Top Luxury Travel Agents & Tour Companies

My friends and I had an amazing trip to Portugal planned by Zicasso’s tour operator. When we arrived at the airport in Lisbon, our agent and her team were there to greet us, which was a pleasant surprise. Everything was well planned out and organized.

We visited Porto, Lisbon, and the Algarve over eight days. We had tours set up in each city and private transportation as we traveled to each place. We were also able to visit Coimbra, Évora, and Sintra as we drove through the country. All our tour guides were excellent and very knowledgeable.

We couldn’t have asked for a better experience. I would highly recommend our travel company.

Zicasso's travel agent was absolutely outstanding in handling our recent trip to Spain. Planning, communication, and execution were everything we could expect. He listened to us, understood the nuances of our thinking, and provided a plan that fulfilled our hopes (including making last-minute schedule changes that we needed).

Everything went exactly according to plan … the drivers were professional and on time, the guides were extraordinarily knowledgeable, and the hotels and train tickets were all as promised. His use of the "trip plans'' app provided real-time information for everything. We'd recommend our travel team to our best friends without hesitation. Five stars.

From start to finish, we were extremely happy with all the services and communication provided by Zicasso’s tour operator. They helped us create a perfect itinerary and made sure we had continuous communication through WhatsApp during our travels. I have used Zicasso twice before for trips to Southeast Asia and Italy, and both experiences were excellent. This was also the case for our Spain trip, showing that pretty much anywhere in the world, you are put in touch with reputable travel agencies that will provide exceptional service. Our travel agent was always responsive, professional, and very committed to helping us with every aspect of our trip.

Our tour included Madrid, Granada, Sevilla, and Barcelona, with several special tours, meals, and events in each place. While in Madrid, we took a day trip to Toledo and also saw a flamenco show with dinner. We had plenty of time to tour the famous sites in Madrid, eat tapas, and do some shopping. The hotel was excellent! We decided to upgrade for a fee when we arrived to have early access to the room, and it was worth every penny. We enjoyed all of the hotels that were selected for us on this trip.

Moving between cities by train was also a relaxing and efficient way to travel in Spain. A true highlight was the tour of the Alhambra Palace in Granada, with its spectacular history and views. Sevilla was also wonderful, but hard to navigate as we visited during Semana Santa and several streets were closed (and there were crowds of thousands) for the holy processions. It was very special to get to see the processions, but not ideal for touring the city.

We ended our trip in Barcelona and loved a special group cooking class arranged by our tour operator, and also a day trip to Montserrat. It was my daughter's birthday and our travel agent and her team helped us book a dinner reservation at a wonderful restaurant to celebrate. They also helped us with a dinner reservation for one of our nights in Madrid.

All of our transportation between trains/hotels/airports and cities was excellent, with very nice drivers and luxury vehicles!

Thank you to all of the tour operator’s staff and service providers for making our trip so special. We highly recommend the company for your trip to Spain.

Our trip, starting and ending in Edinburgh and looping through the Highlands with an emphasis on the Isle of Skye, Inverness, and Speyside, was very enjoyable, much to the credit of our travel agency. We were awed by the sheer beauty of the Highlands, the warmth and friendliness of the Scottish people, and the country's fascinating historical sites. 

Our culinary experience was outstanding, with a variety of traditional dishes and contemporary cuisine prepared by world-class chefs. As could be expected, distillery visits gave us an opportunity to enjoy a range of whiskey flavors and styles.

Jane, the owner of the travel agency, was accommodating in creating the ideal itinerary, finding superb lodging and dining experiences for us, and helping us through last-minute bookings due to a flight cancellation. 

Our driver/guide was personable, knowledgeable, timely, and professional. He entertained us with amusing Scottish lore, local and regional information, and eagerly adjusted the itinerary as needed to suit our personal tastes and interests.

This was a perfect mother-daughter trip at the right time of year to avoid crowds. All of our drivers and tour guides were awesome! The accommodations were likewise wonderful. Communication with our tour company was great and any last-minute changes were taken care of, so we had no worries. We had nearly daily contact from the company, whose staff checked in with us before and during our trip.

Our itinerary had a good balance of planned activities and free time, with lots of good suggestions from our tour guides. The company worked cooperatively with us in planning and replanning our itinerary over the course of nearly nine months! So flexible!

Thank you, Zicasso and company, for another perfect mother-daughter trip!

