THE BACKROADS BLOG

Are you planning to travel with us soon on one of our many bike tours and walking tours we offer around the world? Wondering if you’re in the right shape?

First of all, we want to reassure you that we offer active trips for all fitness levels. Your Trip Leader will always be there to provide shorter or longer routes as you – and your body – desire. We also offer two vans on almost all of our trips to ensure that if you’re tired and ready to head back to the hotel, there’s a van to take you there and one to stay with the remaining bikers or walkers.

That said, we have a few tips to help you get in optimum shape for your upcoming bike trip or hiking trip.

In the weeks before your active vacation, try training like our Trip Leaders. They do a variety of exercises to “cross train” to ensure their bodies don’t just become expert at running, for example, but can handle many different physical activities. Try running, hiking, swimming or some type of aerobic activity for at least 20 minutes three times a week – and mix up the type of activity you do.

We also recommend training by time, not miles. On Backroads’ hiking trips or biking trips, you’ll spend most of the day on the road, but you can go at your own pace. So no need to become the world’s fastest cyclist! Just be sure you can be on a bike for several hours with breaks.

For biking, definitely just get out and ride – in all conditions (rain, wind, etc.) and on all types of roads (flat, winding, hilly, etc.). – several hours a day for several days in a row.

Also, be sure to incorporate some upper body exercises to help strengthen your neck and arms to avoid fatigue.

Overall, the key to getting more physically fit is to choose an exercise you’ll stick with, so pick something you enjoy. If you’ve chosen to bike or hike with us, we’re pretty sure you enjoy the great outdoors, so simply walking or biking gradually increasing distances is a perfect plan. We’ll also send you more specific training tips tailored to your particular trip.

Got tips for training for a Backroads trip? Please share! For more information or to book any of our award-winning tours, please call us 7 a.m.-5 p.m. Pacific daily at 800-462-2848.

Our bike trips and hiking trips are already tons of fun, but many of our travelers and families make the fun last even longer by extending their active vacation either before or after their tour. We’ve picked 5 of our amazing active trips and included suggestions of where to travel to extend your getaway.

1)      Party in Barcelona – Barcelona is the city where our Pyrenees to Costa Brava Biking starts and ends and it’s the perfect place to spend a few extra days. Barcelona is a vibrant Spanish city, formerly home to the summer Olympics, and the perfect place for a night out on the town. We recommend taking in a tapas bar or trying restaurant Mil921, featuring Catalan cuisine with a Japanese twist, owned by the brother of one of our Spanish Trip Leaders. After all, you deserve some delicious dinners after your Spain Biking Trip through some challenging mountain passes.

2)      Get some Culture in Florence – Get your fill of art and culture in this Italian Renaissance gem. As the gateway city for our Tuscany Biking tour, we highly recommend adding on a few days – or even a week! In addition to the history and sites, Florence is also a great city for sumptuous Italian cuisine. Why not take a wine appreciation or group cooking class at the Apicius International School of Hospitality after your Italian bike tour? You can come home, bragging about your new Italian cooking skills!

3)      Peruse Paris – You just can’t turn down an opportunity to see the City of Lights and its famous Eiffel Tower when you’re so close on our Loire Valley Biking trip. Stroll the city, stopping at cafes, sipping cappuccinos, and perhaps taking in some jazz at a lively club before or after your French bike tour. Here’s a site that offers the latest information about happenings in Paris.

4)      Savor San Francisco – One of our most popular tours is the Wine Country Biking Tour. We have to admit seeing rolling hills by bike and sampling wine after wine is pretty amazing. To continue your California tour by bike, consider the Streets of San Francisco Bike Tours, founded by former Backroads leaders. They’ll take you off the beaten path of San Francisco and they offer Backroads customers a 15% discount. Just use the code “backroads” when booking.

5)      Sight-see in Prague – Our Czech Republic & Austria Walking & Hiking Tour takes you from Prague to Salzburg, so consider a few additional days at the start to explore the wonderful city of Prague, the largest city in the Czech Republic. Did you know it’s the sixth most visited city in Europe after London, Paris, Rome, Madrid and Berlin? It’s known for its architecture and museums and if you have kids, be sure to check out the Prague Zoo, named one of the best in the world by Forbes.

Be sure to check with your Trip Planner if you have questions about extending your trip. We’re happy to provide suggestions and tips for making the most out of your extended vacation. For more information about any of our active tours, please call 800-462-2848 7 a.m.-5 p.m.

