Cruising is one of the 21st century’s most popular means of vacation. You can visit your AAA office and go on a sea cruise to exotic destinations ranging from Antarctica to the Caribbean to the fjords of northern Europe. Or book a river cruise across North America or Europe, visiting the hinterlands that are too far inland for the sea-based cruises.The appeal to these trips is very simply that cruises offer a wide array of sites and ports of call, but at a relaxing pace of travel. In 2011, Continental Kapers will be releasing a line of European land-tours that offers the same relaxing pace of travel, one that offers the traveler a true vacation instead of just a sight-seeing tour!

Most land-tours offer an itinerary that is reminiscent of the 1969 romantic comedy, If It’s Tuesday, This Must Be Belgium. In it, Suzanne Pleshette and a motley array of travelers venture across Europe in a whirlwind of sightseeing, rushing from Rome to Venice to Brussels, the Netherlands, and London over the course of their trip!Sight-seeing tours like these inevitably see a lot, but leave the traveler gasping for a breath due to its pace! Continental Kapers’ remembers you are on your vacation and has designed itineraries to insure that you see and do a lot, but makes sure you won’t need a second holiday to recover from the first!

“For almost ten years we have been offering tours that use a huband- spoke approach to our itineraries,” explained Continental Kapers’ Carol Wasi =elewski. “The feedback our guests have given us about how relaxing and enjoyable these itineraries are convinced us to redesign our product line so that ALL of our trips in 2011 will either use just ONE hotel or have just ONE change of hotels!

”The hub-and-spoke itinerary focuses on a specific area of Europe,Using one hotel as your base of operations for all of your excursions.Each day, you head out to an array of destinations and experiences, but you return each evening to the same bed! This means you don’t have to pack and unpack your suitcase each day as you transfer from hotel to hotel. It also means that you can have some level of control over your vacation. On a cruise, you can opt to stay on board the ship if you get to a port that doesn’t appeal to you. In the same way on Continental Kapers’ tours, you don’t HAVE to join the group on the day’s excursion. If the trip that day is going to a destination you’ve already visited or simply doesn’t appeal to you, stay behind for some shopping, enjoy a visit to the spa, or even go on your own excursion, visiting a site that you DO want to visit! After all, it’s YOUR vacation!

The 2011 Continental Kapers line-up offers a return to some of our past favorites, like the Affordable Switzerland tour (seven nights in the Alpine Wonderland of Switzerland) and the Sunny Spain tour (six nights in southern Spain’s Andalusia region). The Romantic Germany tour has become a sevennight package offering four nights in Munich and three nights on the Rhine River while the Springtime Tulip Tour changes hotels just once, visiting Belgium for three nights before going on to the Netherlands for four nights. And we’re VERY excited about some of our newest offerings. Imagine a five-night package to Paris for Valentine’s Day (the perfect Christmas gift to give your loved one!!) Or a romantic seven-night trip to the Italian Lakes and Venice! Or join local tour guide Oskar Gmünder on his Imperial Cities Tour, spending four nights in Budapest and three nights in Prague! But no matter which tour you go on, we can promise you this – Continental Kapers will remember that this is your vacation!