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The 10 Best Group Travel Tour Companies for 2024

Caroline Morse Teel

Caroline Morse Teel is the Executive Editor for SmarterTravel Media. Caroline has a passion for adventure travel and has hiked to the top of Mt. Kilimanjaro and the bottom of the Grand Canyon in pursuit of a good story. Follow her around the world on Instagram @TravelWithCaroline .

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For those truly epic, once-in-a-lifetime destinations, you want to leave your itinerary to the experts. Whether your dream is to see the Big Five on an African Safari, trek tall mountains, explore European cities, or something even wilder, a group tour is the easiest way to do it.

However, picking the wrong group tour company is the quickest way to ruin your trip. Make sure you choose a tour company that aligns with your goals and travel styles. Do you want an intimate group tour or do you prefer to make lots of new friends in a big group? Does the price line up with what you like (luxury vs. budget)? Is the itinerary going to all the places you want to see? 

We’ve done the research and found the very best group travel tour companies for 2024 for every type of traveler.

Best Overall Group Travel: Exodus Adventure Travels

With trips on every continent, Exodus Adventure Travels covers anywhere on this planet that you could possibly want to go, from popular destinations like the Amalfi Coast to well off-the-beaten-path adventures like Tajikistan. This award-winning group travel company boasts thousands of repeat customers who sign up for trips year after year (97% of past participants would recommend Exodus Adventure Travels to a friend). 

These small group tours operate with only around 8-16 people and always feature experienced local leaders who can give you a unique insight into your destination. Exodus Adventure Travels caters to any type of travel style, including trips broken down by type of activity (think walking, cycling, multi-adventure, winter, or cultural) as well as type of traveler (family, age group, etc.). There are curated collections (coastal, “away from it all”, European wilderness, and trips of a lifetime) to inspire you, as well as self-guided options for when you want all the benefits of a group tour planner without the actual group. Looking for that special safari? Exodus Aventure Travels just partners with the African Wildlife Foundation to create carefully curated luxury adventures that go above and beyond the standard safari. 

Exodus Adventure Travels tours work for almost any budget, with options that range from affordable to premium. 

Top Trip: Explore under-the-radar Europe by foot on Exodus Adventure Travels’ Lakes & Mountains of Slovenia walking tour .

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Best Adventure Group Travel: World Expeditions

World Expeditions has been taking adventurous travelers to remote locations all over the world ever since its first group trek through Nepal in 1975. Today, World Expeditions offers active itineraries on every continent. Intrepid travelers can opt for trips themed around mountaineering, rafting, cycling, hiking, and more. 

World Expeditions aims to leave communities and places where they operate tours better than they found them. Trips are created using the company’s Thoughtful Travel Charter as a guideline, which emphasizes respect for the environment, sustainability, having a positive impact on local communities, protecting wildlife, and more. 

World Expeditions’ trips are capped at just 16 people to provide a good experience for participants, and there are no single supplements for solo travelers willing to share a room with someone of the same gender. 

Top Trip: Summit Africa’s tallest mountain on a fully-supported trek up Kilimanjaro on World Expeditions’ eight day trip up the beautiful Lemosho Route . 

Best Budget Group Travel: G Adventures 

For travelers on a budget, G Adventures offers cheap group tours that make dream destinations accessible to nearly anyone. (Think: sailing the Galapagos for just $1,014 , criss-crossing India’s Golden Triangle for $799 , or spending 8 days in Bali for less than $749.)

G Adventures is one of the best tour companies for solo travelers as well, as most trips don’t have a single-supplement. You can choose to share a room with another G Adventures solo traveler, or pay extra to have your own space.

G Adventures keeps costs down by opting for cheaper hotels and local meals, and making certain activities optional (for an additional cost). Pick your travel style—options range from “basic” to more luxe tours run in partnership with National Geographic. Family tours, local living tours (featuring homestays), and wellness-focused tours are also available. 

Top Trip: G Adventures’ China Express trip is a great way to see the highlights of China if you’re short on both time and budget. 

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Best Educational Group Tours: EF Go Ahead Tours

When you really want to learn about a destination, consider a group trip with EF Go Ahead Tours . EF is the world’s largest private education company, and the Go Ahead Tours arm capitalizes on the company’s relationships with local educators, historians, and tour guides to create group trips that take you deep into a destination. 

These small group tours generally cap at 38 travelers, and feature unique educational experiences. For a bucket list trip, EF Go Ahead Tour’s special event tours are particularly enticing, as they offer behind-the-scenes access to tough-to-plan trips like Oktoberfest in Munich or Cherry Blossom season in Japan. 

Intimidated by solo travel? EF Go Ahead Tours is a great option for solo travelers, since it offers designated trips for solo travelers , where everyone is traveling alone, making it less intimidating.  

Top Trip: Bring the tastes of Italy home with you on EF Go Ahead Tours’ Food & Wine: Piedmont & Tuscany tour (operated in partnership with America’s Test Kitchen), where you’ll learn how to make local dishes. 

Best Responsible Group Travel: Intrepid Travel

Looking for a responsible group travel operator that focuses on bettering the communities and destinations they visit? Intrepid Travel is the world’s largest travel B Corporation, a certification for companies doing good. 

Intrepid Travel’s tours focus on sustainability, diversity, inclusion, and sustaining communities. The company has its own charity, The Intrepid Foundation , which has donated over 10 million dollars to over 160 community organizations. 

Intrepid Travel’s small group tours attract a wide range of travelers, but they are especially great for younger travelers, as they have a large number of trips designed for people aged 18-35 . (Other trips, including family-focused trips, are geared toward any age.)

Top Trip: Experience foodie trip of a lifetime Intrepid Travel’s South Korea Real Food Adventure , which includes time in three cities and an overnight temple stay.

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Best Private Group Travel: Kensington Tours

Whether your group consists of just two people or involves taking the entire extended family, Kensington Tours will take all the hassle of planning out of the equation. This private group operator creates personalized trips and itineraries tailored to your preferences, while their experts handle all the logistics and bookings. 

Plans are entirely flexible, and can even be changed while on the trip on a whim. Need some inspiration? Browse Kensington Tours’ travel ideas , to get some ideas for your next adventure. 

Top Trip: Sail around the stunning shores of Croatia and the Dalmation Islands on a private luxury catamaran on Kensington Tours’ fully customizable tour . 

Best Polar Group Travel: Chimu Adventures

Whether you’re headed north to the Artic or south to Antarctica, Chimu Adventures has the perfect polar group trip for you. Chimu Adventures has some of the most variety for polar trips, with options to fly, cruise, or a combination of both to get to your destination. For an ultra-unique Antarctica trip, Chimu Adventures offers cruises departing from Australia or New Zealand (most Antarctica trips depart from Argentina).

Chimu Adventures is one of the cheapest group trips to Antarctica, with rates starting under $6,000.

Top Trip: If you’re pressed for time (or simply don’t have the stomach for the Drake Passage), Chimu Adventures’ Antarctica Fly Cruise will get you to the ends of the earth quickly and smoothly.

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Best Group Tours for Solo Travelers: For the Love of Travel

Group tours can be a great way to meet new people, but they can sometimes skew on the older age range. If you’re between 25-39 and a solo traveler looking to meet new people, you’ll love For the Love of Travel . All participants on the trips are between 25-39, and according to the company, 80 percent are solo travelers—so you’ll make friends fast. Hoping to meet someone who will be more than just a friend on your next trip? Trips include a balanced number of “gal and guy spots” to ensure an even balance of genders within groups (and of course, non-binary genders are always welcome). 

For the Love of Travel offers weeklong (or longer) international trips as well as shorter weekender trips to closer destinations like Mexico or Costa Rica—perfect for people without a lot of vacation time.

Top Trip: Sleep in a glass igloo under the Northern Lights, go sledding with huskies, and warm up in traditional saunas on For the Love of Travel’s Lapland tour , already booking dates for 2024.

Best Biking Tours Group Travel: DuVine Cycling

Biking through the rolling hills of Italy or across the mountain roads of Chile sounds like a dream, but the logistics seem daunting (especially if you don’t want to haul all your own stuff from point-to-point). Enter: DuVine Cycling , a luxury small group tour company that specializes in bike trips. 

With trips across Europe, Latin America, Africa, Asia, and the United States, DuVine Cycling is a cyclist’s dream. Choose from all-biking trips or mix things up with a cycle and sail bike tour or a multi-sport adventure —no matter what, everything is included, from luxury boutique accommodations to top-quality name brand bikes. 

Top Trip: DuVine’s Holland Bike Tour promises “tulips, windmills, beer, and cheese”—what more could you need?

Best Luxury Group Travel: Abercrombie & Kent

Abercrombie & Kent has been delighting discerning travelers since 1962. Today, they take travelers on unforgettable adventures across over 100 different countries and all seven continents. Although Abercrombie & Kent’s trips are pricey, they encompass once-in-a-lifetime experiences like private jet tours around the world or luxury chartered cruises .

There are trips designed for solo travelers and families , and the small group journeys max out at around 14-18 guests.

Top Trip: Swim with whale sharks in the Philippines, feed proboscis monkeys in Malaysia, and photograph wild tigers in India on Abercrombie & Kent’s Wildlife & Nature: Around the World by Private Jet trip , already booking dates into 2024.

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We hand-pick everything we recommend and select items through testing and reviews. Some products are sent to us free of charge with no incentive to offer a favorable review. We offer our unbiased opinions and do not accept compensation to review products. All items are in stock and prices are accurate at the time of publication. If you buy something through our links, we may earn a commission.

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The 5 best eiffel tower tours.

Taking a guided tour is the best way to explore the Eiffel Tower.

The Best Eiffel Tower Tours

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The Eiffel Tower is the proud symbol of France, rising high above the rooftops of Paris as a testament to French artistry and workmanship. The tower welcomes more than 7 million visitors a year, making the "Iron Lady" one of the most visited monuments in the world .

Tickets to tour the tower’s three levels can be purchased online up to two months in advance, but they often sell out quickly. However, since many tour operators get advance access to tickets, you can often book even earlier to secure your spot with a professional guide, or possibly score a last-minute trip to the tower.

These tours – identified by U.S. News using both expert opinion and traveler sentiment – offer historical context and an exciting immersion into one of the world’s most beloved monuments.

Best Overall: City Wonders – Eiffel Tower Climbing Experience with Optional Access to the Summit Level

Best small group: experiencefirst – eiffel tower guided tour, best nighttime: the tour guy – privileged access eiffel tower tour with seine river cruise, best elevator: ecklectours – eiffel tower elevator tour with a guide, best for families: bonbon tours – eiffel tower guided tour by elevator with summit option.

