See beautiful places!
Vienna and Budapest, Paris and Rome, Buenos Aires and Iguazú Falls, Rio de Janeiro for Carnaval are on our route! With Travel Friends, we see world-class sights and get to know cities and people. We make all the travel, lodging and sightseeing arrangements, meet you on your arrival at the host city and stay with you until you check-in for your flight back home. We'll be the friendly faces as you arrive at the airport in Rome, Paris, Buenos Aires or wherever we start, and we'll be with you and the rest of the group throughout our 10 to 14-day itineraries.
Make new friends!
We travel in groups of 8 to 15 easy-going, friendly and adventurous people. We see, learn and enjoy ourselves and each other's company in some beautiful destinations in Europe and South America. There is a lot out there: dynamic cities with world-class museums, theater, music, opera and dance, restaurants, boulevards, palaces and quiet cafés and shops on quaint side streets, mountain glaciers and subtropical forests with rare wildlife and breathtaking waterfalls. We include a wide variety of sights for everyone. We use one, two or sometimes three fun cities as our bases, enjoy all they have to offer and see the cultural and natural features within an easy drive or train trip.
Have fun!
We have fun! We'll be the friendly faces as you arrive at the airport in Rome, Paris, Madrid, Buenos Aires, Rio de Janeiro or wherever we start, and we'll be your travel companions to all the spots in our itineraries. Our groups offer spontaneity and the chance to interact with more people and cultures.
Paris, Normandy and Brittany, France, May 2026
Paris and the Maritime Traditions of France
Join us in late spring for a nine-night adventure in Paris and France's maritime regions.
Our program will take you from Paris, with its beautiful parks and boulevards, world-famous museums and monuments, to Normandy and Brittany, two regions on the Atlantic Coast closely tied to France's sea-faring past. In Paris we'll see the newly reopened Notre Dame Cathedral and the Louvre Museum, and go up the Eiffel Tower for a panoramic view of the city. We'll have time to wander through some of the most picturesque neighborhoods and will take an evening cruise on the Seine River for an unforgettable nighttime view of the "City of Light." Those who wish can join us at the annual costumed ball at the nearby Palace of Versailles, an evening of music, dance and fireworks to relive the splendors of the French Kingdom. Then we're off by train to the historic beaches of Normandy, site of the D-Day invasion of Nazi-occupied France in World War II, and the small ports and villages of Brittany and a visit to Mont St.-Michel, with its thousand-year old monastery atop a tidal island a mile from the mainland.
Immerse yourself in France!
French culture is closely tied to history of its regions on the Atlantic Coast. Norsemen invaded here in the 900s, dominated Paris and then crossed the English Channel under William (the Conqueror) to wrest control of England from the Angles and Saxons. See what this beautiful country offers in architecture, gardens, quaint villages and historic beaches in the long, warm days of late spring.
Italy: Rome, Tuscany and Amalfi Coast October 2026
See the highlights of Italy in the cooler, more comfortable part of the season.
Join us for a 13-night excursion to see Rome, Florence, Siena, Pompeii, the Isle of Capri and the beautiful Amalfi Coast.
Italy has almost unlimited sights to see but we've chosen the best in this two-week adventure for our October 2026 program, from Rome, to the cities and hill towns of Tuscany, to the Amalfi Coast with the fabled island of Capri and the nearby ruins of Pompeii. We’ll start in Rome, exploring the great monuments from the Empire, including the Colosseum, the Forum and the Pantheon and the fabulous art and architecture in St. Peter's Basilica and the Vatican Museums. Then we're off by train to Siena, a picturesque small city in Tuscany and our base to see nearby Florence, the lovely town of San Gimignano and the famous tower at Pisa. We'll head south to Salerno, on the Amalfi Coast, with two full days to see beautiful villages that cling to their seaside cliffs and Capri, the site of the grand villa of Emperor with its stunning views of the sea, and a day to explore the vast archeological site at Pompeii, near the slopes of Mount Vesuvius. Our hotels in Rome, Siena and Salerno offer us easy access to all we want to see and time to sit, relax and enjoy the food and the relaxed culture of the Mediterranean.
Explore off the beaten path.
Four nights in Siena and another four nights in Salerno offer a great chance to explore Italy's loveliest small cities. Some of your most memorable moments in Italy will be an evening stroll about both towns, among the colorful and historic neighborhoods of Siena, each with a strong identity that goes back to the Middle Ages, and along the pedestrian walks of Salerno, a seaside town that was a crossroads of Mediterranean cultures and the location of Europe's first school of medicine.
Carnaval in Rio de Janeiro & Iguaçu, Brazil February 2026
Rio's biggest celebration and spectacular Iguaçu Falls
Join us for a nine nights in the South American summer for one of the world's grandest celebrations and magnificent Iguaçu Falls in Brazil's subtropical jungle.
No city throws a party like Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Rio's Carnaval season starts in January (mid-summer) and becomes a full-blown festival of music, dance, light and color culminating in the samba parades through the stadium built to host thousands of revelers in the last few days before the start of Lent. We'll see Rio--the Marvelous City--at its most colorful, but also see the sights that make this a world-renowned destination at any point of the year--iconic Sugar Loaf Mountain, the Corcovado and the dramatic Christ the Redeemer statue high above the city, and the beaches at Ipanema and Copacabana. Then we'll fly to Iguaçu Falls and enjoy three full days exploring what's likely the world's most beautiful waterfall and the surrounding national parks. The program provides a complete itinerary with ground transportation, hotels, round-trip airfare from Rio to Iguaçu an easy-paced program that allow us to see and enjoy at our own pace.
Enjoy South America with us!
