To leave a review you need to be logged in
Educational Travel
Language Immersion
Study Abroad
Performing Arts
Career Exploration
Service-Learning
Sports
About Worldstrides Every travel experience is a journey of possibilities. We provide students a world of opportunities that immerse them in knowledge, culture, and inspiration. We help students grow by bringing learning to life‐‐new ideas, new friends, and the memories of a lifetime.
Reviews 836
EA
Sep 02,2024The trip seemed way overpriced for what was provided which was mediocre accommodations.
Josh C
Sep 01,2024It was very good. Osh was great. The only thing we didn’t like was the high pressure sales pitch at Kusadasi, Turkey. All else was very nice.
Lori & Andy
Aug 31,2024This was our third trip with Explorica. The trip appeared to be planned on a budget, despite the high cost. The accommodations and itinerary didn’t reflect the price we paid. Our Scotland experience fell short on expectations— which were based on previous trips with this company. (Which we found out later that there are new owners) We were very disappointed with the lodging, particularly the last hotel. Situated about 7 miles out of town, in the middle of a field, it lacked a proper lobby. The on-site restaurant was underwhelming. One night we came back thinking we’d eat dinner there and the restaurant closed early. Couldn’t even get bar items. Our rooms were clean, the staff was friendly but the grounds were littered with debris. We spent four nights here! Unacceptable. The rooms were less than $50.00 a night. Lodging in Glasgow was also remote and with the same company (cheap). Our hotel at Inverness was in a perfect location and we were able to explore and have leisure evening experiences. This also had a few issues to attend to like lugging our luggage up and down 64 steps and our room smelling like pet urine. On our return flight, we had a seven hour lay over in Boston. Once at the airport, we found out there was an earlier flight home that could have been booked. There were seats available but we were unable to switch because we were on a group ticket. The itinerary was sketchy from the start. The first day in Glasgow was filled with local freebies. The second day was mostly spent on a bus, with a disappointing drop-off at a dumpy mall next to a loch. A lake we could have easily seen at home. We were there two hours wondering why we were even there. Going back to Glasgow would have been a better option instead of driving us all over so we could see two lakes. The terrain was beautiful. Like who takes a group of thirty to Culloden with no pass to the museum? What if it were raining? Sit on the bus for an hour? We purchased a pass but we didn’t have time to visit the battlefield. Ran out of time. DIdn’t have enough time at Stirling Castle, either. The recommended free tour gave us a remaining 30 minutes to zip through the castle. We were told many times that we had one hour to find a restaurant, eat and get back on the bus….really? We were so close to the Kelpies! Why couldn’t that have been included? Explorica did try to compensate for their oversights and lack of planning. They gave us $40 for Ubers (stretch that out over seven days), a single portion of gelato, and a round of drinks at dinner. The Scots are very welcoming, generous, and kind. The scenery is stunning! I just wouldn’t recommend Explorica as your travel company.
Ashley Catrett
Aug 31,2024Our tour guide was knowledgeable and attentive. The itinerary was robust and engaging. This was our first experience with this particular company but will not be our last.
Angela Volpicelli Johnston
Aug 31,2024Activities were excellent. Our guide Clementina was EXCELLENT. She helped handle several snafus that could have otherwise been avoided were there to have been better communication regarding currency exchange realities, tips and flight seating. There were some serious miscommunications (it sounds like between World Strides and our director which causes some significant unneccesary stress. The first very large miscommunication was surrounding currency and tips. Our director asked us to change all tips into local currency when we could have collected them and given them in USD. (This caused a significant amount of stress for us as we tried to get money and were charged significant fees. We were only allowed to take out $35 at a time and were charged close to $10 each time. There were some members of the group who brought 4 family members so the fees were extra large.) There was also some serious miscommunication surrounding the ticketing of flight seats internationally for minors. They were spread out all throughout the plane. This was particularly challenging for chaperones and those travelling with young children (ages 8-15). This could have been considered a significant liability should a minor been accosted or abused without an adult on duty nearby. Most of the food was excellent. The accommodations were great. The guides and local transportation excellent!
