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Travel Blog Archives
Travel Blog posts insightful comments on the latest international news that render us taken-aback in the domain of the travel facet of life. Travel Blog: Adventure-Travel News 1 Adventure travel for families snowballs: Aug 9, 2007 by Gene Sloan
GLACIER NATIONAL PARK, Mont. — Melanie McQuaig smiles as she watches a dozen children playing amid the wildflowers in the distance. Among them are her two girls, ages 6 and 11, who should be tired after hiking nearly 4 miles up a narrow mountain trail to this glorious lunch spot — a remote subalpine meadow flanked by towering peaks. And yet the girls don't even seem winded. "Being with other kids and hip young guides is so much more motivating for them," says McQuaig, 44, of Wenatchee, Wash., looking on as the children bound off with a twentysomething guide to fill their water bottles from a glacier-fed creek. "I don't think they'd do a hike like this at home without complaining." Travel Blog: Adventure Travel News 1 (Continued) After lunch, even the least adventurous among the six families hiking with the McQuaigs will tackle another 4 miles. Some will go twice that far — and for the most part come out grinning. "The kids were blazing on ahead, just chatting, chatting, chatting," notes McQuaig after finishing the longer trek along Glacier's famed Highline Trail. "It was us old guys in the back." For millions of American families, summer vacation means little more than a lazy week lounging on a beach. Millions more head for the relative relaxation of a cruise ship or the manufactured fun of a theme park. But like the McQuaigs, who are on an activity-packed, five-night "multisport" camping tour of northwestern Montana organized by active travel company Backroads, a growing number of families are choosing a more adventurous option. Travel Blog: Adventure Travel News 1 (Continued)
Launched in 1989, Backroads' line of family-focused hiking, biking and multisport adventures, dubbed Backroads Family Trips, has been growing at a rapid pace. Bookings this year alone are up 35%. Similar increases are being reported in family offerings from other leading outdoor tour companies such as Mountain Travel Sobek and Butterfield & Robinson. Luxury tour operator Abercrombie & Kent, with a 30% rise in families booking adventure tours this year, created a website especially for family adventures, akadventurecrew.com. The companies say the boom is partly the result of the growing family focus among their core baby boomer and post-boomer clientele, who now have kids old enough to bike, hike and raft. Always an outdoorsy crowd, they now want to bring their kids along when they set off on adventures. Travel Blog: Adventure Travel News 1 (Continued) Backroads president Tom Hale also credits simple word-of-mouth, as it finally gets around that once adult-focused adventure companies are offering family-focused trips as elaborate as Backroads' Glacier Family Multisport, as this $1,800-a-person outing is called. Over the course of six days, the ever-upbeat Backroads staffers — four trip leaders and an assistant — move camp four times between leading day-long bike rides, hikes and a raft outing in and around Montana's mountainous Glacier National Park and its Canadian cousin just across the border, Waterton Lakes National Park. The staffers take care of everything, from setting up tents and rolling out sleeping bags (all of which they provide) to preparing hearty meals. They even outfit customers with bikes, hauled campsite-to-campsite atop two large Backroads vans. Travel Blog: Adventure Travel News 1 (Continued) "Backroads handles the logistics so well, it really frees you up," says Jay Downs, 52, a lawyer from Dallas who is here with his daughter Caitlin, 14, and son Blake, 11. "You get to see more and do more and spend more time with the kids." Downs is chatting during a walk along Upper Waterton Lake, a fjord-like finger of crystal-clear glacial meltwater that cuts through the mountains on the Canadian side. It's Day 4, and he and his kids already have biked a mountain road overlooking Glacier's Lake McDonald (Day 1) and hiked past mountain goats on the Highline Trail (Day 2), reached via the park's cliff-hugging Going-to-the-Sun Road. The trip, like others in Backroads' family line, isn't quite as strenuous as the company's adult-oriented itineraries (which can include as much as 100 miles of biking a day). Travel Blog: Adventure Travel News 1 (Continued) Still, even the most ambitious adventurers won't be disappointed. On Day 3, two of the leaders take most of the kids horseback riding, while the adults and a few older kids set off on what just about anyone would