Put together everything you love about Italy: a warm climate, the rugged coastline, mountains, food, history, wine and rich cultural traditions. Lake Garda, at 31 miles long and touching three Italian provinces, manages to offer it all.

The perfect cycling combination awaits in the rolling desert hills near St. George, Utah: a butt-kicking workout on the way up followed by an adrenaline-pumping downhill race. When I first rode up Snow Canyon last summer, it was a real "sufferfest." Finally I crested that last sweaty hill, pushing m…

Before I became a Backroads Trip Leader, a crazy project took me on a bicycle adventure along the spine of the Americas, from northern Canada to southern Argentina, chasing down the Rockies, the Sierra Madre and the Andes mountains. Here is what I consider to be the top ten best road segments from t…

Normally bikes aren't allowed on the Biltmore Estate, the 7,000-acre park with a château-like mansion that's the largest private home in the US. But we've managed to gain access for Backroads guests on our Asheville to Greenville bike tour. Riding up to this monument of the Gilded Age is just one of…

Yellowstone and Grand Teton are two of the best national parks in the United States for viewing wildlife... the "Big Five" refers to the most popular animals that visitors hope to see in the parks: American bison, elk, gray wolves, grizzly bears and moose. Whether you are driving, cycling, hiking, r…

We've biked in the San Juan Islands since the earliest days of Backroads and know every inch of the great routes we've linked together with help from island-hopping ferries and an amazing network of local friends. We're constantly fine-tuning our itineraries, keeping what's great, revisiting what's…

The banks of the Danube are soaked in history, having witnessed the rise and fall of countless empires. Today, within the cities along the Danube, the past remains visible in stunning clarity. An imperial glow is embedded within the very masonry of capitals like Vienna and Budapest. One stands at th…

It's said that long ago in the Bernese Oberland region of Switzerland, there were two monasteries at the top of the world. One, on a peak called the Jungfrau (the virgin), is where the women would stay. The other, called the Eiger (the ogre), housed the men. In the middle stood the most formidable o…

This captivating region offers much more than canals and windmills... not that you won't see plenty of both as you bike flat, quiet roads through landscapes straight out of masterpieces by Cuyp or van Ruisdael. After riding in the Netherlands and Belgium for more than 20 years, we know both countrie…

I grew up smack-dab in between Los Angeles and Santa Barbara… That gorgeous drive up the 101 freeway never gets old—thousands of acres of California's farms ultimately give way to majestic mountains and the Pacific Ocean. Between the years of family trips to Santa Barbara and the years of driving th…