Boldly Go Solo

Backroads, an active travel company, has come out with an idea whose time has come…but whose price is high: Short getaways. As in, three- and four-day trips.

Biking in the San Juan Islands. Hiking and biking in Bryce and Zion national parks. Biking part of the Natchez Trace, a route from Natchez, Mississippi to Nashville, Tennessee. Biking in France's Loire Valley.

Maybe life's too hectic sometimes to take off for a full week but you can grab a long weekend here or there. Or maybe it's easier for "newbie" solo travelers to go on a short vacation if they don't feel like they'll be "stuck" for a whole week. 

I envision these offerings as trips you can tack on to one end or another of a business trip. Or as a way for a solo traveler to enjoy the company of strangers for a few days and then wander off on his or her own, feeling comfortably familiar by then with the destination.

I seem to recall that when VBT Bicycling Vacations
was called Vermont Biking Tours  (or something like that), they also offered biking
weekends in Vermont. I don't see those shorter tours on
its Web site now. Perhaps it didn't work as a business model or
just wasn't as popular as week-long vacations. We'll have to see how
Backroads experiment works out.

The problem for me with the Backroads trips is the price. A three-day weekend of biking in Banff and Lake Louise, in the Canadian Rockies, costs $1,598. Another $500 for the single supplement. Plus travel to and from the starting point.

As soon as I find a sugar daddy, I'll be heading right out on one of these…

Some people clearly are happy, or at least willing, to spend the money for
luxury travel and top-notch accommodations. Backroads has been around nearly 30 years.
SOMEONE'S paying to go on those trips.

I,
for one, think it's a great idea to offer shorter trips. I hope other
less expensive tour operators follow in Backroads footsteps. Or bike path.