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Forbes
4 days ago
- Forbes
Top 10 Active Travel Trends For Your Next Great Hiking Or Cycling Vacation
Active travel, especially guided or self-guided hiking and cycling trips, have exploded in ... More popualarity in recent years. Active travel is hot, and this segment of tourism has been booming ever since the pandemic. Actually, it was already growing before that, but during Covid-19, more people started doing more things outside, walking, hiking, biking and generally being active, and much of this newfound passion for the outdoors, nature and exercise has stuck around. As a result, most of the top players in the active travel field are reporting ongoing record bookings year after year since the pandemic, and most are adding many new trips, activities and destinations. So even if you do not already think active travel might be a good choice for you, consider these top 10 active travel trends for your next great hiking or cycling vacation This is a niche I personally love, and one that I have followed closely for more than a quarter century. I've biked, hiked, skied, paddled and trekked all over the globe, and I know the best companies, especially in the luxury active travel space, and I know what they have been doing differently in recent years. I speak regularly with executives of the best outfitters, as well as people who use them and travel agents who book them for clients, all so I can remain informed about all that is going on, and these are the most important recent trends I have identified. Backroads, the nation's largest and oldest luxury active travel specialist, has pioneered boat-based ... More hiking and biking trips, especially with European river cruises. This has probably been the single biggest shift, one that was largely pioneered by Backroads, the country's largest, best-known and longest established luxury guided active travel tour operator, for more than half a century. Backroads led the charge into using luxury European river cruise ships, which hold far fewer people but offer more space than most ocean-going cruise ships, and the big appeal is the fact that guests do not need to pack or unpack during the trip, whereas traditional active travel itineraries change hotels about every other day. In addition, if the weather is bad or you are just tired and want to opt out of an active day, you have the option of participating in the normal guided shore excursions the cruise lines offer. This proved so popular with guests that the company expanded to both river cruises in other continents and ocean cruises, and most recently added an active cruise trip to the Galapagos Islands, a Bucket List spot for many. A Turkish gulet ship used by luxury cycling specialist DuVine on its trips in Greece and Turkiye. Other top players in the luxury space, especially Butterfield & Robinson and DuVine, have followed suit. I've written about the special appeals of this particular niche here at Forbes so you can get a lot more detail. Instead of cruise ships, DuVine has focused on small groups and luxury-chartered boats and I wrote about one of their great trips here at Forbes as well. DuVine is a luxury cycling tour operator that hosts trips to single standout hotels such as ... More Tennessee's Blackberry Farm. The popularity of not packing and unpacking that led to the boom in boat-based trips above also fueled a surge in trips entirely based out of single lodging, rather than moving hotel to hotel. Backroads launched a series recently (currently for hiking only) and calls these 'Home Base' trips in desirable spots like Southern Italy's Puglia. The Cycling House, a Tucson-based biking specialist, has been doing it for a long time, both in Arizona and international destinations such as Italy and Spain, usually using a private villa. DuVine has some shorter 4-day cycling trips based at standout culinary and luxury lodging such as Troutbeck in New York's Hudson Valley, Glen Gordon Manor in Virginia horse country and Blackberry Farm, a legendary Relais & Chateaux property in Tennessee. DuVine also offers a slate of private villa-based cycling trips in Tuscany, Provence, Mapa and Mallorca. But the best example I know is Explora, an exceptional family-owned adventure lodge company in South America. Explora began in Chilean Patagonia with an award-winning eco-friendly luxury lodge and staff of expert, in-house, full-time guides, offering guests a dizzying array of varied activities during their stay, along with excellent food and wine on an all-inclusive basis. Explora has done it so well that the company has grown to multiple locations across Chile, Peru, Argentina and Bolivia. They now even do Iceland. I have visited their properties in Patagonia, the Atacama Desert and on Easter Island, and recommend them all heartily. For travelers wanting to experience the Incan ruins of Peru in an active way I can't imagine better option. Read more about Explora here. Macs Adventures is the leading self-guided active travel specialist, and offers several itineraries ... More for the Tour du Mont Blanc, one of the world's most iconic hikes. One of the biggest things that separates luxury active hiking or biking vacations from simply going backpacking or bike packing is the packing part. On these luxe trips your luggage is moved for you from place to place, so if you hike it's just with a day pack of layers and some water, and if you bike there are no cumbersome heavy panniers weighing you down. On top of this, there is usually a