Issuu

T R AV E L G U I D E 2 0 2 7

MAKING MEMORIES SINCE 1966

SMALL GROUP & BESPOKE TRAVEL

Canadian Rockies

IF ALL WE HAVE IN THE END ARE FL ASHES OF LIFE BEFORE OUR EYES

ENSURE SOME RE ALLY BRIGHT ONES MAKE THE CUT.

A PURSUIT WE’VE BEEN CHASING FOR OVER 60 YEARS. The cliffside dinner that materialized as if by magic. The detour that became the whole story. The moment you didn’t need to photograph because it’s etched into your mind. These things don’t happen by accident. Meticulously. Invisibly. They’re orchestrated by people who’ve spent careers learning the difference between “a trip” and a memory. We don’t do crowds. We don’t do predictable. We curate Small Group experiences that roam through the world with intention. We craft Bespoke journeys built around the particular rhythms of the people taking them. We open the doors most travellers never think to knock on. The internet has mapped nearly everything. We work in the margins it missed. Irreplaceable adventures that are impossible to forget. That isn’t a promise. It’s a 60-year track record.

U N F O R G E T TA B L E SINCE 1966.

Mike Scarola, CEO, and George Butterfield, co-founder of B&R

Dear fellow travellers, 2026 marks 60 years of Butterf ield & Robinson. This milestone gave us a chance to look back, but mostly it reminded us of how excited we are about what comes next. B&R started with a simple belief: there had to be a better way to experience the world. Slow down. Get away from the crowds. Meet the people who make a place special. And have some fun along the way. A lot has changed since 1966, but thankfully, that hasn’t. We wouldn’t be here without you. Some of you have travelled with us once, others for decades. You’ve brought your children, your parents, and your friends, celebrated big moments with us, and trusted us with precious weeks of your lives. You’ve become an important part of the B&R story—and we’re enormously grateful for it. For George, seeing what that original idea has become is particularly satisfying. “I may be biking a little more slowly these days, but I still love seeing the places our team discovers, the trips they dream up, and the ways they continue to surprise our travellers. There’s a wonderful energy around B&R today.” Sixty years gives us plenty to be proud of, but even more to live up to. We intend to keep exploring, experimenting, and raising the bar—creating experiences that stay with you long after you get home. Experiences that are impossible to forget. We’re also proud to have become a Certif ied B Corporation this year, a recognition of values that have been part of B&R from the beginning: travelling thoughtfully, respecting the people and places that welcome us, and caring about the impact we make. We hope these pages inspire what comes next for you. Better yet, we hope to see you out there.

GEORGE BUTTERFIELD & MIKE SCAROLA

Everywhere we go

Every way we go

Walking & Hiking The pace of walking changes what you notice. Expert guides lead you along paths that reveal a destination’s character in ways faster travel simply doesn’t allow.

No two travellers are the same. Neither are any two B&R journeys. Every way we go is a different route to the same result—a memory that refuses to fade.

Multi-Gen Legacy

Multi-Active

Grandparents, parents, grandchildren—all with different ideas of a perfect day.

Bike one morning, hike the next, kayak the afternoon after that. Multi-Active trips are built for travellers who want more than one way in.

B&R creates room for all of it: the freedom to do your own thing and the magical moments that unite every generation around the same special moments.

Biking

Safari & Wildlife

Arts & Culture

Quiet roads, open countryside, and the particular freedom that comes from moving through a place under your own power. The best routes are never the most obvious ones.

Gorillas in highland mist. Condors over canyons. Manta rays below the boat. The natural world at its most extraordinary, shaped by deep relationships and an active-first philosophy.

Not museums at arm’s length, but private studios, intimate performances, and the kind of access that only comes from knowing the right people.

By Sea

Villa Stays

Gastronomy

Private yachts that reach the ports larger vessels miss entirely. Hidden coves, island coastlines, and the freedom of an ever-changing horizon.

A private estate, entirely yours. Everyone together when they want to be, apart when they need to be—and the destination at your door.

From a winemaker’s cellar to a market stall to a kaiseki counter, these journeys are built around the conviction that food is the truest way into a place.

Where the rubber hits the road less travelled Bespoke

Small Group

A Bespoke journey is where travel lore is made.

Some of the best moments in travel are the ones

The dinner that became the story everybody tells.

nobody expected. The host who invited the whole

The wrong turn that became the right one. The

group in for dinner. The guide who abandoned the

moment a local became someone your kids will

route for something better. The fellow travellers

remember forever.

who were strangers at breakfast and turned out to

It starts with a conversation. Where do you want to go? Who’s coming? What would make this

be the best part of the trip. These things happen when a group is small

unlike anything you’ve done before? An Experience

enough to be welcomed rather than managed.

