Here at TourScoop, we love sharing our all-human, real-life advice about tour companies. In this article, I’m delving into Overseas Adventure Travel (O.A.T.), an active tour company with a solo specialty that’s owned by Grand Circle. I’m also including the company’s new-for-2025 tours.
Overseas Adventure Travel—casually referred to as O.A.T. (pronouncing each letter as opposed to naming the grain)—is a small-group tour specialist with tours on all continents.
As its name suggests, Overseas Adventure Travel tours tend to be fairly active, so participants should be comfortable with six to eight hours of activity each day, including walking distances ranging from three to six miles.
O.A.T. stands out with its solo guest focus (more on that below), and includes a generous number of no-additional-cost single spots on its tours. It also has women-exclusive departures on many itineraries.
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Overseas Adventure Travel itineraries tend to favor accommodations that favor authentic experiences over amenities. Another thing that sets O.A.T. apart is that airfare is often bundled into the up-front price of the tour (unless you specify that you want to book your own travel). O.A.T. is one of the family of Grand Circle Corp. companies, also including Grand Circle Travel and Grand Circle Cruise Line.
TourScoop takeaways
- Countries: Overseas Adventure Travel has tours on every continent
- Tour Size Average: O.A.T. specializes in small-group trips of no more than 16 people. Its small-ship tours are aboard 50- to 98-passenger ships max out at 25 travelers.
- Tour Type: Coach, van, small ship, rail, and air
Credibility check
Overseas Adventure Travel is BBB accredited with a rating of A+. It’s an active member of the United States Tour Operators Association (USTOA). The O.A.T. website posts verified guest reviews on each tour page (sometimes with hundreds of reviews) so it’s easy to see what past travelers think of each tour.
Tour destinations
For 2025, O.A.T. has more than 80 itineraries that include tours on every continent. Some of the most popular tours are to destinations in Italy, Egypt, and multi-country tours in Africa and around the Adriatic.
New tours for 2025
Overseas Adventure Travel has more than two dozen new tours for 2025, including Alpine Europe and a Peru tour that includes the Nazca Lines and the Amazon, and cruises like a Norwegian fjord cruise and a West Africa sailing.
Tour types
Overseas Adventure Travel gives all its tours an Activity Level Rating that ranks tours from one (easy) to five (strenuous) to help travelers find the right fit. It has both women-only departures and many no-additional-cost single traveler spots on tours.
There are multi-country and single country tours. On many tours, O.A.T. creates spaces for discussion and learning with its Controversial Topics program that covers topics such as Scottish independence on its Scotland Revealed itinerary and female genital mutilation on its Safari Serengeti: Tanzania Lodge & Tented Safari tour.
Tour guides
Overseas Adventure Travel’s tour guides are called Trip Experience Leaders. All are fluent in English and have a range of skills, certifications, and experience specific to the tour destination and experience. Trip Experience Leaders focus on both the logistical and the experiential, and help connect travelers with destinations by sharing firsthand insight that brings a destination to life.
Inclusions/extras
Inclusions are tour-specific (there’s a “What’s Included” section on each tour’s page), but generally include round-trip flights, many (but not all) meals, transportation, accommodations, activities, and gratuities for local guides, porters, etc. As with most tour companies, gratuities for trip experience leaders is separate.
Typical travelers
O.A.T.’s guests are mostly American travelers aged 50 and older. In the last few years, Overseas Adventure Travel has seen a major jump in the number of solo travelers—more than half of all O.A.T. guests are now solo travelers, and 80% of these solo travelers are women.
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O.A.T. does right by its strong solo traveler base. In 2025, O.A.T. is offering 26,000 single spaces across all adventures—92% of these spaces will have no single supplement (the remaining 8% of single spots have what the company says is the lowest single supplement in the industry). And a number of itineraries also have women-exclusive departures.
Communication
After booking, travelers have access to all trip details through the “My Planner” section on the website. The section includes details like flight information, destination weather, and itinerary information.
Then, two weeks before departure, travelers receive all their final documents, and are also contacted by their Trip Experience Leader. Any additional questions can be directed to the customer service email or phone number.
Loyalty program
O.A.T.’s loyalty program is the Sir Edmund Hillary Club. Membership benefits kick in when travelers reserve their third trip, and increase after traveling with Overseas Adventure Travel five and ten times. Benefits include credits to use on future trips, travel credits, exclusive gifts, and priority luggage service.
Private options
O.A.T. offers Personalized Private Adventures for groups of five to 10 people. These private departures are available using existing itineraries, and include a dedicated Trip Experience Leader. The private group premium amount depends on the number of travelers in a group. Some of the most popular private tours include Ultimate Africa, Sicily’s Ancient Landscapes, and Japan’s Cultural Treasures.
Sustainability efforts
O.A.T. is part of Grand Circle, and participates in the Grand Circle Foundation, which supports projects around the world focused on water and sanitation, education, community development, renewable energy, the protection of indigenous cultures, conservation, historic preservation, and disaster relief.
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Health and safety practices
On Overseas Adventure Travel tours that include time onboard a ship, additional precautions include crew trained on best health and hygiene practices to prevent onboard spread of illnesses, nightly electrostatic disinfection of public areas, and disinfection of high-efficiency air filtration systems before each sailing. The O.A.T. website is the place to go to read more about the current health and safety practices for land and ship tours.
Family companies
The Grand Circle family of companies includes Overseas Adventure Travel, Grand Circle Cruise Line, and Grand Circle Travel.
