Read a recent independent review of A Foreign Affair, written by Charlie Morton on behalf of International Love Scout. International Love Scout provides men with vital unbiased information pertaining to the world of international dating and travel.
A Foreign Affair Review by International Love Scout
By Charlie Morton - International Love Scout
What Is a Romance Tour?
We get a lot of questions asking, "What is a romance tour?" So, let me try to make this simple.
A romance tour is group vacation organized by a commercial tour operator that brings men to countries where women want to meet foreign men for romance and marriage. That is the basic dictionary definition.
There are a lot of good reasons why a dating tour is a great way to meet mail order brides, but that just touches the tip of the iceberg. There is a long list of advantages to using the services of an organization with a decades long track record of success helping couples from across the globe meet one another.
Most of the men come from the United States, Canada, Europe, or Australia, but usually there are a few are successful men from other countries too. The price point of a tour is within the budget of most Western men with a middle class job.
The tours are available to a variety of nations across Eastern Europe, Latin America, and Asia. Ukrainian romance tours are the most popular, but large number of men also take Latin romance tours to Colombia, Costa Rica, and Peru. In Asia other men go to the Philippines, Thailand, and China.
For most guys who are not CIA agents, hedge fund managers, or retired Pan Am pilots taking a romance tour is the easiest way to travel to Eastern Europe, Latin America, or Asia - and get the opportunity to meet lots of single women who are interested in dating Western men is to sign up for a romance tour.
Sometimes these trips are advertised as mail order bride tours or dating tours, but regardless of what they are called the process is identical. Men sign up with a company who organizes the travel and sets up meetings with women.
Essentially, romance tours take the hassles out of traveling to a not quite first world country like Ukraine, Colombia, or the Philippines for men interested in pursuing mail order brides. The tour company usually arranges for ground transportation, food, hotel accommodations, and local guides. In that respect romance tours are exactly the same as tours of French Cathedrals or World War II battlefields.
Cost of a Romance Tour
A lot of guys are just sure that a tour is outside of their budget and others decide that they simply do not have time. Well, most guys with a regular job can swing the money and A Foreign Affair offers a ton of tours that will meet almost anyone's schedule.
Sexy Mail Order Brides
The difference between a dating tour and many of the other tours available is that instead of getting amped over stained glass or rusty tanks the men on romance tour want to see long legs, sweet smiles, and lots of pretty young women curious about the possibility of dating a man from the United States, Canada, the European Union, Australia, or another developed country.
The highlight of the tours are the socials where pretty single girls from the local area come to a dinner party to meet the men. Sometimes hundreds of potential mail order brides will show up. Some are curious, some are serious, but for a girl in Kiev, Bogota, or Manila it is something fun, interesting, and cheap to do in the evening.
For the men the socials are often simply AMAZING!
Men simply can't believe what it is like to have hundreds of beautiful women competing to meet them. That's what makes the socials so unique and often convinces seasoned travelers who have the language skills and money to travel on their own to take a romance tour instead, because unless you are a rock star you aren't going to have dozens of single women vying to talk to you.
That's simple fact is why romance tours rock!
I wrote about romance tours for eight years before I finally took one and I still can't believe I waited so long. I was either out of my mind or listening to my crazy business partner way too much. I was absolutely blown away by my first A Foreign Affair social.
Usually, there will be a social and then a couple of days for men to arrange dates with the ladies they met at the socials and then the group will travel to another city.
We are huge believers in the value of romance tours, because they solve several of the basic problems that guys have when they decide that they want to date a foreign bride. They are good values and most guys have a lot of fun.
Advantages of a Romance Tour
Dating, romance, and love are undoubtedly one the most difficult challenges anyone faces in life. Humans are in the end a social animal and there is a deep need for love written on human DNA. But fulfilling these needs is perhaps the most difficult single challenge that a person ever faces.
This is why romantic comedies remain popular - well, with women. Women can see themselves in every Meg Ryan role and Tom Hanks in the not quite classically handsomely guy they are dating or want to date. Men always worry they might just not be the leading man in the story, but the loser who can't win the leading lady's heart.
So, everyone knows romance is a challenge, but international dating is far more difficult. All of the problems associated with building a normal relationship are magnified, but taking a romance tour can help you overcome these obstacles to finding the love of your life:
- Distance: Usually, thousands of miles separate the prospective lovers and overcoming the logistics of actually meeting can be daunting.