Designer, who has spent years on the ground in the

B&R Small Group journeys average just 10 to

region, shapes every detail around your answers

12 travellers—small enough to slip into private

and pairs you with the perfect guide to match your

cellars, family kitchens, and historic properties that

group. Routes, stays, meals, pacing, the moments

don’t open for larger groups—led by guides who

between. The result is less an itinerary and more a

know the region, the people, and the tables worth

chapter in your story—one worth retelling for years.

booking. The 2027 collection spans six continents. Every departure is worth moving your calendar for. 11

They turn trips into stories

Ask any B&R traveller what they remember most about a trip and, more than a hotel or particular route, they’ll say it’s the guide. With an average tenure of over eight years, B&R Guides are deeply knowledgeable locals. They’re architects, biologists, former acrobats, fluent in multiple languages and equally fluent in knowing which door to knock on to give you unmatched access. They speak the region they guide not as a rehearsed script but as a lived experience. As one of our most seasoned guides put it at our annual season kickoff in Burgundy, “To be a great guide is to wake up every day and strive to be the best version of yourself.” That ethos shows up on every trip. They push you up hills without being asked. They refill your glass before their own. They know when to follow the plan and when to abandon it for something better. And somewhere between the spontaneous detours, the late dinners, and the mornings they start before sunrise so yours doesn’t have to, they have a way of turning a great trip into a greater story.

CONTENTS

ITALY NORTH AMERICA FRANCE SPAIN & PORTUGAL BRITISH ISLES NORTHERN EUROPE CENTRAL EUROPE EASTERN EUROPE ASIA & PACIFIC AFRICA LATIN AMERICA BESPOKE SMALL GROUP

16 24 30 38 46 52 58 64 70 78 86 94 100 15

ITALY

A N C I E N T, M O D E R N , E D I B L E , A N D E N D L E S S LY S U R P R I S I N G .

Italy operates at the pace of a long lunch and the ambition of a Renaissance cathedral. The Dolomites in the north, Puglia’s olive groves in the south, and Tuscany in between. Every region has its own character, cuisine, and reason to stay longer than planned.

Tuscany

I TA LY

TUSCANY T H E C I T Y B E N E AT H T H E C I T Y .

“I cannot put a price on how enjoyable it was to show up in Italy and have our dream trip materialize with so little effort on our part. The trip planning and fantastic guides made it truly carefree. It was worth every penny.” – BARBARA L., PORTLAND, OR

Siena keeps its secrets well. The Palio, the city’s famous horse race run twice a year in the shell-shaped Piazza del Campo since the 13th century, is one of the most ferociously contested events in Italy. But the race itself is only the surface. Underneath it runs something far more interesting: the contrada system, a network of 17 neighbourhood factions that divide Siena like a medieval city-state within a city, each with its own church, museum, baptismal font, colours— and its own centuries of grudges. Most visitors never get inside one. But B&R travellers do. “Travellers go nuts when they get this behind-the-scenes experience,” says Courtney Mundy, B&R’s Experience Designer for Tuscany. The contrada visit is part of a private walking tour of Siena that begins at the cathedral. It’s one of the most beautiful in Italy, its interior a study in controlled extravagance: a marblecarved floor, black-and-white pillars, and works by Michelangelo, Donatello, and Pinturicchio. From there, the tour moves somewhere most visitors never reach. A member of the

DOLOMITES

T H E M O S T D R A M AT I C C O M M U T E I N I TA LY .

contrada is quick to welcome the group as guests to be shown something genuinely precious. The baptismal fonts where every child born into the neighbourhood is welcomed. The small chapel that belongs only to this contrada. The medieval costumes worn on Palio day, handled with particular care. And the silk banners—the palios—won over centuries of competition, each one a physical record of a victory the neighbourhood still celebrates. The guide explains what all of this means: why a Sienese person’s loyalty to their contrada runs very deep, why the Palio is not a spectacle for visitors but a living expression of something the city has never let go of. You leave understanding Siena in a way the piazza alone could never teach you—the kind of thing that doesn’t f it in a camera roll, and doesn’t need to.

The boat leaves your hotel in Venice and docks at Lido, a small, quietly historic airport that sees almost no traff ic. Within minutes, the helicopter arrives. It’s your ride to the mountains. The 50-minute flight crosses above the lagoon and the rooftops of Venice before the city gives way to the Veneto plains, then foothills, then the Dolomites rising on every side. The helicopter sets down on a mountainside, and its doors open. Flowercovered meadows stretch in every direction, and the only people here are yours. A short hike leads to a centuries-old family farm where lunch is served in rooms that were once bedrooms—three families to a space barely larger than a generous table. Your local host and his family are in the kitchen, already pouring the spritz before you’ve sat down. His wife’s fresh pasta arrives. Their children serve in lederhosen. Out the tiny windows, the peak of Sassolungo f ills the frame, like it was hung there just for you.

