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!

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!

Do you prefer to walk or bike? Do you enjoy challenging or more relaxing routes? Mountains or the beach? We are all unique when it comes to travel, and here at Backroads, we want to make sure that when you take Backroads tours that you’re getting exactly what you expected (and maybe a little more!).

With our hundreds of options when it comes to adventure travel, it can be a little intimidating to figure out which bike tour or hiking tour is truly the one for you. While our trip planners can help you sort through the process when you call us and certainly requesting a catalog and reviewing it will start you along, we also created our new Adventure Advisor to give you some online assistance.

Start the Adventure Advisor here and be prepared to answer just a couple of questions as you click through various screens. Some of the considerations it includes are:

• Type of trip (hiking/walking tour or biking/multisport tour)
• Time of Year
• Area of the world

Once you’ve made your selections, the Advisor plays a short video customized just for your preferences and gives you details on the three top adventure trips we recommend for you. Will it be a biking tour of Italy or maybe a multisport tour of Hawaii? Or is your dream vacation to walk past the lavender fields of Provence or perhaps bike the Dalmatian Coast of Croatia?

Let us know what you think of the Adventure Advisor and if it provided you with some good suggestions. Once you decide between the three trip options, call our Trip Planners to get you started on your dream adventure vacation at 800-462-2848 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. Pacific time.

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.

At Backroads we try to cater to a range of traveler interests  whether you prefer to go on a bike tour or a walking tour or enjoy more casual versus luxury hotels. Our options for lodging are varied and include three main categories:

• Premiere Inns – Many of the places you’ll stay are members of distinguished alliances such as Relais & Châteaux and Small Luxury Hotels of the World.
• Casual Inns — While our Casual Inns are by definition comfortably informal, they must meet a rigorous list of criteria set by the very discriminating Backroads team.
• Deluxe Camping – Truly enjoy the great outdoors by day and night, but relax while your leaders, the camp chef and a camp assistant do all the hard work.

If you’re considering taking a Casual Inn walking tour or biking tour with us, here’s one sample of what you can expect. On Backroads’ Amalfi Coast Walking and Hiking Tour, for example, you’ll stay at Hotel Mamela in Capri. Each room is decorated in bright, unique furnishings and beautiful tiled floors. The hotel offers WiFi, a pool, daily breakfast options and a great location for viewing and touring this beautiful island. Check out the hotel’s gallery to see what a Casual Inn in Italy looks like!

Another example of our Casual Inn trips is the Glacier Park Walking and Hiking Trip. After hiking through Montana and Alberta, you’ll get to relax in the “casual” Glacier Park Lodge. The hotel site is situated on the Blackfeet Reservation and was purchased from the Piegan Indians in the early 1900s. Its opening in 1913 was celebrated by more than 600 invited guests and the Blackfeet Indians who erected teepees on the lawn.

The lodge offers 161 guest rooms, a dining room, bar, espresso stand, gift shop, swimming pool, nine-hole golf course, a day spa and more. Just take a look at some pictures of the Montana lodge. Its lobby is like something from a movie with the main hall flanked by columns made from actual (gigantic) trees. Glacier Park Lodge is casual yet magnificent. We think you’ll agree.

Browse Backroads.com for the region to which you’d like to travel and then simply click the “Casual Inns” option below the trip name. You can check out all the inviting casual places you’ll be staying. Let us know if you have any questions! We’re available every day 7 a.m.-5 p.m. (Pacific time). Just call us at 800-462-2848.