Three Incredible Leaders
Our Leaders Make the Trip
Great leaders are the key to an unforgettable active travel experience—and we go one better than other companies by assigning three leaders* to our Backroads trips. Our guests tell us constantly that the Backroads Trip Leaders are the best they've ever traveled with, consistently rating their performance 9.7 out of 10 on post-trip surveys. We make sure those scores stay up there by running the most rigorous recruiting, training and guest satisfaction programs in the business. We work year-round to find and train these talented people—we hired only 7% of leader applicants in 2012.
Smart, engaging, knowledgeable, caring and endlessly enthusiastic, our Trip Leaders are renowned for their ability to transform a great vacation into the kind of authentic, inspiring, even life-changing experience you could never orchestrate on your own. With our average guest-to-leader ratio of 6:1, you can count on enjoying a superb level of attentive personal service.
Insider Knowledge
Working in tandem with our worldwide network of local experts, our Trip Leaders take you even deeper into a region, sharing insights into its culture and cuisine, its wildlife and ecology, its human and natural history—plus countless small, unexpected moments in which the layers are peeled back and you suddenly grasp what a place is all about.
While some companies sing the praises of hiring only "local guides," it's often done to cut costs but without common cultural reference points, the local guide may be less adept at understanding subtle cues and preferences of the guests on trip. We offer the best combination in the business—experienced Backroads leaders with local guides as needed on international trips.
*95% of Backroads guests travel with the support of two or more vans and three leaders. The remaining 5% are on trips with very few guests where only one van and two leaders are needed to maintain our high service standards.