U.S. News independently paid to send Kristy Alpert , a freelance journalist based in Paris, on this tour to provide readers with an unbiased, first-hand perspective of what to expect. This City Wonders tour was selected by our team as the Best Overall thanks to its popularity and favorable user reviews. 

Price: Adults from $39; kids from $33 Duration: 2 hours

This walking tour starts just outside the Eiffel Tower grounds, where a City Wonders representative sorts participants into one of two groups; those heading to the summit (by elevator) and those stopping after the second-floor climb. My guide for the second-floor climb was energetic and excited to share his knowledge of the Eiffel Tower after living in Paris for a year, and he had an album of historic photos to back up his commentary. He chatted with each tourgoer personally as we queued for 30 minutes for our entrance beneath the tower, after having been ushered through a quick security line for "ticket holders."

Everyone in the group took the first portion of the climb (327 stairs) at our own pace, after which we were given 15 minutes to catch our breath and explore the first floor of the Eiffel Tower at our leisure before gathering for a narrated tour. Our guide pointed out all of the major landmarks visible from the first floor, including lesser-known sites like Napoleon’s tomb inside Hôtel des Invalides and the quarter-scale replica of the Statue of Liberty at the tip of Swan Island (Île aux Cygnes). We proceeded to the second floor (347 stairs), again at our own pace, before meeting for the final narrated portion of the tour on the second floor. We gained insights into the tower’s history – like how it was originally painted red – while slowly walking the perimeter together admiring sights like the Arc de Triomphe , Champs-Élysées and Notre Dame . The tour concluded there, where we were free to ask questions or explore before leaving on our own.

Kristy Alpert

Good to know:

• Your tour ticket allows you to stay at the tower as long as you please, so plan to stick around after the tour ends to explore the shops, restaurants, viewpoints and great outdoor lounge options on the first and second floors.
• There is an upgraded ticket option that allows you to take an elevator to the summit level; this ticket will cost extra.
• Tours are offered several times a day, seven days a week.

Why we love it:

• The guides give ample free time to explore independently from the group, but also do a great job of helping direct participants toward can’t-miss sights. 
• The relaxed pace of the climb makes the 674 stairs very manageable, with plenty of time to take breaks if necessary. 
• The guide was skilled at engaging the kids on my tour, even creating a quiz show-style competition to keep them interested.

Check prices & availability on:

Price: Adults from $44; kids from $37 Duration: 2 hours

ExperienceFirst was the first tour operator to offer guided climbs of the Eiffel Tower. The company’s expertise in group tours is evident on each of the five tower climbs it leads daily. The baseline ticket includes a two-hour guided tour from the ground floor to the second floor, and the 674 stairs it takes to climb between those two points. The pace is relaxed and the guides are knowledgeable, friendly and well-versed in French history, according to participants. What’s more, the tour includes a complimentary shuttle between ExperienceFirst meeting points throughout the city, and optional add-ons include access to the Eiffel Tower’s summit via elevator and a Seine River cruise.

ExperienceFirst also offers walking tours of Montmartre and filming locations for the Netflix show "Emily in Paris."

Price: Adults from $86; kids from $69 Duration: 2.5 hours

The Tour Guy is known around Paris for its incredible small-group tours, and this combo tour is no different. The tour starts on board a riverboat for an hourlong scenic cruise of the Seine, with a glass of Champagne or soft drink included with each ticket. A knowledgeable guide meets the group (capped at 19 participants) back at the dock to begin the tour of the Eiffel Tower. Skip-the-line tickets keep things moving quickly as the group ascends to the second floor via elevator for a spectacular view and informational tour of the tower and the views beyond.

Many reviewers recommended booking an evening tour for the chance to see the Eiffel Tower’s sparkling light show, which takes place every hour on the hour from dusk until the tower closes. Travelers say that because of the skip-the-line access and the river cruise, this tour is a great value. Tours are available daily; exact times vary by day. The Tour Guy also offers daytime and summit tours of the tower, among other options.

Price: From $75 Duration: 2 hours

Travelers can pick from multiple options to explore the Eiffel Tower with Ecklectours. The company’s two-hour tours are guided by a fun and educated guide who takes the group to either the summit or the second floor via the tower’s glass elevators. Access to the summit comes at an additional fee, but all of the four time slots (morning, afternoon, evening and nighttime) include a fascinating insight into the tower’s history. Some reviewers mentioned they enjoyed the time in line with their guides because they could ask personal questions about the city of Paris while others appreciated the efficiency of the tour to be able to cover so much information in just two hours.

Prefer to climb? Ecklectours also leads a tour to the second floor that utilizes the stairs instead of the elevator.

Price: Adults from $60; kids from $51 Duration: 2 hours

Reviewers say guides bring the history of the Eiffel Tower to life thanks to their friendly, energetic commentary. Tours start at a meeting point just outside the tower ground, where a local guide begins a historical account of how the Eiffel Tower came to be one of the most revered monuments in the world. The elevator ride to the second floor is included, with an optional upgrade to continue to the summit (note that prebooking summit access is required). At booking, there are five starting times to choose from.

Tourgoers raved about the charismatic personality of Bonbon Tours guides, who travelers say are particularly adept at engaging young kids. The only complaints were from people who missed their start times or did not realize this tour doesn’t include skip-the-line access. The company also leads tours of some of the city's most popular neighborhoods, including the Latin Quarter and Le Marais .

Frequently Asked Questions

If you’d like to learn more about the history of the Eiffel Tower and get the perspective of a local, book a guided tour. In addition to helping you navigate the crowds, the tour guide will take care of securing tower tickets for you. If you’d just like to admire the views, some travelers say a guided tour is not necessary.

If you’d like to avoid the largest crowds, it’s recommended you visit the Eiffel Tower in the evening after 5 p.m. Though a variety of factors can impact the volume of visitors at the tower, including the weather, public holidays and school vacation periods, it’s quietest between 8 p.m. and 10:30 p.m., according to the company that manages the Eiffel Tower. For the best views, past travelers recommend visiting at sunset, so you can capture the sky changing colors against the city's famous landmarks.

You’ll need between 1.5 and 2.5 hours to visit the Eiffel Tower, depending on if you take the elevator to the summit or stick to the first and second floors of the tower.

Why Trust U.S. News Travel

Kristy Alpert is a freelance writer based in Paris. She is a big proponent of daytime Eiffel Tower tours for the best views of the city and nighttime Seine river cruises to see the tower in all its sparkling glory. For this list, she used her own experience and used her resources to gather insider tips from locals and visitors.

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The Complete Guide to Group Travel

The paella was a breaking point. I was in the middle of the most complicated group trip I’d ever planned—13 people, flying in from six different cities, all gathering in a seven-bedroom villa in Andalucia . We were there, ostensibly, on a joint 30th-birthday trip, a group vacation we’d been planning for years . As high school classmates, some of us had known each other for decades, and the group had grown to include significant others and even a not-yet-announced pregnancy.

It would have been an ambitious trip no matter how many people were attending. We had chosen Spain as a middle ground between North America and East Asia, where my friends and I had scattered after college graduation. We were basing ourselves in Ronda, but rented several cars and planned day trips to see the bigger cities—Seville, Granada, Cordoba. But, inevitably, the dreamy idea of bringing us together for a milestone trip took on a life of its own: destination suggestions ranged from Croatia to Marrakech , and a total of 26 people were invited at some point. And I was wrangling it all— finding a villa , planning activities, making restaurant reservations, confirming the rental cars , and generally making sure it all went smoothly. Thankfully, I had some help: a villa specialist , plus a subset of friends I could count on for strong opinions and quick decisions. I took on this role naturally—and my friends were great about checking in to see if I needed any organizational help whatsoever. But generally, it was up to me to shape the flow of the trip while accommodating every travel personality, from super-planner to totally blasé.

Like every group vacation I’ve ever been on, our Spain trip had its ups and downs. On the first night, my head spinning while trying to keep track of a group text chain that had lost all sense of reason, I found myself struggling to keep my eyes open. Even though I was seeing my friends for the first time in a while, enjoying a home-cooked, multi-course meal as we shared exciting news (A new job! An international move! That pregnancy!), all I wanted to do was lie down after a very long travel day of planes, trains, and cars. On day two, I came downstairs to a breakfast spread of eggs, cheese, meats, and bread (there’s nothing like traveling with someone who likes to wake up early and prepare breakfast), and proceeded to try and block out the morning noise—questions about what to wear, what to bring, where the chargers were—way too much before I'd had my morning caffeine.

I hung back a bit that day during the group tour, scanning the crowd to make sure all my friends were having fun. Did they like the tour guide we had booked? Were they tired and jet lagged? Was the lunch reservation at an appropriate time? That night at dinner, a random spot we found within walking distance of our villa, I was happy to let someone else take the lead in ordering for the group, since the menu was only printed in Spanish. And then, the next night, we were so excited when our paella was delivered. It was in a massive pan the size of my wingspan, and took two people to carry. The saffron-infused aroma was coming through the aluminum sheets, and we were all crowded around the stove, awaiting the big reveal—until we uncovered the aluminum and realized they hadn’t seen my note about dietary restrictions, and my friends with shellfish sensitivities would be eating leftovers instead.

At its best, travel has a way of making every daily anxiety feel absolutely insignificant. And at its worst, even the tiniest mishaps, like the wrong ingredients in the paella, feel like the end of the world. This is even more the case on group trips, when you’re dealing with people of different ages, needs, and activity levels, or traveling with a group of friends of friends, where you’re close with some and not quite as comfortable with others. When you’re trying to accommodate everyone’s travel wishes, but somehow end up pleasing nobody. And of course, that moment when you realize you’re going to need a vacation to recover from this vacation.

That’s not to say that I didn’t have a great time in Spain. When I look back, I think about the one night we picked to be our joint birthday dinner. We were all gathered around restaurant table, 13 of us trying to blow the candles out together, each dissolving into giggles at different times. And of the one day we smartly split up into smaller groups—one group exploring the town, the other hanging by the pool—and then gathered together at night to share the highlights of our day. And how our long car rides led to long conversations, which was a way for me to really get to know my friend’s significant other—something that would have been nearly impossible otherwise, as they live in Toronto and we only see them a few times a year.

It always takes a few days for me to settle into vacation mode, but this time around, I had the added stress of worrying about everything that could go wrong, when a group of people who became friends at 18 meet again to travel together a dozen years later. I needed those moments of joy, of spontaneous laughter, of lounging around in silence, to be reminded of why we were all together in the first place—and why a few years earlier, we had known that we needed to prioritize setting aside time in our schedules to find a week that worked for all of us.

I think about how, during the vacation, we fantasized about what the next reunion would look like. Would we alternate continents? Would we take a cruise? Would we bring partners and kids along for our 40th birthday trip? At one point, someone brought up making it an annual trip —but the panicked look on my face might have nipped that suggestion in the bud immediately.

