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.

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!

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!

Coming in 2013, Backroads is inviting you to see the Holy Land by bike. Israel bike tour departures begin April 4, 2013 and run through November 2013.

Step back into ancient history as you venture into Israel, a land shaped by prophets, kings and crusaders, and where the past blends into the present. Explore the area’s beaches and mountains by bike where you can interact with the locals as you stop for a rest at a small village or take in the magnificent Western Wall as the sun sets.

This eight-day, seven-night bicycling adventure begins in Ein Hod, a communal artist’s village overlooking the Mediterranean coast, after which you’ll cycle through orchards and more villages as you make your way to sunny seaside Caesarea. Then, have the pleasure of sampling wine in a land where grapes have been cultivated since Biblical times. Head to ancient Bet She’an, once the center of Egyptian rule and where you can discover vast archeological finds.

After passing through Safed and Rosh Pina, guests will explore the Nimrod Fortress, a Medieval site on Mount Hermon, and then venture east with views of Syria, stopping by a memorial of the Yom Kippur War. During the last days of your Israel biking tour, relax as you head downhill to the Sea of Galilee and Jerusalem and enjoy a magnificent sunset view of the Western Wall. Your bike trip will conclude in the village of Ein Karem.

One of the highlights of the Israel cycling tour is the chance to sample cuisine from diverse cultures, including Israeli, Lebanese and Druze. Lodging along the route also gives you a variety of experiences and includes stops at a mountaintop spa, a boutique hotel overlooking the Sea of Galilee, guest cabins at a kibbutz, and a contemporary hotel within the Old City of Jerusalem.

The bike tour is available for all cycling levels, with a range of mileage options and routes available with help from your Trip Leaders.

Our Israel regional manager sums up the trip this way: “It’s easy to think you know Israel if you’ve been to Jerusalem, but as you venture out of the cities on your bicycle, you’re exposed to incredibly diverse cultures, cuisine, landscapes and amazing ancient ruins. On this trip, it becomes wonderfully clear that Israel is so much more than what is in the news.”

For more information on our Israel bike tour or to book your reservation, contact us at 800-462-2848 Pacific time.

If you haven’t checked New Zealand off your Bucket List, Backroads touring company highly recommends moving it close to the top! New Zealand is one of the most majestically beautiful countries in the world, and that’s why we want you to see it Backroads style: out in the open air. Choose from our trips that include hiking New Zealand, biking New Zealand and New Zealand multisport.

Have you seen the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy? Those sweeping vistas that take you to the magical world of Middle Earth are actually New Zealand! They almost look too fantastical to be real, but we promise you they do exist and we want to take you there. Peter Jackson also filmed the prequel to “Lord of the Rings,” the popular book of many a childhood, “The Hobbit,” in New Zealand and that film is due in theaters later in the year. Hike past some of the beautiful scenes from the movie!

On Backroads’ adventure tours through New Zealand we take you to our favorite spots , including the wine region of Hawke’s Bay, Lake Rotoiti, the giant tree ferns of Coromandel Peninsula, and Cathedral Cove with sandstone, beaches and gorgeous bright-blue waters.

Have your fill of waterfalls, hot pools, geysers, thermal springs and percolating mud pots at Waiotapu. And just like Frodo, get ready to have the adventure of a lifetime, crossing suspension bridges, discovering a gold mining tunnel, feeding emus and if you dare, even a chance to bungee jump! The good news is Gollum is not waiting for you at the bottom!

The inns on this magical journey include the Mangapapa Petit Hotel, which is a lovely country mansion with lush gardens; a private chalet in Puka Park Resort, a secluded wilderness hideaway in the New Zealand bush; Amora Lake Resort with a pool and tennis; and Millennium Hotel, more modern and located on Lake Taupo.

So how will you see stunning New Zealand with Backroads? If you bike New Zealand, you’ll have varied routes each day, some more gentle and others more challenging if you choose. If you’d like to hike New Zealand, get out your hiking boots and get ready for the walk of a lifetime! Some like to mix it all up with our New Zealand multisport option, which includes hiking, biking and kayaking.

Which will you choose to cross off your Bucket List? Call us at 800-462-2848 7 a.m.-5 p.m. Pacific, and we’ll help you decide!