consider a tough outing — a 48-mile bike ride northward along the eastern edge of the park that passes through rolling ranchland and thick evergreen forests. The ride, which begins in the USA and ends in Canada, is an all-day affair that stretches many of the riders, most of whom only bike occasionally on weekends. But as with other outings, the guides offer several shorter options, including a 29-mile route that skips the second of two grueling 6-mile uphill climbs. Travel Blog: Adventure Travel News 1 (Continued) As is customary with Backroads, one of the (seemingly indefatigable) leaders, Kate Meyers, 28, patrols the sparsely used roadway in one of the two support vans, offering reassurance as well as everything from snacks and drinks to sunscreen and bug spray. Got a flat tire? Need a boost up the next hill? Kate is there in a jiffy. "It's encouraging," says Greg Thomas, 44, an oral surgeon from San Francisco who says just knowing the vans are there makes him try things he wouldn't otherwise attempt. "You know if you need them, they'll be there." Pushing limits is a recurring theme with the families on the trip. Travel Blog: Adventure Travel News 1 (Continued) Rosemay Vazeux, 53, a scientist from Seattle, says she's thrilled to see her son Alex, 15, and daughter Iris, 13, embrace new challenges. On Day 3, Alex biked nearly 49 miles, she says. "He's never done more than five." Vazeux, who has been on similar trips with other outdoor companies, says she thinks such trips help build self-confidence in children. Not to mention social skills. "They've learned how to make friends quickly," she says, standing near the campfire two days later at Glacier's Two Medicine Campground, where her children and others are making s'mores. Travel Blog: Adventure Travel News 1 (Continued) Thomas, whose two kids, ages 5 and 7, are among the youngest on the trip, notes that even the littlest ones have joined in on the fun. "It's like Sebastian is on drugs," he says of his 7-year-old. "He doesn't want to sleep. He doesn't want to eat. He doesn't want to miss anything." Because the children are living in tents just feet apart from each other, they quickly bond — as do the adults. The families eat together at picnic tables each morning and evening (the trip leaders whip up everything from lasagna to steamed salmon in Dutch ovens placed on charcoal campfires). And most afternoons, after the day's activity is finished, the kids can be found roaming the campsite in a pack — talking, playing (by the second night a whiffle ball and bat have appeared) or heading down to the nearest lake for a swim. Travel Blog: Adventure Travel News 1 (Continued) The ages of the children range widely, from 5 to 15. But far from their normal milieu, they seem to pull together despite their differences — even to the point of becoming fast friends. Indeed, two of the families, the Downses from Dallas and the Palmers from Boston, met a year ago on a Backroads camping trip in Wyoming's Yellowstone National Park and have kept in touch. Travel Blog: Adventure Travel News 1 (Continued) "Why did I come on this trip? It's twofold," Downs says during the walk at Waterton. "I love the outdoors and want to see these places. But I also love the fact that the kids can get together, roam around and have that feeling of independence." Caitlin, his 14-year-old, agrees. "It's the fantastic people," she says. "I like being away from home and meeting new people." Travel Blog Comment: What about hiring the services of a travel agency as you plan for a business travel for yourself, or a corporate travel for your employees, or else an adventure travel either for your own or for your staff? Either don't call it travel, or if you do, do infuse it with a spirit of travel too, i.e., the element of suspense along with the real definition of travel in it. So, do take the services of an agency but only up to the point of business, or corporate affairs, or adventure tools; but leave the travel part to the uncertainty of the suspense that this trip has in store for you! I invite you to subscribe to my E-zine titled Life Coach, free of charge. This E-zine publishes insightful comments on the latest international news that render us taken-aback in the domains of various facets of life. A not-to-be-missed opportunity! Subscribe to it here: I also invite you to subscribe to my Life Blog - no need to provide your e-mail address here. This RSS feed keeps you informed about new developments taking place on this site. It also harbors 25 journal bloglets posting insightful comments on the latest international news that render us taken-aback in the domains of various facets of life. 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