Dear Traveler,

on behalf of Insight Vacations I would like to express a warm welcome to you! My name is KARL HAFNER and I am one of Insight´s Tour Directors. I cover many of the European countries and am currently touring in Central and Eastern Europe. As a native Austrian you might consider those countries my “homelands”.

I shall be directing the "THE BEST OF GERMANY" (IEE929) starting in Frankfurt September 26th 2009. If you are on this departure, I´d like say hello to you already on this occasion! It would be great to hear from you within Insight Vacations´ Online Community!

This part of Europe we shall travel through is beautiful, fascinating, exciting and full of contrasts! There is much I would like to show you, so if you keep an open mind, just relax and adjust to the unfamiliar, you will embrace all that it has to offer, have a lot of fun and enjoy your holiday to the full. Lean back in one of our comfortable extra-legroom-luxury-coach-seats and leave the rest to me.

C u soon …
Karl

hi Karl
My name is Michele and I'll be joining your tour. leaving my family and troubles behind in Australia and looking forward to a fun trip.
See u in Sept.

Hi Michele,
nice to hear from you, looking forward meeting you in September! You are going to be stunned by the beauty of the places I shall be showing you. Culture & shopping & fun, that´s what you are going to get! Kind regards to Australia

just got back from a wonderful Bohemian tour, looking forward meeting you on this one ...

Hi Karl,

My name is Cathy. My husband Dan and I will be joining you on the Best of Germany tour. We are very excited and have waited a long time for this trip.

This is our first tour vacation so I'm not sure what to expect, but I'm looking forward to having a wonderful relaxing time.

See you in a few days!

Cathy

Cathy, touring is not usually relaxing. You will need a holiday afterwards to relax. They are wonderful and interesting, though.

quote:

touring is not usually relaxing

Too true! But very enjoyable!

I wish I could agree Tangata. I love exploring new worlds, meeting new people and eating new food but we found the time sitting on a bus (as comfortable as it was) to be soul deflating. For us touring became a chore. We've switched to taking holidays. That said this board is still an outstanding source of things to do, see and avoid.

Dear Cathy and Dan,
thanks for your post, I am looking forward to make your holiday very enjoyable and relaxing too! Please bring some warm clothes with you as late September can get a bit cold in Germany sometimes, not necessarily though, but be prepared for every different kind of weather. At this time it is pretty warm, but that could change. Weather forecast looks good, we should stay within 17-25°C. Please ignore the negatives within the other posts, because they are very individual. I as a TD usually leave you enough time to relax, so that you can enjoy everything offered by the country we are traveling through. Off course for your free time I suggest the best available to you. Just lean back and leave the rest on me!

C u soon!
Karl

Dear ZGordon, Tangata and OzJohnno,
thanks for your contribution to this forum.
I would like to state that you are all partly right. Your statements are very individual though, what might be a chore for one person is pure enjoyment to another one. A successful tour depends on many factors, some of those are itinerary, force majeur like weather etc., physical condition of customers and off course the Tour Director. I usually try to find with every specific group a nice balance between relaxation, culture and fun while driving on the coach and off course follow the same principles while not being driving. For sure traveling with Insight and me as your TD is very enjoyable - I promise! The biggest present for me is to see the smiling faces of my customers at the end of the day and this guarantees that they keep the positive memories in their hearts. Every tour like this should end as a trip of a lifetime.

Hope to see you all on one of my trips!
Karl