M G
Aug 31,2024I booked a school trip with World Strides to Boston for my child and myself and paid extra for trip insurance fees. Their customer service are friendly, however, we didn't find out trip details until about a week before the trip. We found out the flight to Boston involved a connecting flight from Nashville to Chicago, then a flight to Boston. This had our group getting on a bus in the middle of the night to make the early flight to Chicago. A couple of hours before meeting we found out all flights to/from Chicago were canceled for the next morning. Our trip leader was on the phone with World Strides for awhile but due to the connecting flight set up, World Strides was not able to rebook flights for the group that didn't involve splitting up the group and cutting out a day of the trip. To our great disappointment, the trip was canceled and not rescheduled. World Strides offered the choice of using credit for a 2025 Washington trip or getting a refund, even those that did not pay for trip insurance. I requested from World Strides that the the $ 400 trip insurance be refunded also. Several emails later, I was told those fees could not be refunded. I was told several times I would be refunded the rest by late July. When I was not, I called and was told due to a refund policy change it would be 3 more months -longer than the new 12 week policy. After many emails and some calls I was finally refunded- about three months after the trip was canceled. The whole refund process was lengthy, took a lot of effort from me to finally get refunded, and I lost $ 400 on trip insurance fees. I do not recommend using World Strides.
CYNTHIA CLARK
Aug 30,2024The trip itineraries are awesome, but each tour is different because of the excellent guides! They really try to get to know each person on the bus and connect with them as individuals. This makes the whole group feel seen and valued, regardless of the destination.
JANICE Br
Aug 30,20241) The last hotel stop was for 4 nights - half of our trip. The location was NOT near the central town of Edinburgh we were visiting. The hotel didn’t have amenities to allow the group to meet up on their own and mingle. This hotel was CHEAP! Not for tourists - but rather a cheap stay for local trades working in the area to stay at. 2) Hated the 7 hour layover on the return flight. 3) Some stops were really of no value and could have been skipped to give time to those that were.
William
Aug 30,2024The tour guides and hotels were great! So many middle seats on the plane rides were definitely disappointing
Leland Ball
Aug 30,2024World stride forgot to get a bus on Wednesday, March 27, 2024. We all had to drive to New Orleans and park cars for a week at the airport. Checks for partial reimbursement were dated three months later on June 25, 2024. My expense for 260 miles round trip at IRS rate for 2024 was $174.20. My parking expense was $110.00 Total expense was $284.20. Two checks for "reimbursement" totaled $188.00. I am out of $ 96.00. I do not care how the person-student-school-travel agency fog machine is arranged and used. I will never have anything to do with world stride again. Except to warn everyone else about it.
