Backroads is known for our amazing Trip Leaders, with all of our guests consistently rating them a 9.7 out of 10 on post-trip surveys. We work hard to find leaders who are passionate and knowledgeable about the regions where they are leading tours and who love nothing better than to share that part of the world with you.

This week, meet Namgay Tshering, who leads our Bhutan Walking Trip and our Multisport Bhutan Biking Tour.

A longtime friend of Backroads, Namgay truly knows Bhutan as a former member of Bhutanese parliament and is able to open doors to you which are normally closed to foreigners. He serves not only as a trip leader but as host to his country and he’s excited to show you its abundant mountains, forests, plants and birds.

As a resident of his country, Namgay gives you the true flavor of what it’s like to live there and can answer any question you throw his way. When you travel on our active Bhutan tour, you get to participate in the daily Bhutanese life led by Namgay.

For example, you’ll receive a blessing at a 15^th century temple and hang traditional prayer flags. That’s just what Backroads is all about – getting you outside the car and into the world to meet locals, smell the scents and see the sights as you cycle or hike past.

We love Namgay’s spirit of giving in his community. He’s very involved, overseeing many programs to help disadvantaged children with their education and to improve their living conditions.

Want to travel with Namgay? Call Backroads today at 800-462-2848 to get scheduled on an upcoming Bhutan adventure tour.

Forget packed beaches in Florida, long drives across the country or crazy kids out of control. Let us give you a truly memorable, relaxing and enjoyable adventure of a lifetime for your family spring break instead. Imagine a vacation where you’re active, where it’s warm and where everyone learns a thing or two – all while having fun!

Our family adventure tours are packed with kid-approved fun, all designed with a pint-size traveler in mind. Plus, they offer plenty of opportunities for separate children’s and adult activities.

Although we’re just headed into the holidays, now’s the time to secure your spring break adventure vacation before we’re all booked. Let us make a couple family spring break suggestions for some of our bike tours and multisport tours around the world:

• Multisport Costa Rica Biking Tour – This is a popular trip for families who enjoy traveling with Backroads. Here are just a few of the amazing activities you’ll enjoy: jungle treks, white-water rafting and horseback riding.
• Sicily Bike Tour – New in 2013 is our Sicily Bike Tour that takes you past volcanoes, lets you eat pizza with French fries on top (no, we’re not joking!), tour the rugged countryside in Jeeps, bake biscotti and enjoy a scavenger hunt.
• Death Valley Biking – If you want to stay a little closer to home, try our Death Valley bike tour. You’ll get to see a castle with an indoor waterfall, gaze on a mirage, look for ancient lava flows, and view rock formations that look like Neapolitan ice cream.

We offer dates in February, March and April to fit your unique spring break needs. Come “join the party” with us on spring break this year – you’ll never go to a crowded beach again!

Call us at 800-462-2848 7 a.m.- 5 p.m. Pacific time to book your spring break now.

In November, President Obama traveled to Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, as the first sitting U.S. president to do so. The visit, according to Christian Chumbley, Backroads regional manager of Asia, Pacific and Africa, helps legitimize the democratic process in the country and sends a signal they’re headed in the right direction.

Backroads is giving travelers the opportunity to visit this long closed-off country beginning January of 2013 on the heels of the President’s visit to the country. Long a favorite of Trip Leaders who enjoyed side tours to Myanmar while traveling to neighboring countries, Backroads is excited to finally be able to offer this Myanmar tour to groups looking to discover truly off-the-grid destinations. For the last year, we’ve had many requests to travel to Myanmar and the volume only increased after President Obama’s visit.

We are extremely excited about the itinerary and think you’ll be surprised that Myanmar, also called “the Golden Land,” is such as sunny scenic place. On the bike tour, you’ll participate in an evening candle-lighting tradition at a sacred Buddhist site, travel past 2000 temples and pagodas, hike up 777 steps to the summit of an extinct volcano and visit a cave filled with more than 2,000 Buddha statues and shrines. You also get to interact with its people, many of whom have never met anyone from outside their village, much less their country.