guide and support vehicles. But more and more travelers are choosing to go without the guide and support vehicles, while keeping the luxury of a detailed and well thought out itinerary with carefully selected routes, often the same kind of special tours, meals and activities set up along the way, and of course, the luggage transfer. All the higher end companies also have assistance phone call away if your bike breaks down or you get lost or such. Doing it this way is high-end self-guided, and one of the biggest advantages (besides being much cheaper) is that it essentially makes every trip a custom private one, so you can go when you want and just with your choice of traveling companions, rather than picking a scheduled departure date for a group trip with strangers. At the high end of the active travel luxury spectrum is Butterfield & Robinson, known as the top white glove operator and the one that has been doing these trips longer than anyone, sixty years in 2026 (I just wrote about their special 60th Birthday slate of trips here at Forbes). B&R was also the first to specialize in true luxury self-guided trips, and my wife and I did one for our anniversary, just the two of us in Burgundy, and it was fabulous. They offer a lot more than most companies do for self-guided, such as VIP private experiences and stellar included meals along the way. At the more budget friendly end of the spectrum is Macs Adventures, a very large and well-established UK-based operator that recently opened a U.S. office and has grown very quickly in the American market. Macs does nothing but self-guided, with hundreds of global hiking and biking itineraries, and offers a more no-frills version, with an itinerary of selected lodgings, luggage transfers, and a standout app that provided detailed route maps and turn by turn directions, but no meals (beyond breakfast) or activities. It is perfect for self-starters who want to do their own exploring and choose their own dining but still have the infrastructure of a waiting hotel room and waiting luggage. Macs offers an incredible array of hiking and biking trips all over the world and is a great value proposition. In between these two extremes are companies such as Trek Travel and VBT Biking Adventures for cycling, Country Walkers for hiking, and highly expert, local, one country specialty active travel operators like Tourissimo in Italy and WalkJapan in Japan. Tourissimo calls their version 'concierge self-guided' because so much local expertise is provided along with luggage transfers. I have recently traveled with both of these last two companies and highly recommend them. Both offer regular fully guided scheduled trips but have self-guided options with more support and activities included along the way. Read my story 'Why Your Best Hiking or Biking Trip Might Be Self-Guided Active Travel' here at Forbes. Bhutan was the most recent country to create a border to border hiking trail spanning the entire ... More nation. I've seen a big surge in coast-to-coast or border-to-border trips, such as cycling across the entire width of Italy, from the Adriatic to the Mediterranean. Several tour operators offer this, including one of my favorites, DuVine, a very high-end luxury operator with special focus on wine and gastronomy. There is also Bike It! Tours, a very local tour operator with a bike shop in Bellagio, on Lake Como, that offers this trip on a custom basis just for your group and is a great value with deep local knowledge. Another Italy specialist, Tourissimo, does an 8-day cycling trip across the island of Sardinia from coast to coast. Trek Travel, another one of the big higher-end global hiking and cycling tour operators, offers several cross-country bike trips, in Italy, France, Spain, even the entire United States. They are the only high-end company doing a fully-support transcontinental U.S. trip, but it takes almost eight weeks. Walking the Coast of Wales. More manageable is biking or hiking across England, offered by Wilderness England (8 and 13 days respectively). In recent years countries such as Bhutan and Liechtenstein have created new hiking trails that run the full width of their countries, and I was the first foreigner to tackle a walk across Liechtenstein. The Liechtenstein Trail is just 45-miles long and the national tourist board offers several 6-7 day packages with lodging and luggage transfers along the way, plus extras such as an adventure pass that includes attractions, wine tastings and such, and daily free lunch. This is one of the most affordable self-guided adventures out there, from $1100 per person for 3 & 4-star lodging (their national rating system, not Forbes Travel Guide) or $1650 with luxury hotels. I did a section of the trans-Bhutan trail, and many top luxury tour operators such as Backroads, Butterfield & Robinson and MT Sobek do roughly weeklong trips, and G Adventures has more affordable 10–11-day outings, but the entire trail is 250 miles and takes almost a month. Bhutan's tourist board offers package with home stays and guides for those who want to tackle the whole thing. Wales has a walking path running the entire length of its coast, border to border. Launched in 2012 it was the first country to offer a marked walk of its entire coastline, 850 miles. It is broken into themed sections and some travelers return over and over to do the entire trail in manageable chunks. Many companies including Macs Adventures offer luggage transfers and support for self-guided trips, while Backroads, Wilderness England