Stories

As a Backroads Trip Leader and a musician, I’ve always believed you can learn just as much about a place through its music as through its landscapes. Music carries history in a way few other things can.

In the Galápagos, sustainability is a fundamental philosophy of local culture and policy, further emphasized by the islands’ remoteness and subsequent scarcity of certain resources. Santa Cruz Island is home to roughly 20,000 people—over half of the human population of the archipelago—with smaller agricultural communities spread far beyond its main coastal town of Puerto Ayora.

On our South Africa & Botswana Active Safari Trips, guests explore the rugged beauty of the Cederberg Wilderness, a region famed for its dramatic sandstone formations, ancient rock art and deep ecological significance. Through our Give Back Field Project program, Backroads proudly supports community-led conservation efforts here.

Lee Schwartz is a writer who has taken countless Backroads trips, mostly family adventures. This was her first time visiting Thailand and her first time flying into the wrong airport. And honestly? She recommends both.

On this Backroads Italy & Slovenia (with one day in Italy’s lovely Friuli-Venezia wine region near Venice before heading into Slovenia) hiking adventure, I am joining this centuries-old tradition. With each new landscape I hike, I discover I’m flexing more than just my muscles, I’m building optimism too. This much natural beauty has a way of doing that. Here are five of my favorite wow moments from the trip.

In 2025, I had the incredible opportunity to introduce a new initiative here at Backroads: the Give Back Field Project (GBFP) program. GBFP is the realization of a dream that came to life after conversations with so many passionate Field Staff who were already finding meaningful ways to give back to the regions that welcome us with such openness and generosity.

Prayer flags. Mountains. A small country tucked between two of the world’s most populated countries.

As Fourth of July fireworks sparkled over the waters of Bar Harbor, Maine, I looked around at the faces of three generations of my family. With wide eyes and huge grins, their faces were as bright as the lights in the sky. Tomorrow, we’d scatter again to our homes thousands of miles apart, but tonight felt timeless, a magic moment of togetherness that multigenerational travel creates.

The Backroads Give Back Field Project (GBFP) program gives Field Staff the chance to strengthen our connection to the places we travel by volunteering their time for local conservation efforts.

 At the heart of my time in Ecuador is the Fundación Galo Plaza Lasso—the nonprofit project arm of one of our accommodations, Hacienda Zuleta, which is devoted to conservation, education and sustainable community development in the town of Zuleta within the Imbabura Province.