How about a luxury tour of your own backyard?
For their honeymoon in 2019, Brian Sugrue and his wife took a cycling trip in Portugal with DuVine Cycling + Adventure Co., when they’d been treated to farm lunches and dinner in the home of a winemaker. Last fall, unable to travel abroad during the pandemic, Sugrue, who lives in Boston, signed up for one of the company’s new American trips — in Vermont — with a group of friends.
“I’d never looked at paying to just do a trip in the United States in part because we’re in the United States and I’m only two hours from southern Vermont,” Sugrue said. The four-day experience, roughly $3,800 a person, including lunch on a farm and a dedicated chef who cooked outdoors at their inn, exceeded his expectations.
“I’d been there two to three dozen times, and we barely touched a road I’d been on before,” he said.
Like a lot of tour operators, DuVine, best known for food-centric cycling itineraries in Europe, has had to narrow its focus during the pandemic, adding domestic trips in Maui, New York’s Hudson Valley, and Aspen, Colorado, among other places.
Americans taking luxury group tours of America is not the norm; those are often designed for travelers going abroad. But with international tourism stalled by travel restrictions and border closures, some U.S. operators are taking the opportunity to sell backyard travel to domestic travelers based on their expertise, secured access to popular things like national park lodges, and practical matters like flexible cancellation policies.
“Our value proposition as a tour operator is strengthened at a time like this,” said Terry Dale, president and chief executive of the United States Tour Operators Association.
Based on where its members say they want to travel, the outdoor retailer REI is shifting all of its adventure trips to domestic destinations by June. Abercrombie & Kent, well known for its African safaris, will offer American safaris among its five new stateside itineraries. Globe-trotting operator G Adventures created a “United States of Adventure” collection of 15 domestic itineraries, including three new trips in the Western national parks and Hawaii. Luxury tour operator Classic Journeys has doubled the regions in the United States that it visits. And after Intrepid Travel sold out its early trips in Utah and Alaska, it added 29 domestic departures.
With increasing rates of vaccination in the country and demand for travel rising, tour operators are anticipating a mostly American restart this summer, offering new slates of guided or custom-planned itineraries to see the national parks and states with wilderness to spare, such as Alaska.
Baby steps and flexibility
Though the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention continues to caution against discretionary travel for the unvaccinated, many Americans, encouraged by the vaccine rollout, are making summer plans. The latest tracking study of U.S. travelers by Longwoods International, a market research firm, found 88% have travel plans in the next six months, the highest number in over a year.
“Some people are a bit nervous about traveling and not ready to make the big step to Asia or Africa,” said Bruce Poon Tip, founder of G Adventures. “Baby steps are first to start local.”
To encourage them, companies have eased their cancellation policies, subjects of the most frequently asked questions by travelers, according to USTOA, the tour operators association.
At Intrepid Travel, guests can transfer their trip deposits to another itinerary up to 21 days before departure. G Adventures allows rebooking up to 30 days predeparture on 2021 trips booked through June 30. VBT Bicycling Vacations offers refunds on trips canceled up to 91 days before departure.
While planning your own trip is a thrill for some, it’s a task for others, which is where tour operators step in, touting themselves as time savers and destination experts.
Caroline Turenne, 17, of Seekonk, Massachusetts, booked a July hiking trip in Utah with G Adventures, based on the company’s knowledge of the area.
“When we were looking at Airbnb rates, we figured we’d be better off traveling with a guide that would know the area, the best things to do, and to walk us through it,” she said.
Health and safety protocols
Group departures will, of course, be different this year. As the pandemic continues, operators are cutting group sizes to allow for social distancing and ensuring that their guides are at least tested for COVID-19, if not vaccinated.
A handful of operators require guests to be vaccinated, including two small U.S.-based cruise lines, American Queen Steamboat Co. and Victory Cruise Lines. Tour company Globus and its affiliates Cosmos and Monograms require proof of vaccination, a negative COVID-19 test before departure or proof of recovery from the virus.
Touring national parks, hard-to-book lodges included
Competition for the best accommodations or even a campsite in a national park may also sway travelers to tour companies. At Yellowstone National Park, for example, visitation in 2020 outpaced 2019 every month from July through December.
“Last year was more spontaneous, but this year I’m seeing a return to preplanning,” said Aaron Bailey, who offers his guiding services in the Yellowstone region through ToursByLocals, including a threeday trip for up to four people priced at $4,200. “They’re going for a guide because they want a good experience and don’t want to be caught up in the race.”
Although there’s a perennial summer rush on national park accommodations, the difference this year “is that campgrounds and cabins are going first versus hotel rooms,” said Betsy O’Rourke, chief marketing officer for the Xanterra Travel Collection, which manages several national park accommodations, including El Tovar Hotel and Bright Angel Lodge in Grand Canyon National Park. Many lodges are already sold out for much of the summer.
One way to get a room in a park is to book with a tour operator (though quickly, as many dates this summer are sold out). National Geographic Expeditions, for example, has eightday trips that visit Grand Canyon, Bryce and Zion national parks from May into October and include coveted stays in two of the three parks (from $4,995 a person).
Tauck’s eight-day itineraries in Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks include park lodging (from $4,390). From the Jackson Lake Lodge in Grand Teton, travelers set out to raft the Snake River. A stay at Old Faithful Inn in Yellowstone gives guests unlimited access to the namesake geyser. The trip works its way north with a night at the park’s Mammoth Hot Springs Hotel before spending a day riding horses at a Wyoming ranch and continuing east to Mount Rushmore National Memorial in South Dakota.
Alaska, the next frontier
For all the interest in wide-open spaces, one of the widest-open states, Alaska, does not expect a return to prepandemic activity, given that large ship cruises are unlikely to resume sailing this year (small ship tours with companies like Lindblad, where ships carry no more than 100 passengers, will continue).
In 2019, before the pandemic, cruising accounted for 60% of summer visitors to Alaska.
“We are open even without large cruise travel,” said Sarah Leonard, president and chief executive of the Alaska Travel Industry Association, noting that some travel businesses are now pursuing small group tours and independent travelers.
Tour company Trafalgar reported a more than 50% jump in Alaska bookings this summer. Responding to demand, Backroads recently increased its departures there, including a six-day, multisport tour in and around Kenai Fjords National Park, with hiking, cycling and kayaking excursions (from $3,949 a person).
Prepandemic land tours to Alaska were already booming at Off the Beaten Path, a small-group and custom tour operator that specializes in active and national park travel, and have grown since. Its 12-day “True Alaska” tour starts in Katmai National Park looking for bears digging for razor clams and fishing for salmon, and ends in the vast Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve for flight-seeing and glacier hikes, with overnights in wilderness lodges (from $9,300 a person).
“Before the pandemic, Alaska was seen as remote, clean, wide-open spaces, so naturally that was one of the first blips to come back to the radar screen,” said Cory Lawrence, president and chief executive of Off the Beaten Path.