volunteer coordinator. Many of the women had their own careers, though mid everyone was retired at that point. What tied them together was an active curiosity of the world. I did in fact make a good friend and she and I are traveling the Canadian Rockies this Fall. That said, they are not luxury tours, though we did have a fabulous guide 24/7.
Japan still seems to be very much a cash based society. Many places in the mountain areas were cash only, but many restaurants and souvenier stands in the cities were also cash only. We had about a 2-3 day period where access to ATMs was limited, and one family ran out of cash. Our lead guide loaned cash to them until they could get to an ATM in Kyoto.
This surprises me. I bought a bunch of traveler's checks (I know) because I had heard this and I ended up not needing them because I used my credit card so much. I only did spend a day in Kyoto though.
Didn't mean to imply credit cards aren't widely used. But we found it not nearly as prevalent in some of the places, even in Tokyo. Certainly the hotels and larger sites accepted credit cards. For example, we went to a couple of local ramen restaurants in Tokyo (mostly locals there) which were cash only. When we got our Pasmo cards for the subway it was cash only (the machines where you load money onto the card did not take credit cards). Each of the 3 of us had a Pasmo card with $20 initially loaded onto it, so that was $60 in cash. Entrance fees to many of the sites were cash only, and obviously some of the shops and stores (especially smaller ones) were cash only. Another example was one of the woman on the tour booked a massage through the ryoken we were at. She thought she could put the cost of it on the room, but couldn't as it was a cash only payment. So, it is things like that to be wary of.
Would love to hear your experience with Road Scholar trips. This would be a family trip (us in our late 40s and kids 10 & 8) and were thinking of the Badlands & Mount Rushmore one. Thanks!
They do offer some family trips, and also grandparent/grandchild trips. The age ranges for kids are small though for a lot of them, so if you have multiple kids and/or a large age gap, it can be tricky to find ones that everyone can do. They have some interesting options though.Does Road Scholar do family trips? I thought they catered to seniors.
@RSM On your Thomson Japan trip, did the group visit Nara during the Kyoto portion of your trip? I'm trying to determine if we should add an extra day in Kyoto at the end of the trip. Thanks!
P.S. It took me a minute to figure out that your separate Other Options -- Japan thread had been merged into this one. Glad all of your great info didn't disappear!
No. The Thomson tour did not visit Nara. Stayed in Kyoto for the 2 days. There is so much to do in Japan, but so little time. We elected to spend what extra time we had in Tokyo and at Mt. Fuji. The Thomson trip only has about 1.5 days in Tokyo depending on what time you get in. Next time, we'd love to go to Nara, Hiroshima, and spend more time in Kyoto.
I think the moderator must have merged the 2 threads.
Good luck planning.
Just booked the Vietnam Culinary Family Adventure with Thomson Family Adventures with an extension to Cambodia. We really wanted to spend some time on Ha Long Bay, and this itinerary hit most of the spots we wanted to go. Going in June 2019.
Definitely interested in your feedback on this one. Southeast Asia is on my list, but I'm very "meh" on the ABD itinerary and interested in other options. Ha Long Bay is a must for me too. Does the Cambodia extension hit the Angkor temples?
The SE Asia ABD is an outstanding trip! I would love to have included HLB, and I think we are going to go on our own when we repeat the trip!Definitely interested in your feedback on this one. Southeast Asia is on my list, but I'm very "meh" on the ABD itinerary and interested in other options. Ha Long Bay is a must for me too. Does the Cambodia extension hit the Angkor temples?