and others offer weeklong more luxurious guided trips. Central America is the narrowest part of the Western hemisphere, and one of the most popular trips is a hike across Costa Rica from the Atlantic to Pacific, which has been dubbed the 'Camino de Costa Rica' after one of the most famous hikes in the world in Spain (see next entry). But this one is just 174-miles and can be done in 15-16 days, while MT Sobek, one of the world's oldest and best-established active travel companies, offers a fully guided 10-day 'best of' sampler. Molinaseca, Spain, one of many charming towns along the famed Camino de Santiago Most active travel hiking is going to a region like the Dolomites or Scottish Highlands and doing day hikes, then returning to a hotel. But increasingly, travelers are seeking to do part or all of more iconic continuous routes. Arguably the most famous of the multi-day hikes readily doable in a single American-length vacation trip (unlike the Appalachian Trail or such that take months to complete) is the Tour du Mont Blanc, a legendary circular hike that circumnavigates the highest peak in the Alps while going through Italy, France and Switzerland all in roughly 10 days (there are slightly longer and shorter versions). I did the TMB, as it is known, and it was simply the best hiking trip of my lifetime and one of the best trips I have done, period. Not many top operators offer the TMB in its entirety, and the best choice I know of is MT Sobek, another veteran adventure company with an excellent reputation. G Adventures, a big company known for great value proposition also has the TMB. Macs Adventures offers self-guided TMB itineraries. The Trans-Bhutan Trail is the world's newest pilgrimage route, but doing the entire thing takes a month, so G Adventures offers the most affordable turnkey (Bhutan is pricy and logistically complicated) sampler, a 12-day trek. Other top iconic multi-day hikes include the ascent of Mt. Kilimanjaro (I've done it and frankly found it underwhelming and would not recommend) and the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu in Peru. Up and coming iconic hiking routes can also be found in in Tuscany and New Zealand. Pilgrimage treks, originally for religious purposes, have also exploded in popularity, none more than Spain's Camino de Santiago, which has become the next big thing in hiking trips. How popular is it? Those who complete most of the Camino under certain rules get a certificate, and in 1984 the number that achieved that was just 423, while 40 years later in 2024, it was more than 495,000. However, this centuries old pilgrimage trek morphed repeatedly with invasions, occupations and threats, and there are no less than seven official Camino rotes today, some of which include portions of France and/or Portugal. Some are also much less crowded than others. Most are basically a walk across Spain, taking 30-40 days, and all are broken into more palatable portions and these segments are popular with active travel companies. For a luxury spin on the Camino, Backroads recently introduced a new and outstanding segment on one of the less crowded routes in the Basque region of Northern Spain, with fabulous food and coastal scenery, from Bilbao west. G Adventures offers multiple options from 8-10 days. Macs Adventures offer dozens of Camino itineraries, all self-guided, including the whole thing on multiple routes. Japan's Kumano Kodo Pilgrimage trail is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Another less famous home of pilgrimage hikes is Japan, which has several mixing Shinto and Buddhist temples, and this is something WalkJapan specializes in and does very well, with expert guides and amazing food. In fact, only two pilgrimage routes on earth have achieved coveted UNESCO World Heritage status, one being Spain's Camino and the other Japan's Kumano Kodo, a favorite of Walk Japan customers. KC&E Adventures offers a lot of gravel and single track mountain bike options. 'Gravel grinding' has been the fastest growing segment of cycling for the past few years, exploding in popularity. This basically entails riding a slightly heavier duty road bike with slightly wider tires, still more efficient than a mountain bike, on gravel and dirt roads rather than pavement. The appeals are a greater variety of places you can go with a more natural wilderness aesthetic, and far fewer cars, the bane of many cyclists. Gravel grinding is popular worldwide, but the Mecca of the sport is in the same place as the Mecca of regular road riding, Tuscany, with hundreds of miles of its famously unpaved 'white roads,' or strade bianche, especially through the Chianti wine region. But while gravel riding has soared in participation, few of the biggest active tour operators have begun offering it. The one major exception is Trek Travel, with more than a dozen gravel itineraries in the U.S. and worldwide. KC&E Adventures is a top boutique cycling and hiking adventure company that does some scheduled group trips but specializes in small private groups and offers a great combination of local knowledge and value, especially for the private tour segment which tends to run very expensive. Founder Collin Daulong says, 'We're seeing increased interest in gravel riding and light mountain biking on double track, not only for the sense of adventure but also because it feels safer and more approachable. It's ideal for people with general biking experience who still want that 'out there' feeling without technical barriers.' KC&E regularly does gravel trips in