With summer on its way, we’ll be leading hundreds of families to destinations around the world in the coming months and we thought it would be a great time to introduce you to some of our family trip leaders. They are responsible for making sure adults AND kids have fun (not an easy job!), learn a lot and have an opportunity to get an authentic view of the culture they’re visiting.

In today’s post, we’d like you to meet Rebecca Sorensen. Rebecca left her job as a film/TV production coordinator in LA to travel the world! After spending four months traveling, including biking in Thailand and biking in Italy, she decided she didn’t want travel to be a hobby but a lifestyle. Enter Backroads!

These days You can find Rebecca leading families on a variety of Backroads family bike trips and family hiking trips, including our Yosemite Multisport Tour in California. On that tour, she’ll take you rock climbing, walking through the giant sequoias, hiking past waterfalls and alpine meadows, and to a visit of the Ansel Adams Gallery. You can even enjoy a family game of bocce ball or ping pong!

Rebecca also leads the Hawaii Big Island Multisport trip where families get to walk through a rain forest, ride horses, snorkel, visit a coffee plantation and bike part of the Kona Ironman Triathlon course. Of course, we work in plenty of swimming and beach time, as well.

“I think families really bond on an active vacation, because they are out there every day experiencing new things together. There’s nothing like biking and hiking together as a family—exploring a national park, being able to smell the trees, pick up rocks and pine cones, and really appreciate the nature that surrounds you,” says Rebecca. “It’s beautiful, challenging, and in the end, it’s something you’ve accomplished together.”

Want to travel with Rebecca? Give us a call daily 7 a.m.-5 p.m. Pacific at 800-462-2848 and we’ll answer any questions you have and get you booked!

Traveling with a family can be a bonding experience that your children will remember for the rest of their lives, but choosing the right trip for your family is key to making those happy memories. Backroads, which offers nearly 40 different active family trips around the world, knows how to create the best travel experience for families and we want to share our knowledge with you.

That’s why we created our new Family Trip Advisor, an online tool to help you discover which family vacation is right for your crew.

To use the tool, simply visit our Family Trips page at www.backroads.com/family-trips and select Family Trip Advisor. A box will pop up and begin to ask you a series of question. The process only takes a few minutes, which we know is important for busy families juggling work, sports, school and other activities.

We start by asking the age of your kids. Are they teens, pre-teens, young kids (at least 6) or mixed ages? Once you’ve made your selection, we want to know what time of year you’re planning to travel. Are you looking for an active family summer vacation or perhaps a winter break getaway for families?

Next we’d like to know just how active you’d like your trip to be and then if you’re more interested in exploring nature or culture on your active family vacation.

Once we know all this information, you’ll receive a customized 2-3 minute video with recommendations for destinations that may appeal to your family. You’ll get three specific family trip suggestions with a description of each trip and photos of the sites you’ll see. Once you’ve watched the video, you can even choose to email it to a friend or yourself so you can watch it again!

Try our Family Trip Advisor and let us know what trips we recommended for your family. Do they sound like a good fit?

Please read our blog on 5 Tips for Active Travel With Kids and give us a call 7 a.m.-5 p.m. daily at 800-462-2848 to book your active family trip!

We love kids here at Backroads! It’s a joy to see them biking through the rolling hills of Tuscany with their parents, hiking around a volcano in Hawaii and ziplining through the jungles of Costa Rica. Since we see so many families on our active family vacations each year, it’s only natural that we have a few tips for active travel with kids. We want you and your family to have the best vacation possible and a little preparation can make sure it’s a trip your children will remember for the rest of their lives.

Here are our top 5 tips for the best active travel experience with kids:

1)      Getting home and back can be the least fun parts of your family biking tour or family hiking tour. Make flying fun by bringing games, books, favorite snacks and a surprise for after the flight. Be sure to ask the flight attendant if they have any special packets for kids. Select pre and post hotels that cater to families and offer kid activities and amenities—our Travel Planners can help you with that. Research activities in your gateway city that the whole family can enjoy: aquariums, zoos, parks, children’s museums and theatres.

2)      When packing for kids on an active family trip, be sure to include plastic bags for sticky and dirty clothes, a nightlight to brighten unfamiliar rooms, pediatrician contact information, medications, a comforting toy and addresses of their friends so they can send postcards.