We’ve chosen only our most sought after Trip Leaders to guide you on this Myanmar biking tour. Trip Leader Matt Allen, for example, grew up in the region and lived in what was then Burma for several years with his family as a young man. Matt has been in and out of the country dozens of times and has witnessed firsthand its changes over the last 20 years.

Chuck Bartlet, who comes highly recommended by past guests for his extensive knowledge and above-and-beyond service, has been leading our popular Vietnam biking tour for years along with our India adventure tours and will also be leading the Myanmar tour.

While our January dates are all booked up, we still have room in February and March, but hurry because this bike tour itinerary is filling up fast. This is your chance to explore a country largely undiscovered by outsiders and enjoy its natural charm. “Myanmar’s character has not been all that influenced by travelers and feels really emergent and genuine,” says Chumbley. “There’s something truly authentic about all the villages, towns and people.”

We’re also working on a Myanmar walking/hiking tour for the end of 2013 if you miss this one. Call us today at 800-462-2848 7 a.m. – 5 p.m. Pacific to discover Myanmar for yourself!

Here at Backroads we all share a spirit of wanderlust, that eternal desire to explore and find yourself in new and amazing places throughout the globe. We’re not the first to experience that longing. Many before us and many contemporaries feel just the same way. We love quotations that put into words just how we feel on many of our biking tours and hiking tours be it a European bike trip or a New Zealand hiking tour. No matter where you go, there you are J.

Here’s a compilation of some of our favorite travel quotes that we feel captures the spirit of Backroads adventure travel:

“My favorite thing is to go where I have never been.”
– Diane Arbus, American photographer

“When the spirits are low, when the day appears dark, when work becomes monotonous, when hope hardly seems worth having, just mount a bicycle and go out for a spin down the road, without thought on anything but the ride you are taking.”
– Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

“Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance, you must keep moving.”
–Albert Einstein

“Exploration is the essence of the human spirit.”
– Unknown

“The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page”
–St. Augustine

“Keep close to Nature’s heart.”
– John Muir

“We don’t stop hiking because we grow old; we grow old because we stop hiking.”
– Fins Mitchell

“Great things are done when men and mountains meet.”
– William Blake

And last but not least, from our fearless leader:

“Bicycle touring is travel’s live theater.”
– Tom Hale, Founder & President of Backroads

Got a travel quote that you love? Please share with us!

For more information about Backroads or any of our adventure tours that will fulfill that wanderlust, call us Pacific time 7 a.m.- 5 p.m. daily at 800-462-2848.

While there’s nothing quite like experiencing a Backroads bike trip or Backroads walking tour in person, lots of our guests like to “try” to capture the magnificence on video and in photos. While on your next Backroads bicycle tour or hiking vacation, we challenge you to get it on film and share the results with us.

Now, we know you’ve probably got more than one video clip to choose from. Feel free to submit up to 10 or you can edit them yourself into one video. We do ask that you keep the length to two minutes or less, but feel free to mix in people talking with jaw-dropping landscapes along with royalty-free music and transitions.

To get your creative juices flowing, take a look at this submission from Meg Preston of our Utah Bryce & Zion Biking Tour:

EMBED VIDEO

<iframe src=”http://player.vimeo.com/video/49800745?autoplay=1″ width=”403″ height=”227″ frameborder=”0″ webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen></iframe>

So what do you get for all your efforts? We award three grand prize winners each year, both for photography and for video. First prize is a $3000 trip credit, second is a $2000 trip credit and third is a $1000 trip credit. The trip credit is automatically applied to the winner’s account, is redeemable immediately, is applicable to any Backroads trip and has no expiration date. Where will you go?

We only accept entries for this year until Dec. 31. So get busy editing that footage you have of your Backroads vacation or hurry and book a getaway for November and December so you can take advantage of your chance to win big. Winners will be notified by Feb. 15, 2013.

