Discovery Bicycle Tours

This tour has everything! On the Cape we follow beach roads and a beautiful bike path as we weave our way past salt marshes, cranberry bogs, wooded bird sanctuaries, barrier beaches and tidal flats filled with egrets, geese and ducks.A scenic ferry ride takes us to Martha's Vineyard and elegant Edgartown, a colonial seaport whose rows of handsome 18th-century houses are reminders of the great wealth of the early whaler captains. Our gorgeous cycling takes us to Katama with its beautiful three mile barrier beach, and to historic West Tisbury. We visit Vineyard Haven, ride past historic West Chop Light and ride 'up island' to the spectacular lookout at Aquinnah Cliffs (formerly Gay Head). We enjoy a picnic in the picturesque fishing village of Menemsha where we bike down to the harbor and stroll along beautiful Menemsha Beach. Our last day we can opt for an early morning ferry ride to Chappaquiddick before cycling along a beautiful bike path to Oak Bluffs. Here we explore famous labyrinthine streets lined with fanciful rainbow-colored gingerbread cottages and visit the town's antique Flying Horses Carousel before returning to the inn.Our two inns are the best! On the Cape we stay at the charming Palmer House Inn perfectly situated in the tree-lined historic district of Falmouth. And in Edgartown, we enjoy the wonderful rooms at the Harbor View Hotel where you can look out past the Edgartown Lighthouse and Chappaquiddick Island. From here, you can enjoy walking the narrow streets of this former whaling seaport with its handsome 18th- century houses, manicured lawns and white picket fences, as well as its renowned high-end boutiques and art galleries.

Here the Ionian and Adriatic seas give us warm weather, blue-green crystal clear waters, and endless white sand beaches, while inland our easy cycling takes us past vast groves of gnarled olive trees, green pastures with sheep and goats, yellow fields of wheat, and Italy's largest and most beautiful vineyards. There is a wonderful variety of towns and villages with their grand medieval houses, ancient cathedrals and fortresses, and wonderful small parks and narrow streets where around every corner you might find bits of Renaissance sculpture, tumbling flowers, and splashing fountains. And then there is the food! Pugliese food is delightfully simple, local, and often enjoyed with superb local wines. Enjoy freshly caught fish, the trademark orecchiette pasta, and local lamb, the centerpiece of many meals. And in Puglia the vegetables and cheeses have an almost cult status, so that even the simplest brushetta with arugula, homemade mozzarella and fresh tomatoes makes for a perfect Italian midday meal.Our tour is a leisurely highlight reel of all these things that make Puglia so special. Each day combines perfect cycling (and daily additional options) with wonderful feasts, the very best accommodations, and visits to such places as Matera with its haunting sassi district; Alberobello with its comical trulli; Ostuni the iconic 'white city'; the island 'old town' in Gallipoli; serene and beautiful Santa Maria di Leuca; historic Otranto overlooking the Adriatic; and Baroque and beautiful Lecce, the 'Florence of the south.'
You will not want this tour to ever end!

We have selected absolutely stunning accommodations and include superb meals, wine tastings, and a personalized walking tour of Siena. You will be led by talented, engaging, and very experienced bilingual Italian guides, whose intimate knowledge of love of all things, places, and people Italian will assure that your vacation is a visual, culinary, and cultural delight.We have taken great care to develop a tour that offers you the full pleasures of the enchanting Tuscan countryside as well as visits to a delightful collection of small villages and towns. We travel through vineyards, past olive groves, and along narrow ancient roads lined with cypress. We wander the narrow alleyways of tiny medieval villages like Murlo, Montisi, and Castlemuzio; listen as the monks chant at Sant'Antimo; relive movie scenes from 'The English Patient' as we stroll the grounds of Santa Anna in Caprena; delight in a visit to the elegant Castello Banfi Estate and vineyards; and spoil ourselves on our last night at the 5-star spa hotel, Fonteverde.We are also the fortunate beneficiaries of the Italian obsession with all things culinary. Abundant regional produce, wild game, local mushrooms, olive oil, pecorino cheese, local truffles, and homemade pastas, all complemented with the finest local wines (and a superb wine tasting event!) assures that we will be treated to the finest regional cuisine imaginable.The hotels are quite exquisite. Each was carefully selected by us not only for its superior quality but also to ensure that you are always staying within the city walls so you can stroll the narrow streets, visit the shops, see the sights at your leisure, and immerse yourself in all the day-to-day Italian experiences that make this a true adventure.