Group travel requires a herculean amount of coordination and compromise. But there’s something about having a group of people in the same place at the same time that can give every trip that once-in-a-lifetime feeling—an adrenaline rush that I only get when I’m traveling. I got to see a new side of my friends, who I haven’t lived in the same city as since I was 18—how some woke up early to check in at the office, how others were unflappable through hours of traffic and confusing driving directions, and how the parents-to-be soaked up the last few months before they became a family of three. That’s the magic of a group trip—you get to see your travel companions out of their daily element, in their vacation selves. And, if you can manage to stay calm throughout the planning process, the truth is, that’s often our best selves.

Why we built this guide

Group trips don’t all have to be stressful before they get good. If you’re reading this, it’s likely because you’ve been tasked to be the planner, at least in some part, for an upcoming trip. Here at Condé Nast Traveler , we embrace group travel in all forms, from big family vacations to a core group of friends that always travels together to traveling alone in a larger group. And we put this package together to help you take care of the big things—from where to stay and how to save money with points and miles —to the little ones, like how one app can change the group travel game.

We’re also letting you in on our best-kept secret, for when it’s time to throw your hands up and let the travel gods take over: Book a cruise . It’s what I did for my recent bachelorette party, where we paid just over $300 per person for 3 nights in the Caribbean, unlimited food and drinks, and endless entertainment. Okay, there was still a little planning, but it was limited to where we’d eat lunch on port day and whether we had brought enough sunscreen for our kayaking trip. As the de facto planner, I never had to think about signing a bill , or making sure everybody was entertained. I simply soaked it all in as my friends congregated in various combinations and got to know each other in vacation mode. It was the best gift I could have given myself—second to this guide, of course.

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Mckinsey study reveals surprising facts about today’s luxury travelers.

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Woman enjoying a glass of wine in a luxury hotel with a view of Florence, Italy.

Travel is one of the world’s largest industries. According to McKinsey , $8.6 trillion will be spent on travel in 2024, representing roughly 9 percent of this year’s global GDP.

And the consulting leader says that demand for luxury tourism and hospitality will grow faster than for any other travel industry segment. Luxury travel was a $239 billion business in 2023. McKinsey predicts it will grow to $391 billion by 2028.

Who is a luxury traveler? McKinsey uses a very simple metric: someone who typically spends over $500 per night on a hotel room.

What is driving the growth in such luxury travel? A key factor is the sharp rise in people around the world with a net worth of between $1 million and $30 million.

Yet 35% of luxury travelers have a net worth of under $1 million but are willing to spend ‘like millionaires.’ McKinsey says these aspiring luxury travelers with net worths of between $100,000 and $1 million are younger and increasingly willing to spend larger shares of their wealth on upscale travel.

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In the U.S. alone, 22 million people (6.6% of the population) were worth over $1 million in 2023. China, where “ to get rich is glorious ,” has 6 million people considered dollar millionaires, or 0.4 percent of the population. That’s according to Statista, quoting a report from the Swiss bank UBS.

Couple relaxing and laughing in a cabana by the pool at a luxury hotel.

France is number three, with 2.9 million millionaires, or 4.2 percent of the population. China has seen millionaire numbers rise quickly since 2000, and McKinsey says there is a chance Asia may overtake the U.S. in millionaire numbers in coming years.

McKinsey notes that the prime ages for spending on travel are between 40 and 60, meaning that destinations, airlines and hotels should be focusing on Millennials as the Baby Boomers slip away.

The data was based on a February and March 2024 survey of 5,000 luxury travelers from China, Germany, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, and the United States. All respondents took at least one leisure trip in the past two years.

McKinsey’s look at luxury travel trends found that today’s luxury traveler is not necessarily either as old or as rich as previously believed. The report debunked a number of such beliefs about luxury travelers.

One perception is that luxury travelers are very wealthy. In fact, 35 percent of the luxury-travel market is now composed of travelers with net worths of between $100,000 and $1 million. According to McKinsey, these aspiring luxury travelers might splurge on special occasions, prefer visibly branded luxury, demand value for their money, and value loyalty program points and benefits. They might be willing to spend big on certain components of travel, such as a helicopter tour or fine-dining experience but not on every aspect of a trip.

The study says that many luxury hotels are targeting such aspirational travelers by offering more affordable standard rooms, not just pricey ultraluxury suites.

Young successful woman getting out of a private jet parked on a runway. She is using a mobile phone.

McKinsey says that non-travel luxury brands are also targeting this aspirational group. Bulgari recently began a collaboration with Ritz-Carlton, and the luxury watchmaker and the hotel group may have up to a dozen partnership properties by 2026. McKinsey also noted that famed shoemaker Christian Louboutin opened a boutique hotel on the Portuguese coast.

Another changing perception is that luxury travelers come from Europe and the United States. Actually, the growth of wealth in Asia is spurring a boom in regional hotel construction. A 2023 report found that 41 percent of upcoming global luxury hotel rooms are in Asia, with 43 percent of those in China.

Luxury travelers are not necessarily old, according to the study. Some 80 percent of the luxury leisure market is made up of people below the age of 60. Spending on travel peaks between the ages of 40 and 60. Younger travelers, including families with children, show an increasing willingness to spend at luxury levels.

Another outdated perception is that luxury travelers all crave exotic experiences. It’s not all “caviar wishes and champagne dreams,” as the old “ Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous ” TV show put it. According to McKinsey, the largest share of luxury travelers want to do what other travelers do. Sixty-five percent express intent to go on sunny beach vacations, while 55 percent plan to book relaxing getaways.

Interestingly, the study shows that not every luxury traveler craves constant digital connection. Luxury travelers were two to three times more likely than mass travelers to say their main reasons for traveling are to meet new people and to disconnect or “detox” from digital devices.

And luxury travelers are not above using loyalty programs. Sixty-eight percent of luxury travelers—compared with only 41 percent of mass travelers—say loyalty programs are an important factor when choosing accommodations. Luxury travelers are similarly more likely than mass travelers to care about hotel brands, 77 percent versus 53 percent.

Three glasses of Cabernet Sauvignon wine are visible during a wine tasting at Elusa Vineyard, Napa ... [+] Valley, Calistoga, California, December 11, 2022. (Photo by Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images)

And some luxury hotel brands have defied the popular perception that luxury accommodations are only provided by independently owned, landmark hotels.

According to McKinsey, “A few major brands, including Four Seasons Hotels and Mandarin Oriental Hotel, have managed to establish themselves as icons of luxury hospitality. And some groups, such as Leading Hotels of the World and Relais & Châteaux, have been able to unite a disparate set of independent and family-owned luxury hotels under a single, recognizable banner—serving as a trusted indicator of luxury quality at scale and granting smaller organizations strength in numbers.” The recent partnership between Hilton and Small Luxury Hotels of the World may reflect this trend.

But McKinsey warns, “As luxury-hotel brands get bigger, they must ensure that they can still offer personalized, high-touch service.”

Luxury travelers do stand out in certain ways. To them, the idea of wellness doesn’t just mean an enormous spa. McKinsey says luxury consumers expect a much more holistic array of offerings, such as fitness classes (88 percent of survey respondents said fitness is important on leisure trips), health-focused menus, on-site antiaging doctors, and mindfulness programming.

And luxury travelers don’t necessarily want to plan or be responsible for every aspect of their trips themselves. McKinsey spoke with Matthew D. Upchurch, founder, chairman, and CEO of the luxury-travel-advising network Virtuoso .

Speaking from the customer’s point of view, Upchurch said, “Of course I could do it myself. I don’t want to. And if I can have someone in my life who provides incredible experiences and is a fun collaborator, takes my input, has great connections, and can watch my back and do things for me, why would I want to do it myself?”

The famous Mandarin Oriental Hotel, Central financial district, Hong Kong, China. (Photo by: Bob ... [+] Henry/UCG/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

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Exploding pagers belonging to Hezbollah kill at least 8 and injure more than 2,700 in Lebanon

The militant group  Hezbollah said Tuesday that pagers belonging to its members had blown up across Lebanon , killing at least eight people and injuring more than 2,700, according to the country’s Health Ministry.

Iran-backed Hezbollah pinned the blame for the widespread and seemingly simultaneous blasts on Israel, without providing evidence. Israel did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the accusations and the explosions.

More than 200 people were in critical condition, the public health minister, Dr. Firas Abiad, told reporters. According to The Associated Press and Al Jazeera , officials updated the death toll after Abiad's news conference.

During the emergency, Lebanese officials ordered the public to avoid using handheld communication devices.

Mojtaba Amani, Iran’s ambassador to Lebanon, was among the injured, according to the country’s embassy. In a post on X , it described his injuries as “superficial" and added that he was in a good condition.

Hezbollah said in its a statement that explosions killed "a girl and two brothers."

It added that the blasts came from pagers belonging to “employees in various Hezbollah units and institutions.”

One of those killed was Muhammad Mahdi, the son of Ali Ammar, a Hezbollah member of Parliament, according to the National News Agency, which is state-run.

Hezbollah says it has handed out pagers to members, many of whom stopped using cellphones out of fear that Israel could use them to track and monitor them.

“The ministry requests all citizens who own wireless communication devices to stay away from them until the truth of what is happening is revealed,” the Health Ministry said, according to NNA.

It was unclear whether the explosions were part of a coordinated attack, which would represent a significant security breach for Hezbollah.

Matt Miller, a State Department spokesperson, told reporters at a briefing that the U.S. hadn't been aware of the "incident" in advance and was "gathering information" about the detonations.

Lebanon's Red Cross said it deployed 130 ambulances to respond to explosion injuries, with 170 more vehicles on standby. The country's civil emergency authority urged people to donate blood at hospitals "as soon as possible," state news reported.

Reuters reported that dozens of Hezbollah members were seriously wounded in Lebanon’s south and in the southern suburbs of the capital, Beirut.

A Reuters journalist saw 10 Hezbollah members bleeding from wounds in the Beirut suburb of Dahiyeh, the agency said. It was unclear how many civilians were affected.

By late Tuesday afternoon local time, no one had taken responsibility for the explosions, some of which appeared to have been captured on closed-circuit TV video and shared on social media.

In a second statement, Hezbollah said it had reviewed “all the facts” and information and held Israel responsible for the explosions, which occurred a day after Israel announced a new war objective , fueling fears of a new military offensive in Lebanon.

Lebanon’s foreign ministry condemned what it called an “Israeli cyber attack,” adding that it would submit a complaint about the detonations to the U.N. Security Council.

“This dangerous and deliberate Israeli escalation is accompanied by Israeli threats to expand the scope of the war towards Lebanon on a large scale, and the intransigence of Israeli positions calling for more bloodshed, destruction and devastation,” it said in a statement.

