Policy Updates for 2026 Tours

As we emerged from pandemic uncertainty, we made the decision to err on the side of flexibility — and we're glad that many of you were able to take advantage of that approach during a challenging time. A few years on, we're facing some bookkeeping and logistical headaches for our home office team in Edmonds, and it's time to make a few adjustments. We hope you'll understand that these tweaks are in the interest of improving the overall tour experience and making sure that everything at Rick Steves' Europe is shipshape and smartly run. And some of these changes (including the tour kit timing) are rooted in your feedback — you made a suggestion, and we're listening. (This information is intended to provide a summary and clarification of important updates, but it does not represent the official terms; for those, please refer to our Tour Conditions once our 2026 tours have been released.)

Tour Kits Are Available Earlier

For 2026 tours, your tour kit will be available 35 days after you book. This is intended to get your guidebook into your hands much sooner, so that you can start dreaming and planning even earlier. 

It's still up to you when you request your tour kit. New editions of our guidebooks arrive throughout the year. You'll find the expected arrival date of the next edition when ordering your kit, so you can determine if it makes sense to wait to place your order.

This also means that, if you’re taking a tour with us in both 2025 and 2026, your 2026 tour kit may be available even before your 2025 kit.

All Solo Travelers Will Pay a Single Supplement (No More "Single Share" Option)

Starting with 2026 tours, a solo traveler will always need to book a private single room — and pay a single supplement — rather than having the option to save money by being paired off with a fellow solo traveler in a shared room. We’re calculating the Single Supplement fee at a flat $50 per day and subsidizing the actual cost to make it more affordable. This means the cost of single supplements is going down in 2026.

Here's why: Our tour prices are based on the efficiency of two people sharing a double room. A single traveler having their own room throws off that arithmetic. For solo travelers, we've historically offered two choices: Pay a "single supplement" to be guaranteed your own private room or default to the "single share" option, and be paired off with another solo traveler to share a twin room. (In some cases, if you were the only solo traveler on the tour, this might have netted you a "free" private room for the duration; in other cases, you'd wind up with a roommate for the entire tour.)

While many of our solo travelers have had positive experiences with this approach, it's become clear that the "single share" option is no longer feasible. Conflicts between solo roommates sometimes arise on tour, which can be stressful and time-consuming for guides and fellow tour members; and the process of managing these room assignments is complicated for our home office team in Edmonds. At the same time, we've noticed that only a small percentage of our solo travelers prefer the "single share" option, most opt for the single supplement. That's why, ultimately, we believe the best overall tour experience — for our guides, our groups, and the vast majority of our solo travelers — is to make the single supplement the only option.

All Deposits Are Fully Refundable for 30 Days

Since emerging from Covid we've made a point to be extremely (perhaps unreasonably!) flexible about our refund policy. Going forward, we'll enforce that policy strictly: Tour deposits are fully refundable for 30 days after you book. If you cancel during that 30-day window, your deposit will be fully refunded. If you cancel beyond that 30-day window, your deposit is not refundable, nor can it be used as credit for a future tour.

Why are we making this change? For one thing, it's simply responsible bookkeeping: We'd like to reduce the amount of credit floating among our customers and leave you in control of where and how you spend your own money.

Beyond that, we're aware that our TMs are eager to join us on tour, but may not quite be ready to commit to a particular departure. Understandably, some customers have put down deposits on multiple departures — and then, much later, canceled all but one, "rolling over" the credit from their deposits to cover the cost of their tour.

We completely understand the logic of this approach, from a customer's point of view. (Frankly, it's a clever hack!) However, you can imagine how this creates challenges on our end — both for balancing our books responsibly, and for accurately managing tour availability. (Imagine: If a customer puts deposits on eight tour seats, then cancels six of them several months later, that's up to six empty seats that might have been filled by travelers who'd have enjoyed joining us, had there been availability earlier.)

We believe that sticking to a 30-day refundability window on deposits simply makes good business sense, while also helping all of our customers have a more accurate and complete picture of available seats. In an industry where every unsold seat comes at a cost, we believe this will allow us to take more travelers to Europe, on their preferred departures, while continuing to thrive long-term.

Tour Deposits Will Be Paid by Credit Card

When booking a tour in the past, you might have seen a checkbox to note that you had a credit you wanted to apply to the deposit. Going forward, we will require all tour deposits to be paid by credit card at the time of booking. But no worries: Your credit is carefully tracked in our systems, and our team in Edmonds will make sure any credit you have with us is applied to your final payment. And, in the event that your credit amount exceeds the amount of your full tour cost, we will also apply the credit to your deposit (and reimburse your credit card).

Refunds Will Be Issued as Refunds (Not as Credit)

If you cancel your tour for a reason that's covered by our refund policy, we'll return those funds to you rather than issuing a credit. (Tour deposits become nonrefundable after 30 days, unless otherwise noted.) Of course, if you have a credit from a previous tour season (including 2025), you'll still be able to apply them to future bookings until the originally set expiration date.

Questions? Let Us Know!

We hope this has answered any questions you have about policy updates affecting 2026 tours. If you have any further questions, as always, please contact our wonderful Customer Experience team in Edmonds, Washington — best by email. Our team lives and breathes Europe, and they're passionate about helping you with travel advice, guidance on logistics, and figuring out the best solution to any concerns.

Thank you for understanding our need to make tweaks like this, from time to time, to ensure we're delivering the best tour experience possible while running our business smartly. We appreciate the trust you place in us... and we're excited to hit the road with you again next year!