Here’s One Company With a Different Spin

An around-the-world Christmas shopping tour or a two-week spring training tour with the Dodgers is not exactly a typical tour for the mature traveler. Neither is the tour operator, World Adventures in Travel, an ordinary tour company.

As a new member of the Senior Travel and Recreation Activities Council (Strac), World Adventures caters to the senior traveler, though a special type of traveler, to be sure.

“Our tours appeal to the well-traveled senior,” says Phyllis Corliss, who with her husband Dick started World Adventures four years ago. The two have 17 years’ experience running tours.

“Tours are for the seasoned traveler looking for an upscale tour.

“One of our key points is that our tours are at the right place at the right time--to be in New England at the peak of fall foliage, to see East Africa during the Great Migration or to enjoy the Fairy Penguin parade in Australia.

“We prefer small groups,” Phyllis adds. “We like to think of them as a 10-, 20-day or longer private party of friends. And we make sure it works that way.”

World Adventures features some popular domestic trips plus Africa, Australia and the South Pacific, in addition to the round-the-world trips and upscale cruises. It averages only nine to 12 destinations a year, but with about 30 departure dates.

And with terms like “upscale,” “trendy” and “small groups” you might conclude that World Adventures tours are not budget-oriented, or moderate. Expensive is the operative word.

The Corlisses, however, say that the seasoned traveler can recognize the value for the travel dollar in the hotels and dining, plus the planning that goes into each tour.

Christmas Tour

Some of World Adventures’ remaining 1989 trips (with openings):

--Christmas in Washington, D.C., and Williamsburg, Va., with Christmas Eve and Christmas Day in Colonial Williamsburg, including special holiday festivities at the Colonial Tavern and the Kings Arms Inn.

Also included are three days in the capital at Loews L’Enfant Plaza Hotel and an evening performance at Kennedy Center, plus a tour of Tidewater, Va., and over to Charlottesville and Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello. This eight-day trip, which includes a dozen meals plus holiday parties, costs $1,345 per person, double occupancy, plus air fare.

--A 20-day trip to Australia and New Zealand, leaving Oct. 12. This covers Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, Alice Springs and the Outback, plus Melbourne, Sydney and Canberra and the best of New Zealand’s North and South islands. The per-person price, double occupancy, is $3,395 including many meals and special features excluded from other tours. Air fare is $2,777 to $3,315, depending on the class preferred.

--A few openings also remain for the Oct. 2 departure on World Adventure’s 20-day New England Fall Foliage & Heritage tour that visits New England, plus Niagara Falls, Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal and Quebec in Canada, and New York City, Philadelphia, Valley Forge, the Pennsylvania Dutch Country and Gettysburg. Then it’s on to Virginia and Washington, D.C.

Including top hotels, many meals and extensive sightseeing, the tour costs $2,995 per person, plus air fare arranged per client’s choice.

1990 Schedule Ready

World Adventure’s 1990 tour schedule is being printed and will be ready for mailing next week. It will include two feature-filled around-the-world tours, including the Christmas shopping tour. Space here precludes an adequate description of a typical World Adventure tour, which costs $12,850 per person (including business-class air fare).

Also set for 1990 is the two-week “Spring Training With the Dodgers” in Florida. The price is still not final, but this one will include attending eight spring training games and meeting with many present players and past stars, such as Sandy Koufax.

Plans are just being finalized for the tour company’s Australia trip, set for April and October, 1990. It will cover Australia from coast to coast, starting in Perth and visiting special areas mostly known to Australians; to Darwin and the “Crocodile Dundee” area (staying in a hotel built in the shape of a gigantic crocodile); the Great Barrier Reef; then Brisbane, Canberra and Sydney.

In addition to its all-inclusive tours, World Adventures also has a few select tour groups on cruises, one of which visits Odessa in the Black Sea on the Royal Princess this month.

World Adventures in Travel is at 307 N. Santa Anita Ave., Arcadia 91006. You can write for more information, check with your own travel agency for the tour company’s brochure or call toll-free (800) 533-2788 or (818) 445-2220.