You may look at Brand g’s many land tours and think, “a land tour’s a land tour, how different could they be?”
You’d be surprised.
Land tours – because of a whole host of factors – can differ in many, many ways. And we’re gonna lay them out here.
THE LUXURY FACTOR
We’re a luxury brand. And we focus on 5-star trips. The majority of our land tours are 5-star through and through. But occasionally, on a 5-star trip, there will be a 4 or 4.5-star element or two.
This is usually due to one factor: availability in that destination. In some places in the world, the best we can get is a 4 or 4.5 star hotel. Our Jordan trip (which is an optional add-on to our Egypt trip) is a good example. The hotel in Amman, Jordan is spectacular. Totally 5-star. But in Petra, Jordan – which hosts one of the most spectacular set of ruins in the world – the best hotel is a 4-star property.
Now, this property, which is right next to the entrance to Petra, is a perfectly lovely hotel – it just doesn’t have that wow factor that the other properties on this itinerary do. But the location is perfection – you walk out the door, walk like 100 yards and you’re at the entrance to Petra. There might be a slightly nicer hotel across town, but for us, location takes precedence in certain cases.
And in others, particularly developing countries, a 5-star property simply isn’t available, no matter what.
SOME INCLUDE A RIVER CRUISE
Some of our land tours are actually a combo of a river cruise and land tour. We’re not talking about trips like our Prague & the Danube River cruise in Europe, where we have two nights in Prague before we begin the river cruise; but rather about our longer 11-14 day land tours where we have a 4- or 7-night river cruise as part of the package.
The great thing about the river cruises on these land tour trips is that, in most cases, they’re not the busy, sightseeing-filled days of a European river cruise. These are more relaxed river cruises, where you’re experiencing nature (as on the Amazon) or seeing how the locals live and work (as in Vietnam/Cambodia or India).
There are 4 of these trips with a land tour and river cruise combination, and we typically offer all of them every year, because they sell out in a matter of days or weeks. In fact, we offer more than one departure for most of these trips each year.
They are:
Amazon & Machu Picchu – a 4-night Amazon river cruise, plus a land tour of Lima, Cusco, the Sacred Valley and of course, Machu Picchu.
Vietnam & Cambodia – a 7-night cruise through Vietnam and Cambodia, plus a land tour of Siem Reap, Cambodia and Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, as well as an optional add-on extension to Hanoi and Ha Long Bay.
India – another 7-night cruise, this one down the Ganges river, plus Golden Triangle touring in New Delhi, Jaipur and Agra, plus an optional add-on extension to Varanasi.
Egypt – a 7-night cruise down the Nile. This one differs from the others mentioned above, in that it’s fairly heavily filled with sightseeing. But oh, what sightseeing! Some of the best ruins on planet Earth.
SIZE OF THE GROUP
Another difference in Brand g’s various land tours is the size of the group. They can vary from 25 up to about 72-75.
Typically, the smaller groups of 25-40 are the land-only tours, like:
- Japan
- New Zealand
- Africa
- Thailand
- Ireland
- Scotland
- Argentina
- Australia
- Nepal & Bhutan
- Sri Lanka
- Colombia
- Mongolia
The largest group sizes are those that include a river cruise, like the ones we mentioned earlier, because we’re bound, in that case, by the number of cabins on the ship, since we charter the entire ship.
So, for example, on our Amazon & Machu Picchu trips we have about 40-42 guests. On our India trips, we have about 50. On our Vietnam & Cambodia trips, we have about 60. Our Egypt trips are our largest because the Nile river ship we use, the Ama Lilia, holds about 72.
You may see that the actual guest count on these ships quoted by the cruise line is slightly higher than these figures, but we deduct for Brand g staff, tour guides, and for solo travelers, since we have quite a few who travel with us (thus there will only be 1 person in that 2-person cabin).
SOME HAVE MORE CHANGES OF HOTEL THAN OTHERS
Depending on the size of the country and how much ground we’re attempting to cover, there may be more or fewer changes of hotels. In a country with a lot of iconic sites spread out over a large territory, for example, you’re gonna have more changes of hotels.
In 2024 and 2025, we did an Andalucia land tour that only had one change of hotel. But that was a shorter land tour (8 days), and Andalucia is just a region of Spain, not the whole country.
Most of our land tours will have 3-5 hotels (including the river ship, where applicable) on the itinerary.
The ones with 6 or more hotels are also our longest tours covering the most territory:
- New Zealand (covering the North & South Islands)
- Sri Lanka (a shockingly large country by land mass)
- Our over-the-top 2027 Africa by Private Jet trip, because it covers 5 different African countries: Tanzania, Madagascar, Zimbabwe, Namibia and Rwanda.
PRICING DIFFERENCES
There’s a lot that goes into determining the price of a trip – it’s not just, “Oh, Africa’s exotic, we can charge more there!” These are the factors that come to bear in determining the final cost of a trip:
- The exchange rate for the currency of that country
- The general standard of living in that country
- The specific hotels and river cruise ships we choose to book
- The logistics involved in that specific itinerary and the ground operator we select to handle all the on-the-ground details
Exchange rate / standard of living:
Southeast Asia, for example, will always offer some of the best value trips (the most luxury for the money) because of the fact that the U.S. dollar goes so far there and their standard of living is rather low. Countries like Scotland and Ireland will always be on the higher end because of the higher exchange rate for the British Pound. Australia and New Zealand will be higher because they pay everyone a living wage.
Logistics:
Brand g uses some of the finest ground operators – companies that handle all the logistical details, like tour guides, tour buses, security if needed, local hosts, air flights that are included, etc – on earth. Companies like Abercrombie & Kent, for example. And they don’t come cheap.
But when we’re taking guests to places where logistics are challenging (the mountains of Asia, the Middle East, Africa, etc.), we want our guests to be in the best hands possible. And we want them to KNOW they’re in the best hands, by feeling like every element is seamless. Every detail is handled.
We want our guests to know that no matter where they are in the world, they don’t have to worry about anything except showing up on time.
So, as you can see, not all land tours are alike. And there are good reasons for the differences in trip style and length and pricing. We really do want you to know how much thought is put into every detail before a trip ever sees the light of day on the Brand g website. Because our commitment to quality means the world to us – and hopefully, to you.