When it comes to travel, there’s no doubt about Jackie Spithill’s favorite part of the world: Costa Rica, her home. Jackie, who was born in Quepos, Costa Rica, leads Backroads’ Costa Rica Biking and Costa Rica Multisport trips, introducing guests to the beauty of her native country, the size of West Virginia.

“There is so much to experience: hiking around volcanoes, zip-lining through the tropical rain forest, surfing in the warm Pacific and enjoying the white sand beaches,” says Jackie. “I … love the people and the ‘pura vida’ lifestyle. Leading Backroads trips through Costa Rica has brought me an even greater appreciation for what this unique small country has to offer anyone with a sense of adventure.”

Jackie speaks fluent Spanish, of course. She loves surfing, writing and traveling. Says one of the guests on a recent Backroads trip to Costa Rica with Jackie, “She is AWESOME. We were just in Costa Rica on the Backroads trip, and Jackie was our [trip] leader. Super cool, fun, chick!”

Travel to Costa Rica with Jackie and experience this gorgeous area of the world. On our Costa Rica bike trip, we introduce you to howler monkeys, cloud forests, a majestic volcano, coffee plantations and tropical fruits galore! Try our Costa Rica Multisport (available in classic format or for families) for even more adventure and go white water rafting, zip-line through the jungle and cross hanging bridges up to 300 feet long!

Interested in enjoying a Costa Rican adventure with Jackie? Give us a call at 800-462-2848 7 a.m.-5 p.m. Pacific to get started.

iPads, iPods, smartphones and DS handheld game systems … these are just a few of the electronic gadgets many of us are accustomed to carrying with us most of the time. From working adults to gaming teens, electronics are a daily part of our culture whether at work or play. So what to do with these electronics and valuables when you’re on an active trip with Backroads?

Dare we say leave them at home? Nope, we’re not kidding! We think it’s best that you leave these goodies at the old homestead so they aren’t stolen or lost. If you decide to bring them along with you, please understand they are 100% your responsibility. This includes cash, jewelry, items you buy during travel, delicate items, personal electronics and more.

We recommend you keep all valuables with you at all times or that you lock them in a hotel safe that you feel is secure. However, some of our guests have forgotten that they even placed their items in the safe and leave without them. To help avoid this, we suggest leaving an item that you absolutely cannot forget (like a shoe) on top of the safe so you’ll have to pick that up before you leave, reminding you that you left something inside the safe.

We always recommend that you keep cash, jewelry and passports in your possession at all times. Keep travelers checks, credit cards and passports in a money belt beneath your clothes and hold out just enough cash for the day in your pocket. That way if you lose it, it’s only a day’s worth.

So when it comes to things you’d rather not lose, we suggest better to be safe than sorry and leave those items safely at home.

For more questions about active travel with Backroads, visit our Frequently Asked Questions page or call us 7 a.m.-5 p.m. daily at 800-462-2848.

Marriage itself is an adventure, so why not start it off with an adventure for your honeymoon? Backroads gives honeymooners the ultimate adventure with a chance to travel to one of hundreds of destinations around the world while biking, hiking, kayaking and more. Plus, you can burn off some of that wedding cake and avoid the potential newly-married 15-pound gain J.

Here are some of our favorite active travel honeymoon destinations:

A French Biking Getaway

Say Oui to a French honeymoon and get ready to pedal through a storybook land. Our Loire Valley Biking Tour takes you past castle after castle where you can dream of knights in shining armor and realize you have your very own knight cycling right beside you! Bike France and see perfectly groomed gardens, visit chateaus and sample French wine, tour historic castles and spend some time at a romantic French café. Before it’s all over, you might just give in to the idea that your life is indeed a fairy tale!

An Italian Honeymoon with Hiking

Who wouldn’t want to go to Italy on their honeymoon? Rolling hills, farmhouses and tiny villages all scream romance! On our Cinque Terre and Tuscany Walking Tour, you can view all the sites in the great outdoors, holding hands, strolling along at your own pace. Visit wineries, tour a World Heritage site, soak in views of the deep blue Mediterranean and meander along historic Greve. Any great honeymoon should include fantastic food, and this Italy walking tour gives you plenty from fresh seafood to Tuscan delicacies. You’ll also enjoy your share of Italian wine to toast your new life together!

California Lovin’

If you’d prefer to stay a little closer to home on your honeymoon, look no further than an adventure into California’s wine country. One of our most popular bike tours, Wine Country Biking lets you enjoy the beauty of this majestic region while tasting some of the best wines the U.S. has to offer. This California bike trip will take you through five valleys of world-famous vineyards, each day allowing you to sample a variety of vintages. Oh, did we mention the food? Your honeymoon days will end with nightly gourmet meals where you can celebrate your nuptials.

