Four places at the edge of Europe: reserve a trip at $1,485 per person

The $1,485 rung, and the three or four departures standing on it

Everything below is priced at $1,485 a head with two of you sharing a room. They are set out in no order of merit, because there is none to give.

Which of the four should you take?

Albania is eleven nights on the coast road and the Vjosa, the last big wild river in Europe. Maramures is eight nights in northern Romania. Hay meadows are still cut by hand there, and the churches are wooden and very tall. Kurzeme is nine nights on a flat Latvian shore of fishing villages, ending at Cape Kolka where two seas meet. The Mani is seven nights among stone tower houses on a dry limestone peninsula in Greece. Each costs $1,485 per person, two sharing. That is the only thing they have in common. One is a river, one is meadow country, one is a shore, one is a rock peninsula. They run in different months and at different lengths. The office does not tell people which of the four to take. We will describe all four, answer questions about weather, walking and travel time, and then hold whichever one you name.

Deposits here run from ten percent to fifty

The operating company decides how much it wants held at the time of reservation. On this rung the answer varies more than the figure does. Maramures and the Kurzeme coast ask ten percent. Albania asks twenty five. The Mani asks fifty, because the stone houses there are small properties with few rooms and short seasons. The balance goes to that company, not to us, on the schedule it sets out in writing before you agree to anything. This office takes no payment at any point and holds no card details. If the deposit share matters to your planning, say so early. We will tell you what each operator currently asks, in writing, before a reservation is placed. Deposit shares change from season to season. We confirm the current one at the time of the request rather than quoting it from this page.

Where $1,485 stops

$1,485 covers rooms, ground transport inside the country, and the guiding described on each trip page. It does not cover the flight out or the flight home. It does not cover meals beyond those the trip page lists, entrance fees not named there, tips, or anything you buy on the way. It reaches Europe and only Europe. All four places sit within a day of a European gateway. Rooms are simple. Guest houses, family run rooms, small village lodgings, some with shared bathrooms. Private facilities in every room are not something we can promise at this figure. Single occupancy is quoted separately by the operator and costs more. The next rung is $1,960. It holds four trips, among them one in Laos and one in Turkiye. That is a statement of what the catalog contains, not a suggestion to spend more.