New England, Italy and Iceland, and has done custom in Croatia and elsewhere. Other smaller specialty operators offering gravel trips include Tourissimo, a great choice for Tuscany, and the Cycling House, here and abroad. Tuscany is famously popular for gravel grinding. A lot of people love mountain biking, but even fewer luxury companies do mountain bike trips in the way road and gravel active vacations are offered, in part because more technical skill is required of guests, an entirely different fleet of expensive bikes is required, they tend to break more, and it is harder to support these trips in high style, as the vans that cater to cycling trips cannot go on off-road trails. However there has been some growth, and DuVine, one of the most luxurious companies, with a food and wine focus, recently added its first mountain bike trip, to South Africa. KC&E Adventures also does a lot of mountain bike trips, especially in Vermont, Iceland and Arizona's Sonoran desert. Electric assist bikes, or e-bikes, have small battery powered motors that reduce the amount of human effort but still require some pedaling, and these have exploded in popularity. I remember the first time I went on a cycling trip where anyone rode an e-bike, and it was a Butterfield& Robinson trip to Japan about 10 years ago. It was new then but now it is standard for very major tour operator to offer this option, and on most trips I've done since, there have been people on e-bikes, though it has remained a minority, maybe 10-20% of participants. An e-bike is a great equalizer that lets less avid cyclists join friends or family who are better conditioned and can put children or grandchildren and multi-generational groups on equal footing. It also opens up more challenging destinations and rides that might be too long to too hilly are now doable with help of e-bikes. While I am still powering my own way and have never opted for this, I've seen lots of people of all ages who have and love it. In fact, the popularity of e-bikes on trips has gotten so high that there has been some backlash from traditional cyclists who somehow feel threatened or that it is a less pure approach, and one of the biggest active travel companies, Backroads, which was an early adopter of offering e-bikes, has released an entire series of e-bike free trips. These are called 'Unplugged,' which the company describes as 'designed for cyclists who want to experience a ride together—with all its ups and downs—under their own power.' But while the no e-bike trend is limited, the use of e-bikes has spread to practically every active tour operator doing cycling, even self-guided specialists like Macs Adventures and the tour operators that tend to attract harder-core cycling enthusiasts such as Trek Travel and DuVine. Escape Adventures, a large active travel company I have traveled with and thoroughly enjoyed, but lower-priced not quite as luxurious as some of these others, offers a slate of only e-bike group trips and says, 'Our E-bike (both road and mountain bike options) vacations are created specifically for both first-time cyclists and experienced bike enthusiasts who want to bring their partners who don't bike nearly as much.' Women-only active trips have become much more widley available and Backroads offers many itineraries ... More for these. Women-only has been a big growth category both within the major tour operators and companies focused solely on this niche, such as Wild Women Expeditions and AdventureWomen. I wrote about this trend recently here at Forbes. Backroads has long led the way in this category with a lot of women-only versions of its standard luxury catalog of hiking, cycling and multi-sport trips, and goes further than anyone in also offering trips sorted by age, including adult-only, and trips for families in several categories, for those with kids and teens, teens and 20s, 20s and beyond. DuVine doesn't do women-only trips at this time but does offer family departures. Butterfield & Robinson has been the leading high-end luxury active travel company for almost six decades but just added the women-only category last fall. Cycling House has a lot of women-only scheduled trips. Italy's Dolomites is an incredibly beautiful region for hiking, cycling and fine dining. The Dolomites have long been the best spot in the world for doing hut-to-hut hike and bike mountain bike (and ski) trips in a luxury way, at least if you are the type who after a long day outdoor enjoys a Wine Spectator award winning cellar with huge verticals of Super Tuscans in your 'hut.' The Dolomites have an incredible selection of high-altitude rifugios, or restaurants, many of the them stunningly gourmet and many with overnight accommodations, dotted throughout the region's peaks. This selection of mountain lodgings of high caliber is unparalleled on the planet. Macs Adventures offered self-guided trips staying at rifugios here and several companies offer longer trips including a night or two in rifugios, including Wilderness Travel, but for a more immersive guided hut to hut itinerary here, the top choice is MT Sobek. But this kind of travel is expanding beyond the Dolomites, and Backroads just added a broad slate of Lodge-to-Lodge trips around the world, including Peru, Nepal, the Pyrenees (Spain/France border) and the Mont Blanc/Chamonix region of the Alps combining Italy, Switzerland and France in one stunning trip. Lodges are a little more elaborate than mountain huts, essentially small rustic hotels in adventures places, and some are