Former CIA Director John Brennan told NBC News that he believes the pagers had some kind of explosive in the hardware based in part on the scale and simultaneous nature of the attack. He speculated that the pagers were at some point intercepted and switched "for the ones that Hezbollah thought were going to be benign."

"All suspicion has to rest on Israel for being the responsible party," Brennan said.

He added that he believed Israel's intention was to send a message to Hezbollah of its capabilities to get to the militia inside Lebanon.

Israel has warned the U.S., its closest ally, that “military action” would most likely be the only way to address mounting hostilities with Hezbollah.

Late Monday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office announced that his security Cabinet had updated its list of war objectives to include the safe return of residents who have been displaced from their homes near the northern border because of months of fighting with Hezbollah.

“Israel will continue to act to implement this objective,” the prime minister’s office said.

Thousands of people have been displaced on both sides of the Israel-Lebanon border since Israel began an offensive in Gaza following the Hamas-led Oct. 7 terrorist attacks. Hezbollah has vowed to continue attacks until Israel’s assault on Gaza ends.

Israeli tensions with Hezbollah, a powerful militia and political party that formed in 1986 and rose to power after Israel invaded southern Lebanon in pursuit of Palestine Liberation Organization fighters, spiraled during the war in Gaza.

Last month, Israel struck Lebanon with what it said were pre-emptive strikes to prevent plans by Hezbollah to launch a widespread assault across the countries' shared border.

The attacks came weeks after Israel assassinated a top Hezbollah commander,  Fouad Shukur . Hezbollah sought revenge by launching a drone attack on Israel's Glilot base, which is near Tel Aviv.

International diplomats, particularly those from the U.S. and France, have been working for months to de-escalate the conflict between Hezbollah and Israel in an effort to contain the war in Gaza.

Chantal Da Silva reports on world news for NBC News Digital and is based in London.

Doha Madani is a senior breaking news reporter for NBC News. Pronouns: she/her.

Raf Sanchez is a foreign correspondent for NBC News.

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How to Use Facebook Groups to Meet Other Travelers!

Remember Couchsurfing ? It was a website that allowed you to stay with locals (for free) and always had a plethora of events and meetups you could attend no matter where you were in the world. It was one of the best ways to meet locals and travelers on the road. It was one of my favorite sites.

Pretty much everyone on the team here used it a lot over the years. My Director of Content, for example, was not only an avid traveler who went on multiple multi-day trips with strangers thanks to Couchsurfing, but he was also a host, and he was even featured in a calendar they made one year!

I used it to stay in places like Copenhagen, London, Oxford, Munich, Broome, Paris, Osaka, Athens, and so forth and so forth. I mean, I loved it. I met people in cities like Lyon just to hang out, did meet-ups in NYC, Hong Kong, Bangkok, and so many other places.

But ever since the site started charging around 2013, and then instituted a paywall during the pandemic, fewer and fewer people have used it. These days, it’s a shell of its former self.

While researching the latest edition of my book on budget travel (coming out in March 2025!), I rejoined Couchsurfing to see how active it was, and even in the largest metropolitan centers, there were barely a few dozen active profiles within the previous month. For example, London showed 229,457 total hosts but only 896 active hosts in the last six months — and only 496 active within the last month. That’s a big, big difference!

It’s a real shame as Couchsurfing really changed the way people traveled. It was as ubiquitous as Lonely Planet!

So, with Couchsurfing (and similar websites) pretty dead, where does one go to meet people now?

Answer: Facebook — which is honestly the last place I would have thought, because, well, it’s Facebook, and most younger travelers don’t use it as much as TikTok or Instagram. After all, Facebook also has a well-deserved reputation as the place your aunt posts memes or your crazy cousin rants about racist stuff.

But, whenever I sign into Facebook, I keep seeing posts from all sorts of groups in my feed, with people looking for travel buddies: backpacking Europe, backpacking Australia, digital nomads in (insert destination), find a travel buddy…the list of groups goes on and on.

I was skeptical of them at first, because when I took a deeper look at the posts, it always felt like they were just sleazy guys hitting on young girls and AI-generated girl accounts designed trap someone. “Hi I’m Anna from US looking to travel dm me” doesn’t strike me as something an actual person would say.

While female-only groups have been a legitimate way to meet people for a long time ( Girls Love Travel being one of the most famous), the mixed-gender ones always felt a little sketchy. But they kept popping up in my feed.

So I looked into them more carefully to see if they really were spammy. While there were many fake profiles and creepy dudes (sorry, guys, but it’s the internet, and there are tons of those), sometimes I did come across real people who seemed generally interested in meeting others, however few and far between they were.

Are these groups really a good way to meet people? There was only one way to find out.

I used the group Find a Travel Buddy while in Europe and posted some of my tentative plans. I got hundreds of responses and direct messages, which was pretty overwhelming.

A lot of it was spam: people telling me to come visit them in India (I’m posting about Europe), people sending me hellos, a few marriage proposals, and some really inappropriate comments. (Side note: if I get those kinds of responses, I can only imagine what it’s like for women, who I often see edit their posts to ask people to stop coming on to them. Quite sad.)

But I waded through all the junk and eventually found real people to meet up with. In the end, I only met a few of them, as either my plans shifted or theirs did. But the interactions I had were really great.

I had an awesome night out in Freiburg, Germany, with a group of folks, and another with an Italian girl and her friends in Amsterdam. Each time, they took me around to places I wouldn’t have seen otherwise, and I got to meet locals. It was a good way to make new friends and find people to talk to.

Even though you have to wade through a lot of garbage, I think these groups are great, especially if you are traveling alone. While I don’t have the personality to go on a multi-day trip with a stranger, I did love the ability to meet people as I traveled.

If you’re looking to use them, here are some suggestions to minimize (but not eliminate) the garbage replies:

• Be specific about where you are going and when (otherwise, people will spam ya with “come visit X!”).
• Ask people who respond to be specific about themselves.
• Be clear about what you are looking for (age, kind of travel partner, gender, etc.)

My current favorite groups are:

• Find A Travel Buddy
• Girls LOVE Travel
• Backpacking South America
• Digital Nomads
• Solo Trips & Travelers

From there, for safety, I would highly recommend looking at the profiles of respondents to make sure they are real and only meet in public places. Beyond that, have fun! These groups might not be as easy to use as Couchsurfing was, but at least there is something these days to help you meet locals and other travelers. I’m now a believer in and fan of these groups and will definitely be using them more on future trips.

Book Your Trip: Logistical Tips and Tricks

Book Your Flight Find a cheap flight by using Skyscanner . It’s my favorite search engine because it searches websites and airlines around the globe so you always know no stone is being left unturned.

Book Your Accommodation You can book your hostel with Hostelworld . If you want to stay somewhere other than a hostel, use Booking.com as it consistently returns the cheapest rates for guesthouses and hotels.

Don’t Forget Travel Insurance Travel insurance will protect you against illness, injury, theft, and cancellations. It’s comprehensive protection in case anything goes wrong. I never go on a trip without it as I’ve had to use it many times in the past. My favorite companies that offer the best service and value are:

• SafetyWing (best for everyone)
• InsureMyTrip (for those 70 and over)
• Medjet (for additional evacuation coverage)

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July 30, 2021

In the Know Experiences is known for designing travel experiences that are as unique as their clients, and their business complements our overall luxury travel offering within the Global Travel Collection division. We are proud to take full ownership of the firm as we look to continue to build our brand and reinforce our position as one of the world’s preeminent sellers of premium travel. Internova Travel Group CEO J.D. O’Hara

NEW YORK (July 30, 2021) –  Internova Travel Group, one of the largest travel services companies in the world, today announced the completion of a management buyout of luxury travel advisory In the Know Experiences (ITKE). ITKE is already part of Global Travel Collection, the premium travel division of Internova whose community of travel industry agents and agencies serve luxury leisure, VIP corporate, and entertainment travel needs worldwide.

“In the Know Experiences is known for designing travel experiences that are as unique as their clients, and their business complements our overall luxury travel offering within the Global Travel Collection division,” said J.D. O’Hara, Chief Executive Officer of Internova Travel Group. “We are proud to take full ownership of the firm as we look to continue to build our brand and reinforce our position as one of the world’s preeminent sellers of premium travel.”

As part of the transaction, the travel business of ITKE, comprised of in-house and independent contractor operations of booking travel services to consumer travelers and corporate and entertainment clients, will remain in Global Travel Collection. Karen Magee has been appointed to lead ITKE, reporting directly to Global Travel Collection President Angie Licea.

ITKE founders Lia Batkin and Seth Kaplan will retain the agency’s events side of the business under a new name, which will include event production, creating and selling hospitality packages, and entertainment consulting. “There is a large opportunity to take what we have learned over the last fourteen years to create a more integrated 360-degree approach to designing and selling events,” said Kaplan.

Launched in 2007, ITKE was created by Batkin and Kaplan after noticing the potential for a travel and lifestyle company that catered to an aspirational demographic who demanded more from their travel experience. Internova (then called Travel Leaders Group) became a majority owner in 2016. The company has since grown to become a leading luxury travel and lifestyle consultancy, offering one-of-a-kind experiences and specialized services around the world.

“It has been an incredible experience building ITKE over the last fourteen years into one of the leading boutique luxury travel and lifestyle consultancies,” said Batkin. “We are delighted to extend our partnership with Internova Travel Group as they take full ownership and guide ITKE into its next chapter.”

“As a long-time admirer of Lia, Seth and the incredible team at In the Know Experiences, I’m honored to have the opportunity to guide ITKE into the future,” said Magee. “The company’s industry-leading talent, access and expertise make it perfectly poised to continue being the go-to travel agency for luxury clients looking for elevated travel experiences and for advisors looking for a home to support their innovative, growing travel businesses.”

About Internova Travel Group

Internova Travel Group  is one of the largest travel services companies in the world with a collection of leading brands delivering high-touch, personal travel expertise to leisure and corporate clients. Internova manages leisure, business and franchise firms through a portfolio of distinctive divisions. Internova represents more than 62,000 travel advisors in over 6,000 company-owned and affiliated locations predominantly in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom, with a presence in more than 80 countries.

About Global Travel Collection

Global Travel Collection  (GTC), a division of Internova Travel Group, is the world’s largest collection of international luxury travel agencies, including the well-established networks of Protravel International, Tzell Travel Group, and Colletts Travel, as well as Andrew Harper, In the Know Experiences, All Star Travel Group and R. Crusoe & Son. GTC advisors and agencies are industry leaders in providing premium travel services to leisure travelers, corporate executives and the entertainment industry. The combined global reach and leverage translates into value, recognition, and preferential treatment for its world travelers.