CAMERON COLSON
Aug 30,2024The process to get this trip started was fine, and most of the aspects were normal, however, there were a few significant issues. 1. Accommodations in our London trip were 5 minutes from the airport and and hour and a half from every significant sight-seeing location we were promised to visit. The promise of "hotels in the heart of the city" was not kept. The hotel in Paris was marginally better. I would expect WorldStrides to manage their reservations better. In all honesty, it seemed like everything was booked so late that to keep within your profit margin we were cut short a good hotel. Because of this, most of our London tour destinations were extremely rushed or skipped entirely. And on the only day we got a coach, we spent the whole time in the bus and did not have time to get out and see any location AT ALL. Completely disappointing. 2. Additionally, due to issues with scheduling the buses we were frequently left to use public transport as our primary mode of transportation. For a large group of people, flooding the public transportation services with foreigners was a nightmare the first few days. There was a strange rule regarding busing hours, which normally would make sense, but there was no clear work around to accommodate the actual hours we had to visit places. It was poorly planned, or at least poorly communicated to the coaching company, and when there were issues there was no representative to solve the issues. I personally was verbally accosted and yelled at by the bus driver because he was upset by our schedule that WorldStrides had developed. HE was a nightmare and there seemed to be no effort to resolve this by the WorldStrides company. I would suspect a reputable company such as WorldStrides might have the connections available to resolve scheduling conflicts with coaching companies. 3. At no point were we asked if there was a preference for location flight departure for the trip. We were forced to fly out of El Paso, a 4 hour trip away, rather than Lubbock, an hour and a half away. This was strange to us as a whole other group close by was able to fly out of Lubbock. Again, it felt like the booking of the details had been put off so long that the company was forced to give us less than ideal flights. It was apparent that flights were booked late because we did not receive ticket details until two weeks before we were to depart. 4. In addition to all of these issues, as a the program director of my group, I often had to face the complaints and dissatisfaction of my parents who felt they were promised a different kind of experience and when I went to communicate these issues, I found that our representative that we had been working with had quit the day before our trip started. As if she had know there would be issues and did not want to deal with them. Our tour guides did their best to mitigate the many issues that they were thrust upon, but the booking issues were not their fault. 5. When I booked I had a family with a smaller child who could not stay by herself. I made this very clear to our representative. However, at each hotel we arrived in, the accommodation was not considered and they were given limited and unsatisfactory options. I will heavily advise against using this company in the future. It was extremely disappointing to have to have had a great experience in the past as a student and then face so many issues that were very clearly a lack of planning. Unfortunately, I am doubtful there is some way to refund money or provide any sort of compensation for the disappointing experience.
Brinley Anderson
Aug 29,2024Everything about the experience was wonderful aside from one factor. My only negative comment was about food. Every night we ate at various hotel restaurants and I feel as though I may not have experienced the true culture in a culinary sense. However overall, the food was decent and the rest of the trip amazing. We felt safe with our guides the whole time, the itinerary consumed our day but it was reasonable and we didn't feel burnt out, and what we did get to experience were things so unique that an average tourist may not have had the opportunity to have our unique experiences if they didn't know were to look or who to talk to. I believe this trip was life changing.
M Newman
Aug 29,2024There was a delay in flights because of weather. The WorldStrides team along with the school helped to make sure that the kids still had a memorable experience. Swimming with dolphins, hotel and shuttle accommodations were a highlight for my child.
Andrew Griffith
Aug 28,2024Amazing tour guide! Michael is the goat!
AES
Aug 28,2024The worst travel experience I have ever had by far. Inexperienced people, unwilling to help and a money grab to say the least. Never again.
Amy Jo Sutterluety
Aug 28,2024Morgan O’Donnell was helpful, patient and professional. Michael Wighton exceptional and bus driver Peter was terrific.
Taylor Bass
Aug 28,2024Our tour guide, Michael, was amazing and made our trip amazing. He was awesome!
Ronald Parkinson
Aug 27,2024Tour guide was awesome! Sites visited were great! Schedule was quite busy and would have appreciated some down/free time mixed in each day. Would have been much better if our flights had assigned seats that allowed our group to sit together instead of getting all of the last picked seats which scattered young teens throughout the cabin.
Janet VanWinkle
Aug 27,2024Enjoyed seeing the beautiful countryside of Scotland as well as going inside the churches and castles. Enjoyed walking around the towns and cities with the wonderful people I met. Enjoyed the beautiful flowers in front of the houses as well as hearing about the history.
Moana Simmons
Sep 02,2024Most of the trip was reasonably organized, but here were several times when travel plans appeared to have not been thought through very well. Coordinating bus drivers between London and Scotland wasn't ideal- we were told that we had to leaver by 6am and then we got to a rest stop and waited over 90min for the driver transfer. Also, our flights home were scheduled with transfer times that were unrealistic - there was no way for a group of 30 to get through the customs/security process in the Chicago airport in less than 2 hours... Seems like something travel agents should know?