extremely luxurious. Norway is another country with a rich tradition of mountain cabins, and upscale tour operator Up Norway, a company doing just this one country, has just introduced a slate of these hut-to-hut trips, cherry picking special locales. The Dolomites region of Italy is rich with mountain rifugios, or restaurants with overnight lodging. The U.S. has several more rustic hut-to-hut systems, originally focused on backcountry skiing in winter, then expanded to mountain biking. The most famous are the 10th Mountain Division and San Juan Hut systems, both in Colorado, but the newest is the Aquarius Trail Hut System, five solar powered huts strategically set along a 190-mile route through some of Utah's most scenic backcountry and best mountain biking trails. Aquarius offer both self-guided and fully guided mountain biking trips, the latter in partnership with Escape Adventures, a company I had a great trip with in Nevada. Biking and hiking in Italy fuels an appetite for gelato. Doing exercise and burning calories goes great with guilt-free indulgence in great food and drink, and many of the best biking and hiking destinations are foodie paradise, from Italy to Japan. I've often described bike trips in Italy as riding from one gelato to the next, and I just did a hiking trip in Spain's Basque region where food was a huge part of the appeal, with daily lunches at tapas bars and San Sebastian being one of the world's greats culinary destinations. Food is a key part of enjoying a trip to Japan. For this reason, there has been a spate of food-centric active travel offerings, and both DuVine and Tourissimo (an Italy active travel specialist) offer annual series of chef (and sommelier) led bike (and Tourissimo also does hiking) tours, often with famous award-winning chefs. DuVine has a heavy food and wine focus on all of its 'regular' trips as well and is the rare company that includes wine at every meal because it is such a focus of the company that 'vine' is in its name, plus they have the one-hotel immersions noted above to food-centric resorts such as Blackberry Farm, TN. South America's Explora, covered above under single hotel stays, has a big focus on regional cuisine and the best wines of Chile and Argentina, also fully included in its rates. WalkJapan is a specialist in hiking trips across Japan and makes incredible meals and foodie education a centerpiece of its great guided trips, I just traveled with them for the first time and was wowed. They also have an even more immersive series of dedicated gastronomy walking trips. Butterfield & Robinson and Backroads both regularly feature standout meals, often at Michelin-starred restaurants or private chef dinners, as well as cooking classes on many trips. Backroads offer specific 'Active Culinary Hiking & Walking' tours in Provence and Tuscany, which take the normal food focus a step further and add market visits, more cooking, wine and olive oil tastings and more. This is the tastiest of the top 10 active travel trends for your next great hiking or cycling vacation.
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Travel + Leisure
6 days ago
- Travel + Leisure
Charging Ahead: How an E-bike Made My Portugal Vacation Amazing
'Have you guys heard of JOMO? It's the joy of missing out!' It was a reminder from guide Lander Crissman about the laid-back mindset we should be keeping on our e-biking adventure in southwestern Portugal organized by the outfitter Backroads. On this trip, there would be no time for work anxieties or type-A chasing of personal bests. Instead, our six-person group, along with two guides, would be spending six leisurely days biking through cork and olive groves, doing a touch of hiking, trying our hand at surfing, and kayaking the famous sea caves of the Algarve. We'd be staying at two beyond-luxurious hotels—each with a deluxe spa—and covering between 3½ and 27 miles a day. If that sounds like minimal mileage for a cycling tour, it is: Backroads calls this multisport itinerary a Dolce Tempo, or 'sweet time,' departure. We'd also get a boost in the form of custom-built pedal-assist e-bikes. From Left: The author on her e-bike adventure in Portugal; kayaking the sea caves of the Algarve. Kathy Roberson; Backroads I'm something of an overplanner when it comes to travel, so I was glad to leave all the decisions and logistics to the pros. What's more, the trip would be something of a callback to my younger days, when I took an annual bike trip for seven years straight. The desire not to be left behind was good motivation to hit the gym consistently throughout the year. But my idea of a workout is a low-impact yoga or Pilates class or, more often, pedaling an exercise bike while watching TV. With that kind of fitness routine, I'd always wind up underprepared (and the terrain would always have more hills than I'd thought). I'd find myself trailing behind, legs burning, feeling lonely and discouraged. I'd repeat a favorite saying of my yoga teacher: 'The body wants to move.' Well, it didn't. When, I would ask myself, would that support van be coming along? The physical stress of these trips was often accompanied by some social awkwardness, too. Most participants would be there with a partner, friend, or family member; I was always on my own. I would push myself to be more outgoing, but I found it hard to insert myself, particularly because I was usually the only person interested in taking it easy. One year, while cycling the Eastern Shore of Maryland—what must be some of the flattest terrain in the U.S.