3)      Staying at a hotel can be an exciting experience for children. To make your family’s stay more enjoyable, give kids a tour of the property when you arrive and explain the rules regarding the minibar, in-room movies and telephone.

4)      Practice hiking and biking with your kids before you arrive on your family bike tour or family walking tour. The additional time together on training rides and hikes can make great family bonding days.  And not only that, the kids became familiar with what gear they need, how to layer clothing properly, and what snacks and food they like most on the trail and on the bike.

5)      Have a meeting before your family adventure and agree to rules regarding the use of electronics during your trip. Consider allowing electronics during travel to and from only; a camera as the only electronic item for kids during the tour; or simply leaving phones and Gameboys at home.  If parents also agree to unplug, they’ll likely get more buy-in from the kids. The rewards of real family bonding, full immersion into the culture or nature of a place, disconnecting from the distractions of daily life and home, and creating more opportunity for incredible memories far outweighs the hardship of giving up the electronics.

Come explore the world with your family on a Backroads family adventure vacation. We’re pretty sure the kids will forget about the PlayStation quickly and be ready to send off postcard after postcard to their buddies as they enjoy all our trips have to offer.

For more information about Backroads Family Trips, please visit www.Backroads.com or call us 7 a.m.-5 p.m. daily at 800-462-2848. You can also check out our online Family Trip Advisor to get help finding the perfect adventure for your family.

From India and Peru to Bhutan and Morocco, you submitted some fantastic photos of your Backroads journeys for our annual Backroads Photo Contest! You covered walking tours, biking tours, multisport tours, family adventure tours and more, and we must say, your photography skills aren’t too shabby!

Every year, Backroads invites our travelers to submit their best photos from their Backroads trip for a chance at a credit toward their next adventure tour with us! First place receives a $3000 trip credit; second place receives a $2000 trip credit; and third place receives a $1000 trip credit.

We’ve picked the best of the best from all of your submissions and have now opened voting. Anyone is welcome to vote for their favorite picture, and by voting, you’ll be entered to win a $200 Patagonia gift card. Not a bad prize for viewing some jaw-dropping photos!

Here’s just a sampling of the 2012 best Backroads adventure tour photo submissions:

Taken by C. Jennings on our Dalmatian Coast Family Multisport Tour:

Taken by C. Michel on our Bhutan Walking Tour:

Taken by K. Mills on our Loire Valley Biking Tour:

Taken by M. Sloane on our Canadian Rockies Multisport Tour:

Taken by D. Patton on our Death Valley Walking Tour:

This is just a handful of the beautiful and creative photos you submitted to Backroads for 2012! Take a look at all the adventure travel photos from our tours here and vote for your favorite.

Are you inspired yet? We are! We’re ready to strap on our hiking boots, oil up our bike and head to the nearest airport to experience a Backroads adventure.

If we can help you schedule your next Backroads tour please give us a call 7 a.m.-5 p.m. Pacific daily at 800-462-2848. And don’t forget your camera to enter the 2013 photo contest!

2013 has arrived and we know you like to travel as much as we do. So we’ve listed out some of our top 10 New Year’s resolutions specifically dedicated to travel. Lots of people make “travel” itself a New Year’s resolution, but we wanted to go deeper and make some suggestions of how to improve your travel experience in 2013.

Here are Backroads’ top 10 New Year’s travel resolutions:

1)      Travel somewhere you’ve never been – At Backroads we travel to hundreds of destinations around the globe, and we can help you find a bike tour or hiking tour to a place you’ve yet to discover. Instead of taking the same trip you do every year, be bold and try something new!

2)      Travel somewhere unexpected – Sure, everyone wants to take a Tuscany bike tour or a Provence walking tour, but consider traveling to a location more off the beaten path. For 2013, Backroads has introduced bike trips to Myanmar, for example, a country that has largely been closed to the modern world for many years. By biking through Myanmar, you will truly discover an “undiscovered” world untouched by tourism.

3)      Add activity to your trip – At Backroads, we believe half the fun of travel is the way you travel. Step out of the car or tour bus and hop on a bike, walk or even kayak down the river. Your travel experience will be so much richer out in the open air with some activity mixed in. You’ll even be able to enjoy all the gourmet dinners we provide without the guilt!