- Culture: The cultural parameters are important, but often hard to understand when trying to develop a lifelong relationship.
- Language: The language gap is often a much more serious problem than guys realize.
- Regulations: A lot of guys worry about the laws. Usually, they are not a big deal - except when they are. The United States Foreign Service certainly is not an organization to ignore.
- Scams: It is relatively rare these days, but sometimes there are scammers out there trying to make a quick buck.
- Costs: A good romance tour can actually help you reduce the expense of pursuing an international bride.
Easy Travel Plans
This is really nice for busy professionals and small businessmen, because travel arrangements can get complicated in a hurry. It is a real challenge. Yes, you can get online and book hotels and airline tickets easily these days, but do you really know how to get around a country you have never been to where you do not speak the language?
Our favorite tour company, A Foreign Affair, has organized more than six hundred tours to Latin America, Eastern Europe, and Asia. This means they know how to get around and what restaurants to go to and what restaurants charge an extra tariff to foreigners. They are professionals.
Do you know the best cab company in Bogota? Or whether it is easier to take simply take the metro for a date on the other side of Kiev? The staff that runs AFA tours will know the answers to these questions.
Taking a romance tour addresses all of these cultural and logistical issues and that alone is probably worth it. If you have ever negotiated with a cab driver in the Philippines, you would see the value in a heartbeat.
And if you have ever checked into a hotel that did not look at all like it did in the photographs online you will appreciate the value of not having to worry about all of those issues. The hotels are very responsive to the tour companies, because they represent an important part of the hotel's yearly revenue.
It also is safer, because in every big city there are areas you should not go. The staff knows that and they can tell you, "Hey, you shouldn't go down there to meet a girl." The value of that sort of local information is just impossible to underestimate, because it will save you so much time and money.
An Experienced Dating Coach
The AFA's staff has helped thousands of couples find one another and succeed in developing happy, fulfilling relationship. Now, you can pay literally thousands for a great dating coach or matchmaker. A lot of guys wait far too long before trying to get the help of a professional and I am a gigantic fan of the one matchmaker we endorse.
But for most guys the more limited support that AFA provides for men on its tours is more than enough. In general, the majority of guys do not need a full-service matchmaker they just need someone to lean occasionally and a local who can explain some of the potential cultural pitfalls.
Because the cultural pitfalls the arguments you might have with Ukrainian girls are different from the misunderstanding you might have with Thai girls, and there are a ton of ways to get crossway with Latinas. Well, A Foreign Affair tours has staff in every country. They can help you navigate these sometimes hard to understand cultural issues.
In China they understand that they are essentially offering Sheng nu tours and that brings out some of the most amazing women you have ever seen. What is a Sheng nu tour? It means it is a tour that attracts single Chinese women over about 23, because in China any unmarried woman that ancient is considered "unwanted." Even if she is gorgeous, educated, and successful many Chinese men will not date her, so AFA's tours attract these ladies to their socials in droves.
The AFA staff are women who know the country, the culture, and the ladies - and they want to see the men succeed. In part, this is because they want to see the company succeed. They are professionals, but also, they really get a kick out of helping a romance blossom.
For them, helping couples get past the early challenges is fun. You may thing your situation is unique, but they have dealt with every sort of man imaginable twice. And they also understand the women what the women want, and, frankly, what a man should do to win the lady he is really interested in.
A Wingman
Every guy knows that having a good wingman is a huge help for picking up girls. This is especially important in international travel, because of the language and cultural barriers that naturally exist in this situation. This is one of the things that makes doing international dating on your own such a challenge.
On a tour, unless you are a total recluse, you will end up becoming buddies with some of the other guys on the tour, because you will spend hours on the bus and train with these guys. Oddly, for a lot of men the friendships they build among themselves is one of the real highlights of the trip.
Perhaps it is because the men that sign up for romance tours tend to have a lot in common. They tend to be roughly from forty to sixty, fairly well educated, and generally financially successful, and, of course, they are outgoing enough to sign up to take a romance tour.
So, most of the guys tend to effortlessly become friends, buddies, and natural wingmen to one another. This is one of the things you will read about over and over again, but it is hard to appreciate it without actually witnessing it.
You might think that these guys are only going to be friends as long as they are not going after the same girl. That does seem logical, but the guys on the tours meet so many women that there is not a lot of competition between the guys for a particular woman.
