If you’re getting ready to plan your summer vacation, there are a lot of options this year that include guided tours. While not everyone is a fan of traveling in a group, you can find companies that offer more intimate and genuine experiences in other countries. We found some niche organizations that have new offerings for the new year—including destinations and activities as diverse as vaccinating big cats in Namibia, discovering local culture in Tajikistan, or helicoptering over the Canadian Rockies.

Wilderness Travel

Wilderness Travel may sound like it’s tailored only for the outdoorsy, but this guided travel company accommodates all kinds of travelers. They offer four different options: small group adventures, private journeys, WT Expeditions: Rare Journeys and Exploratories, and Small Ship Cruises. Additionally, Wilderness Travel offers 200 trips to 75 different destinations with 7 different levels of activity and living conditions annually. The staff strays from the usual perception of tour guides and travel agents and includes local experts, such as mountaineers, teachers, authors, naturalists, and archaeologists.

For 2015 and 2016, Wilderness Travel has added a new tour—In the Realm of the Desert Lion, which sends a group of six travelers to Namibia to participate in a veterinary check-up on big cats, such as cheetahs, lions, and leopards. Travelers will help weigh, measure, and even vaccinate the animals. While in Namibia, you can explore the safari land, which is home to half of the world’s population of wild cheetahs and the only area in the world where the black rhino population is rising.

Koryo Tours

Many of these guided tour companies say they offer a truly unique experience, but few top Koryo Tours, which has a “Kim Jong Il Birthday Tour” in North Korea. You may already know of Koryo Tours, the company best known for its guided tours through North Korea, but you may not know that it is the provider of 50 percent of all Western tours of North Korea. It was also the first tour company to offer group and independent tours of the Rason Free Trade and Economic Zone. Some of the highlights of the Kim Jong Il Birthday Tour include a variety of birthday celebrations like synchronized dancing and swimming, figure skating, the Pyongyang Circus, and the Symphony Orchestra, as well as the opportunity to visit a local middle school and the Pyongyang Feature Studios. Its other North Korean tours include more historic events, such as visiting the Kumsusan Memorial Palace and the International Friendship Exhibit, or enjoying the landscape by skiing at the Masik Pass Ski Resort. This eight night trip costs €1590.

Koryo Tours also offers guided tours to other regions of the world, and recently added Tajikistan to its list. For this trip, you can visit Tajikistan during the celebration of Nowruz (the Persian New Year), during which you’ll see the capital city of Dushanbe and learn how it emerged from Soviet Rule. You’ll also be able to watch a game of Buzkashi—a historic Tajikistani game played on horseback using a goat carcass as a ball; and you’ll drive under the Pamir mountains through the infamously frightening Anzob Tunnel. Contact Koryo Tours directly for pricing information.

Trafalgar

Trafalgar’s goal is to bring travelers the most culturally rich experiences. It has five different insider elements—Be My Guest, Local Specialists, Authentic Accommodations, Cultural Insights, and Hidden Treasures—that involve more than just going to a museum and looking at a painting. For example, Trafalgar takes its guests into local towns, farms, and villages to dine with the locals—no touristy restaurants on these trips. These are authentic, genuine experiences with the chefs, winemakers, and farmers who live there. In addition, the tours directly connect guests with local working professionals, such as artists, historians, cheesemakers, and brewers, to learn about their passions and their crafts. These tours are not about lectures. They are about conversations.

One of its newest tours for 2015 is the Secrets of Turkey tour, which is part of a new series of intimate tours called Hidden Journeys. Because of the smaller group size, the Secrets of Turkey tour can take you on adventures through less-traveled roads and waterways, including four nights spent sailing from Marmaris to Göcek on a yacht. On this tour, you’ll stay at the Dilek Kaya Hotel in Cappadocia, a renowned hotel built out of rock formations, and you’ll learn about the tradition of whirling dervishes, a physical meditation performed during worship ceremonies, by visiting the resting place of their founder, Celaleddin Rumi. The trip starts at $3095 and departs between April and October 2015.

