With 742 experiences to choose from, our small group cultural tours offer you the chance to explore your destination in a small group of 4-20 fellow travellers. Whether you’re passionate about Petra and the Pyramids of Egypt or fancy polishing your photography skills in China, want to cycle around French vineyards or explore the remote villages and spot orang-utans in Borneo, we have a range of small group cultural tours that put you in touch with the sights and sounds of your destination.
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These full and frank independent Small group cultural holidays reviews are from travellers who have booked directly through responsibletravel.com. They are not edited by us or any of the companies we work with. Find the real story, from real travellers below.
The whole trip was unforgettable - especially loved the rural parts we visited and stayed in and the various transport and accommodation - much fun and very unique! Every day waking up was like Christmas morning, so exciting.
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As each day passed it became my favourite day so far! The Inca Trail of course and the island home stay have to be my top two. The holiday was made all the more memorable because of the great group we were travelling with and of course our guide Dante.
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Excellent, sensational, a must-do....Prepare yourself for an amazing mix of adventure and antiquities. (more)
A very good trip. Varanasi, the camaraderie of group members and our group leader and seeing India in action were the best parts of the trip. (more)
One of the most memorable things was the beautiful Carpathian countryside and the people working in the fields as of yesteryear. The haymaking and haystacks were fascinating and we all fell in love with rural Romania.
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Saw everything we wanted plus more. It was a fabulous holiday, Mohammed is so knowledgeable - he is a credit to your company! (more)Seeing five out of six possible types of lemur in the first National Park we visited...Excellent.
(more)There were several memorable parts. Seeing Petra, climbing up to the Crusader's castle with just my son and feeling as if we owned the world: seeing the Milky way for the first time as we lay on a sand dune in the desert blackness while at Wadi Rum. (more)
The most memorable parts were... probably visiting ATM cave in Belize which was a great experience, and also snorkelling with nurse sharks and sting rays in Caye Caulker was incredible too. (more)
Having Nathan Horton on the trip gave a very interesting slant to an already enjoyable holiday. Nathan had a flair for taking the group to places which were not on the tourist trail and this was very much appreciated. (more)
The visit to the tea plantation was the most memorable part of the holiday...A good chance to meet local people. (more)
Sailing around Halong bay, Motor cycling through the back streets of Hue, dancing with the children in the villages were the highlights. (more)
I had such a good time, the size of the group was just right and the age band was not too wide. Our guide was very competent and really made the trip work, it was so stress free.
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The guides were excellent and very flexible, willing to change schedules if possible to suit our needs, the transport always turned up exactly on time, the accommodation was exactly as described and the places visited were all breathtaking in their beauty and animal and plant life. (more)
It was great, I learned a lot and enjoyed the company. the most exciting part was Getting to the crater of Mt Bromo. (more)Being in Ethiopia for Timkat (at Axum) was an unforgettable experience. Discovering the extraordinary cultural history of Ethiopia with the help of experienced and delightful guides was stimulating and enriching. (more)Bhopal Singh is undoubtedly the best guide I have had on trips to India. He actually knows the history as well as the culture, habits, etc...Excellent.
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The most memorable part of the trip - it's a cliché but, all the pictures in the world do not prepare you for actually being at the Taj Mahal. Most exciting part - rickshaw ride through Jaipur! and white water rafting on the Ganges. (more)You can trust responsibletravel.com reviews because, unlike many other schemes, reviews can ONLY be written by people who we have verified have been on the holidays. In addition, we don't run these holidays ourselves - our only interest is giving you the best independent advice.
Few of us enjoy the feeling of sticking out like a sore thumb when we are on holiday. We giggle about the strange habits of overseas tourists here in the UK, but maybe it’s them laughing at us when we are away on holiday? However sometimes cultural faux pas are no laughing matter. Although our intentions might be good some of our behaviour can inadvertently cause great offence in destinations. For example, that little pink mini skirt which looks great in Brighton or Miami can, when worn away from the beach in Muslim countries, cause offence. The same types of culture clashes happen in conservative Christian communities in Polynesia, the Caribbean and the Mediterranean. Beyond causing offence to individual people tourism can impact on the culture in entire destinations. The tourism industry packages up and sanitises religious rituals, dress, ethnic rites and festivals to conform to tourist expectations. Once a destination begins to see itself through the eyes of tourists it begins to lose its sense of itself and its identity (and pretty quickly the reason why tourists came in the first place). Read more about cultural holidays in this small group cultural holidays article.
