Coaching: 5 of the best

So you think coach touring holidays are all about old folk and fighting for legroom? Sounds like you’re a few years behind the times. There are still grand and classic tours that whisk passengers around Europe’s famous cities and towns, but coach clients have become an adventurous lot, encouraging operators to scan the world for exciting new itineraries.

These days coach clients can sweat it out in the jungles of South America, explore the Australian rainforests and crawl through the Viet Cong tunnels in Vietnam. There are tours of China and US cities, and even island-hopping in Greece, which is more cruise than coach. With such a bewildering choice Travel Weekly has scoured the brochures and come up with five suggestions to help match customers to the right itineraries.

Where? Russia.

Why? Coach holiday virgins should either choose a short break or an itinerary with a good balance of sightseeing by coach and other means so if they really don’t like the coach, the holiday is not spoilt. Holidays to Russia combining Moscow and St Petersburg not only include city highlights tours, but also offer free time and there’s a rail transfer between the two centres.

The alternative: the other option is a short-break coach holiday. There are lots of three and five-night breaks that hop over the Channel to places such as Bruges, Amsterdam and Paris, and are a good taster of what you can expect.

Sample product: Insight Vacations offers an eight-day Easy Pace Russia tour combining Moscow and St Petersburg. It starts at £725 per person bed and breakfast including sightseeing and rail travel between the cities. Flights are extra.

Where? World War battlefields.

Why? The 60th anniversary of the end of World War II this year has increased interest in the battlefields. Tours take passengers to the landing beaches, scenes of key battles in World War I and II such as the bridge at Arnhem, Passchendaele and the Somme, and the cemeteries where rows of gravestones bring home the enormity of it all.

The alternative: Berlin, Vienna and Prague, three cities guaranteed to send a thrill down the spine of any budding historian. See Checkpoint Charlie, the bloodstained uniform of the Habsburg Archduke Ferdinand, whose assassination triggered the events leading to World War I, and the city violated when Soviet tanks rolled in to end the Prague Spring in 1968.

Sample product: Leger Holidays offers a five-day Arnhem and the Rhine Crossings tour from £279 per person bed and breakfast travelling in August including return ferry crossing, two evening meals, excursions and a dedicated specialist battlefields guide.

Where? France.

Why? French cuisine is second to none once you get away from the ubiquitous omelettes and moules frites. Taste foie gras as it should be, see how many ways duck can be served or try a simple salad paysanne. There are several wine tours, but devout foodies should book Trafalgar’s Taste of France itinerary, which includes a cookery lesson and a visit to a Provençal market to buy local specialities that are then used to prepare lunch.

The alternative: Contiki has a fun seven-night tour of Tuscany that includes a Chianti wine tasting and a trip into the countryside to find produce for an evening cookery lesson.

Sample product: Trafalgar’s 10-day Taste of France, travelling from Paris to Nice, costs £980 per person bed and breakfast. This includes two speciality restaurant lunches, two three-course dinners and two speciality dinners and sightseeing, but excludes flights.

Where? Arizona and Utah.

Why? There is nothing quite like the desert to take your breath away, and as this is the US the scenery is on a grand scale. Arizona is the home of the Grand Canyon and the incredible orange and red rock formation – called Hoodoos – in Bryce Canyon National Park, hewn out of the rock over centuries by the wind and rain. Wallace Arnold has a tour of the area that includes a visit to Monument Valley, the white sandstone cliffs in Zion National Park and ends in Las Vegas.

The alternative: take your pick from the picture-postcard lakes and mountains of Austria and Italy, the dramatic coastline of the Neapolitan Riviera, or Norway, where stunning scenery goes with the territory.

Sample product: Wallace Arnold’s 10-day Canyon Country, Arizona and Utah tour costs from £1,589 per person bed and breakfast departing November 3 2005 and March 23 2006. It includes flights, five evening meals, transfers and sightseeing.

Where? China.

Why? China might be opening up to visitors, but it is hardly a mass-market destination. The country was added to this year’s second-edition Cosmos Tourama Europe and Beyond brochure and demand is huge. Coach tours enable clients to take in many of the destination’s unique sights. Highlights of the Cosmos tour include Beijing, Shanghai, the Summer Palace, the Great Wall and Ming Tombs, the Terracotta warriors, and a four-night Yangtze river cruise.

The alternative: check out Trafalgar’s exotic South America tours. Best of Brazil and the Amazon visits top sights and throws in night-time alligator watching and piranha fishing.

Sample product: Cosmos has a new 15-night Wonders of China and the Mighty Yangtze tour from £1,479 per person full-board including international and internal flights, a river cruise and all sightseeing trips.

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