To a surprising extent you will see that different men really do have different romantic tastes, but at the socials - which is usually where you meet the women for the first time - the guys see all of the ladies. And other guys will get a chance to meet the women too.
So, later, after the social or at breakfast the next morning, the guys on the tour share informed observations about the women. This can be invaluable to help you decide. And a lot of guys tend to double date with one another. Again, this is a great strategy to help you quickly gain a foreign woman's trust and respect.
And A Foreign Affair has spent twenty-five years building their reputation around the world and you get the bask reputational glow of being on an AFA tour. Many ladies have friends and relatives who met a foreign man through A Foreign Affair tour, so the simple fact that you are using AFA gives you reputation a real bump - before you so much as utter a single word. This simply cannot be underrated. It is extremely important.
AFA Tours - The Gold Standard
So, as we have already noted A Foreign Affair is the tour operator we endorse, because we know that they are committed to their clients. If you have not read our Homepage check out our mention of the President of A Foreign Affair, John Adams.
We endorse AFA, because we trust John, Ken, Bud, and the rest of their staff to provide world class service for their clients. But don't trust me!
Check out AFA's testimonials from happy customers. There are literally hundreds and hundreds of testimonials. And if you would rather see video testimonials they have hundreds of those too. There are twenty-five pages of video testimonials at the time this article was written.
So, some guys meet a woman and get into a long-term relationship, but for those who don't find a woman many are happy enough that they take another tour and sometimes another and another. You cannot really give a business a better endorsement than that.
One of the nicest things about using AFA is that it makes it easy to explain what you are doing to friends and family. The mainstream media bias against mail order brides is so pervasive that often friends and family are immediately worried about guys dating mail order brides.
But it will probably be a lot easier to explain to your friends and family if you can point them towards loveme.com, AFA's main website, and let them see that they are totally legit. Everyone from Oprah to the New York Times has interviewed John Adams and the rest of their team over the years and generally given the very high marks. Seeing positive comments from trusted media sources can really help to ease their concerns.
So, the concept of taking a Ukrainian, but you still have some worries.
Individual Dating Tours
So, despite understanding the value of having a wingman, are you still hesitant about going on a group tour?
This is a common concern of guys. Group tours of any sort seem inherently uncool and sort of cheesy and unauthentic. Americans in particular like to go where we want, when we want, and generally hate being told what to do.
However, even if money is not an issue and you don't generally dig group tours you still may want to consider a group tour for several reasons:
- If you go on an individual romance tour YOU are the star. There is no place to hide or stay in the background and assess the situation. You are front and center all of the time and any ladies you meet know that and a lot of guys feel like they are under a microscope. AFA calls these tours club tours. An A Foreign Affair individual tour to Ukraine is called a Euro Club tour.
- You actually will almost always have the opportunity to meet MORE women on a group tour than you would on an individual tours, because the companies hold mixers and other events where you can literally meet hundreds of women at once, whereas on an individual tour you generally go on a series of blind dates, sometimes with women you have previously contacted online.
- And think one more time about the advantage of meeting the other guys. Generally, a real sense of camaraderie develops among the guys in the group, because you will probably have a lot in common.
Most of the men on these tours are successful in life and interesting companions. They tend to see the tour as an adventure and maybe a little funny. It gives you some one in a very similar position to discuss life, romance, and everything with.
Being alone for a week or two in a country where you do not speak the language is more than a little boring. Even if you are a real introvert this can be tough.
The real advantage of the individual tours is that you can go almost anywhere, almost anywhere whenever you want to go. AFA offers a lot of tours and a lot of dates, but sometimes it is still hard to make your schedule meet with theirs.
If you have your passport and visa most of the agencies could probably set something up in seventy-two hours. So, the flexibility is nice.
For men that do not have a particular lady in mind the agencies will set a guy up for three or four dates a day until he does meet the right lady and since these agencies usually have a personal relationship with the women they represent, they often have an idea of who might hit it off together.
Some men like individual tours better, because they do not want to feel like they are in competition with the other guys on the tours. In fact, for some men that is what they hate about the whole Western dating scene, so individual tours are often very attractive to these men.
Finally, if you enjoy being treated like a true VIP an individual tour, particularly a high end Executive Tour or you might want to use our exclusive matchmaker, would probably be something that you would really enjoy.
View our Ukraine Singles Tour Schedule and make your reservation!