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Young Aussie exposes major problem with popular travel trend: 'Atrocious'
A content creator has revealed ‘all the cons’ she discovered throughout the experience.
A young Australian woman has been applauded on social media after she called out a popular travel trend and opened up about her negative experience earlier this year. Content creator Madison Andonovski (@madisonandonovski) shared a video on TikTok this week revealing “all of the cons” she discovered doing a Contiki tour.
If you haven’t been on one yourself, chances are you know someone who has travelled with Contiki. The social group travel company caters to 18 to 35-year-olds wanting to explore different parts of the world on a budget, offering over 350 different tours in over 75 countries.
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Madison explained that she travelled by herself on a European Escapade tour, which visits 20 countries in 24 days with a maximum group of 53 people for around $5,000, as well as a Greek Island Hopping tour over 11 days for a similar price.
While she described the trip as “one of the best experiences of [her] life” in a video detailing the pros of Contiki, her recent post documented some of the downsides that many Aussies would relate to.
The cons of a Contiki tour
Madison began by explaining she had “little to no downtime” during her two tours and was never given an opportunity to spend time by herself.
“You're constantly in a room with different people, large amounts of people, sometimes up to eight,” she detailed. “Whenever I'd have free time, I'd always want to go just chill in my bed, relax, maybe have a nap, but I could never really do that because the room was always busy.”
She went on to say that although she stayed in a handful of “beautiful” places, she was “grossed out” by quite a few hostels and hotels on the trip.
“One of the girls found salami in her bed in Paris and yeah, it's not the greatest,” she said, adding that the majority of the hotels and resorts she stayed at in Greece were “atrocious” and “disgusting”.
“The shower heads weren't even working in half of them, not hot water in all of them, the beds were stained. The accommodation was trash, I did not like the accommodation.”
Other issues she found on the trip included the accommodation being far away from major attractions and city centres, being stuck on a bus for up to 10 hours with only a couple of rest stops, and not having opportunities to visit the beach and swim.
Others share their Contiki experience
Social media users took to the comments to share that they’d either had a similar experience, or the video was preparing them for their upcoming Contiki trip in 2025.
“I did European Trail and your experience was basically identical to mine. Was nice meeting new people and seeing new places but it was so fast-paced and I don’t think I’ll be doing one again,” one person shared, while another added, “Contiki tour and relaxing don't really go hand in hand from my experience back in ‘14, it was all go go go this city that tour on and on”.
“This is why booking your own trip is 100 times better, I know it can be more expensive but so much worth it. You can research and do it yourself and still save so much!” a third replied, followed by someone else who said, “It’s wayyy cheaper to book yourself than Contiki”.
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“Why I booked a different tour company instead of Contiki! Smaller group, lovely accommodation (max 3 people per room), good amount of downtime to call home and nap, solo explore etc,” a different user commented.
“I feel like group tours like these are only good in places that are more challenging solo (such as Africa or Central Asia for the most part), otherwise it’s not a good ROI,” another remarked.
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