Tours in Review

Pannir of Sayang Holidays (220 Montgomery St., Ste. 469, San Francisco, CA 94104; phone 888/472-9264) did a fantastic job making all the arrangements for our Viet-Nam/Laos trip, Dec. 3, ’03-Jan. 2, ’04. The price from Savannah, Georgia, was $3,600 each — a good price, considering the considerably higher cost of traveling during the Christmas season. We had a lavish buffet breakfast daily.

The food and service on our fantastic Singapore Airlines flight were second to none. We had an overnight in Bangkok, THAILAND, at the Amari Airport Hotel — convenient and one of the nicest airport...

I took a 20-day custom tour, Jan. 20-Feb. 2, ’03, arranged for me by Ceylon Express International (Huntington Beach, CA). The entire cost of the trip, including international and domestic air, hotels, breakfasts, my own car and driver and English-speaking guides in each city, was about $6,300.

Among highlights was Madurai, where a visit to the Meenakshi Temple is a must. In Periyar, bird-watching by boat is the thing to do. In Kanya Kumari, at the southern tip of India, I toured by boat the monuments built on rocks offshore and visited the temple to the goddess Kanya Kumari.

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I took a group of my college students on the 9-day/7-night “Braveheart” tour of Scotland with Passports Educational Travel Institute (389 Main St., Spencer, MA 01562-1908; phone 508/885-4600), visiting Edinburgh, the Highlands and Glasgow. The $2,300 price (May ’04) included airfare on USAir from Denver, 3-star hotel accommodations, daily breakfast and dinner, transfers, tour and admission fees and travel insurance.

Although this company’s target market is student travelers, I feel that it is worth sharing our experiences with ITN readers who may be planning to conduct a student...