As avid travelers, we understand the difference between the usual trips of large travel agencies and our own personally crafted group adventures.
We offer travel with real ingredients— something to cherish and fill your heart long after you return home.
It’s sure to be nothing less of ineffable, as words cannot describe how it will shape you. You’ll simply need to experience it for yourself.
Group Tours & Travel has been led by Phil and Donna Azzolino for 36 years, and Phil has personally led thousands of tours around the United States and around the globe. Together their experience and knowledge of the travel industry and the destinations themselves is difficult to match. Under their careful guidance, Group Tours has thrilled and satisfied travelers for more than three decades! All Group Tours trips are led by the owners, you get the comfort of an fully escorted trip and the hassle-free experience of having the owners themselves with you every step of the way.
The Educated Wanderer was born out a long experience of designing and leading study abroad trips for college students. The experience of thinking deeply about the reciprocity between book learning and experiential learning led to a vision of travel that is slow, immersive, fun and educational. After the exclusivity of only designing trips for students who could enroll in a college class, it seemed right to open our vision of travel to everyone. Over the years we have run tours all over the world offering so many people a different way to travel in which understanding and immersion in the culture is far more important than the number of stops on a given itinerary. Every tour is fully escorted by the owners, who are pretty well educated in the social and natural worlds so as to be able to offer unique insights into the places we go.
It’s a natural fit between the two companies and consequently we have decided to work together so that you will have a greater variety of travel experiences to choose amongst and yet still have a family-run business that will make you feel personally cared for, and able to enjoy care-free fun so that you may experience the deepest and most important thing about travel: learning something about the world and about yourself at the same time.
Each trip is personally crafted and led by us— Laura, Jen and Creed. These are places we’ve explored ourselves beforehand, or have researched intensely in preparation. While we certainly don’t neglect the popular attractions, we also love to explore lesser-known hideaways.
Our name is “The Educated Wanderer,” after all. Other tour guides are confined to a script and often neglect to live in the moment. Although we map out itineraries, we do not fail to take advantage of unexpected opportunities. A unique reconstruction? A spontaneous street performance? We’re in. This way, we see everything and really get to know the places verses breezing by history in unexpected places.
You’re embarking on a journey with a trio who’s made travel their whole lives, not rehearsed tour guides.
With this, you also get three people— soon to be your new friends— who deeply care about what matters to you. We’ll help you find the places you are interested in and want to see beyond the itinerary. We’re also just pretty fun! We love cheering drinks, flipping through musty books and getting to know our fellow explorers as friends and travel companions, not simply as customers.
Because each trip’s itinerary is thoughtfully hand-crafted by us, there’s a level of care and connection unmatched by most travel companies.
Our destinations are based on our own favorite finds, through years of immersive travel. Each season, we choose different regions, ensuring there’s always a new trip in the works. Even when we go back to the same destination, the journey will be different every time.
We like to think of slow travel as akin to slow eating, where you take the time to truly appreciate and digest what you’re consuming. Instead of blurring through a half dozen or so destinations like other group tours, we focus our travel exploring in depth the places we go, connecting a theme through our travel that will delight and enlighten you!
This “less is more” mentality allows us to gain knowledge of the complexities of each area, and truly experience each culture.
Here’s where the “Educated” in The Educated Wanderer comes into play. We think that learning should be purposeful, enlightening and thought-provoking, which is why we recommend a combination of reading and travel.
While we don’t make our suggested books mandatory (and don’t make you write essays!), reading even just one of them only enhances your experience.
Your trip will include airfare or bus transportation, accommodations on all multi-day trips, planned tour and admissions fees and transportation costs from the time you depart until the time you return. This saves you from worrying about expenses and allows you to focus instead on your experience. Optional excursions will be noted on each tour description. Travel insurance protection, while certainly recommended, is not included.
Many meals are on your own so you can enjoy the cuisine of your choice and sample all the flavors of the culture. Food is, without a doubt, deeply cultural and the best places to experience that are small restaurants that don’t accommodate even small groups. We will always provide you with a list of options we think are delicious but it’s a great adventure to just wander, find a place where the menu looks intriguing (or a place that doesn’t even have a printed menu) and jump into a culinary adventure!
Compassion and caring so that your travel experience is the best it can be
Travel as a way to learn about ourselves and the world around us
A sense of curiosity and adventure that coincides with the spirit of travel
Upon your decision to travel with us you will pay in full for single-day trips, while for multi-day trips you may pay a deposit, with the balance due as noted in each trip description, or in full.
Phil has been leading tours since 1984, possessing an encyclopedic knowledge of the world. Creed has been leading tours since 2005, and holds an M.A. in International Political Economy from Fordham University and an M.A. in Philosophy from the University of Malta. Laura has leading tours since 2015 and holds a B.A. in Philosophy from Muhlenberg College. Jen has been leading tours since 2017 and holds an M.S. in Biology from the University of Maryland.
Trip costs include airfare or bus transportation, accommodations (on multi-day trips), all tours and admissions fees, tour guide tips, and for international trips all train/bus travel within each country, and meals as noted within each trip description. Travel insurance protection is not included, but most certainly recommended. We will send you insurance information and forms upon receipt of payment.
© 2020 · Educated Wanderer.