About In the Know Experiences

In the Know Experiences  (ITKE), an exclusive travel and lifestyle consulting agency owned by Internova Travel Group, specializes in unforgettable, bespoke experiences around the world. From an amazing vacation, to a corporate event, or the ultimate celebration of your dreams, dedicated lifestyle experts are available around the clock, ready to bring these experiences to life.

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12 reasons it's better to travel in a group.

‘Group travel’ has become a byword for the lazy, frightened, and inexperienced traveler. It conjures the stereotype of a ‘packaged’ experience — a commodity — letting tourists off the hook from the ‘burden’ of independent travel.

For a long time I was an independent travel snob. A lone wolf, a headstrong, know-it-all, adventure-and-backstreet addict, who could think of nothing worse than arriving in a small village in Peru in a shiny white tour bus and being ushered like livestock through a local market.

But a recent group tour in the Peruvian Amazon caused me to ponder: Might travel experiences be better shared among a small group of like-minded individuals? Here are 12 reasons why the answer is yes.

1. You’ll gain valuable local knowledge.

Laughing up a storm on a group food tour. Siem Reap Province, Cambodia.

In my 14 years of traveling, I have never regretted hiring a guide at a heritage site or for a nature trek. The expertise of a good local guide is priceless. From pinpointing off-road diners, music venues, reading spots, gardens, and beaches, to having stories to complement each location, experienced group leaders have evolved tourism from ‘ticking off’ sightseeing boxes to a more interactive cultural experience.

After four years of working in Cambodia as an anthropologist, I had bypassed hiring a guide at local sites, thinking I was enough of an ‘expert’ on the region. It wasn’t until my family came to visit that I hired a local tour company. I was astonished at the magnitude of in-depth historical information I learnt about Khmer culture, family life, and customs from a local’s perspective.

2. You can save money.

Paying up front for group travel can be daunting but may actually save you some coin in the long run. In 2006, my little brother and I decided to deviate from our ‘milk run’ route through Malaysia — Kuala Lumpur to the Perhentian Islands — and make a pit-stop in the Cameron Highlands. We were thrifty students in those days; traveling independently meant we could cut corners and keep our budget in check. But after a few too many karaoke-beers in KL’s Chinatown, Chris and I stumbled into the office of a tour company.

I was adamant this was not the path for us, convinced we were about to get swindled. Chris told me to hear the salesperson out. After punching in various calculations, I swallowed my pride and admitted that we would save 30% by traveling with a group. The package included transfers, meals, accommodations, and activities, sold collectively at a reduced cost. Group travel harnesses the power of buying in bulk, and spreads the cost of guides, ground transportation, and other items across the whole group, giving you more experience per dollar.

3. You can relax.

Independent travel can be a worrisome job. Whenever you venture off the beaten track to countries where visas are complicated and access difficult — especially when you have limited time — organized group travel can be the most sensible route to follow. Navigating red tape on your own can be exhausting, especially when you don’t know the language or customs.

On the Southeast Asian leg of a one-year sabbatical, my partner and I joined an educational group tour exploring indigenous communities in Northern Laos. The company negotiated our visas and transfers at the Thai/Laos border. We received VIP treatment, skipped lines, and sailed through immigration. The hassle of organizing transport and negotiating on transfer rates was eradicated, allowing us to actually enjoy the place.

4. You’ll maximize your precious time off.

Camel trek through the deserts of Northern Rajasthan, India.

Vacation time is a commodity. Packing in Rajasthan, Delhi, the Taj Mahal, coastal Goa; partaking in local holidays; and dealing with transport and seasonal weather on a quick trip to India would be hard to coordinate without a guide organizing it. Although I have traveled extensively in this region, I seem to craft these logistically impossible itineraries that work in opposition to my limited travel time.

During my last trip I popped into the local tourism office in Delhi to get a free pen and gather some advice on transport. I was welcomed with a chorus of laughter. “You want to do what and go where? Do you know how big our country is, lady?” I pulled my shoulders back, handed the tourism official my map scrawled with my red-penned route, and asked him to “please make it possible.” He dismissed me and waved me in the direction of an international group tour company office. And thank goodness he did.

Along with the coordination of transport and accommodation, the group organizer also injected my itinerary with an adventure package through Rajasthan and Nepal. My time in the region was so limited that without this aid I would have never reached Nepal, trekked to Annapurna, camped in the Indian sand dunes, or tracked Bengal tigers.

5. You can maintain a sense of balance.

When time is tight and you’re attempting to check off a long list of activities, having a sound itinerary is vital. Tour groups have the ability to balance engagement in activities and down time to a tee. Though most tours will cram in as many experiences as possible, they still retain a degree of flexibility for those who need extra R&R and those who want some solo time.

After my big move to New York this year, a good friend came for a visit. The trip was last minute and there was little to no time to research. Evenings together in Brooklyn became stressed, with Caroline concerned she’d missed sights that day. Rather than a relaxing holiday, she was bombarded with self-imposed pressure and had no equilibrium.

After some recent reflection, we discussed the potential benefits of using the services of tour companies during short trips. She observed, “At least (on a group tour) you can go to sleep at night, knowing that you’re not missing out, that the next day will be as exciting and fulfilling as the one before.”

6. You’ll share first-time experiences with someone else.

Partner in crime, James, exploring Angkor Wat.

Seeing a wonder of the world, tasting something new, reaching a goal, and watching a new culture unfold by yourself can — to be blunt — suck. I have traveled extensively through Cambodia alone. The first time I visited Angkor Wat, I went solo. I spent a lovely but lonely day, stopping strangers to ask them to take a classic ‘me and a temple’ photo.

I couldn’t help this nagging feeling that I was missing out. I returned to Angkor Wat four years later with my partner and basked in his smile and excitement as we cycled up to the first temple. Beaming in awe of this man-made wonder, he remarked, “Take a load of that, girl!” This memory makes me smile. Sharing a special moment with others is what travel is all about.

7. You can find a travel family.

When your crew is unable to travel with you, organized group travel presents a solution. My family have all been fortunate enough to travel extensively. When my mother recently asked my father if he would like to take a trip to Morocco, he replied with a dismissive grunt: “I am too tired dear.” A lone traveler for the first time at the age of 55, Mum packed her lens and journal and joined a food tour for a week.

Gorging on mutton tagine and dancing through the spice markets of Marrakech, she had a ball. We were all so proud of her. She took a leap of faith and ventured outside her comfort zone. She didn’t let fear or dislike of solo travel deter her from ticking an item off her bucket list; instead, she did so in the company of individuals with interests similar to her own.

8. You’ll practice patience.

Traveling with a group can be a selfless practice; you must share your space, deviate from your personal tempo, and move in synchronicity with others. Rather than seeing this an annoyance, it can be celebrated as a challenge.

A year ago I joined a group of detox-ers at a yoga retreat in Bali . Every morning we would rise before the sun and stroll down the cliffs to the water. I often changed my pace in order to enjoy varied conversation and to keep a few stragglers company. I realized that slowing down actually meant I listened more attentively and took in more of the surroundings. Practicing patience through group activities was a rewarding exercise for me.

9. You just might find love.

A cherished view in Bali.

“Do you like to travel?”

This was one of the first questions I used to ask potential suitors. It became a deal breaker if the response was no. My love for seeing the world and experiencing new cultures is part of my soul. I find that my energy levels and spirit soar when I’m out on the road, a realm where socially acceptable laws of attraction go out the window, granting you freedom to truly shine and be yourself.

Coupled with attributes common to those choosing group travel — such as a desire for exposure to differing cultures and a drive for adventure — it seems a no-brainer that this form of travel could spark romance.

10. You can more easily access challenging destinations.

There are certainly some destinations where it comes highly recommended you take a little help from experts. Trekking up Kilimanjaro or venturing to Everest Base Camp with all the logistics in hiring a Sherpa / porter team would be near impossible without the backup of an experienced trekking organisation.

In 2004, a group of us Scots embarked on a trek to Kilimanjaro in memory of Hazel Scott Aiton, a family member who had passed away in an accident six months prior. The journey, supported by the Scottish public, recruited a team of her mates, friends of the family, and the clan. A pick’n’mix of backgrounds, fitness levels, climbing ability, and travel experience, our team was a comical sight! As amateur climbers, we hired support from professional guides. In challenging terrain, there is no shame in employing the services of a tour company — in fact, it’s just common sense.

11. You’ll meet different kinds of people.

The family clan ready to take on Kilimanjaro!

People who travel in groups are bound to connect with others who they would never have given the time to at home. Characters we meet and learn about as we venture outside our familiar home environment can significantly enhance understanding, tolerance, and humanity, both nationally and globally.

I was recently fortunate to be invited on a press trip to the Amazon Jungle in Peru. One of the most rewarding parts of this experience was meeting and enjoying conversation with such a wonderful range of people, all with differing backgrounds, cultures, and travel experiences. Making human connections with people of other cultures and beliefs helps to build mutual respect and good faith. Personally, I consider this the main value of travel and a major component for building more peaceful communities.

12. You can make friends for life.

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Lauri Wright and Interns at the University of Ghana Medical Center

USF Professor, interns travel to Ghana to learn about malnutrition and provide care

• Katrina Sandefer
• August 23, 2024

Faculty & Staff , Students

USF College of Public Health Associate Professor Lauri Wright has been going to Ghana for seven years now to work with the dietitians to prevent and treat malnutrition. But for the first time this summer, she brought a group of five USF graduate students as interns on the journey. 

The students traveled to Princess Marie Lois Hospital, which is the leading malnutrition treatment center in West Africa to learn alongside Ghanaian dieticians. The students learned about severe malnutrition, how to assess it and how to treat it. The interns also learned about kwashiorkor, a disease caused by severe protein malnutrition.  

“They got to go out into the community and screen children for malnutrition,” Wright said. “They found one that met outpatient criteria, and one that actually needed to be admitted to the hospital.”  

The USF contingent also spent time at Korle Bu Teaching Hospital, a 100-year-old hospital that was the first in Ghana and is still the largest teaching hospital in the country. “They got to go on the burn unit and see how they treat burns,” Wright said. “Then, they got to see a patient starting dialysis for the first time.” The dialysis unit at Korle Bu Hospital is the first dialysis center in all of Ghana. 

For the interns, their time in Ghana was a huge learning curve. “They’re used to being in hospitals where a patient has said disease and there is automatically a formula that is designed to meet all of those nutrient needs there,” Wright said. “Here, they have to get very creative with what is available.”  

In Ghana, if there are no nutrition supplement products available, local foods are blended with fish powder to increase protein; the interns learned how to use resources available to treat malnutrition. During their visit, the interns attended a cooking class on the local cuisine led by the dietitians and experienced a day of cultural immersion.   Typically, Wright conducts a workshop every year to give back to the communities where USF interns are learning. “We ask a lot of our hosts during the visit,” she said. “I feel it’s important to give back to them for what they give to us.” 