Our experience with Zicasso’s tour operator couldn't have gone more smoothly. From the first detail to the last, everything was perfect.

The hotel accommodations were fantastic and exactly as described in the itinerary. The private tour structure was our favorite part of the trip, with tour guides who were very knowledgeable about each region we were in. Each guide was friendly and had great recommendations about the area. It was great to have a built-in photographer too!

Booking with our travel company and travel planner was very easy. We felt like each of our requests was met when crafting our itinerary, and the attention to detail was very thorough.

Our Zicasso travel agent provided an incredible experience for our group of four people on a phenomenal 12-day tour. Every detail was thoughtfully planned and well executed. Our driver was knowledgeable, well versed in history/anthropology, consistently reliable, friendly, and warm. Although we traveled during Ramadan, our driver and local tour guides were always available, even if it meant they missed a meal or prayer time.

One of our travelers developed a bad cold and needed medical attention. Our travel team treated us like their own family as they ensured she received excellent care, made alternative arrangements, and even helped to communicate with healthcare professionals. The gift of a handmade and custom engraved leather bag with electrical outlet converters, maps, and snacks was a welcome and very classy gift.

We would highly recommend them to anyone thinking of traveling to this exquisite country and visiting with these beautiful people.

Our Zicasso travel agent was amazingly helpful in crafting a custom tour and worked with us when we decided to use them for airport transport and a couple of days of touring. I appreciated her patience in all the refinements we made along the way.

We missed our connection and arrived one day late; the tour company kindly picked us up a day later. When we arrived at Lisbon airport, the driver we had was professional, affable, and exceptionally knowledgeable.

After we arrived at our hotel, I received a distressing email from the tour company that we would be charged an extra $39 for the drive to the airport because we used a van instead of a car. After several emails and texts, it became clear they mixed us up with another traveler who arrived at the same time with two portable bicycles. We appreciated the phone call from our agent apologizing for her colleague's error, but it did start off the trip with a nuisance.

Our driver for the Lisbon to Porto leg of our journey was amazing. He was professional, punctual, engaging with our sons, respectful, attentive, and knowledgeable. We couldn't have asked for a better guide for our day-long travel. We enjoyed our visits to Óbidos, Nazaré (where we had an amazingly fresh and memorable seafood lunch), and Aveiro, where he kindly shared some special traditional egg cakes with us.

We enjoyed our trip to Douro Valley. Our driver was very knowledgeable and we benefited greatly from his master’s in winery background and his enthusiasm for wines. The winery tour was satisfactory, but the picnic lunch was outstanding, with amazing views of the valley. The Douro River boat ride was very relaxing, with a nice crew; we were surprised at the amount of food and wine they had for us (enough for 10 to 15 people). Given we had just had a hearty meal, it did not make sense to us and 95% was probably enjoyed by others after we left.

As mentioned above, this was a private, custom tour booked months in advance with ample time for planning. We decided to go with this travel agency because we wanted the full experience, particularly driving on route 222, said to be one of the best drives in Europe, for at least two hours so I could enjoy the views myself instead of driving. I sent explicit emails to the tour company at the outset regarding this important desire.

Upon entering the van on the morning of our Douro Valley tour and expressing my excitement about driving on route 222, our driver informed us that this was not part of the plan and he planned to take the highway all the way there. He seemed a bit dismissive of our high priority to fully experience route 222 and wasn't communicating with anyone to make any changes, hence I emailed the company. Our driver seemed as if he was doing us a favor when he said he would drive 15 minutes on route 222 after the dam. Our driver's boss called him, but it was too late to change the route to our destination as we were 15 minutes away. Our driver then said he'd try to rearrange the boat ride to allow time to drive back for a couple of hours on route 222. This did not happen.

We had a very rushed and scary high-speed route 222 drive for 15 minutes to and the same 15- to 20-minute drive back. We had two hours at the winery after our picnic, waiting in the hot sun, that we could have used for the drive up or back to enjoy route 222.

In retrospect, I could have driven there myself or hired an Uber driver at a fraction of the cost for the experience we had that day. Or I could have booked a private Viator experience that I found that had all the components included at a lower cost (winery visit, picnic, boat tour, short drive on route 222). What distinguished our intended plans with the tour company was the extended drive on route 222.

When we travel, we like to make the most of our experiences and partner with talent on the ground to achieve them. This tour company is clearly talented. I wish they had spent the requisite time to create the private experience we were looking for with the ample time we provided for them to prepare.