4)      Bring your kids along – Afraid to travel with your kids? Don’t be! We offer wonderful family adventures that will make a trip with the kids a great experience. Our family bike tours and family walking tours are designed with lots of kid-friendly activities, whether it’s a scavenger hunt, eating gelato in Sicily or fencing in the Loire Valley, that will entertain and educate not just them, but you, as well. Browse our family adventures.

5)      Try a solo trip – Traveling alone can be a life-changing experience and you can do it without worry with Backroads’ Singles + Solos travel program. We offer trips around the world designed for traveling solo. You’ll enjoy meeting other solo travelers on the trip and get plenty of time to explore the world on your own with the unparalleled service, support and guidance of the Backroads team. Browse our singles trips.

6)      Travel at a different time of year – Always take a summer vacation? Try traveling at the holidays to create once-in-a-lifetime memories. Paris in the spring? Yes, it’s lovely, but Europe in the fall can also be a wonderful time to travel. Mix it up this year!

7)      Try a new food – Backroads offers gourmet meals at many Michelin-starred restaurants and plenty of opportunities to try food local to your destination. It might be a little out of your comfort zone, but be brave and try a new food or dish. You just might be surprised at how good it tastes!

8)      Try something adventurous – Add some adventure to your travel! With Backroads, you can fence in Loire Valley, zip line in Costa Rica, hike a volcano in Hawaii and Sicily, visit ancient temples and the list goes on. No ho hum vacations for us! Make your travel exciting in 2013!

9)      Engage the locals – To really get the most out of travel, try to immerse yourself in the local culture. When you bike or hike a destination, you’re more likely to stop and have a conversation with the farmer selling produce by the road or chat with the couple next to you at the café. Make an effort to talk to the locals, ask them about the area and their favorite things to do. You’ll likely come away with a new world view.

10)   Learn a new language – It’s easier to engage the locals if you know a little bit of their language. Challenge yourself a few months before your trip to learn some key phrases in the language of the region you’ll be visiting. Not only will you feel more confident and comfortable, you may just be inspired to learn the language fluently.

Have you set any resolutions related to travel? Let us know what they are and if we can help you meet them! Give us a call 7 a.m.-5 p.m. Pacific any day of the week if we can help you stick to those travel resolutions with a Backroads bike tour or Backroads hiking tour. Happy New Year!

Sicily often gets ignored besides some of the more popular Italian tour destinations, like Tuscany, Rome and Venice. But this jewel of an island, sitting off the Italian coast, is a draw all its own and that’s why we added a Sicily biking tour for families to our 2013 active travel line-up.

The Italian bike tour, which runs March through June, lets parents enjoy an active European family vacation while keeping the kids plenty occupied and learning a lot without even realizing it!

On the Sicily family tour, groups will bike past Mount Etna (Did you know it’s Europe’s largest volcano? Shh, don’t tell the kids they learned something J!), taste freshly-made olive oil, stroll through a local fish market and tour Siracusa’s old city, Ortygia.

Sound too boring for kids? Just wait! They’ll have a chance to paint pottery in Caltagirone, inhabited since the Bronze Age, where we’ll also race them to climb 142 stairs; dance to local folk music; hit the countryside in Jeeps; bake biscotti; and try to eat their gelato before it melts! There’s even a scavenger hunt just for the kids in the town of Ragusa Ibla, and your family will get to visit two World Heritage sites. Oh, and they get to eat pizza with French fries on top. That’ll make a great story to tell their friends when they return home!

Spring break is a great time of year to travel to Sicily, especially for those from cooler climes who are looking for a warm weather getaway. The flowers are in bloom from the blossoming almond trees to fragrant citrus trees and wild rosemary. It’s a wonderful time to be out in the open air on your bike so you can take in the wonderful smells all around you.

Plus, you don’t have to worry about the kids plopped on the couch playing video games all spring break. They’ll be out in the sun, getting exercise, expanding their mind and learning a wealth of new things no textbook could teach them.

There now, have we convinced you that your family should come biking in Sicily with us this spring? Good, now call us to book it right away before you change your mind! Call us 7 a.m.-5 p.m. Pacific at 800-462-2848 and start counting down the days till spring break. Ciao!

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.

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.

Now is the time to makes plans for a one-of-a-kind Iceland family adventure, as we’ve recently released our 2013 summer travel dates to this magnificent “land of extremes.”

