What Types of Travel Tours Are There?

Travel tours are known all over the world and essentially refer to vacations with specific intent in mind. These culturally significant vacations have also been called adjectival tourism. For example, if your family were interested in Florida’s history, they might look for a Florida historical tour. If you were single and interested in meeting exotic new people, then a Madrid nightlife tour might be appropriate.

There are actually many types of adjectival tourism or specialty travel services. Besides the usual historical tour or nightlife tour, in recent years new types of tours have become popular with serious minded travelers. These include agricultural tours, religious tours, heritage and cultural tours, medical tours, culinary tours and wildlife tours.

There may be tours that cater to a specific lifestyle such as LGBT tours, or adult tours, or on the opposite end of the spectrum, Christian living tours. There are three new types of tours that are worth mentioning because of increasing popularity. First, you have eco tours. Ecotourism appeals to environmentally conscious travelers and showcases protected areas that are considered fragile and pristine. Instead of heavy commercial areas to enjoy, there are natural parks, rivers, wildlife and scenery to take in. More importantly, money generated from these tours usually goes towards ecological conservation, and other related fields concerning energy efficiency, water conservation and recycling.

Next are academic tours, which cater to a more intellectually sophisticated audience, not to mention a physically fit customer base, who would travel to distant lands like Antarctica, the Galapagos Islands or Machu Picchu. While the sights and activities are exciting to see, these trips are particularly interesting to professors, scientists, archaeologists, geologists and other professional educators.

Another recent trend is that of dark tourism. This might include trips to “dark” historical locations, such as ancient or recent battlegrounds or sites where horrific acts of violence were committed. Less gruesome and more fun are ghost tours, available in practically every city (since every city claims to be haunted somewhere) that usually includes walking tours of various dark locations like cemeteries, hotels, restaurants and historical monuments.

There is a tour for just about every niche out there, so no matter your pleasure, you can always find something to do in the city of your choice.