—I was not so much exhausted by the mileage as the monotony of the days. After pedaling for hours, I'd have only the time to shower, wash my sweaty outfit in the sink, and eat dinner before going to bed. My next group trips were out of the saddle: one was camping and kayaking in British Columbia; the other a week of rafting and hiking around Costa Rica. Still, there's a deep sigh of contentment and the sense of a completely empty mind that I can only find while on a bike. So I took another look at cycling trips, hoping to find a new (and flat) destination in which to pedal. Instead, I was encouraged to learn that e-bikes are commonly offered these days, particularly in Europe and the U.S., usually at no extra charge. Andy Levine, founder of the tour operator DuVine, says that e-bike demand has steadily grown, and that the technology has revolutionized cycling vacations. 'The fact is that e-bikes act as an equalizer,' Levine tells me. 'They make it easier to tackle climbs, ride longer distances, or simply keep pace with the group—especially if your heart is set on a tour with more advanced terrain.' On my Portugal trip, the bikes were perhaps too effective: at the close of each day's ride, I would find myself thinking, 'Is that it?' My outfit was never sweaty enough to need washing out. One day, we finished our activities at 3:30 p.m., with dinner 'at your leisure.' Both of our hotels, Praia do Canal Nature Retreat and Quinta da Comporta, were gloriously isolated from civilization. But that meant there was nowhere to go nearby. I hit the steam room to soothe my muscles, but the only thing that hurt was my backside. It turns out that JOMO isn't for me—though I'm still happy about this e-bike thing. Next year I'll book a more intense itinerary in some hilly place that I can brag about having 'biked across.' (I found that my pedal-assist bike could turn a hill into such an insignificant obstacle that it felt almost immoral.) Though I'm not single, I'll opt for a 'solos' departure, so I'll have an easier time mixing in with the group. And I might even go so far as to bring my own more comfortable bike seat. ALTITUDE SEEKERS E-bikes are a welcome boost on this six-day Butterfield & Robinson trip on which travelers ascend to 4,777 feet by way of Col du Pillon, in the Swiss Alps, and visit two cheese capitals: Gruyères and Emmental. CYCLE SAFARI Guests of andBeyond in the Phinda Private Game Reserve, in South Africa, can e-bike through the Sand Forest with a guide, spotting interesting birds like the Lebombo wattle. THE MICHELIN STARS In 2026, travelers can join Basque chef Mikel Olaizola on a DuVine tour of northern Spain's culinary hot spots, including pintxo bars and restaurants such as Akelaŕe, which has three Michelin stars, in San Sebastián. WHEELING THROUGH WINE COUNTRY On a Backroads trip in northern California, cyclists start near San Francisco, ride along the Russian River, and stop at tasting rooms in Napa and Sonoma counties.— Parker Wright A version of this story first appeared in the July 2025 issue of Travel + Leisure under the headline 'Charging Ahead.'
Yahoo
30-05-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Backroads Launches New Active Adventures for Travelers in Their 30s and 40s
34 Immersive Adventures Designed for Connection, Culture and Well-Being DENVER, May 30, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- Outside Festival -- Backroads, the global leader in active travel for all ages, today announced the launch of a new trip collection for adults in their 30s and 40s. Handpicked from the company's hundreds of iconic itineraries, these trips are tailored for a generation that sees travel as essential to well-being and seeks out meaningful, enriching experiences that fit into their busy, dynamic lifestyles. The new 30s & 40s Trips Collection features 34 culturally immersive itineraries with over 70 departures worldwide. Guests can explore the world through heli-hiking in the Canadian Rockies, cycling through coastal Italian villages, biking and bourbon tasting across Kentucky, trekking to Machu Picchu in Peru and even more—all with Backroads' hallmark support and hospitality. Travelers in this stage of life are often overlooked by traditional luxury travel companies, who tend to focus on affluent retirees or cater to families with young children. Yet, this generation has discretionary income and the desire for a well-designed, immersive vacation that combines active adventure with flexibility. These trips offer fully supported, out-of-the-ordinary itineraries with expert Trip Leaders and world-class hotels and offer the opportunity to socialize with same-age peers in a small group setting. "We're excited to expand our core offering of Classic trips with a curated collection of trips for this age group," said Avery Hale Smith, Chief Experience Officer of Backroads. "People in their 30s and 40s are prioritizing experiential travel and are more inclined to spend money on luxury travel experiences compared to prior generations. They're traveling more than ever but don't always have the time or desire to plan these adventures themselves. Our new 30s & 40s trips are the perfect way to recharge, connect and explore with a small group of peers." The new 30s & 40s trips will be available to book starting on June 26, 2025, with the first departures scheduled for spring 2026. Walking & Hiking Tours A Taste of Camino de Santiago Canadian Rockies Canadian Rockies Heli-Hiking Cinque Terre & Tuscany Dolomites Hut-to-Hut Peru Lodge-to-Lodge Trekking