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You can either buy a street map from one of the many newsstands and shops in the train stations, print out a street map of Yekaterinburg, or pick up a free detailed street map from the Ekaterinburg Tourist Information Service [ dead link ] at 8 Marta St. #21, office #2, in the city centre.

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YEKATERINBURG: FACTORIES, URAL SIGHTS, YELTSIN AND THE WHERE NICHOLAS II WAS KILLED

Sverdlovsk oblast.

Sverdlovsk Oblast is the largest region in the Urals; it lies in the foothills of mountains and contains a monument indicating the border between Europe and Asia. The region covers 194,800 square kilometers (75,200 square miles), is home to about 4.3 million people and has a population density of 22 people per square kilometer. About 83 percent of the population live in urban areas. Yekaterinburg is the capital and largest city, with 1.5 million people. For Russians, the Ural Mountains are closely associated with Pavel Bazhov's tales and known for folk crafts such as Kasli iron sculpture, Tagil painting, and copper embossing. Yekaterinburg is the birthplace of Russia’s iron and steel industry, taking advantage of the large iron deposits in the Ural mountains. The popular Silver Ring of the Urals tourist route starts here.

In the summer you can follow in the tracks of Yermak, climb relatively low Ural mountain peaks and look for boulders seemingly with human faces on them. You can head to the Gemstone Belt of the Ural mountains, which used to house emerald, amethyst and topaz mines. In the winter you can go ice fishing, ski and cross-country ski.

Sverdlovsk Oblast and Yekaterinburg are located near the center of Russia, at the crossroads between Europe and Asia and also the southern and northern parts of Russia. Winters are longer and colder than in western section of European Russia. Snowfalls can be heavy. Winter temperatures occasionally drop as low as - 40 degrees C (-40 degrees F) and the first snow usually falls in October. A heavy winter coat, long underwear and good boots are essential. Snow and ice make the sidewalks very slippery, so footwear with a good grip is important. Since the climate is very dry during the winter months, skin moisturizer plus lip balm are recommended. Be alert for mud on street surfaces when snow cover is melting (April-May). Patches of mud create slippery road conditions.

Yekaterinburg

Yekaterinburg (kilometer 1818 on the Trans-Siberian Railway) is the fourth largest city in Russia, with of 1.5 million and growth rate of about 12 percent, high for Russia. Located in the southern Ural mountains, it was founded by Peter the Great and named after his wife Catherine, it was used by the tsars as a summer retreat and is where tsar Nicholas II and his family were executed and President Boris Yeltsin lived most of his life and began his political career. The city is near the border between Europe and Asia.

Yekaterinburg (also spelled Ekaterinburg) is located on the eastern slope of the Ural Mountains in the headwaters of the Iset and Pyshma Rivers. The Iset runs through the city center. Three ponds — Verkh-Isetsky, Gorodskoy and Nizhne-Isetsky — were created on it. Yekaterinburg has traditionally been a city of mining and was once the center of the mining industry of the Urals and Siberia. Yekaterinburg remains a major center of the Russian armaments industry and is sometimes called the "Pittsburgh of Russia.". A few ornate, pastel mansions and wide boulevards are reminders of the tsarist era. The city is large enough that it has its own Metro system but is characterized mostly by blocky Soviet-era apartment buildings. The city has advanced under President Vladimir Putin and is now one of the fastest growing places in Russia, a country otherwise characterized by population declines

Yekaterinburg is technically an Asian city as it lies 32 kilometers east of the continental divide between Europe and Asia. The unofficial capital of the Urals, a key region in the Russian heartland, it is second only to Moscow in terms of industrial production and capital of Sverdlovsk oblast. Among the important industries are ferrous and non-ferrous metallurgy, machine building and metalworking, chemical and petrochemicals, construction materials and medical, light and food industries. On top of being home of numerous heavy industries and mining concerns, Yekaterinburg is also a major center for industrial research and development and power engineering as well as home to numerous institutes of higher education, technical training, and scientific research. In addition, Yekaterinburg is the largest railway junction in Russia: the Trans-Siberian Railway passes through it, the southern, northern, western and eastern routes merge in the city.

Accommodation: There are two good and affordable hotels — the 3-star Emerald and Parus hotels — located close to the city's most popular landmarks and main transport interchanges in the center of Yekaterinburg. Room prices start at RUB 1,800 per night.

History of Yekaterinburg

Yekaterinburg was founded in 1723 by Peter the Great and named after his wife Catherine I. It was used by the tsars as a summer retreat but was mainly developed as metalworking and manufacturing center to take advantage of the large deposits of iron and other minerals in the Ural mountains. It is best known to Americans as the place where the last Tsar and his family were murdered by the Bolsheviks in 1918 and near where American U-2 spy plane, piloted by Gary Powers, was shot down in 1960.

Peter the Great recognized the importance of the iron and copper-rich Urals region for Imperial Russia's industrial and military development. In November 1723, he ordered the construction of a fortress factory and an ironworks in the Iset River Valley, which required a dam for its operation. In its early years Yekaterinburg grew rich from gold and other minerals and later coal. The Yekaterinburg gold rush of 1745 created such a huge amount of wealth that one rich baron of that time hosted a wedding party that lasted a year. By the mid-18th century, metallurgical plants had sprung up across the Urals to cast cannons, swords, guns and other weapons to arm Russia’s expansionist ambitions. The Yekaterinburg mint produced most of Russia's coins. Explorations of the Trans-Baikal and Altai regions began here in the 18th century.

Iron, cast iron and copper were the main products. Even though Iron from the region went into the Eiffel Tower, the main plant in Yekaterinburg itself was shut down in 1808. The city still kept going through a mountain factory control system of the Urals. The first railway in the Urals was built here: in 1878, the Yekaterinburg-Perm railway branch connected the province's capital with the factories of the Middle Urals.

In the Soviet era the city was called Sverdlovsk (named after Yakov Sverdlov, the man who organized Nicholas II's execution). During the first five-year plans the city became industrial — old plants were reconstructed, new ones were built. The center of Yekaterinburg was formed to conform to the historical general plan of 1829 but was the layout was adjusted around plants and factories. In the Stalin era the city was a major gulag transhipment center. In World War II, many defense-related industries were moved here. It and the surrounding area were a center of the Soviet Union's military industrial complex. Soviet tanks, missiles and aircraft engines were made in the Urals. During the Cold War era, Yekaterinburg was a center of weapons-grade uranium enrichment and processing, warhead assembly and dismantlement. In 1979, 64 people died when anthrax leaked from a biological weapons facility. Yekaterinburg was a “Closed City” for 40 years during the Cold Soviet era and was not open to foreigners until 1991

In the early post-Soviet era, much like Pittsburgh in the 1970s, Yekaterinburg had a hard struggle d to cope with dramatic economic changes that have made its heavy industries uncompetitive on the world market. Huge defense plants struggled to survive and the city was notorious as an organized crime center in the 1990s, when its hometown boy Boris Yeltsin was President of Russia. By the 2000s, Yekaterinburg’s retail and service was taking off, the defense industry was reviving and it was attracting tech industries and investments related to the Urals’ natural resources. By the 2010s it was vying to host a world exhibition in 2020 (it lost, Dubai won) and it had McDonald’s, Subway, sushi restaurants, and Gucci, Chanel and Armani. There were Bentley and Ferrari dealerships but they closed down

Transportation in Yekaterinburg

Getting There: By Plane: Yekaterinburg is a three-hour flight from Moscow with prices starting at RUB 8,000, or a 3-hour flight from Saint Petersburg starting from RUB 9,422 (direct round-trip flight tickets for one adult passenger). There are also flights from Frankfurt, Istanbul, China and major cities in the former Soviet Union.

By Train: Yekaterinburg is a major stop on the Trans-Siberian Railway. Daily train service is available to Moscow and many other Russian cities.Yekaterinburg is a 32-hour train ride from Moscow (tickets RUB 8,380 and above) or a 36-hour train ride from Saint Petersburg (RUB 10,300 and above). The ticket prices are round trip for a berth in a sleeper compartment for one adult passenger). By Car: a car trip from Moscow to Yekateringburg is 1,787 kilometers long and takes about 18 hours. The road from Saint Petersburg is 2,294 kilometers and takes about 28 hours.

Regional Transport: The region's public transport includes buses and suburban electric trains. Regional trains provide transport to larger cities in the Ural region. Buses depart from Yekaterinburg’s two bus stations: the Southern Bus Station and the Northern Bus Station.

Regional Transport: According the to Association for Safe International Road Travel (ASIRT): “Public transportation is well developed. Overcrowding is common. Fares are low. Service is efficient. Buses are the main form of public transport. Tram network is extensive. Fares are reasonable; service is regular. Trams are heavily used by residents, overcrowding is common. Purchase ticket after boarding. Metro runs from city center to Uralmash, an industrial area south of the city. Metro ends near the main railway station. Fares are inexpensive.

“Traffic is congested in city center. Getting around by car can be difficult. Route taxis (minivans) provide the fastest transport. They generally run on specific routes, but do not have specific stops. Drivers stop where passengers request. Route taxis can be hailed. Travel by bus or trolleybuses may be slow in rush hour. Trams are less affected by traffic jams. Trolley buses (electric buses) cannot run when temperatures drop below freezing.”

Entertainment, Sports and Recreation in Yekaterinburg

The performing arts in Yekaterinburg are first rate. The city has an excellent symphony orchestra, opera and ballet theater, and many other performing arts venues. Tickets are inexpensive. The Yekaterinburg Opera and Ballet Theater is lavishly designed and richly decorated building in the city center of Yekaterinburg. The theater was established in 1912 and building was designed by architect Vladimir Semyonov and inspired by the Vienna Opera House and the Theater of Opera and Ballet in Odessa.

Vaynera Street is a pedestrian only shopping street in city center with restaurants, cafes and some bars. But otherwise Yekaterinburg's nightlife options are limited. There are a handful of expensive Western-style restaurants and bars, none of them that great. Nightclubs serve the city's nouveau riche clientele. Its casinos have closed down. Some of them had links with organized crime. New dance clubs have sprung up that are popular with Yekaterinburg's more affluent youth.

Yekaterinburg's most popular spectator sports are hockey, basketball, and soccer. There are stadiums and arenas that host all three that have fairly cheap tickets. There is an indoor water park and lots of parks and green spaces. The Urals have many lakes, forests and mountains are great for hiking, boating, berry and mushroom hunting, swimming and fishing. Winter sports include cross-country skiing and ice skating. Winter lasts about six months and there’s usually plenty of snow. The nearby Ural Mountains however are not very high and the downhill skiing opportunities are limited..

