Backroads in the News

With many Americans vaccinated but many international borders still closed, tour operators say domestic demand is not only booming but in some cases exceeding supply. At the adventure company Backroads, founder and president Tom Hale said summer trips are mostly sold out, with few opportunities to add itineraries because hotels in always-popular places like national parks and other outdoors-focused destinations are booked up.

Backroads has trips scheduled for Iceland, Croatia, Greece and the United Kingdom this year. Their Santorini & Crete Multi-Adventure Tour has departures starting as early as July.

Berkeley-based Backroads has been leading fantastic small-group hiking, cycling, and other adventure-oriented tours since 1979. Cycling trips take place on custom-built titanium bikes, lodging ranges from small luxury ships (imagine cycling beside and sailing down the Danube) to five-star hotels, and the food is as finely crafted as the routes. This year, watch for new U.S.-based trips like a five-day cycling tour of the Hudson River Valley, as well as weekend or long weekend getaways in Aspen’s glacial valleys and Texas Hill Country.

Backroads, which has run more than 200 of its trips since the pandemic began, assigns equipment such as hiking poles to individuals at the start of a trip to minimize gear sharing (it also sterilizes equipment daily). 

As part of the movement to make travel more meaningful, the active multi-sport tour company Backroads is running a new Historic Underground Railroad Multi-Adventure Tour in Georgia and South Carolina. This tour is organized in conjunction with Outdoor Afro, a not for profit network of recreation leaders in 30 states who connect people of color to the outdoors and promote inclusion.

Backroads, an upscale tour operator with a focus on active trips, now allows travelers the option to cancel and receive a full refund of their deposit up until April 1 (or until their final payment due date, whichever comes first) in order to give guests more time to decide if travel will work for them without any financial risk. The company has also pushed back final payment due dates for all of its scheduled trips departing before July 1

The tour company Backroads, which provided the Underground Railroad Ride with mapping and route logistics, plans to offer a similarly themed biking and hiking trip to the public next October in conjunction with Outdoor Afro, a nonprofit organization that encourages Black participation in outdoor recreation and conservation.

The tour operator Backroads has created a division of trips somewhere between buyouts and group tours. The new Rendezvous option allows a small group — up to seven in Europe and nine in North America — to have its own support van and guide and the option to check in and out of events scheduled for the larger group. 

With more people than usual booking trips in North America, adventure travel company Backroads created getaways with higher-end lodging or adventures like heli-skiing.

The new Dolce Tempo trips (that's Italian for “sweet time”) from Backroads focus on what the outfitter calls “easygoing” hiking and biking itineraries in locales like Zion National Park and the Loire Valley meant to draw in travelers who might ordinarily opt for the view from the tour bus.

"We've heard from our guests how much they've enjoyed staying at some of the best hotels on the planet while traveling with Backroads to other continents," said Tom Hale, president and founder of the company. "These new North American trips are in a league of their own, with adventurous activities and amazing hotels that reflect the character and style of their regions."

Immerse all of your senses on this trip through and around Acadia National Park. Pine forests, fresh lobster dinners, and time to wander museums and local shops round out the laid-back experience.

Backroads just launched a weekend Texas Bike Tour which explores Austin’s hinterlands over a long weekend.

With pandemic worry reducing participants on Backroads’ walking, hiking and bike tours by as much as 90% this year, they are rebuilding business with family- and private-group expeditions with a variety of approaches.

Backroads is among a subset of group tour operators that forgoes double decker buses, guides with microphones and sign posts, and matching T-shirts for shared, upscale adventures in pristine settings.

Many guided travel companies remain on hold due the COVID-19 pandemic, but there are some adventure operators that are up and running domestically and even putting together new products to lure virus-wary travelers out of the house.

Backroads just rolled out an entire new category of trips called Dolce Tempo, which are more luxurious and less arduous while still being active, described by the company as “easygoing.”

While biking and hiking and kayaking trips are at the core of popular adventure travel offerings, they are not for everyone. So Backroads, a company that has long been the leader in active travel trips, has come up with an array of softer adventures for 2021.

Active-travel company Backroads is launching a category of trips designed for first-time adventure travelers or those seeking easier options, the company said Wednesday.

Backroads’ hiking trips for late summer and fall include Zion and Bryce Canyon, Yosemite, Olympic and Crater Lake national parks, as well as trails in the Oregon Cascades and around Sedona, Ariz.

The adventure travel company Backroads has also been filling up, with popular hiking and cycling trips to Oregon's Colombia River Gorge and Crater Lake, and Maine and Alaska.

Backroads named E-bikes as one the top trends of 2020 at the end of last year and before the pandemic anticipated putting 8,500 guests on them this year. "We know there are people out there, couples, for example, who can't ride together, and we want them to be able to ride together," said Backroads founder Tom Hale, a 35 year veteran of the cycling travel industry.

As travelers seek safety amid social distancing, the travel industry is adapting with outdoor trips, remote lodgings and private camps.

“These trips are so much fun,” she said. “If we can do this safely, we will. It’s outdoors in the fresh air, and I’m convinced that Backroads will do its best to keep us healthy. I have no doubt that every place we eat and stay will be clean.”

[Backroads] has had to make adjustments to their itineraries, their travel style and raise the levels of health and safety. The good news is that their trips will resume next week. I caught up with their founder and president, Tom Hale, to ask him about adventure travel in the wake of Covid-19.