Pyrenees Lodge-to-Lodge Switzerland Multi-Adventure Tours Alaska's Glaciers & Coast Bali Basque Country Costa Rica Highlands to Coast Cuba Dolomites Portugal's Algarve & Alentejo Santorini & Crete Sardinia & Corsica Thailand Bike Tours Berlin to Prague California Wine Country Columbia River Gorge & Willamette Valley Ireland's County Cork & Kerry Kentucky Krakow to Budapest Madrid to Porto Maine Portugal's Algarve & Alentejo Puglia & Basilicata Quebec City to Montreal Scotland Spain's Mallorca Spanish Pyrenees to Costa Brava Sweden to Denmark Vietnam & Cambodia Visit Backroads at this year's Outside Music Festival in Denver, CO, May 31-June 1 as part of the Adventure Travel Trade Association's (ATTA) Travelers Village. Learn more about Backroads' new 30s & 40s trips at or call 800-462-2848. About Backroads Backroads was founded in 1979 by Tom Hale and has been a leading innovator in active and adventure travel for over 45 years. Guests join Backroads to bike, hike and so much more on expertly planned active adventures which highlight the unique character of each destination. The company offers multiple ways to go active in hundreds of destinations worldwide: Biking, Walking & Hiking and Multi-Adventure tours; Private Trips, Women's Adventures, Dolce Tempo Easygoing Journeys, adventures for 30s & 40s and Family Trips for families with children in distinct age groups: Kids & Teens, Teens & 20s and 20s & Beyond. Backroads trip collections also include Active Ocean & River Cruises, Unplugged Bike Tours (no e-bikes), Lodge-to-Lodge Hiking, Safari, Culinary and Home Base Trips. Repeat guests and referrals from past travelers make up the majority of guests hosted by Backroads each year. For more information, please visit or call 800-462-2848. Backroads Media ContactLiz Einbinder liz_einbinder@ 510-292-2753 View original content to download multimedia: SOURCE Backroads Sign in to access your portfolio
Yahoo
30-05-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Backroads Launches New Active Adventures for Travelers in Their 30s and 40s
34 Immersive Adventures Designed for Connection, Culture and Well-Being DENVER, May 30, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- Outside Festival -- Backroads, the global leader in active travel for all ages, today announced the launch of a new trip collection for adults in their 30s and 40s. Handpicked from the company's hundreds of iconic itineraries, these trips are tailored for a generation that sees travel as essential to well-being and seeks out meaningful, enriching experiences that fit into their busy, dynamic lifestyles. The new 30s & 40s Trips Collection features 34 culturally immersive itineraries with over 70 departures worldwide. Guests can explore the world through heli-hiking in the Canadian Rockies, cycling through coastal Italian villages, biking and bourbon tasting across Kentucky, trekking to Machu Picchu in Peru and even more—all with Backroads' hallmark support and hospitality. Travelers in this stage of life are often overlooked by traditional luxury travel companies, who tend to focus on affluent retirees or cater to families with young children. Yet, this generation has discretionary income and the desire for a well-designed, immersive vacation that combines active adventure with flexibility. These trips offer fully supported, out-of-the-ordinary itineraries with expert Trip Leaders and world-class hotels and offer the opportunity to socialize with same-age peers in a small group setting. "We're excited to expand our core offering of Classic trips with a curated collection of trips for this age group," said Avery Hale Smith, Chief Experience Officer of Backroads. "People in their 30s and 40s are prioritizing experiential travel and are more inclined to spend money on luxury travel experiences compared to prior generations. They're traveling more than ever but don't always have the time or desire to plan these adventures themselves. Our new 30s & 40s trips are the perfect way to recharge, connect and explore with a small group of peers." The new 30s & 40s trips will be available to book starting on June 26, 2025, with the first departures scheduled for spring 2026. Walking & Hiking Tours A Taste of Camino de Santiago Canadian Rockies Canadian Rockies Heli-Hiking Cinque Terre & Tuscany Dolomites Hut-to-Hut Peru Lodge-to-Lodge Trekking Pyrenees Lodge-to-Lodge Switzerland Multi-Adventure Tours Alaska's Glaciers & Coast Bali Basque Country Costa Rica Highlands to Coast Cuba Dolomites Portugal's Algarve & Alentejo Santorini & Crete Sardinia & Corsica Thailand Bike Tours Berlin to Prague California Wine Country Columbia River Gorge & Willamette Valley Ireland's County Cork & Kerry Kentucky Krakow to Budapest Madrid to Porto Maine Portugal's Algarve & Alentejo Puglia & Basilicata Quebec City to Montreal Scotland Spain's Mallorca Spanish Pyrenees to Costa Brava Sweden to Denmark Vietnam & Cambodia Visit Backroads at this year's Outside Music Festival in Denver, CO, May 31-June 1 as part of the Adventure Travel Trade Association's (ATTA) Travelers Village. Learn more about Backroads' new 30s & 40s trips at or call 800-462-2848. About Backroads Backroads was founded in 1979 by Tom Hale and has been a leading innovator in active and adventure travel for over 45 years. Guests join Backroads to bike, hike and so much more on expertly planned active adventures which highlight the unique character of each destination. The company offers multiple ways to go active in hundreds of destinations worldwide: Biking, Walking & Hiking and Multi-Adventure tours; Private Trips, Women's Adventures, Dolce Tempo Easygoing Journeys, adventures for 30s & 40s and Family Trips for families with children in distinct age groups: Kids & Teens, Teens & 20s and 20s & Beyond. Backroads trip collections also include Active Ocean & River Cruises, Unplugged Bike Tours (no e-bikes), Lodge-to-Lodge Hiking, Safari, Culinary and Home Base Trips. Repeat guests and referrals from past travelers make up the majority of guests hosted by Backroads each year. For more information, please visit or call 800-462-2848. Backroads Media ContactLiz Einbinder liz_einbinder@ 510-292-2753 View original content to download multimedia: SOURCE Backroads Sign in to access your portfolio