Sights in Yekaterinburg

Sights in Yekaterinburg include the Museum of City Architecture and Ural Industry, with an old water tower and mineral collection with emeralds. malachite, tourmaline, jasper and other precious stone; Geological Alley, a small park with labeled samples of minerals found in the Urals region; the Ural Geology Museum, which houses an extensive collection of stones, gold and gems from the Urals; a monument marking the border between Europe and Asia; a memorial for gulag victims; and a graveyard with outlandish memorials for slain mafia members.

The Military History Museum houses the remains of the U-2 spy plane shot down in 1960 and locally made tanks and rocket launchers. The fine arts museum contains paintings by some of Russia's 19th-century masters. Also worth a look are the History an Local Studies Museum; the Political History and Youth Museum; and the University and Arboretum. Old wooden houses can be seen around Zatoutstovsya ulitsa and ulitsa Belinskogo. Around the city are wooded parks, lakes and quarries used to harvest a variety of minerals. Weiner Street is the main street of Yekaterinburg. Along it are lovely sculptures and 19th century architecture. Take a walk around the unique Literary Quarter

Plotinka is a local meeting spot, where you will often find street musicians performing. Plotinka can be described as the center of the city's center. This is where Yekaterinburg holds its biggest events: festivals, seasonal fairs, regional holiday celebrations, carnivals and musical fountain shows. There are many museums and open-air exhibitions on Plotinka. Plotinka is named after an actual dam of the city pond located nearby (“plotinka” means “a small dam” in Russian).In November 1723, Peter the Great ordered the construction of an ironworks in the Iset River Valley, which required a dam for its operation. “Iset” can be translated from Finnish as “abundant with fish”. This name was given to the river by the Mansi — the Finno-Ugric people dwelling on the eastern slope of the Northern Urals.

Vysotsky and Iset are skyscrapers that are 188.3 meters and 209 meters high, respectively. Fifty-story-high Iset has been described by locals as the world’s northernmost skyscraper. Before the construction of Iset, Vysotsky was the tallest building of Yekaterinburg and Russia (excluding Moscow). A popular vote has decided to name the skyscraper after the famous Soviet songwriter, singer and actor Vladimir Vysotsky. and the building was opened on November 25, 2011. There is a lookout at the top of the building, and the Vysotsky museum on its second floor. The annual “Vysotsky climb” (1137 steps) is held there, with a prize of RUB 100,000. While Vysotsky serves as an office building, Iset, owned by the Ural Mining and Metallurgical Company, houses 225 premium residential apartments ranging from 80 to 490 square meters in size.

Boris Yeltsin Presidential Center

The Boris Yeltsin Presidential Center (in the city center: ul. Yeltsina, 3) is a non-governmental organization named after the first president of the Russian Federation. The Museum of the First President of Russia as well as his archives are located in the Center. There is also a library, educational and children's centers, and exposition halls. Yeltsin lived most of his life and began his political career in Yekaterinburg. He was born in Butka about 200 kilometers east of Yekaterinburg.

The core of the Center is the Museum. Modern multimedia technologies help animate the documents, photos from the archives, and artifacts. The Yeltsin Museum holds collections of: propaganda posters, leaflets, and photos of the first years of the Soviet regime; portraits and portrait sculptures of members of Politburo of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of various years; U.S.S.R. government bonds and other items of the Soviet era; a copy of “One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich” by Alexander Solzhenitsyn, published in the “Novy Mir” magazine (#11, 1962); perestroika-era editions of books by Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Vasily Grossman, and other authors; theater, concert, and cinema posters, programs, and tickets — in short, all of the artifacts of the perestroika era.

The Yeltsin Center opened in 2012. Inside you will also find an art gallery, a bookstore, a gift shop, a food court, concert stages and a theater. There are regular screenings of unique films that you will not find anywhere else. Also operating inside the center, is a scientific exploritorium for children. The center was designed by Boris Bernaskoni. Almost from the its very opening, the Yeltsin Center has been accused by members of different political entities of various ideological crimes. The museum is open Tuesday to Sunday, from 10:00am to 9:00pm.

Where Nicholas II was Executed

On July, 17, 1918, during this reign of terror of the Russian Civil War, former-tsar Nicholas II, his wife, five children (the 13-year-old Alexis, 22-year-old Olga, 19-year-old Maria and 17-year-old Anastasia)the family physician, the cook, maid, and valet were shot to death by a Red Army firing squad in the cellar of the house they were staying at in Yekaterinburg.

Ipatiev House (near Church on the Blood, Ulitsa Libknekhta) was a merchant's house where Nicholas II and his family were executed. The house was demolished in 1977, on the orders of an up and coming communist politician named Boris Yeltsin. Yeltsin later said that the destruction of the house was an "act of barbarism" and he had no choice because he had been ordered to do it by the Politburo,

The site is marked with s cross with the photos of the family members and cross bearing their names. A small wooden church was built at the site. It contains paintings of the family. For a while there were seven traditional wooden churches. Mass is given ay noon everyday in an open-air museum. The Church on the Blood — constructed to honor Nicholas II and his family — was built on the part of the site in 1991 and is now a major place of pilgrimage.

Nicholas and his family where killed during the Russian civil war. It is thought the Bolsheviks figured that Nicholas and his family gave the Whites figureheads to rally around and they were better of dead. Even though the death orders were signed Yakov Sverdlov, the assassination was personally ordered by Lenin, who wanted to get them out of sight and out of mind. Trotsky suggested a trial. Lenin nixed the idea, deciding something had to be done about the Romanovs before White troops approached Yekaterinburg. Trotsky later wrote: "The decision was not only expedient but necessary. The severity of he punishment showed everyone that we would continue to fight on mercilessly, stopping at nothing."

Ian Frazier wrote in The New Yorker: “Having read a lot about the end of Tsar Nicholas II and his family and servants, I wanted to see the place in Yekaterinburg where that event occurred. The gloomy quality of this quest depressed Sergei’s spirits, but he drove all over Yekaterinburg searching for the site nonetheless. Whenever he stopped and asked a pedestrian how to get to the house where Nicholas II was murdered, the reaction was a wince. Several people simply walked away. But eventually, after a lot of asking, Sergei found the location. It was on a low ridge near the edge of town, above railroad tracks and the Iset River. The house, known as the Ipatiev House, was no longer standing, and the basement where the actual killings happened had been filled in. I found the blankness of the place sinister and dizzying. It reminded me of an erasure done so determinedly that it had worn a hole through the page. [Source: Ian Frazier, The New Yorker, August 3, 2009, Frazier is author of “Travels in Siberia” (2010)]

“The street next to the site is called Karl Liebknecht Street. A building near where the house used to be had a large green advertisement that said, in English, “LG—Digitally Yours.” On an adjoining lot, a small chapel kept the memory of the Tsar and his family; beneath a pedestal holding an Orthodox cross, peonies and pansies grew. The inscription on the pedestal read, “We go down on our knees, Russia, at the foot of the tsarist cross.”

Books: The Romanovs: The Final Chapter by Robert K. Massie (Random House, 1995); The Fall of the Romanovs by Mark D. Steinberg and Vladimir Khrustalëv (Yale, 1995);

See Separate Article END OF NICHOLAS II factsanddetails.com

Execution of Nicholas II

According to Robert Massie K. Massie, author of Nicholas and Alexandra, Nicholas II and his family were awakened from their bedrooms around midnight and taken to the basement. They were told they were to going to take some photographs of them and were told to stand behind a row of chairs.

Suddenly, a group of 11 Russians and Latvians, each with a revolver, burst into the room with orders to kill a specific person. Yakob Yurovsky, a member of the Soviet executive committee, reportedly shouted "your relatives are continuing to attack the Soviet Union.” After firing, bullets bouncing off gemstones hidden in the corsets of Alexandra and her daughters ricocheted around the room like "a shower of hail," the soldiers said. Those that were still breathing were killed with point black shots to the head.

The three sisters and the maid survived the first round thanks to their gems. They were pressed up against a wall and killed with a second round of bullets. The maid was the only one that survived. She was pursued by the executioners who stabbed her more than 30 times with their bayonets. The still writhing body of Alexis was made still by a kick to the head and two bullets in the ear delivered by Yurovsky himself.

Yurovsky wrote: "When the party entered I told the Romanovs that in view of the fact their relatives continued their offensive against Soviet Russia, the Executive Committee of the Urals Soviet had decided to shoot them. Nicholas turned his back to the detachment and faced his family. Then, as if collecting himself, he turned around, asking, 'What? What?'"

"[I] ordered the detachment to prepare. Its members had been previously instructed whom to shoot and to am directly at the heart to avoid much blood and to end more quickly. Nicholas said no more. he turned again to his family. The others shouted some incoherent exclamations. All this lasted a few seconds. Then commenced the shooting, which went on for two or three minutes. [I] killed Nicholas on the spot."

Nicholas II’s Initial Burial Site in Yekaterinburg

Ganina Yama Monastery (near the village of Koptyaki, 15 kilometers northwest of Yekaterinburg) stands near the three-meter-deep pit where some the remains of Nicholas II and his family were initially buried. The second burial site — where most of the remains were — is in a field known as Porosyonkov (56.9113628°N 60.4954326°E), seven kilometers from Ganina Yama.

On visiting Ganina Yama Monastery, one person posted in Trip Advisor: “We visited this set of churches in a pretty park with Konstantin from Ekaterinburg Guide Centre. He really brought it to life with his extensive knowledge of the history of the events surrounding their terrible end. The story is so moving so unless you speak Russian, it is best to come here with a guide or else you will have no idea of what is what.”

In 1991, the acid-burned remains of Nicholas II and his family were exhumed from a shallow roadside mass grave in a swampy area 12 miles northwest of Yekaterinburg. The remains had been found in 1979 by geologist and amateur archeologist Alexander Avdonin, who kept the location secret out of fear that they would be destroyed by Soviet authorities. The location was disclosed to a magazine by one his fellow discovers.

The original plan was to throw the Romanovs down a mine shaft and disposes of their remains with acid. They were thrown in a mine with some grenades but the mine didn't collapse. They were then carried by horse cart. The vats of acid fell off and broke. When the carriage carrying the bodies broke down it was decided the bury the bodies then and there. The remaining acid was poured on the bones, but most of it was soaked up the ground and the bones largely survived.

After this their pulses were then checked, their faces were crushed to make them unrecognizable and the bodies were wrapped in bed sheets loaded onto a truck. The "whole procedure," Yurovsky said took 20 minutes. One soldiers later bragged than he could "die in peace because he had squeezed the Empress's -------."