Join us to bike the best sights in Death Valley, the largest national park in the Lower 48 states. With its sand dunes, slot canyons and salt flats, Death Valley is a land of surreal beauty and extremes. This is a popular cycling destination for good reason — the location makes for great riding in the shoulder seasons, there are plenty of cycling-friendly roads, and the views are out-of-this-world spectacular.

The trip begins and ends in Las Vegas. You enjoy all five nights of the trip inside the park, staying in just two inns. During the 6-day trip, you visit the park’s top scenic highlights — including Badwater Basin, Artist’s Palette, the quirky Rhyolite Ghost Town, and the Ubehebe Crater. On your last day, you enjoy a 5000’ descent from Towne Pass before heading back to Vegas.

Whitewashed lighthouses perched on rocky shores, evergreen forests and open meadows, fresh seafood, galleries, seals, ducks, geese and jabbering seagulls - these are the images of a Maine that does exist, and our tour, based on beautiful Mount Desert, takes you there.Enjoy breathtaking ocean scenery and explore villages such as the boatbuilding center of Southwest Harbor, the yachting mecca of Northeast Harbor, and the commercial fishing village of Bass Harbor.Ferry to Swan's Island where you cycle past picturesque Burntcoat Harbor on your way to a picnic at Hockamock Head Lighthouse.Enjoy a morning of professionally guided kayaking along the quiet inlets of Pretty Marsh Harbor and later, a real 'Down East' lobster feast.Ride into Acadia National Park, truly a cyclist's paradise. Miles of carriage roads wind gently through pine forests and lovely stands of beech and maple, curve around sparkling freshwater lakes and secluded ponds, and then lead you out to magnificent seascapes along the Atlantic shoreline.Finally, we enjoy all of this while staying at two superb inns. You are guests at the renowned Claremont Hotel, located on lovely Sommes Sound, as well as at the prestigious Bar Harbor Inn located on Frenchman's Bay and just a short walk from 'downtown' Bar Harbor with its multitude of stores, craft shops, museums and galleries.

Gorgeous flat coastal biking terrain awaits you as we explore the shores of the Chesapeake Bay, bike on pleasant tree-lined roads and wind our way by rivers, bays and estuaries that define this region. In fact, Adventure Cyclist Magazine calls this one of the ten best places to tour in North America. As further enticement, you will spend five nights in two of the area's prettiest towns and best of inns, and each evening enjoy local specialties such as crab cakes, oysters, fish, Maryland barbecue and other exceptional cuisine offered by local eateries.The Chesapeake is the largest inland estuary in the world and it divides this land into hundreds of small bays and inlets, while rivers thread the entire peninsula. We ride past beautiful Tidewater farms, passing by 18th and 19th-century grand manor houses and old farmsteads, all the while enjoying the gentle pace and quiet countryside. The roads are mostly flat to gently rolling, so this is a perfect area to revive your cycling legs and tune up your skills.

Winding from the Pyrenees to the gently rolling fields and woods of Galicia, this ancient system of trails and roads is now the most popular long-distance trail in Europe, renown for its stunningly varied landscape, its ancient villages, beautiful meadowlands, rolling hills, the famous vineyards of the Rioja region, and a treasure trove of historical sites, churches and cathedrals, religious art and some of the most extraordinary architecture in the western world. Add to this the wonders of such beautiful towns as Pamplona, Burgos, Leon and the wondrous city of Santiago de Compostela, and you have a magical and fascinating tour indeed.The basic concept of this tour is to stay on or next to the traditional Pilgrimage route, so at times you will need to decide between riding a somewhat challenging section of the pathway or taking a paved option, and there are locations where we will need to transfer you short distances by van. We are also fortunate that this spectacular section of the Camino affords us the opportunity to offer you the full range from modest 3-star properties to some of the most elegant in northern Spain.