Forbes
22-05-2025
- Business
- Forbes
Backroads Creates New Adventure Trips For Millennials And Gen Zers
Backroads' new 30s & 40s collection Backroads, which calls itself the world's #1 active travel company, is known for its walking, biking, and multi-adventure trips all over the globe. Now it's appealing to millennials and Gen Zers with a new offering of 34 trips and more than 70 departures designed for travelers in their 30s and 40s. The company's new 30s & 40s collection is based on some of Backroads' best itineraries. It includes a Dolomites Walking & Hiking Tour, a Peru Lodge-to-Lodge Trekking, and a Berlin to Prague Bike Tour. What makes these trips different is fresh energy and the company of active travelers at a similar younger life stage. 'There was an opportunity out there to create a segment of trips with guests at a similar stage of life in their 30s and 40s.' 'We saw a huge gap in the market in terms of luxury group travel and active travel trips for guests in their 30s and 40s,' Avery Hale Smith, Backroads' Chief Experience Officer, said in an interview. Smith, who's spearheading this launch, added that 'a lot of the companies out there who do focus on millennials are focusing on either extreme sports or maybe budget trips or just solo travelers. Nobody is really doing it in the way Backroads is doing it,' Backroads' new 30s & 40s Collection The way Backroads does it is offering active travel – walking, biking, and multi-adventures –mixed with various levels of luxury, carefully planned itineraries, well-trained and enthusiastic trip leaders, memorable hotels, a focus on food and wine, and a wide range of destinations worldwide. Backroads was groundbreaking when they began segmenting their trips years ago, offering Classic trips designed for couples, friends, and solos, and then classifying family trips by children's age groups. In 2023, they launched Women's Adventures. Now they've targeted younger travelers with the same approach. Backroads' new 30s & 40s Collection 'There was an opportunity out there to create a segment of trips with guests at a similar stage of life in their 30s and 40s,' Smith said, 'and we had seen so much success with our age-segmented trips in the past. There is sort of a shared experience when you are of the same age category or bracket that leads to that greater sense of connection, and we think that this will be a huge part of the experience.' 'We are coming into the largest wealth transfer in history,' Smith said, referring to the Great Wealth Transfer, where $27 trillion is expected to pass from boomers to their offspring by 2045. 'Millennials are starting to really prioritize experiences and experiential travel. They are willing to spend money on travel more than the past generation.' These trips are also an opportunity to jump on a transforming world, as generations shift. 'We are coming into the largest wealth transfer in history,' Smith said, referring to the Great Wealth Transfer, where $27 trillion is expected to pass from boomers to their offspring by 2045. 'Millennials are starting to really prioritize experiences and experiential travel. They are willing to spend money on travel more than the past generation, and so we really want to be able to take advantage of that and meet the demand with these trips.' The '30's & 40's collection is based on Backroads Classic Trips. While they are not physically more challenging, 'we did curate this collection of itineraries in a way that we think will cater most to what in our 30s and 40s are looking for,' Smith noted. From our own market research and the guest feedback that we've gotten, there are a few themes that rise to the top in terms of what people are looking for.' Backroads' new 30s & 40s Collection Smith says that 'bucket list destinations, and off the beaten path locations, deep authenticity and cultural immersion in terms of meals and food' are important. Less so are Michelin-star experiences. Instead, she said it will likely be 'farm to table or hidden gem locations that we think might resonate better with this demographic.' Other trips that are part of the 30s & 40s collection are Canadian Rockies Heli-Hiking Tour, Vietnam & Cambodia Bike Tour, A Taste of Camino de Santiago Walking & Hiking Tour, and Alaska's Glaciers & Coast Multi-Adventure Tour. 'One of the great things about these trips is that so many of our trip leaders are within this demographic themselves,' Smith said. 'They play a really integral role in the Backroads trip experience on all of our trips, but we expect that they're actually going to enhance the trip experience of these 30s and 40s even more so can really speak to the vision behind it, including how Backroads is evolving with the next generation of adventurous travelers.' Visit the Backroads 30s & 40s collection.
