Escorted & Package Tours

Escorted General-Interest Tours

Escorted tours are structured group tours with a group leader. The price usually includes everything from airfare to hotels, meals, tours, admission costs, and local transportation.

Despite the fact that escorted tours require big deposits and predetermine hotels, restaurants, and itineraries, many people derive security and peace of mind from the structure they offer. Escorted tours -- whether they're navigated by bus, motorcoach, train, or boat -- let travelers sit back and enjoy the trip without having to drive or worry about details. They take you to the maximum number of sights in the minimum amount of time with the least amount of hassle. They're particularly convenient for people with limited mobility and they can be a great way to make new friends.

On the downside, you'll have little opportunity for serendipitous interactions with locals. The tours can be jam-packed with activities, leaving little room for individual sightseeing, whim, or adventure -- plus, they often focus on the heavily touristed sites, so you miss out on many a lesser-known gem.

Gray Line Tours Phoenix (tel. 800/777-3484 or 602/437-3484; www.graylinearizona.com) offers a 3-day tour to the Grand Canyon by way of Sedona and Oak Creek Canyon.

Maupintour (tel. 800/255-4266; www.maupintour.com), one of the largest tour operators in the world, offers an 8-day Arizona itinerary that covers the Grand Canyon, the Four Corners region, Phoenix, and Scottsdale.

Open Road Tours (tel. 800/766-7117; www.openroadtours.com) offers a variety of 2- to 5-day tours around the state. Most of these focus on the Grand Canyon.

Detours (tel. 866/438-6877; www.detoursaz.com) specializes in small-group tours throughout Arizona and other parts of the Southwest. One of its tours, Hillerman Country, is a 5-day journey through northern Arizona with a focus on spots that have been mentioned in Tony Hillerman novels about Navajo Tribal Police officers Jim Chee and Joe Leaphorn.

The British tour company Trek America (tel. 800/221-0596, or 973/983-1144 outside the U.S.; www.trekamerica.com) specializes in off-the-beaten-path small-group adventure travel and offers lots of tours of the American Southwest; most include stops at the Grand Canyon and other scenic locations in Arizona.

Special-Interest Trips

If you'd like to turn a trip to the Grand Canyon into an educational experience, the Grand Canyon Field Institute, P.O. Box 399, Grand Canyon, AZ 86023 (tel. 866/471-4435 or 928/638-2485; www.grandcanyon.org/fieldinstitute), offers a variety of programs from early spring to late fall. Examples include day hikes, photography and painting classes, backpacking trips for women, mule-assisted treks, archaeology trips, and guided hikes and backpacking trips with a natural-history or ecological slant.

Once a year, Canyon Calling Tours, 200 Carol Canyon Dr., Sedona, AZ 86336 (tel. 928/282-0916; www.canyoncalling.com), offers a weeklong women-only tour that visits Canyon de Chelly, Lake Powell, the Grand Canyon, and Havasu Canyon. The cost is $1,750 per person.

Learning Expeditions, a program run by the Arizona State Museum, occasionally offers scholar-led archaeological tours, including a trip to Navajo and Hopi country. For information, contact the marketing department at the Arizona State Museum, P.O. Box 210026, Tucson, AZ 85721-0026 (tel. 520/626-8381; www.statemuseum.arizona.edu). The Museum of Northern Arizona, 3101 N. Fort Valley Rd., Flagstaff, AZ 86001 (tel. 928/774-5213; www.musnaz.org), offers educational backpacking, river-rafting, and van tours primarily in the Colorado Plateau region of northern Arizona in a program called Ventures. Trips range in length from 1 to 6 days.

Old Pueblo Archaeology Center, P.O. Box 40577, Tucson, AZ 85717-0577 (tel. 520/798-1201; www.oldpueblo.org), is a nonprofit educational and scientific organization that throughout the years has led numerous archaeology-oriented trips around Arizona.

If you have an interest in the Native American cultures of Arizona, contact Crossing Worlds Journeys & Retreats, P.O. Box 623, Sedona, AZ 86339 (tel. 800/350-2693 or 928/203-0024; www.crossingworlds.com), which offers tours throughout the Four Corners region, visiting the Hopi mesas as well as backcountry ruins on the Navajo Reservation. Journeys of self-discovery are a specialty of this company.

If you enjoy the wilderness and want to get more involved in its preservation, consider a Sierra Club service trip. These trips are for building, restoring, and maintaining hiking trails in wilderness areas. Contact the Sierra Club Outings Department, 85 Second St., Second Floor, San Francisco, CA 94105 (tel. 415/977-5522; www.sierraclub.org). The Sierra Club also offers hiking, camping, and other adventure trips to various destinations in Arizona.

You can also join a work crew organized by the Arizona Trail Association, P.O. Box 36736, Phoenix, AZ 85067-6736 (tel. 602/252-4794; www.aztrail.org). These crews spend 1 to 2 days building and maintaining various portions of the Arizona Trail, which will eventually stretch from the Utah state line to the Mexico border.

Another sort of service trip is offered by the National Park Service. It accepts volunteers to pick up garbage left by thoughtless visitors to Glen Canyon National Recreation Area. In exchange for picking up trash, you'll get to spend 5 days on a houseboat called the Trash Tracker, cruising through the gorgeous canyonlands of Lake Powell. Volunteers must be at least 18 years old and in good physical condition, and must provide their own food, sleeping bag, and transportation to the marina. For information, contact Glen Canyon National Recreation Area, Attn: GLCA Interpretation Tracker, P.O. Box 1507, Page, AZ 86040 (tel. 928/608-6350; www.nps.gov/glca/tracker/tthome.htm).

Finally, if you're interested in architecture or the ecology of urban design, you may want to help out on the continued construction of Arcosanti, the slow realization of Paolo Soleri's dream of a city that merges architecture and ecology. Located 70 miles north of Phoenix, Arcosanti offers 4-week learning-by-doing workshops ($1,125 per person) and 1-week seminars ($475 per person). Contact Arcosanti, Attn: Workshop Coordinator, H.C. 74, Box 4136, Mayer, AZ 86333 (tel. 928/632-6233 or 928/632-6217; www.arcosanti.org).

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Note: This information was accurate when it was published, but can change without notice. Please be sure to confirm all rates and details directly with the companies in question before planning your trip.

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				Frommer's Arizona 2008 Author: Karl Samson Pub Date: October 22, 2007 Price: $19.99				Related Titles: Arizona For Dummies, 4th Edition Frommer's American Southwest, 3rd Edition Frommer's Arizona 2009