At TourScoop, we specialize in offering real-world, real-person advice about tour companies and all things tour-related. In this article, I’m offering an in-depth look at Trafalgar, one of the largest names in the tour industry. Here’s everything I think you’ll need to know to decide if a Trafalgar tour is right for you.
Trafalgar is one of the oldest names and most trusted brands of the tour world. It’s a company that, over the last century, has escorted five million guests on trips around the world. More than 240 itineraries in 72 countries include standard coach tours, small group tours that spotlight topics like nature, history, and food, and new river cruise itineraries.
TourScoop takeaways
- Countries: 72 countries on six continents
- Tour size average: The standard tour group size is up to 40 guests (but sometimes groups are smaller, depending on how many people sign up).
- Tour type: Coach and river cruise
How to book
To book a Trafalgar tour, you can go a few different routes. The easiest is to book through Trafalgar. But you can also opt for a tour-specialist online travel agent like Travelstride, Tourhub, or TourRadar.
Credibility check
Trafalgar has a Feefo rating of 4.7/5 based on more than 130,000 reviews and received the company’s Platinum Trusted Service Award for 2024. On TourRadar, Trafalgar has a rating of 4.5/5. According to Trafalgar, it has a strong repeat guest rating with a 97% satisfaction rate.
BEST OF THE BEST: The best group travel companies for guided tours
The brand has won more than 80 awards, including Travel Weekly’s Readers’ Choice Awards and USA Today’s 10Best Tour Company. It also hosts unedited reviews from its customers on its site.
Tour destinations
Trafalgar offers trips to 72 countries across six continents, with more than 240 itineraries. Top tours include Best of Portugal, Italian Holiday, Britain & Ireland Highlights, and Spanish Wonder. The tour company has also seen a notable surge in North America bookings, particularly for nature-focused itineraries such as Majestic Alaska, National Park Wonders, and Canada’s Rockies.
New tours for 2026
New itineraries for 2026 include the 12-day Spain, Morocco & Portugal Whirl, nine-day Balkans Coast Explorer, 11-day Best of Sri Lanka, and 11-day family-friendly English Adventure.
Trafalgar is also expanding into European river cruising in 2026, offering Danube and Rhine sailings, including Christmas market sailings, with guided visits to cities like Budapest, Vienna, and Basel.
Tour types
Trafalgar offers both general guided vacations and special interest tours. Its special interest tours include food and wine tours such as Tastes and Sounds of the South, family tours including Pioneer Adventures of the Old West, and safaris including Wonders of Kenya.
Trafalgar also offers active travel tours with options for more rigorous hiking and biking activities than the average tour. New European river cruises bring the company’s eight decades of land touring experience to the water.
Tour guides
Tour directors come onto the job with at least three to five years of road experience and receive a ton of training, including diversity and inclusion training, well-being training, customer service instruction, and administration. All of this is geared toward helping these tour guides be as professional, organized, helpful, and personable as possible.
SOLO TRAVEL TOGETHER: The best travel companies for solo travel tours
In addition to all that training, travel directors also receive a week-long professional development program each year, in which they are placed in the position of the guest for a week of touring and training on the ground and in the classroom. Trafalgar has travel directors who have been with the company for 30 years; the longest serving travel director has been with Trafalgar for 45 years.
Inclusions/extras
Trafalgar trips include all accommodations and transportation during the trip plus most meals. Most activities are included in the itinerary, though Trafalgar also offers optional experiences for additional fees. Transfers to and from the airport are offered in the majority of overseas countries free of charge. Trafalgar can help arrange flights (not included in the base price) at the beginning and end of a trip.
TOURS FOR SENIORS: The best senior travel tour companies
On select trips featuring Be My Guest experiences, Trafalgar includes one-of-a-kind experiences such as meeting with locals for lunch and learning about their way of life, staying in accommodations such as castles or historical hotels, or gaining early entry into bucket list attractions such as the Vatican.
Typical travelers
The majority of Trafalgar guests are 50 and up. Trafalgar has a robust solo travel program with free or reduced single supplement prices for tours in Europe, North and South America, Australia, and New Zealand.
On Trafalgar’s family tours, children as young as five participate and kids (minimum age varies) are allowed on most tours. I recently took my 11-year-old on a mostly adults Costa Rica tour. (I wrote about the experience for our sister site FamilyVacationist.com.)
Travelers come from all over the world, and in recent years, post-trip guest-managed Facebook groups have cropped up, allowing guests (and their travel director) to stay in touch.
Communication
After booking a Trafalgar tour, guests get access to MyTrafalgar, a gated part of the Trafalgar website where guests can provide details about any dietary restrictions, upload emergency contact information, and connect with their Travel Director. About a week before the departure date, guests receive access to all travel documents for the trip, plus instructions for joining a group chat with Travel Directors and other guests.
Loyalty program
Trafalgar is part of the Global Tour Rewards program, which allows guests to collect and spend rewards across all the TTC tour companies, including Trafalgar, Insight Vacations, Luxury Gold, Costsaver, Brendan Vacations, and Contiki.
Private options
Groups of 10 or more can work with the Trafalgar team to create customized private itineraries that cater to specific budget and interests.
Sustainability efforts
Trafalgar works with the TreadRight Foundation on projects focused on conserving the planet, preserving cultures throughout the world, and protecting wildlife. In 2020, Trafalgar, along with TreadRight, launched the How We Tread Right (HWTR) sustainability strategy. Goals are in line with the UN’s Global Goals and address climate change, sustainable food production, waste reduction, travel experiences, diversity and inclusion, and wildlife.
BETTER WORLD: Here’s how 5 tour companies are taking sustainability seriously
Trafalgar offers opportunities on trips for guests to work toward those sustainable goals through its Make Travel Matter® experiences. These experiences are meant to leave a more positive social or environmental impact on the communities they visit.
Health and safety practices
Trafalgar’s teams offer always-on support and 24/7 incident response that allows them to work directly with local medical support and local authorities. Trafalgar updates its health and safety practices regularly, so check the website for the latest policies.
Family companies
Trafalgar is a part of The Travel Corporation’s family of brands, which also includes Insight Vacations, Contiki, Uniworld Boutique River Cruises, and about a dozen other brands.
