Top things to do compared

About Top things to do compared

Things to do is the part of a trip decided after the seats are booked, and this ranking weighs the 122 travel brands that sell it. In the list are apps that bundle excursions with rail, bus and hotel bookings, holiday operators that put a package, a transfer and a guide into one basket, and destination bodies running their own activity programmes. Tours carry the heaviest weight in this category, with hotels, packages and transfers close behind, so a brand earns its place by selling what a traveller books before and during a trip rather than a seat alone. The main trade-off is range against cost, and it explains most of the order. The longest product lists here carry booking fees, card surcharges or staged deposits attached, while the brands that keep the checkout simple tend to cover fewer bases. Setup counts as well, because a mobile app and a phone line decide how quickly a problem is sorted when a guide does not turn up. Read the fee and cancellation lines before the catalogue.

How we picked

Score comes from three weighted signals: 40%, 40% and 20%. Cost reads booking fees, card surcharges, deposits and refund deadlines as each brand publishes them. Offer reads how many product lines a brand sells and how far its support reach extends. Trust reads the clarity of the terms, the length of the refund window and whether a brand names the legal entity behind it. Facts come from each brand's own terms and conditions pages, about, contact and privacy pages, its app listing and company sources. Only what a brand publishes about itself is used, and anything a brand does not publish is left out rather than treated as a shortfall. Partners are listed first, ahead of every other entry, and the remaining members follow on score alone. Partners that serve your country are listed first in this ranking, then the rest by score. Where a brand quotes a fee or a deadline, the wording is kept as published, so the gap between a free auto-cancel and a staged deposit table stays visible. No figure is rounded or restated in a brand's place.

What to look for

Tours lead the weighting

Tours carry the heaviest weight in this category at 100%, so a brand selling excursions outranks one selling only beds or seats. For a things-to-do list, that is the difference between a booking platform and a place to sleep.

Hotels, packages and transfers

The next tier sits at 65%, 57.5% and 47.5%. Bundling the room, the transfer and the activity in one basket scores higher than selling them from separate sites, which is why package-led operators sit well.

Getting there and getting around

Flights and car hire pull 45% and 34.2%, and cruise adds 20%. That matters when the activity starts from a city rather than a resort, since car hire is what gets a traveller to the trailhead.

Reaching a person

Phone is the strongest support signal in this list at 84.5%, with email close behind at 89.7%. A help centre still counts at 69%, since refund questions rarely arrive at midday with a spare guide in hand.

Booking on a phone

A mobile app is worth more here than a printed programme, 75.9%, because walks, transfers and last-minute changes get booked while standing up. It helps most when the same app also holds the ticket, the address and the contact number.

Fees and refunds

Cost carries 40% of the score, so booking fees, card surcharges and deposits decide the order as much as the catalogue does. Refund terms are the tie-breaker, and a staged deposit table is worth reading before checkout rather than after it.

Frequently asked questions

Top things to do compared by country

• Australia
• Brazil
• Canada
• China
• France
• Germany
• India
• Italy
• Japan
• Mexico
• South Korea
• Spain
• Turkey
• United Kingdom
• United States

Travel providers compared head to head

• Sailo vs Turbopass
• Turbopass vs Booking.com

The data behind this ranking

All data and the CSV