Stressed about planning an upcoming trip? Not sure what hot tourist locations to check out or what train to take? Well, fear no longer, because the solution to all your travel worries can be fixed by Contiki!
Contiki is a travel company that organises and runs trips and tours for 18-35-year-olds. Their trips can span from a few days to several months at a time and are available worldwide. You can visit the tropical climates of South America, see the pyramids of Giza, island hop in Greece, and so much more! I’ll get into the multitude of benefits of travelling with Contiki later on!
My Contiki Experience
In the summer of 2023, I went on my very first Contiki trip to Greece. I chose to do my trip through Contiki because it was my first time travelling on my own and I liked the appeal of having all my hotels and travel booked for me, especially when I wanted to visit several places in one trip. After doing some research on all the different trips that Contiki offered, I opted for the Highlights of Greece and Island Hopping trip package.
For my trip, I flew into Athens and then met up with about 30 other travellers. We spent four days visiting ancient archaeology sites in the Greek Peloponnesian Peninsula and then we returned to Athens where part of the group split off and we were joined by new travellers who were just doing the island hopping portion of the trip. For ten days I travelled with my group to four islands: Mykonos, Paros, Santorini, and Ios, before returning to Athens for the end of the trip. Since I went during the end of May and early June, my trip was discounted because it wasn’t during peak travel season. I paid about $4500 CAD for the travel package which included all my hotel room costs, breakfasts, some dinners (about five), guided tours, museum passes, a full-time trip manager, plus some group activities and then the ferry and coach tickets. Flights are not included and have to be scheduled by the traveller themself, but that’s reasonable as travellers come from all over the world and that’s nearly impossible to mass coordinate.
I loved my Contiki travel experience so let me break down why you should take a trip through them as well!
Make Friends and Meet Fellow Travelers
If you’re like me and don’t have any friends who also have the travel bug, it can be intimidating to plan and go on a solo trip across the pond. If you book with Contiki, you join a group of other solo travellers and don’t have to worry about tackling travelling solo completely, well, solo. As a solo female traveller, I felt super comfortable and safe with my group and felt reassured that all the locations we were visiting and hotels we were staying in were safe and well-vetted. Also, like I mentioned earlier, everyone is between the ages of 18 and 35, so your group will be filled with people relatively around the same age. I ended up becoming super tight with these two girls from Toronto who went on the trip together and had so much fun travelling with them.
Get free entry into clubs and skip lines
Because Contiki consistently takes their travellers to the same areas, they’ve developed close relationships with bars, clubs, restaurants, and venues in the areas they travel to. In return for the patronage that Contiki offers with its tour groups, entry to these clubs and venues are all free and you get to skip the lines! Of course, you don’t have to go to the clubs that the group goes to, but they tend to be the more popular venues in the area anyway. My personal favourite club that we went to was the Skandinavian Bar in Mykonos.
Planned travel, accommodations, meals, and activities,
As I mentioned above, practically everything is booked for you, letting you enjoy your vacation worry-free. I appreciated this aspect hugely when it came to catching ferries between all the islands. Plus, having experienced coach drivers driving the tour buses we used to get around was a stress relief, as Greek roads and drivers tend to be a bit hectic. With everything booked in advance too, you can guarantee that you’ll be able to see all the best tourist attractions and sights!
Pay off your trip like a credit card bill
Contiki offers two methods for paying for your trip: all upfront or in installments. By allowing travellers to pay off their trip in installments rather than solely all at once, travellers can book their trip months in advance and pay off their trip like a credit card bill rather than getting hit with a huge instant bill.
Free time + add-on activities
Despite having several activities planned ahead for you, Contiki also ensures you have plenty of time to explore on your own. You also have the option to add-on activities throughout the trip. Many activities such as museum tours, beach parties, and group dinners are included in the upfront price, but Contiki also offers the opportunity to add activities to your schedule during the trip. For my tour, these activities included scuba diving, vineyard visits, guided evening street tours, and many more.
Book with friends—get discounts
While Contiki is aimed towards solo travellers, you can still book with friends or small groups and save on hotel discounts. The standard room set up is two single beds for two same-gender travellers. If you book with a friend or partner, you can guarantee being assigned the same room together. But, if you book with two friends, then all three of you can get a discount for selecting a larger shared room (gender doesn’t matter when booking together). As a solo traveller, you can still opt for the three-person room to save money. Alternatively, you can also choose to book a single room and keep to yourself but it will cost you more than the standard baseline price.
Experienced Guides
For every trip, a Contiki Trip Manager oversees all activities and scheduling. They are essentially an all-knowing guide who if you have any issues you can go to and ask for help. Having someone who takes care of all the finite details and helps keep the trip on track is extremely helpful and stress-relieving. Your guide will be familiar with the area and will be able to help you with suggestions, restaurant recommendations, sightseeing locations, and much more.
Cons
While I would argue there are certainly a lot more pros than there are cons when it comes to travelling with Contiki, I do want to mention a couple of things that could be considered as “cons.” Firstly, booking with Contiki is more expensive than if you were to organize the trip yourself, however, I think all the time you save and the local deals you get from travelling with them make up for it. Secondly, if you find yourself really enjoying a stop on your trip, you can’t halt the whole trip/group and stay longer unless you decide to find your own way to the next location. If you end up missing a ferry, or a bus ride, you are responsible for catching up with the group which is honestly very reasonable as you risk holding up the entire group.
Tips for Travellers
If you decide to go ahead and book with Contiki, I have a few tips for you to help make your trip and planning experience go even smoother. My first big tip is to make sure you plan to arrive at least a day earlier than your tour start date. This ensures that if your flight is delayed or cancelled, you have plenty of time to catch up and make your first trip meeting. You can book an extra night at the first hotel stop or you can book a stay at another local hotel. I arrived a day before my trip and stayed at a small hotel a short distance from the first hotel and it gave me time to acclimate to the time change and get my bearings before meeting a whole new group of people.
Next, try and book your trip right before or at the end of the busy season. Contiki offers discounts for trips during quieter times of the year. This also helps you have a better time because you don’t have to deal with other large tourist groups visiting at the same time.
Thirdly, when you book your trip, try to stay in one or two countries at a time. Travel with Contiki happens through a coach or ferry, which means that if you end up choosing a trip with several countries, you end up spending a lot of time on a bus instead of exploring. I didn’t have an issue with this on my trip since I only travelled in Greece, but I learned from other more experienced Contiki travellers that they always had a better experience doing one country at a time. After your Contiki trip, you can also go off and travel to other neighbouring countries or cities and even book another Contiki trip in another country after your first one. I didn’t do this but several other travellers joined up with other groups in other countries after they left the Greece trip. This is definitely something I’ll be doing after my next trip!
Contiki is an excellent way for young solo travellers to get the most out of their vacation. From making lifelong friends to being guaranteed to see the hot sites, Contiki is without a doubt a must-try for all new travellers.
This is great, super in-depth. I was wondering if you want to talk about safety and how you felt as a female traveller doing this?