Our hotel in Rio's Flamengo neighborhood, on the city's interior bay, provides easy access to nearby beaches with Sugar Loaf towering nearby. We're also close to a metro stop, providing easy access to the Sambadrome and other points of interest. At Iguaçu, we'll experience the falls and surrounding jungle on both sides of the border with Argentina.
Argentina from Buenos Aires to Patagonia February-March 2026
Buenos Aires and the natural beauty of Patagonia
Over twelve days we’ll immerse ourselves in Argentina's capital city, the Andes Mountains and the stark beauty of the Patagonian coast.
Our program will start in Buenos Aires, the "Paris of South America" and Argentina's center of culture, art and dining near the end of the South American summer. We’ll stroll through the city's plazas and parks and see the famous Casa Rosada--the executive office building of the Presidency, the palatial houses that were home to the city's elite in the early 1900s and historic Recoleta Cemetery. We'll try the country's world-famous dishes of beef and other regional specialities. Then we'll fly to Patagonia and the Andes Mountains (round-trip domestic flights are included) and explore Glaciers National Park, one of the best places to see glaciers up close by water and by land. We'll continue to the Peninsula Valdés Nature Preserve, a vast area on the Atlantic Coast that's home to Magellanic penguins, guanacos, rheas (South American ostriches), sea lions and elephant seals, and will have two full days to explore the coast of one of the wildest regions on Earth. We’ll end with a leisurely one-day trip to Colonia del Sacramento, Uruguay, an historic Portuguese outpost during the colonial era.
Add Argentina to your travels!
Argentina is a vast country yet nearly one-third of its 40 million people lives within 100 miles of Buenos Aires, the capital city. Ranches and farms extend for a few hundred miles from the capital, but beyond that, and especially in the 800-mile stretch of Patagonia to the south, the landscape is barely touched. The 5000-mile long chain of the Andes Mountains ends here. The South Atlantic meets the South Pacific, and the stark landscape in between seems lost in time.
Italy's Piedmont and the Waldensian Valleys
See a beautiful, seldom-visited corner of Italy.
Join us in one of our many custom trips through this picturesque region along the French border.
Piedmont and the Cottian Alps offer an excellent combination of history, culture, great food and some spectacular landscapes. The small towns, cities and villages here provide a chance to experience Italian life up close, at a relaxed pace. Turin, the regional capital, the long-time residence of the dukes and kings and the center of Italian car manufacturing (Fiat, Alfa Romeo, Ferrari) features beautiful palaces, parks and downtown streets with long porticoes that invite passersby to their many cafés and shops. The vineyards of Langhe, Roero and Monferrato, to the southeast and a UNESCO World Heritage Site, produce Barolo, Barbaresco and Dolcetto wines, some of the country's best. To the west are the Cottian Alps and the Waldensian Valleys, the homeland of the Waldenses, the Christian religious movement from the Middle Ages that organized as a Protestant Church during the Reformation. The craggy mountains provided the Waldenses a refuge from the Inquisition and from periodic attacks by Savoyard and French armies, but also a ghetto to which they were long confined as a religious minority. These towns and villages and many scenic trails are full of opportunities to experience Italian life directly.
We have longstanding ties and experience leading visitors through Piedmont. Mark's family originates among the Waldenses, and he's led many groups from North and South America to this area since the 1980s. Some folks travel to see the towns and villages where their ancestors lived, do research on their family in the local archives and meet their distant kin, while others come for the many scenic trails and sightseeing just below the French border. Whatever your preferences, we'll see to it that you enjoy yourself in Piedmont and come away with a new understanding of the richness of Italian culture.
Flexible schedules adapted to your time and interests
We offer trips through Piedmont at any point of the year, concentrating on the most pleasant season, from May to early October. We meet travelers as they arrive by plane or train at Turin, at nearby Milan, or in Rome. Transportation between cities is most comfortable on the trains, and the subways, buses and trams are an easy and fun way to see Turin. We provide transportation by car or van for larger groups in small towns, to the vineyards of the Langhe area and to the mountains.
Contact us to find out how we can help you see Piedmont.
See what we've been up to...
We hope you’ll join us. Because traveling with friends is so much more rewarding.
Travel Friends offers small-group international tours to exciting destinations where we explore and learn together. Our groups are adventurous and curious about cultural, historic, and natural areas in the world. We enjoy the shared experience of meeting people along the way. We have fun!
Karl and Mark work in entertainment and higher education, much of it outside the United States—Karl in Europe and Japan, Mark in Europe and South America. We work in French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese and sometimes in Japanese. We know how much fun exploring abroad can be. Our trips give lifelong memories to share with family and friends.
The challenges of doing it alone, making reservations, getting from the airport to the hotel, managing where to go, when and how to go about it in different languages, currencies, and customs, can be daunting. That’s where we come in. We make the reservations abroad. We meet you at the airport when you arrive, and we’re with you throughout your stay. We take you with us to see the sights, to watch a performance, to walk a trail, to go shopping, to enjoy a restaurant or café, and will give you time and space to explore on your own.
We provide transportation while abroad and get you back to the airport or train station at the end of our adventure to be sure you’re safely on your way home, or to your next destination. We want you to relax, have fun, feel comfortable and know that you can count on our help when you need it.
Our groups are easy-going, interesting and fun people. We’re Midwesterners, East-Coast, West-Coast people from different walks of life, but people who genuinely enjoy getting to know each other, sharing experiences, and most of all having a good time.
Our trips run at all times of the year in the Northern and Southern hemispheres, taking advantage of comfortable travel weather and avoiding times that are heavily traveled.
We hope you’ll contact us about our upcoming programs.
Mark McMeley
Karl Atkinson