Here are Backroads, we are a very kid-friendly company offering family adventure trips to destinations around the world created with both adults and children in mind. While we have plenty of parents travel with their children, we also see plenty of grandparents travel with their grandchildren – we’re the experts in multigenerational family travel.

Backroads hiking tours and family bike tours are a great way to celebrate big milestones in life, and grandparents often choose to reward their grandkids with one-on-one multigenerational adventure vacations. We’ve seen groups celebrating Bar Mitzvahs, graduations, major birthdays and more. It’s an opportunity to expose kids to different cultures around the world and enjoy together a life-changing experience they will remember for the rest of their lives.

Traveling with Backroads is ideal for grandparents, as we plan every detail to let you truly focus on your amazing destination. We provide a dedicated Kid Coordinator, whose sole job it is to entertain your troop and keep them happy! If you choose, children can dine separately during some meals and enjoy activities designed just for them while grandparents may experience a wine tasting or other adult event.

We find one of the greatest benefits of our family adventure vacations is the lifelong friendships the kids develop. Over the course of five to seven or more days spending the bulk of the day together, budding friendships blossom into lifelong pen pals or perhaps Facebook friends J.

Backroads family adventure holidays are also a wonderful educational experience. Not only will your teen, preteen or school-age grandchild get to experience a new culture, our Expert Trip Leaders will sneak in some extra educational information in fun and exciting ways!

Here are some of our recommended trips for grandparents and grandkids:

• Family Iceland Hiking Tour
• Loire Valley Biking Tour for Families
• Hawaii Family Multisport
• New Zealand Family Biking and Hiking Tour

See all of our available family adventure vacations.

Would you consider taking your grandchild with you on a walking tour or biking tour? Where would you travel?

Book your getaway today by calling us 7 a.m.-5 p.m. Pacific time at 800-462-2848.

Photo Credit: Martha Ginsberg

We’re sure you won’t want to forget a single thing about your once-in-a-lifetime Backroads biking, multisport or hiking adventures, so why not keep a travel journal?

A travel journal is the perfect place to record your daily activities on your Backroads trip and to help you capture your most amazing experiences and memories along the way. We promise your trip will not only be an active vacation; it will be one that inspires.

For example, you’ll want to record moments like this one from our Myanmar Biking Tour where in Yangong, you’ll take part in a candle-lighting tradition at the Shwedagon Pagoda. You’ll soak up the powerful ambience of this sacred Buddhist site. Better to write down your thoughts about the ceremony before your mind moves on to the next adventure.

You’ll also want to remember visiting a hummingbird sanctuary during your Costa Rica adventure where you may feed these amazing (and fast) birds by hand!

Surely you will want to record your awe-inspiring routes on our New Zealand Bike Tour where you’ll ride the TranzAlpine Train over Arthur’s Pass and then pedal to ocean “geysers” in Punakaiki.

Here are a few tips on how to create a travel journal for your Backroads adventure:

• Before your trip, purchase a notebook or journal and some nice pens, a few pencils and even some crayons (more on that later). You may also want to purchase a small notepad and pencil to stash in a pocket so you can jot down notes while you’re out and about. (A pencil works great because if it gets wet, it won’t run.) You can use the notes on the small notepad as inspiration for a more detailed journal entry after your adventurous day or simply rip out the pages from your notebook and affix them in your journal.
• When you write, don’t forget to record the date and your location. However, don’t worry about writing everything in exact chronological order. The point of the journal is to get the information and inspiration down on paper when it’s fresh (or at the very least, when you remember it!).
• Keep in mind, a journal doesn’t have to be “just words.” It also can be a great place to collect postcards, a story from the local newspaper, a menu, a sketch, a label from a great beer or even a pressed flower.
• Consider asking one of the local people you meet to write in your journal a sentence or two about their country or town. You might also consider bringing along some crayons and asking a local child to draw a picture in your journal.

The places Backroads takes you are off the beaten path, truly “back roads travel.” We pride ourselves on offering you a unique experience and encourage you to record the events of your trip so you can look back and remember.

