Why I Loved My Globus Tour - And I Think You Might, Too

The following is written by TravelPerks’ Marketing Manager, Becca Pirwitz, about her recent Globus tour in Europe.

I’ve always been someone who likes to have control of my travel. I like to customize, explore every option, and meddle with my itinerary until it’s absolutely perfect. I went into my 10-night Northern Capitals Tour a skeptic of organized tour travel, but emerged a champion of it.

Read on to see why I think you should consider a Globus tour for one of your next trips.

Overview of my trip

Before we jump into why I loved our Globus tour, I thought I’d give an overview of my trip. We decided on Globus’ Northern Capitals tour, which included two nights in each of the following: Copenhagen, Oslo, Stockholm, and Helsinki.

There's also one night spent on an overnight ferry (which was a LOT of fun), and an optional day-trip via ferry to Tallinn, Estonia (which we did).

This was a part of the world that has been on my bucket list for decades, and, while my Finnish roots had been calling me to Helsinki, I wanted to cover more ground than just one country. So, we decided on this tour primarily because:

1. It covered a good amount of ground (4 countries - and ultimately 5 with the Estonia day-trip add-on)

2. We had at least two nights in each capital (whereas, cruising through this part of the world - or at least with contemporary lines - often means spending just 8-10 hours in each town) so we could experience more nightlife and explore each city at a more relaxed pace.

Logistics are handled, which means you can focus on the things that really matter

If you know your geography, you know that many of these cities on our itinerary are not the easiest to get from one to the other. The closest cities are 6 hours apart via car or bus, and many require a ferry crossing or a plane to hop from one to the next. Booking the tour through Globus meant all transportation logistics were already taken care of, including:

• Transfers from airport to hotel, and vice versa (if you arrive on day one of the tour and depart on the last day of the tour)

• Motorcoach transportation from one city to the next (including expert commentary from your Tour Director along the way)

• Ferry logistics between Denmark and Sweden

• Overnight ferry logistics between Sweden and Finland

• All transportation via motorcoach for your included excursions, sometimes including up to 3-4 sights per day.

Instead of worrying about how to get from one place or the other, whether that’s from one city to the next or simply a landmark that’s outside of our walking range, this was already taken care of. Plus, we got to sit back and relax as either our Tour Director or Local Guide set the scene for us on the way to each location. 

So, by the time we arrived (and, that often meant parking right next to the attraction), we already had the information needed to dive in with the content more deeply.

Expert, local guides mean you receive commentary you wouldn’t experience on your own

I like to prepare. A lot. I do a lot of research through guide books, blogs, and YouTube videos. As much preparation as I had done, it’s never the same as actually experiencing a location. But what I didn’t realize is even how different it’d be with the care of a local expert guide.

For every tour, this changed the experience completely because not only was I experiencing it while being present in the actual surroundings, but I received commentary I never would have known if we had done the tour just on our own.

Some details were subtle, like noting the intentionality of the pattern of the brick pavers in Oslo’s Frogner Sculpture Park relating to the overall theme, or the story of the time the Danish Royal Army somehow accidentally fired a missile towards empty cottages. But the content has stuck with me much more because of our local guides’ delivery, stories, and personal anecdotes.

Plenty of free time

As mentioned in the opening of this blog, I prefer customizing my trips. One of my biggest concerns going into this was that my whole day would be planned out, and we wouldn't have any opportunities to add our own interests into the itinerary.

I stand corrected: our Globus tour was a perfect balance of included tours and free time. Granted, Globus offers plenty of optional excursions for those who would rather stick to the group or are not interested in filling their time with their own plans. But, we opted to skip most of the optional excursions (with the exception of a day trip to Estonia) in pursuit of our own adventures. It was truly a great mix.

Of course, the planner in me likes to have at least a loose plan, and our free time often included pre-booked activities on our own (like a visit to Loyly Sauna in Finland), dinner reservations (because we like to try the local cuisine, hot culinary institutions, or simply experience the nightlife), or loose plans to visit additional museums not included in the itinerary.

Between the included excursions and the ones we booked ourselves, I'm truly in awe of how much we did in each and every city. Ten days felt like over two weeks - in a good way.

Parting Thoughts

As I saw on this trip, sitting back and letting someone else take care of logistics actually has many benefits. It was all the little nitty-gritty details like booking hotels to planning route logistics to purchasing tickets that we didn’t even think about it. Plus, especially if it’s your first time in these cities, you’ll likely want to visit the sites the tour includes. So, why not make it as easy on you as possible?

I absolutely loved our Northern Capitals Tour with Globus, and I am already dreaming of where I'll go next with them.