Age-Appropriate Fun With Backroads Adventure Travel

If you’ve ever tried a family tour package only to find the other children on the trip are either a lot older or younger than yours, you know the frustration of trying to get everyone to fit in. Let’s face it, teens don’t typically want to hang with toddlers and vice versa.

Adventure travel company Backroads is confronting this problem head on with an expanded series of summer itineraries that break down into three age categories — younger kids (aged 4–12), families with teens and older kids (aged 9–19) and families with older teens and 20-somethings (aged 17-plus). The idea is you and your family can travel with other families whose children are in a similar age range.

Trips are designed so families can enjoy time together as well as independently, parents can connect with other parents and kids can have fun and make new friends of similar ages during kids-only activities specifically designed for them to keep engaged and entertained.

The tours are categorized into Biking, Walking & Hiking and Multi-Adventure Tours, and summer family trip destinations include national parks like Yosemite, Glacier, Yellowstone, the Tetons, Bryce, Zion and the Grand Canyon. In Europe, the tours include such family favorites as the Dalmatian Coast, Iceland and Switzerland.

Hiking on gravel path, Croatia. Photo: Uros Medved | Dreamstime.com

Backroads, which has designed and led trips for families for more than 30 years, created these new age-specific products in response to a growing demand for active family travel, as well as requests from repeat guests who travel with Backroads as their kids grow.

“We understand the unique dynamics at play when families travel, from that first real summer vacation when kids are old enough to enjoy it, to the milestone trips that expose older kids and teens to new cultures and experiences,” said Tom Hale, founder and president, Backroads. “We know that family interests and fitness levels vary — and life stages and ages play a key role. We design our trips with this in mind.”

On family adventures in Italy, for example, parents can choose the biking or hiking route most appropriate for their family, and kids can learn how to make pizza in a hands-on cooking class

In South Africa, Tanzania or Ecuador’s Galapagos, families can witness unforgettable wildlife in their natural habitat, or you can take the kids camping in a national park, sea kayaking along the Dalmatian Coast, surfing in Spain’s Basque Country or riding horseback in Iceland. Whatever adventure you choose, not only will the activities be age-appropriate, but you’ll be in good company.