Submit your prize-winning adventure video right here. Good luck! We can’t wait to see all of your submissions!

In this special series of blog posts, we’re going to give you the opportunity meet some of our amazing Trip Leaders. If you’ve been on one of our walking trips or bike trips, then you know the important role these folks play in making your trip one to remember. They are each unique and different, but all wonderfully special and full of enthusiasm and knowledge about the destination they’ll be guiding you through.

Melissa Sher is originally from St. Louis, Mo., but has lived across the country. Before joining us as a Backroads Trip Leader, she was a raft guide on Oregon rivers. At Backroads, she leads adventure tours in Death Valley, Hawaii and Yellowstone & the Tetons.

“I love Backroads trips because, inevitably, at least one person, every day, will accomplish something that they haven’t before,” says Melissa. “If I can witness that, my day is made.”

In 2013, Melissa will help to kick off our brand-new Winter Fit trip in California. It’s designed for active individuals and gives you the opportunity to experience cross-country skiing, snowshoeing and yoga while traveling from the Sierras to wine country and San Francisco.

Have you taken a tour with Melissa? If so, give her a shout out!

For more information about these trips or to book your adventure getaway, call us 7 a.m.-5 p.m. Pacific time daily at 800-462-2848.

Does whiling away the holidays sitting on the couch, listening to Uncle Joe’s political views and eating cookies sound more than a little boring to you? Us too! We invite all those single and solo travelers out there to turn your holidays into something more – a lot more! In fact, why not see the world while you’re at it and give yourself the ultimate holiday gift?

Backroads offers several action-packed ways to ring in the holiday season in many warm weather locales like Costa Rica and Bali. Forget packing on calories and expect to burn them on these singles hiking trips and singles biking trips around the globe. Plus, expect to meet plenty of new friends who share your love of adventure and who are likely more exciting to chat with than Uncle Joe J.

“As a single woman who loves the outdoors, I often have a hard time finding people to travel with, especially on an active trip like this,” says Jill Badgett, who traveled on our Singles-Solos travel program. “The solo trip was the PERFECT way for me to travel alone and do what I love while meeting some great people to share it all with!”

Sound good? Now you’ve got to decide where to go. We’ll get you started with some singles vacation options:

Thailand Biking Singles Vacation – Meet Buddhist monks, light a traditional fire balloon and make a wish, receive a blessing from villagers and take an elephant ride through the jungle. This is no ordinary vacation. Backroads lets you experience the Thai culture of the Golden Triangle area of the country near Myanmar. The holiday trip departs on New Year’s Eve 2012 and concludes Jan. 7.

Bali Biking Singles Trip – Exotic is the word in Bali. Cycle up a volcano, meet gray monkeys, visit the temple of water goddess Dewi Danu, take a cooking class and snorkel the wreckage of the U.S.S. Liberty. Come find your bliss on a bike in Bali! Trips depart Dec. 23, 2012 & Jan. 1, 2013 for the 7-night getaway.

Costa Rica Biking for Singles – Relax in the beauty of this Central American country from pedaling past breathtaking waterfalls to relaxing in natural hot springs and from listening to howler monkeys and toucans to hopping on a zipline or taking a horseback ride. Open up and find a new you in the depths of the Costa Rican jungle. Departure dates for the 5-day, 4-night trip are Dec. 16, 2012 and Jan. 27, 2013.

Which warm weather destination will you choose for a holiday you’ll never forget?

For more information about our Singles-Solos program or to reserve your spot before we fill up for holiday adventure travel, contact our Trip Planners 7 a.m.-5 p.m. Pacific at 800-462-2848.

