Difference between Rick Steves and Road Scholar tours (2024)

Personally I cannot speak to Road Scholar tours but have taken 4 RS Tours, other tours and self guided tours. That said, I have a friend who has taken many Road Scholar tours. She appreciates that gratuities are included as well as transportation to the hotel & luggage transfer. She has mentioned one con: Some tour participants had difficulty keeping up on active tours. RS also includes gratuities, and provides plenty of downtime. We've had no issues with time spent going from place to place. We look at it as time to relax, view the scenery, read, & listen to our guide speak about the history of our next stop. We pack light, so transferring luggage is easy. Another pro for us is the quality of RS tour guides. Outstanding!!

I'll be taking my first RoadScholar trip next year, and have taken 5 Rick Steves tours. I'll just add that the itinerary included on the tour page is pretty acurate, and lists bus time and free time.

We've been on 2 Rick Steves Tour and one Road Scholar Tour, to Barcelona and Madrid. I can't "generalize" because I think a large part/tone of each tour is determined by the guide.
Right from the start, the Rick tour "uses time more efficiently" by instilling the buddy system. Takes less than a minute to see if everyone is present before an outing. Road"s guide kept counting heads and counting heads and counting.....
Hotels: Road's hotels are nicer; might be part of a chain. Easy to feel spoiled. Rick's are closer to city center, and unique and quirkier.
Meals: Both have breakfast included, but Road had at least one other meal each day, lunch or dinner. Rick only has ½ of dinners.
Free time: Rick-because some dinners are independent, our free time could last the rest of the day. Road-we hardly had any free time to explore Barcelona on our own. Just one afternoon from 2:00 p.m. on.
Gratuities: Rick really emphasizes "gratuities are included" ...and the tour guide often tipped local guides. Road-many participants tipped local guides AND even tour guide.
Luggage: both states that we would be responsible transporting our own luggage, but Road provided help on the train to Madrid.
Education: Road had lectures with excellent speakers as well as local guides; Rick's information came from Tour guide and local guides.
Bus: Road's bus is scaled to the size of group. Rick's is larger...lots of extra seats.
We are going on both a Rick Steves and a Road Scholar trip next summer mainly because of the itinerary.

I have taken 6 Rick and 3 Road tours. In my opinion, Rick has a higher quality of guides, a higher quality of bus and driver and in many cases a higher quality of hotel. Doing my own transfers to and from the airport has never been a problem due to explicit option directions in your pre tour packet and help of the guide at the end of the tour. Often they help organize groups of people going to the airport at similar times. Because of the pack light philosophy luggage transfer has not been a problem either. Often, if it is a long, up hill hike to the hotel the guides arrange for a van to help with luggage. Most hotels do in fact have lifts, even if small, but if there are stairs to climb I have found other tour members happy to help anyone who seems to require it. Rick tours are sometimes more active, but you usually have the chance to opt out of any activity. BTW, I am in my early 70's. I love the combination of group and free time and have found Rick tours to be more helpful in making sure as a vegetarian I have delicious meals like everyone else. I was once told on a Road tour that cheese food slices and salad were my only option for dinner.

I used Road Scholar several years ago for their Cuba tour. I have been on 4 RS tours, and more lately have been travelling solo ( I like the RS museum and city orientation walking tours in the books). I am a very active person, and at the time of the Cuba trip was 58. Definitely the youngest, by far! The Cuba tour was probably unique in that we had a government guide with us at all times, while the Road Scholar guide, though very knowledgable, was more for logistics.
Two things that struck me compared to Rick's were the inefficiency of getting on and off the bus and the general group dynamic. That they never used some sort of buddy system for counting us rendered me quite agitated. I ended up leaping off the bus the second we docked for at least a few minutes of photos while the rest of the group gathered their whatevers. In fairness, some were well into their 90s and how I admire these travelers! Getting on the bus, or in the hotel lobby waiting for the entire group to slowly gather, was really frustrating. Counting and more counting...
There were more group meals than with Rick and as a speedy vegan I am often content to skip dinner when travelling, so these were another negative for me. Way less free time, and, at least in our group, when someone wanted to skip a dinner to just relax at the hotel many were very put out and said she was rude. Again, this may have just been this particular group.
This Road Scholar tour was rated moderately active. I have never SAT so much in a week! I was very satisfied with the Cuba tour, but not sure I would go with them again until or unless I have mobility issues...

I have not taken any RS tours but completed my first Road Scholar to Greece. I am an independent traveler but my sister is not. She picked the Greece Road Scholar due to the itinerary. (It went to Crete and used the ferry system for island hopping). I enjoyed it but got tired of all meals together-basically the same 3 course meals for 2 weeks, many hours on those meals and our tour guide was it. We did our own on and off the ferry for luggage. I agree Roads was much more inefficient and less flexible. I left several times when we were in a town/city and explored on my own. I did tell the tour guide. I will probably not use a guided tour again, but do not regret that adventure. I was wordy but I think if you have enjoyed RS if you enjoyed the Road Scholar ones.

On a RS tour one place we went to the big bus could not fit. We were transferred to vans.

We love Odysseys Unlimited, too. But if you book your own airfare, OU will not pick you up at the airport and transfer you to your first hotel unless there are other tour members arriving at the airport at the same time. They have bent this rule for us a couple of times and we really appreciated it but don’t expect it. OU is very customer service oriented and really cares about its product. They are a great company. For our Scandinavia tour next year, we are arriving early and staying longer and OU is booking extra hotel nights for us at the tour hotels at the beginning and end of the trip. I highly recommend them.

I just thought of another difference. On Road Scholar tours most of our meals were in the hotel, not at local restaurants which I really prefer.

I would also recommend Overseas Adventure Travel OAT. I just took a trip with them to Sicily and loved the small group of 16 tour members. The guide with OAT was as good as the Rick Steves tour guides (I've taken six RS tours). They handle your luggage and the hotels were nicer than on RS. We booked our own airfare but if you book your air flights through OAT they provide service to and from the airport (or you can buy this service if you want to if you arrange your own airfare). I also took a tour to Peru with OAT, they also had a good guide and small group size.

We second dougbagel2's OAT recommendation. Taken two RS trips & over ten OAT.

Thanks always nice to see the differences. I like the idea of being in charge of our own bags and really don’t want to stay in a cookie cutter hotel. Would not want meals in our hotel most nights or be crowded on a small bus. I also like the idea of planning when we arrive before a tour & traveling a little bit more like a local or non tour traveler. Thanks for posting. Wonder if the other sites have a forum too?

On our OAT tour we had 16 tour members on a full size bus - the same size bus that RS uses. We arranged our own flights (booked the tour without airfare for a cheaper price) arriving five nights early staying in Cefalu for four nights and one night in Palermo before the tour started (used a car service recommended on Trip Adviser although they do have train service from Palermo). After the tour we stopped in London for three nights before returning back to the States.
We only ate at a hotel restaurant one night out of 13 nights on the tour. I would agree that the hotels at the beginning and end of the tour (Palermo and Catatonia where we flew in and out of) could be described as cookie cutter (of course they had cappuccino and cannoli at the free breakfast buffet so cookie cutter for Italy but I enjoyed the modern convenience. Of the five hotels, three were modern Italian hotels, one was more of a resort type hotel away from town and one was more rustic. We stayed at the rustic hotel one night (it was near a must see site - Valley of the Temples) and we stayed three nights each at all of the other hotels. Ten of the dinners were included on this tour, I really liked that - lots of local dishes, the three dinners on our own were in the bigger cities of Palermo and Catatonia.