Explorica tour guide Alfonso was excellent! He worked so hard for our group of 46 while traveling through Costa Rica! He is professional, informative, funny, caring and an all around great guy! Pura Vida!

The program leader, Lucrezia Vittone, was excellent. She weathered every problem that we had with grace and compassion. She took great care of us and made us feel relaxed.

All is good need more free time

We had horrible flights, which forced us to have a disastrous experience in Frankfurt. Our luggage was lost on the way, which we finally recovered, only to have it lost on the way back. We do not currently have it. Our tour guide was inexperienced and was very friendly but couldn't get the timing right, was no help in getting our baggage or helping us with scheduling. We missed items on our itinerary, including dinner. I requested to not have dinner at the hotels, we did several times anyway. Two of the nights the dinners were inedible. Another night a restaurant gave our students with allergies food with nuts and cooked in peanut oil. We were paired with another school and had 47 people on the bus. At one point they sent us a bus that wouldn't hold 47 pieces of luggage so we had to hold some of the suitcases in the aisle of the bus. There were positive notes, like our excursion to Mt. Pilatus, but overall Explorica failed us on this trip.

The tour on the ground was a remarkable experience! Kerri Michael, the tour director executed every detail of the tour, exceeding my expectations. The bus driver was highly enthusiastic and emotionally attached. Local guides were knowledgeable and provided insightful details spanning historical event transcending contemporary Greece. Areas that need improvement: Airline reservations of a small group (6) such as mine could have been made on one e-ticket, not two. While returning to travel after the pandemic has been challenging across all related sectors, the travel support emergency line could be more supportive and timely in their response. After leaving 3 detailed messages for onward transmission, which were not addressed, I commend Karla and Vincent for attending to our ticket reservation problems (in both EWR and Athens) in a speedy fashion that met the time-sensitive need. Our delayed luggage problem somewhat marred the trip with the attendant unplanned expenditure on clothing; of course notwithstanding the fact that luggage retrieval is seemingly outside the jurisdiction of Explorica/WorldStrides. I recommend expanding Explorica's protocol to gain access to baggage claims, especially for European airports. After going 10 days without my luggage as in the case of two other students on tour, it was frustrating that the airport in Athens, not only failed to deliver our luggage to our hotel, but also, failed to answer countless phone calls from me and the tour director for a whole week, when our bags were delivered to Athens Airport on June 25, 2022, the next day after our arrival in Athens. Overall, the Greece tour was phenomenal, led by an excellent and resourceful tour director; with the one-day cruise being the highlight that wrapped up the exposition of rich history of ancient civilization in a geographical location characterized by undulating landscape, composed of high elevations and vast expanse of oceans. I look forward to going back to Greece to spend a little more time on the Islands - Hydra in particular. Thank you for the opportunity!

We were very datified with the whole Explorica toour experience.

Companies pay Explorica to deliver customers (you) to them. As it rolls on, it feels a bit like you're at a timeshare high pressure sales pitch. Suppose you're traveling to Venice, and the agenda includes a glass blowing demonstration. What this means is you're guided to a shop on a nearby island where you see a somewhat interesting demo for 15m, but upon conclusion, the only exit is into an extremely overpriced shop filled with people trying very hard to make a sale. In my case, after they sweet talked me to gather such info as where my home is and what my occupation is, they were pushing a glass turtle for 15 thousand euros. And you have to basically stay there and deal with it until the boat comes back 45m later. When you do get to Venice, you'll see all the same crap at much lower prices. Same thing in Florence. Take a long walking tour (and these are of acceptable quality), get delivered to a crappy leather-working "demo" that is more like a 6 minute youtube video, then get dumped into a jewelry showroom that exits into a leather goods showroom. Again, a block down the street there will be much better deals. I feel sorry for those who bought and then saw similar items for so much less later, but my personal beef is this: if I buy so many hours of awake time in Europe, and I have to spend 8% of those hours accommodating the master plan that we attend sales pitches in stores I would not even be inclined to enter in the first place, I'm think I'm owed an 8% refund on the cost of the whole trip.

The trip was a great experience.

Explorica provided a truly excellent experience! We visited Greece and Turkey, and our tour director Marianna was perfectly wonderful! The hotel was great, the Aegean cruise was fantastic, and we got to see so much in just 10 days. We loved it!

I've just completed my final tour with Explorica, having worked with them for 10 years. I'd highly recommend them to my colleagues who are interested in leading student tours. Explorica allowed me to design a highly customized, ambitious itinerary that my students will remember for years. They helped me to bring students on an art and culture rich tour from the Baroque back to the Renaissance, and then backwards through Ancient Rome, Ancient Greece, back to the Minoans at Knossos, and even back to Neolithic cave dwellings. Our tour guide was exceptional, local tour guides were excellent, and meals were great. I cannot commend Explorica highly enough for making student travel available and accessible.