We know you’re excited about your Backroads adventure vacation be it a biking trip to France, a hiking trip through Vietnam or wherever the world is calling you! We want you to get the most possible enjoyment out of your active trip and so we’ve compiled a list of our top 10 tips for adventure travel:

• Check the weather forecast and know that it can (will!) change.
• Get recommendations from friends, in books and on the web of what to see before/after trip. Make a strategy, being mindful of festival dates (that you want to see or avoid), days of closure, museum hours, etc…
• Read about your destination by checking out our Recommended Reading page about your destination on our website. Travel reading is a must!
• Learn a few key phrases in the language of your destination: “Where is the toilet, please?”; “Please take me to…”; “Do you speak English?”; “Where is a telephone?”
• Attempt to adapt to local customs/rhythms: On your Spain biking trip, for example, people take ‘siesta’ from around noon to 3 or 4 p.m. and don’t eat dinner until around 10 p.m.; Vietnam is an early culture, where people rise at 5:30 or 6 a.m. and often close up shop by 4 p.m.
• Make a time conversion chart for yourself: 8 p.m. at home = X TIME in France, 8 a.m. at home =
• Avoid alcohol, drink plenty of fluids, eat light meals and get good rest during the three days leading up to your trip.
• On the plane, set your watch to the time of your destination and then put it away; visualize arriving at the time of day/night your plane is supposed to land and be ready for it.
• Be mindful of what you eat. Backroads will ensure that meals provided on the trip are fresh and safely prepared. When you travel on your own, explore that interesting snack stand while biking Thailand or sample a sweet from the street vendor on your Ecuador hiking trip, but make sure the food hasn’t sat out for a long time. Cut fruits and veggies with your own knife; look for places that are busy since high turnover means fresher food.
• Start enjoying your adventure vacation before it begins; in the midst of checking things off your ‘to do’ list, think about the joys of leaving ‘real life’ behind; it starts as soon as you leave your door!

What tips do you have for adventure travel?

For more information about any of our trips or how to prepare, please contact Backroads 7 a.m.-5 p.m. Pacific time daily at 800-462-2848.

Looking for a totally unique, unexpected way to spend the holidays? Surprise the family, your spouse or your parents with a hiking trip to the Galapagos Islands! Backroads’ Galapagos and Andes multisport tour lets you discover the amazing views from the snowcapped Andes mountains and get up and close and personal with ancient tortoises, lizards and even white-tipped sharks!

Our bike tour dates for this 8-day, 7-night Galapagos adventure during the holidays run Dec. 18-25 (what a Christmas Day that would be!) or over New Year’s Dec. 30-Jan. 6. Imagine welcoming 2013 right on the equator and amidst the beauty of the Andes. If you’d prefer not to travel during the holidays, this Galapagos tour is available throughout 2013, as well.

Begin your wildlife adventure tour in Ecuador in the Andes where you’ll experience the region’s vast arts and culture, including a visit to the studio of a master weaver as you bike and hike these stunning mountains. Next, hop on a horse and explore the pastureland of the Zuleta Valley and hike up the mountains for some incredible views. You’ll stay overnight in a restored estate whose history traces to 1602 and in the former president of Ecuador’s home – deluxe indeed and a full cultural immersion experience.

For days 4 through 8, it’s time to head to the Galapagos Islands and meet some amazing creatures. We’ll pair you with a naturalist who will guide you from island to island and share their knowledge of this beautiful part of the world. On your journey, you’ll come across blue footed boobies, fluorescent fish, sea lions, marine iguanas and more. You’ll take time to snorkel, swim, kayak and hike these beautiful islands, including a trek around the rim of the 6-mile across volcano, the second largest in the world.

While in the Galapagos, rest overnight at some fantastic lodges, including Aventura Lodge nestled in a mangrove forest on Santa Cruz Island, and Isabela Lodge, known for its white sand beaches.

How does that sound for a holiday adventure? Everyone else will be plodding through snow while you catch plenty of sun out on the Pacific Ocean. We promise it will be a holiday or New Year’s everyone will be talking about for years to come.

Call our Trip Consultants 7 a.m.-5 p.m. Pacific at 800-462-2848 to plan your holiday today!