Tauck

Tauck has been giving guided tours since 1925 and was actually the first tour company in the U.S. to receive a federal Tour Broker’s License. It recently partnered with BBC Earth to produce enhanced nature exploration experiences, but it’s best known for its River Cruises. River Cruises can be ideal for those who enjoy having a home base, but would rather do without the motion sickness and lack of coherent community inherent in ocean cruising. Travelers are also free to do as they please and are not obligated to attend any of the on-land guided tours. Activities may include a visit to Monet’s home at Giverny, a visit to Versailles, a private dinner at the Lobkowicz Palace at Prague Castle, or exploring Swiss towns like Baden-Baden or Lucerne. Tauck will increase its fleet in the next few years, adding new river cruisers such as the 118-passenger Espirit. This ship will have 13,300 square foot suites including full-sized tubs with marble bathrooms and French balconies on 85 percent of the staterooms. All rooms come equipped with a television and minibar. Guests can enjoy two restaurants (one upscale and another more casual) a lounge, a spa, and a shop. Most meals are included.

To celebrate Tauck’s 90th anniversary, it will be offering heli-exploring tours in the Canadian Rockies during the summer when the Rockies aren’t flooded with tourists. These seven-day trips called “Bugaboos Adventure,” take travelers on several different helicopter rides to and from some of the most inaccessible spots in Canada. The heli-exploring trip will include a variety of different walks of varying skill levels throughout the mountainous terrain. The Bugaboos Adventure costs $5990 and will depart in July and August of 2015.

Greaves

Greaves tackles the luxury end of the guided tourism spectrum. While it offers tours all over the world, its expertise is in India, where Greaves began. It is the only tour operator to maintain its own plane in India, which allows Greaves to fly travelers to hidden gems.

It has introduced three new travel experiences for 2015, and one is the “Divorce Moon” tour. This female bonding experience is designed for women who have recently divorced or exited a long-term relationship. The women will spend a few days in Delhi, Agra, and Mumbai, heading to spa treatments, yoga, spiritual sessions, and participate in retail therapy. They will also go to Jaipur, the pink city, and Maheshwar, where they can see firsthand how clothes such as saris and chunnis are made. All money received will be donated to local women and children. The Divorce Moon tour lasts 13 days and costs $6,222 per person.

Big Five Tours & Expeditions

Big Five Tours & Expeditions has less expeditions and more adventures. Even its romantic getaways offer the option to participate in quite a bit of physical activity, like fly fishing, hiking, or whitewater rafting. The tours may be more active than others, but they also emphasize sustainable activities and artistic exploration, creating a well-rounded trip for the able-bodied. The staff is also notably trained—each staff member undergoes at least 900 hours of training each year.

Its newest tour is Chile and the Culture of the Mapuche. This 12-day tour takes travelers through the Atacama Desert, outdoors adventuring through Huilo Huilo, climbing in Pucon, strolling through museums in Santiago, and visiting a traditional Mapuche dwelling. This trip costs $8760 and does not include air travel.

Country Walkers

Country Walkers guided tours are simultaneously relaxing and active. While you will most likely be walking or on the go for a good portion of the day, the activities are rarely physically demanding (save for a few designated “challenging” excursions), and focus more on gathering the most memorable experiences from a given location. While Country Walkers travels all over the world, specific excursions may include midnight kayak rides through lagoons in Iceland, trekking slickrock trails in Utah’s Zion National Park, or strolling toward the Khamsung Yuely Namgyel Temple in Bhutan. Luckily, Country Walkers offers very detailed itineraries of the physical activity, including mileage and elevation information, so travelers will never be blindsided.

Country Walkers recently introduced new Flight + Tour packages to ease travel stress. These packages leave two days before the beginning of the tour, giving you a little extra time to explore before hitting the road. It has partnered with several major international airlines to make these packages cost-efficient as well. Destinations include Austria & Germany, Botswana, Croatia, Czech Republic, France, Ireland, Italy, and Tanzania.

For more information about unique destinations, check out:

• Peter Greenberg’s Hot Destinations for 2015
• Go Green in 2015: Sustainable Travel
• Six Offbeat Alternatives to Crowded Destinations

By Brittany Malooly for PeterGreenberg.com