Imagine. It's the middle of next winter (remember winter?!), and you are basking in the bright sunny warmth and exquisite beauty of the Florida Keys, a string of spectacularly beautiful islands connected by a series of causeways and bridges that ultimately take you to exciting Key West, the southernmost (and warmest!) point in the entire continental U.S.This is a tropical paradise. You can enjoy the easiest of cycling, and immerse yourself in all the included pleasures of kayaking, paddle boarding, swimming, golf, tennis, and such other options as jet skiing, scuba diving, day sailing and deep-sea fishing. Equally important is the ample time you will have throughout your tour to luxuriate in full relaxation - ease yourself into a lounge chair, take a dip in the warm ocean or a swimming pool, and enjoy an evening beverage at a poolside tiki bar. The biking follows the paved Florida Keys Overseas Heritage Trail, meandering from island to island (30 in all) and we are often treated to views of the Gulf of Mexico on one side and the warm blue waters of the southern Atlantic on the other.We help you make this the perfect winter escape by including stays at two of the most exquisite resorts in the Keys and a quiet prestigious property in the heart of Old Town Key West. Our tour includes visits to a wide variety of sites, such as the Dolphin Research Center, Robbie's Marina (where you can feed the wild tarpon), and Anne's Beach. In Key West, we visit Ernest Hemingway's old haunts and take a tour of his home and museum; tour the renowned Key West Butterfly and Nature Conservancy; visit Harry Truman's 'Little White House;' ride out to the huge red buoy that marks the southernmost point of the continental U.S.; and be treated to a gorgeous sunset sail in Key West Harbor. Key West is, of course, rightfully famous for its off-beat character and nightlife, and if you wish, you may choose to browse the shops or take in the quirky night scene along Duval Street and the circus-like sunset celebration at Mallory Square. We also include a ride on the somewhat touristy but very interesting 'Conch Train,' that takes you to many of the more famous attractions of the town. You will have a full day to explore on your own, taking in the sites and shops of Key West at your own pace.

We are excited to offer a great new tour that features six days of sensational biking through the beautiful countryside of Pennsylvania and Maryland, followed by leisurely days riding through West Virginia and Virginia along the peaceful C & O Canal towpath that parallels the Potomac River into the outskirts of Washington, D.C. What makes this tour even more special is that we include professionally guided tours of some of the iconic sites of the Civil War such as Gettysburg and Antietam and include a visit to Harpers Ferry. We end the tour with a gentle ride along a bike path that passes by some of the most famous landmarks in our nation's capital.You begin your tour with two days in Gettysburg and then head south following quiet farm roads all the way to Antietam, where the National Park Service will lead you on a biking tour of the area. The following day we bike along the Potomac River to where it joins the Shenandoah at Harpers Ferry, a handsomely restored historic village made famous by John Brown's ill-fated raid in 1859. On Thursday we cross the Potomac at White's Ferry and then follow the leisurely thread of the C & O Canal towpath to Swain's Lock, and take Olmstead Island Trail to an overlook of spectacular Great Falls. We will end the day biking our way along interconnecting bike paths that take us to the outskirts of Washington. On our final day we are guided along surprisingly peaceful bike paths that take us past many of Washington's greatest monuments and buildings, ending appropriately, at the Lincoln Memorial.

#candocanal

Celebrate spring with a weekend of easy coastal riding on quiet roads, visit a fascinating variety of historic Tidewater villages, and indulge in local cuisine including clams, oysters, and the best crab cakes in the world. Our tour is based in the quaint waterfront town of Saint Michaels, whose historic streets are lined with Colonial-era houses and shops, evidence of its former eminence as a prosperous shipping and trading center. While in Saint Michaels, we are guests at the beautiful Harbour Inn where each of our elegant rooms enjoys a beautiful view of the harbor and the Miles River and where you can opt for a relaxing spa treatment or massage so as to unwind after your day of cycling and sightseeing. While in Saint Michaels you might take the opportunity to explore the highly regarded Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum where you can learn about the history of the bay, and its traditions in boat building, commercial fishing, yachting and navigation. There are twenty-three buildings on eighteen acres with interactive exhibits, the popular Hooper Straight Lighthouses, and several historic vessels docked at the waterfront boat yard.Finally, the biking on this tour is perfectly designed for an early springtime outing. Easy terrain, quiet tree-lined back roads, and beautiful vistas along the bay make for a wonderful weekend experience.