Our Iceland tour, recently named a National Geographic Traveler Tour of a Lifetime, explores the dramatic beauty of this country from its diverse and often contrasting features. They include: glaciers atop volcanoes, stark white icebergs washed up on black sand beaches, and gray lava flats amid white ice fields. It’s truly something to behold on this Iceland bike tour.

Based on this diversity, we’ve created a great family multisport trip in Southern Iceland for you and your family to explore the region’s natural wonders. Get ready to do lots of family biking and hiking, as well as riding on Zodiacs, planes, rafts, horses and even a “super jeep”!

A few highlights include a visit to Skaftafell National Park to view out-of-this-world ice formations, water caldrons, crevasses and a breathtaking icefall; and setting out in a “super jeep” to explore the creeks and rivers near simmering Hekla volcano.

We’ve picked out a selection of Casual and Premiere Inns for this trip, including a comfortable lodge, a countryside resort and a peaceful hotel. Additionally, the Fludir region of Iceland is famous for its organic produce, which you will certainly enjoy at Hotel Fludir, a peaceful hotel in a quiet organic farming community. In addition to its amazing views (rolling hills and ice-capped mountains), you’ll be able to its restaurant menu which includes slowly cooked cod served with potato mousse, vegetables and soy sauce-infused butter; and Icelandic garlic-roasted langoustines with garlic bread and salad. Yum!

This Iceland family trip is the perfect mix of history, culture and adventure and will introduce your family to the wonder of this magical land.

Ready to book or just have questions? We’re available every day 7 a.m.-5 p.m. (Pacific time) at 800-462-2848. You can also visit www.backroads.com.

Photo Credit: Parris Kitt

At Backroads, we believe in offering a great experience for your entire family. So, we’ve spent the last 32 years putting together amazing adventure vacations for families and groups with an emphasis on making sure everyone has an incredible time. We have the basics covered – and much more. Here are a few answers to our FAQs about our family adventure trips.

How old can my child be and go on a Backroads adventure?

Some adventure activities (ie: rafting, canyoneering) on our trips may have specific age restrictions and we also have listed recommended ages for the overall trip. When we set this recommendation, we consider the number of age-restricted activities and alternate activities; whether the terrain is well-suited for Burleys and Piccolos; and the sophistication level of the hotels, dinner venues, even the cultural content (e.g., World War II content on our France bike trip in Brittany/Normandy).

If your child is younger than the recommended minimum age for your trip, then your child and one adult parent/guardian will need to refrain from any age-restricted activity and we will do our best to suggest alternatives. Ask your Trip Consultant for minimum age recommendations by trip or see the Family Trips section.

We’re also happy to share the ages of the other kids booked on a trip. That way you’ll know if your kids will have a potential like-aged playmate!

What does it cost to bring my child?

Backroads offers youth rates. Please check our website for a specific tour or ask your Trip Consultant for more information, as the discounts range from 10% to 75% and are based on the age of the child and the number of children traveling with your group. The discounts also depend on the type of trip you are taking.

Is childcare provided?

Our trip leaders will provide appropriate supervision specific activities for kids during the trip; however, leaders cannot provide general childcare. Trip Leaders can provide parents with contact information for childcare providers at destinations, where available. However, Backroads cannot guarantee availability or make childcare arrangements outside of planned group activities.

How do you promote safety?

Safety is our top priority for all ages. Each day, one of the Trip Leaders will be the designated “Kid Coordinator”and lead the children in the day’s activities, including a daily safety talk! (Children must be 5 or older to participate without their parent.)

What if my child is not athletic?

We monitor every family to find out what their daily needs are. And just like our other trips, we provide a support van to keep traveling families – and those with a range of athletic abilities — happy.

Do children dine with parents?

We know you will want your family to spend quality time together, but also understand there may be times when children may feel more comfortable dining in a relaxed environment and leaving the seven-course meal to the adults. On many inn trips, Backroads arranges for adults and children to dine separately on two evenings. Trip Leaders will organize and supervise these children’s meals. Parents are welcome to join, if they prefer, or you are welcome to dine as a family at a separate establishment if you choose.

Got other questions? Post a comment and ask! We’ll get right back to you.

For more information about our Family Adventure Vacations, please visit our website at http://www.backroads.com/family-trips or call one of our tour professionals at 800-462-2848 daily between 7 a.m. and 5 p.m., Pacific time.