The bodies were taken to a forest and stripped, burned with acid and gasoline, and thrown into abandoned mine shafts and buried under railroad ties near a country road near the village of Koptyaki. "The bodies were put in the hole," Yurovsky wrote, "and the faces and all the bodies, generally doused with sulfuric acid, both so they couldn't be recognized and prevent a stink from them rotting...We scattered it with branches and lime, put boards on top and drove over it several times—no traces of the hole remained.

Shortly afterwards, the government in Moscow announced that Nicholas II had been shot because of "a counterrevolutionary conspiracy." There was no immediate word on the other members of the family which gave rise to rumors that other members of the family had escaped. Yekaterinburg was renamed Sverdlov in honor of the man who signed the death orders.

For seven years the remains of Nicholas II, Alexandra, three of their daughters and four servants were stored in polyethylene bags on shelves in the old criminal morgue in Yekaterunburg. On July 17, 1998, Nicholas II and his family and servants who were murdered with him were buried Peter and Paul Fortress in St. Petersburg along with the other Romanov tsars, who have been buried there starting with Peter the Great. Nicholas II had a side chapel built for himself at the fortress in 1913 but was buried in a new crypt.

Near Yekaterinburg

Factory-Museum of Iron and Steel Metallurgy (in Niznhy Tagil 80 kilometers north of Yekaterinburg) a museum with old mining equipment made at the site of huge abandoned iron and steel factory. Officially known as the Factory-Museum of the History of the Development of Iron and Steel Metallurgy, it covers an area of 30 hectares and contains a factory founded by the Demidov family in 1725 that specialized mainly in the production of high-quality cast iron and steel. Later, the foundry was renamed after Valerian Kuybyshev, a prominent figure of the Communist Party.

The first Russian factory museum, the unusual museum demonstrates all stages of metallurgy and metal working. There is even a blast furnace and an open-hearth furnace. The display of factory equipment includes bridge crane from 1892) and rolling stock equipment from the 19th-20th centuries. In Niznhy Tagil contains some huge blocks of malachite and

Nizhnyaya Sinyachikha (180 kilometers east-northeast of Yekaterinburg) has an open air architecture museum with log buildings, a stone church and other pre-revolutionary architecture. The village is the creation of Ivan Samoilov, a local activist who loved his village so much he dedicated 40 years of his life to recreating it as the open-air museum of wooden architecture.

The stone Savior Church, a good example of Siberian baroque architecture. The interior and exterior of the church are exhibition spaces of design. The houses are very colorful. In tsarist times, rich villagers hired serfs to paint the walls of their wooden izbas (houses) bright colors. Old neglected buildings from the 17th to 19th centuries have been brought to Nizhnyaya Sinyachikha from all over the Urals. You will see the interior design of the houses and hear stories about traditions and customs of the Ural farmers.

Verkhoturye (330 kilometers road from Yekaterinburg) is the home a 400-year-old monastery that served as 16th century capital of the Urals. Verkhoturye is a small town on the Tura River knows as the Jerusalem of the Urals for its many holy places, churches and monasteries. The town's main landmark is its Kremlin — the smallest in Russia. Pilgrims visit the St. Nicholas Monastery to see the remains of St. Simeon of Verkhoturye, the patron saint of fishermen.

Ural Mountains

Ural Mountains are the traditional dividing line between Europe and Asia and have been a crossroads of Russian history. Stretching from Kazakhstan to the fringes of the Arctic Kara Sea, the Urals lie almost exactly along the 60 degree meridian of longitude and extend for about 2,000 kilometers (1,300 miles) from north to south and varies in width from about 50 kilometers (30 miles) in the north and 160 kilometers (100 miles) the south. At kilometers 1777 on the Trans-Siberian Railway there is white obelisk with "Europe" carved in Russian on one side and "Asia" carved on the other.

The eastern side of the Urals contains a lot of granite and igneous rock. The western side is primarily sandstone and limestones. A number of precious stones can be found in the southern part of the Urals, including emeralds. malachite, tourmaline, jasper and aquamarines. The highest peaks are in the north. Mount Narodnaya is the highest of all but is only 1884 meters (6,184 feet) high. The northern Urals are covered in thick forests and home to relatively few people.

Like the Appalachian Mountains in the eastern United States, the Urals are very old mountains — with rocks and sediments that are hundreds of millions years old — that were one much taller than they are now and have been steadily eroded down over millions of years by weather and other natural processes to their current size. According to Encyclopedia Britannica: “The rock composition helps shape the topography: the high ranges and low, broad-topped ridges consist of quartzites, schists, and gabbro, all weather-resistant. Buttes are frequent, and there are north–south troughs of limestone, nearly all containing river valleys. Karst topography is highly developed on the western slopes of the Urals, with many caves, basins, and underground streams. The eastern slopes, on the other hand, have fewer karst formations; instead, rocky outliers rise above the flattened surfaces. Broad foothills, reduced to peneplain, adjoin the Central and Southern Urals on the east.

“The Urals date from the structural upheavals of the Hercynian orogeny (about 250 million years ago). About 280 million years ago there arose a high mountainous region, which was eroded to a peneplain. Alpine folding resulted in new mountains, the most marked upheaval being that of the Nether-Polar Urals...The western slope of the Urals is composed of middle Paleozoic sedimentary rocks (sandstones and limestones) that are about 350 million years old. In many places it descends in terraces to the Cis-Ural depression (west of the Urals), to which much of the eroded matter was carried during the late Paleozoic (about 300 million years ago). Found there are widespread karst (a starkly eroded limestone region) and gypsum, with large caverns and subterranean streams. On the eastern slope, volcanic layers alternate with sedimentary strata, all dating from middle Paleozoic times.”

Southern Urals

The southern Urals are characterized by grassy slopes and fertile valleys. The middle Urals are a rolling platform that barely rises above 300 meters (1,000 feet). This region is rich in minerals and has been heavily industrialized. This is where you can find Yekaterinburg (formally Sverdlovsk), the largest city in the Urals.

Most of the Southern Urals are is covered with forests, with 50 percent of that pine-woods, 44 percent birch woods, and the rest are deciduous aspen and alder forests. In the north, typical taiga forests are the norm. There are patches of herbal-poaceous steppes, northem sphagnous marshes and bushy steppes, light birch forests and shady riparian forests, tall-grass mountainous meadows, lowland ling marshes and stony placers with lichen stains. In some places there are no large areas of homogeneous forests, rather they are forests with numerous glades and meadows of different size.

In the Ilmensky Mountains Reserve in the Southern Urals, scientists counted 927 vascular plants (50 relicts, 23 endemic species), about 140 moss species, 483 algae species and 566 mushroom species. Among the species included into the Red Book of Russia are feather grass, downy-leaved feather grass, Zalessky feather grass, moccasin flower, ladies'-slipper, neottianthe cucullata, Baltic orchis, fen orchis, helmeted orchis, dark-winged orchis, Gelma sandwart, Krasheninnikov sandwart, Clare astragalus.

The fauna of the vertebrate animals in the Reserve includes 19 fish, 5 amphibian and 5 reptile. Among the 48 mammal species are elks, roe deer, boars, foxes, wolves, lynxes, badgers, common weasels, least weasels, forest ferrets, Siberian striped weasel, common marten, American mink. Squirrels, beavers, muskrats, hares, dibblers, moles, hedgehogs, voles are quite common, as well as chiropterans: pond bat, water bat, Brandt's bat, whiskered bat, northern bat, long-eared bat, parti-coloured bat, Nathusius' pipistrelle. The 174 bird bird species include white-tailed eagles, honey hawks, boreal owls, gnome owls, hawk owls, tawny owls, common scoters, cuckoos, wookcocks, common grouses, wood grouses, hazel grouses, common partridges, shrikes, goldenmountain thrushes, black- throated loons and others.

Activities and Places in the Ural Mountains

The Urals possess beautiful natural scenery that can be accessed from Yekaterinburg with a rent-a-car, hired taxi and tour. Travel agencies arrange rafting, kayaking and hiking trips. Hikes are available in the taiga forest and the Urals. Trips often include walks through the taiga to small lakes and hikes into the mountains and excursions to collect mushrooms and berries and climb in underground caves. Mellow rafting is offered in a relatively calm six kilometer section of the River Serga. In the winter visitor can enjoy cross-mountains skiing, downhill skiing, ice fishing, dog sledding, snow-shoeing and winter hiking through the forest to a cave covered with ice crystals.

Lake Shartash (10 kilometers from Yekaterinburg) is where the first Ural gold was found, setting in motion the Yekaterinburg gold rush of 1745, which created so much wealth one rich baron of that time hosted a wedding party that lasted a year. The area around Shartash Lake is a favorite picnic and barbecue spot of the locals. Getting There: by bus route No. 50, 054 or 54, with a transfer to suburban commuter bus route No. 112, 120 or 121 (the whole trip takes about an hour), or by car (10 kilometers drive from the city center, 40 minutes).

Revun Rapids (90 kilometers road from Yekaterinburg near Beklenishcheva village) is a popular white water rafting places On the nearby cliffs you can see the remains of a mysterious petroglyph from the Paleolithic period. Along the steep banks, you may notice the dark entrance of Smolinskaya Cave. There are legends of a sorceress who lived in there. The rocks at the riverside are suited for competitive rock climbers and beginners. Climbing hooks and rings are hammered into rocks. The most fun rafting is generally in May and June.

Olenii Ruchii National Park (100 kilometers west of Yekaterinburg) is the most popular nature park in Sverdlovsk Oblast and popular weekend getaway for Yekaterinburg residents. Visitors are attracted by the beautiful forests, the crystal clear Serga River and picturesque rocks caves. There are some easy hiking routes: the six-kilometer Lesser Ring and the 15-kilometer Greater Ring. Another route extends for 18 km and passes by the Mitkinsky Mine, which operated in the 18th-19th centuries. It's a kind of an open-air museum — you can still view mining an enrichment equipment here. There is also a genuine beaver dam nearby.

Among the other attractions at Olenii Ruchii are Druzhba (Friendship) Cave, with passages that extend for about 500 meters; Dyrovaty Kamen (Holed Stone), created over time by water of Serga River eroding rock; and Utoplennik (Drowned Man), where you can see “The Angel of Sole Hope”., created by the Swedish artist Lehna Edwall, who has placed seven angels figures in different parts of the world to “embrace the planet, protecting it from fear, despair, and disasters.”

Image Sources: Wikimedia Commons

Text Sources: Federal Agency for Tourism of the Russian Federation (official Russia tourism website russiatourism.ru ), Russian government websites, UNESCO, Wikipedia, Lonely Planet guides, New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, National Geographic, The New Yorker, Bloomberg, Reuters, Associated Press, AFP, Yomiuri Shimbun and various books and other publications.

Updated in September 2020

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