Greetings to all our Backroads guests!

Tom Hale, Backroads Founder & President here. I’ve so appreciated your posts on social media and personal notes during the past unprecedented year. You’ve motivated me to share what we’re up to at Backroads.

I always look forward to this time of year. Spring is when we put the finishing touches on our new trips and get to share all the things we’ve done to make your next Backroads trip better than the last. This spring is even sweeter because we’re seeing more and more hopeful signs for the return of travel.

As I look around Backroads, I’m seeing a lot of good things happening. Vaccines are becoming widely available, our office and field staff are getting shots and it won’t be much longer before we can work side-by-side again. I can't tell you how important this is to all of us at Backroads; we enjoy being around each other, and being around you, our guests.

In our Berkeley and Salt Lake City offices the days of wondering, anticipating and adjusting plans have turned into an all-hands-on-deck effort to prepare for what’s shaping up to be our busiest US season ever—by far. We’re hiring dozens of new Trip Leaders and prepping new equipment in anticipation of an incredible summer for active travelers.

With all the pent-up demand to travel, our sales team has been inundated with calls and emails far exceeding our expectations. Our call volume increased in a way we’ve never experienced. While this is a great problem to have, it is a problem, and I sincerely apologize for any long wait times or delayed responses you might have experienced. By the time you read this we hopefully will have solved our staffing challenges. Returning your calls and replying to your emails is our highest priority.

Beyond North America, we’re closely monitoring the news about when we’ll be able to visit Europe and the rest of the world—although at times it does feel like reading tea leaves. As countries do open up, you can bet that we'll be ready to go, like in Iceland, Greece and Croatia. Peru, Ecuador and Costa Rica are already open now, and we’re looking forward to getting back there as soon as we can. By late summer and fall we’re hoping to return to Europe and the rest of the world in a bigger way.

As for next year… hang on tight! Bookings for our 2022 trips are already in much greater demand than our all-time high for advance bookings. We've just launched our 2022 dates in more than 60 countries around the world! And we’ll be staffed up and more than ready to talk to you about your next Backroads trip.

Whether it’s this year or next, we can’t wait to welcome you on the Backroads trip you've been dreaming about.

Happy trails,

Tom Hale
Founder & President