Need help booking your adventure vacation? Visit our website to peruse our latest trips, including winter escapes! Or call one of our trip consultants 7 a.m.-5 p.m. Pacific time at 800-462-2848

For more than a decade, a tourism boycott persuaded many travelers to steer clear of Myanmar. But things have changed and Backroads can now fulfill the desire of those who’ve dreamt of traveling to Asia to uncover the mysteries of this secluded country.

For 2013, Backroads is offering an 8-day Myanmar biking tour and an 8-day Myanmar hiking tour, both of which will introduce you to Myanmar’s remarkable scenery, fascinating culture and its welcoming people. And it’s already booking quickly and is appealing to those looking to travel to unspoiled destinations and truly off-the-grid locales. It’s a great one to add to your travel bucket list!

First, let’s talk about the people of Myanmar. You may have the impression that with an organized tour, you won’t have much interaction with the local people. But that couldn’t be farther from the truth with a Backroads adventure. We have relationships with locals who are proud to introduce you to their culture. In fact, we arrange exclusive experiences for you in areas rarely seen by outsiders.

On both trips, you’ll be led off the beaten path to experience temples and the landscape. For example, Yangon (previously the capital of Burma) is a distinctive city with colorful streets and hectic open-air markets. In addition to the public areas, you’ll experience a peaceful stroll with a monk through the impressive 6^th-century Shwedagon Pagoda. This pagoda is the most sacred for the people of Myanmar, as it enshrines strands of Buddha’s hair and other holy relics. The sparkling structure has hundreds of gold plates, and the top of the stupa is covered with 4,531 diamonds, including a 72-carat diamond.

You’ll also experience Mount Popa, which is an extinct volcano that towers 4,900 feet above sea level. Along the southwest spur of the mountain is a rocky turret that rises about 3,000 feet above sea level; this is the home of 37 spirits. Inle Lake is another wonderful stop. You’ll explore this freshwater lake by boat, visit silversmiths, silk weavers and a private home — all set on fixed platforms in the middle of the lake.

If you’ve been waiting to travel to Myanmar, we assure you, the trip is worth the wait. The authentic experiences are many and we’ve only touched the tip of the iceberg here. Go ahead and cross it off your bucket list and see this magical land for yourself. Call us at 800-462-2848 7 a.m.-5 p.m. Pacific time today for more information or to book your Myanmar tour.

Each fall, parents gear up their children to head back to school. The list of school supplies is long and sometimes never ending and parents swell with pride as their kids embark on the school year. This brings to mind the schools we get to visit on some of our Backroads trips and the difference we are able to make with our support.

Several of our trips offer the chance for Backroads guests to truly get in touch with the local community and lend a helping hand. This comes in the form of offering support to museums and other national treasures or providing donations and supplies to local schools.

For example, our Walking and Hiking Trip to Peru stops in Ollantaytambo, where we visit a local school, join in sing-alongs and visit classrooms. Backroads works with the school to help them purchase much-needed supplies and games. In the Sacred Valley, also in Peru, we visit a small community where we dance with the locals, interact with the children—soccer anyone?—and bring school supplies.

In Bhutan, where poor waste management threatens the health of residents, Backroads leaders and guests have installed garbage cans along the trail, contributed basic necessities and are currently raising money to build a new kitchen in Chorten Nebu, along with a clean drinking water supply.

Why do we do this? Because Backroads is not just about active vacations, we’re also about Responsible Travel. We understand that any travel has an impact on an area, and we get the amazing opportunity to visit some really interesting and authentic places, some rarely seen by the outside world. So we do what we can to make our impact a positive one. And that means supporting the local environment and culture.

What do our guests think about it?

One guest says: “This was the best trip we have taken with Backroads. Peru was wonderful, the cultural experiences were amazing, the local guide was fantastic and his support crew was off the charts. They are individually excellent and together seemed to work so well. We loved the experience with the local people, children’s school and the village we visited. Backroads giving to the people made it all the more special.”

Another says:  ”The trip was great. Our local guide was a fabulous addition to the trip, and I truly enjoyed his talks on the Incan culture and history. The visit to Huilloc will forever be etched in my mind – the people, the culture, the community and the weavings. Everything we could have possibly wanted all brought together for us to experience.”

Check out all the ways we offer Responsible Travel to Backroads guests and let us know what you think! Better yet, let us help you reserve a spot on an upcoming trip so YOU can help us make a difference.