What’s on your dream honeymoon list? Have you considered making it an active honeymoon? We find that the newlywed couples who travel with us list our trips as remarkable and they come back again and again for anniversaries and active family trips. Here’s what one couple had to say:

“This was our honeymoon and I cannot think of a better way to have spent it. The leaders were among the best I have ever encountered and they managed to enhance what would have in itself been a magnificent trip. From the educational aspects to the food to the hiking, everything was perfection!” Read what more honeymooners had to say.

To book your active honeymoon with us or for more information, please call us 7 a.m.- 5 p.m. Pacific daily at 800-462-2848.

There’s no getting around it. When you travel, especially overseas, you’ve got to have a plan for your money: how much to bring, where to exchange it, where to stash it and more. Since we’ve been guiding travelers on our active vacations since the late 70’s, we’ve learned a thing or two about traveling with money. Here are 5 tips for preparing your finances before your active trip:

1)      Develop a ‘spending strategy.’ Do you want to use travelers’ checks, credit cards or your ATM with an international PIN? This will depend on how many countries you plan on visiting and how developed the region is. If you plan to use a credit card, be sure to alert them in advance that you’ll be traveling and spending in a foreign country so they don’t freeze your account.

2)      Stash $100 in your wallet so you have cash upon returning to your home airport. Also, take $20 in $1 US for emergency tip money.

3)      Get small bills and coins upon arriving in a foreign country. Familiarize yourself with the currency, noting any similarities between bills or coins. It’s no fun to mistake a $2 coin for a .25 coin!

4)      Before you leave for your biking trip or walking trip, make a conversion chart for yourself:  $1=  , $5=  , $20=    etc. or buy a conversion calculator.

5)      When heading out for the day or while traveling by plane, put your credit cards, passport and travelers’ checks in a money belt beneath your clothes, but put cash (try to estimate what you’ll be spending that day) in your pocket.

Of course, when you take a Backroads bike trip or hiking trip, our knowledgeable Trip Leaders will be there to guide you on all things, including money. Additionally, before you leave on your Backroads trip, you’ll be assigned a Trip Planner who can also help answer questions about financial preparation before you arrive.

Got any tips for traveling safely with money overseas? Anyone learned a lesson the hard way J? Let us know.

For more information about any of Backroads overseas bike trips or overseas hiking trips, please contact us 7 a.m.- 5 p.m. Pacific daily at 800-462-2848.

Just as Goldilocks wanted her oatmeal not too hot, not too cold, but “just right,” here at Backroads we feel the same about the size of your traveling group.

Small might sound better at first, but we’ve seen firsthand the downsides of travel with too small of a group. Whether you’re hiking the Italian Alps or biking through Provence, too few people in your group can be restrictive.

Often, there is only one van provided, so if you have different plans or needs than everyone else in your group, guess whose needs will be ignored?  Everyone has to leave at the same time no matter what. We’ve also heard from guests that they enjoy meeting new people on our trips, and with small groups you’ll likely see the same people over and over again at lunch, dinner and throughout the day.

At Backroads, we provide two support vans on most of our trips to allow for flexibility and the different needs of guests. In slightly larger groups, this helps us accommodate those who want to go back to the hotel and those who want to keep riding or allows us to stop and get one group a snack while the other group forges ahead.

We also find that more people equals more camaraderie. Exploring with others who have the same love for travel and discovery makes the experience that much richer. Sit with different people at dinner each evening and see how many people you can get to know. Enjoy the diversity of personalities, passions and travel styles just as you enjoy the diversity of the destination and culture you’re visiting.

If you truly want a small group trip, consider planning a Backroads Private Trip comprised of your close family and friends.

Have questions about our group sizes or private active trips? Please give us a call 7 a.m.- 5 p.m. Pacific daily at 800-462-2848.

Are you thinking of traveling with us on an active vacation this year or next? Many people ask us: How far in advance should I reserve my trip with Backroads? That’s a great question and one for which you want to be sure you have the right information, as it would be disappointing to call to reserve your trip only to learn that it’s full.

Our best recommendation is to book as far an advance as your timing allows. The further ahead you reserve your spot, the more availability you’ll find. When you’re planning a major getaway like a European bike tour or hiking tour through the US National Parks, you’ll want to be sure the dates work best for your family’s schedule.

Many families travel with us during the summer months, for example, so those dates fill quickly, along with holidays. To make sure you can choose your top destination and date, try to contact us at least four to six months ahead of time.

