Frequently asked questions

Most of our tours check out on WeTravel, our secure booking system. The web address changes, which surprises people the first time, but you are still booking with us.

A few tours are run with a travel partner and book on their site instead. Either way you are travelling with us — and if you would rather not book online at all, call us and we will take the booking over the phone.

Often, yes. Call us before you book and we will arrange a payment plan. It is easier to set up at the start than to rearrange later.

Ask to go on the waitlist. A full departure shows a Join the waitlist button on its tour page, or you can call us and we will note your interest.

Tell us how flexible you are on dates while you are on the phone — we often have something similar running that year.

Join the mailing list. Dates and pricing go out to it first, which is how our most popular departures fill before they appear anywhere else.

Our future tours page lists what we are planning for the next couple of years, and you can ask to be notified about any of them individually.

Yes. We have built private chartered tours for churches, schools and organizations for thirty years. You bring the people; we build the itinerary and cost it per person.

Everyone in your group books and pays individually, so you never collect checks or carry any financial risk, and the group leader travels free. Tell us roughly where and when on our group travel page and Tom will call you to talk it through.

Yes. One of our own tour directors travels with the group the whole way, as one of the party rather than a guide who meets you at the door — someone who knows your name by the second morning.

Which director you get varies by departure. Ask when you book and we will tell you.

Mostly adults and seniors, and mostly people who have traveled with us before — six or seven in every ten on a given tour are returning travelers. They are the reason a group settles as quickly as it does.

Call and ask about a particular departure: how many are traveling on their own, how many are regulars, what the pace is really like. It is a perfectly normal question and we are asked it every week.

Mid-to-premium: clean, comfortable, well-run and well-located rather than flashy. We would rather put the money into the experiences worth paying for than into a lobby you walk through twice a day.

There is free time. We build itineraries with room to breathe — free afternoons, sit-down meals, and time to enjoy the places we have come all this way to see.

The day-by-day itinerary on each tour page shows how that particular trip is paced, meal by meal.

Occasionally one does — a show reschedules, a road closes, weather intervenes. We substitute something of comparable quality and tell you as soon as we know.

If a departure cannot run at all, you are offered a transfer to another tour or a refund.

No. Nobody is ever put on the spot. Join in with the devotions and the singing if you would like to, or simply listen — both are entirely normal on our tours.

Yes. Our tours are Christ-centered and open to everyone, and we are not affiliated with any one denomination.

On every tour there are travelers who came simply because they liked the itinerary and the company. Bring a friend or a spouse who feels the same way — they will not be the only one.

On many tours, yes. Where single occupancy is offered it appears among the room options on the tour page, and it carries a single supplement, because hotels charge by the room rather than by the person.

Single rooms are capped at a small number per departure, so ask early. If they have gone, we will gladly try to match you with a same-gender roommate so you pay the shared rate instead.

Of course. You choose your occupancy when you book and enter both travelers in one booking, and each tour page lists the room options available on that trip. Call us if you would rather we did it for you.

Three to four weeks before departure. They confirm your exact pickup location and time, the hotels on your itinerary with their phone numbers, your tour director's name, and a day-by-day schedule you can leave with family at home.

It varies by tour, so read the included and not-included lists on the tour page itself. The usual items on the not-included side are meals that are not on the itinerary, drinks with included meals unless noted, optional excursions, passport and visa costs, and travel insurance if you buy it.

Tips for your driver and tour director are usually not included. They are at your discretion, and where we suggest an amount you will find it on the tour page. A few tours do include end-of-tour gratuities — if yours is one of them, its included list says so.

It depends on the tour. Some include round-trip group airfare from Milwaukee or Chicago and say so; on others it is an optional add-on you choose when you book, or you arrange your own flights.

The included list on the tour page is the place to check. If it is not clear, call us rather than guess.

Call us before you book — that is the honest answer, because it depends on the trip. Our easiest tours do much of the sightseeing from the coach, while the more active ones assume you can manage airports, stairs and uneven ground on your own.

Describe an ordinary day at home when you call: how far you walk, whether stairs are a problem. We will tell you which tours suit you. We would far rather talk you into the right tour than sell you the wrong one.