There are also several tours that are very popular and tend to book quickly. They include Yellowstone & Tetons Walking Tour, San Juan Islands Biking, all of our Italy hiking tours and Italy biking tours as well as our France hiking tours and France biking tours. If any of those locales are on your list, call us early.

To reserve your active trip, please call us at 800-462-2848 7 a.m.- 5 p.m. Pacific daily or use our secure online reservation form by clicking Reserve This Trip! on any trip page on our website. We request a $600 deposit per person made by check or major credit card. The balance of your trip cost is due 95 days prior to departure in most instances. In a few Special Departure           cases we request the balance due 125 days prior to departure.

So pick your destination, choose your dates and give us a ring! Before you know it, you’ll be on your way to an active vacation of a lifetime…

Can you smell the fresh mountain air, hear the bubbling brooks, imagine mountains as far as the eyes can see and million dollar views? That’s what you’ll find in the Alps this summer. Backroads offers multiple Alps vacations that let you hike the Alps, bike the Alps (if you dare!) and be outdoors to enjoy this beautiful section of the world that we like to call “the rooftop of Europe.” Be it the Swiss Alps, French Alps or Italian Alps, we’ve got an alpine getaway that’s calling you.

Here are a few of our Alps adventures:

Swiss Alps Walking & Hiking Tour – On this 6-day, 5-night hiking tour of Switzerland, you’ll get the full alpine treatment. Taste Swiss cheese at a local farm, climb by cable car to an amazing hike, take a dip in healing thermal waters, travel via train to the town of Zermatt, enjoy local fare like strudel, fondue and plenty of wine, and relax at the luxurious Riffelalp Resort. The stress is already melting away, isn’t it?

French & Italian Alps Walking & Hiking Tour – As you hike the French Alps and the Italian Alps, you’ll be treated to the reward of a gorgeous turquoise lake, visit chic Chamonix, take in view of rock spires, saw-edged peaks and woodland valleys, take a breathtaking glacier walk, enjoy local flavors of wine and visit the Italian side of Mont Blanc. This 6-day, 5-night Alps hiking tour will have you saying bonjour and arrivederci.

Italy’s Dolomites Walking & Hiking Tour – We like to call the Dolomites “Italy’s best kept alpine playground” so get ready to do plenty of “playing”! The Dolomites are full of fairytale villages, grassy meadows and majestic mountains, along with the chamois, eagles and marmots if you keep a sharp eye. On this 6-day, 5-night Dolomites hike, you’ll picnic at a 13^th century Gothic castle, ride chairlifts, hike through wildflowers, taste wines at a local wine cellar and visit a natural park.

Italy’s Dolomites Biking Tour – Dare you bike the Dolomites? We think you should! On this 6-day, 5-night Dolomites biking trip, you’ll get to bike the Sella Ronda Loop, one of the most spectacular rides you may ever experience, pedal through storybook villages, conquer 14 alpine passes in 6 days (including epic Passo Giau with a 9% grade over 6 miles!) and participate in wine tastings as your reward.

Which mountain adventure will you choose? No matter your choice, you’ll be glad you settled on the Alps for your summer vacation. For more information or to book your Alps getaway, call us at 800-462-2848 7 a.m.- 5 p.m. Pacific time daily.

We take thousands of families on active trips around the globe every year; in fact, it’s one of our most popular programs! Many of our families have a lot of questions, because they want to ensure their multisport trip or biking trip will be fun for both kids and adults and will hold their children’s attention.

A common question families ask is: Is childcare available during the trip and will there be other children my kids’ ages?

Childcare is not included as part of Backroads’ family adventures; however, that doesn’t mean that we can’t help you find childcare if that’s a need for your family. Many of our hotels on family trips do offer childcare services or we can explore other English-speaking options in the area. We do not book the care for you but can direct you to the appropriate contacts.

Remember, our Trip Leaders are not charged with childcare, but on active family trips there is a Trip Leader dedicated just to the children to create age-appropriate opportunities wherever we’re traveling.

Second, you’re certainly welcome to ask your Trip Consultant about other children’s ages who have booked the trip. Just keep in mind it could change prior to departure. One of the best parts of a Backroads active family vacation is the friendships that kids develop with each other. You may find a new “pen pal” that your child can stay in touch with for years to come.

We have lots of fun family trips available this summer from bike tours and hiking tours of the US National Parks to multisport adventures in Hawaii, Costa Rica, Panama and more. Take a look at our Family Trip Advisor to get customized trip recommendation for your family.

For more information about our family adventures, please visit www.backroads.com/family-trips or call us at 800-462-2848 daily from 7 a.m.- 5 p.m. Pacific time.