Como’s best-kept morning secret

THE GARDENS OF VILLA MELZI ARE ONE OF L A K E C O M O ’ S G R E AT P L E A S U R E S — A N D O N E OF ITS MOST VISITED. In summer, the paths f ill quickly and the experience becomes something shared with hundreds of strangers. B&R’s version of it begins before any of that. At 9:30 a.m., you leave the hotel with a local guide whose connections in Bellagio run deep. A single phone call is all it takes. When the group arrives at the gates of Villa Melzi, they open. The gardens are empty, a private visit before the crowds. The complex was built between 1808 and 1810 at the request of Francesco Melzi d’Eril, Vice President of Napoleon’s Italian Republic, who envisioned it as a masterpiece that would blend seamlessly with the lake and mountains behind it. What he created was an English-style garden infused with Italian elegance, later enriched by the Romantic era’s fascination

with the exotic. The result is a landscape where plants from entirely different worlds coexist—historic camellias beside California redwoods, clipped formal hedges running alongside wildflower borders, all of it overlooking the glittering lake. Your guide moves through it all with the ease of someone who has known this place for years, from the chapel at the garden’s southern edge to the museum tracing the Melzi d’Eril dynasty from the Napoleonic era to Italian unif ication and the scenic overlooks where the lake and mountains frame each other perfectly. By the time the public gates open and the f irst visitors begin to arrive, you are already on your way, having experienced the garden at its most serene.

I TA L I A N L A K E S

Dinner can wait You arrive thinking it’s cocktails—fun hats, a whimsical theme, drinks in the garden of a beautiful mansion overlooking Lake Como. Then 25 people f ile in, dressed in matching outf its, and line up in front of you. The Bellagio choir for the next 30 minutes takes you through the stories of Italy by song, moving through Alpine chants, village folk songs, and Italian hymns before the director pulls out a harmonica and everyone sings together. Dinner follows. It takes a while for the room to f ind its words again.

EXPERIENCE DESIGNER

Edoardo Bausani Italian Lakes, Veneto

Born in Chianti, fluent in f ive languages, and something of a local legend in the Italian Lakes, Edo brings credentials, connections, and genuine insider access to every journey he designs.

S I C I LY

THE ARTIST WILL S E E YO U N OW.

Italy EXPERIENCE DESIGNERS

Courtney Mundy

Amalfi Coast, Piemonte, Tuscany, Umbria, Florence, Rome, Venice

Pennsylvania born but calling Florence home, Courtney has spent decades becoming part of la famiglia in Italy, building lasting bonds with locals from the Amalfi Coast to the hills of Tuscany. With 20 years of B&R experience and recognition as a Condé Nast Traveler’s Top Travel Specialist, she brings

The evening begins with an Aperol Spritz in the home of one of Sicily’s most important contemporary artists, a residence outside Noto that is, itself, a work of art. Every room, canvas, and sculpture tells part of his story, the conversation fills in the rest. A short walk leads to the studio, where a local chef prepares dinner in front of the group—Sicilian ingredients straight from the surrounding countryside, wine poured throughout. Under the portico, the food is extraordinary, but it’s the conversation you’ll still be thinking about months later.

unrivalled insider access to every trip she designs.

Georgia Yuill

Dolomites, Sardinia

Georgia joined B&R for one summer before setting out to get a “real” job. That was 28 years ago. Now living in the Dolomites, she designs trips with the authority of someone who has personally vetted everything—including the grappa.

EXPERIENCE DESIGNER

Ernesto Fucci

Puglia, Basilicata, Sicily

Melanie Neu

Amalfi Coast, Tuscany, Umbria, Piemonte

A New Yorker who has spent most of her adult life in Tuscany—and is regularly

Born in Southern Italy, Ernesto is a former private chef, active

mistaken for Italian—Melanie designs

olive oil producer, and sommelier in training. Seven years of

trips rooted in sustainability, local

guiding built the local connections that make his trips—and

connection, and the particular story of

the meals—exceptional.

each traveller she works with.

Amalfi Coast

Piemonte

Visitors have been coming for 3,000 years, and the views still haven’t gotten old. Towns stack vertically into impossible cliffs. The Path of the Gods delivers switchback views that stop conversations mid-sentence. Walk it, then earn the lemon granita waiting below.

More Michelin Stars per capita than anywhere in Italy, and a truffle market in Alba that announces dinner before it arrives. Barolo and Barbaresco aren’t just wine towns, they’re rivals, each certain theirs is the better glass. Come hungry. Leave converted.

Sardinia

Puglia

Umbria

Conical stone towers older than recorded history, a coastline that earned Blue Zone status, and locals toasting their hundredth birthdays with Cannonau. Bike the cliffs by day, sleep on a traditional wooden sailing yacht by night, wake up somewhere new.

Trulli houses, cone-roofed stone huts found nowhere else on Earth, dot olive groves older than some countries. The food has a rhythm all its own: handshaped orecchiette, fresh octopus, and burrata still warm from the morning’s making.

Tuscany’s quieter neighbour, and some argue, the betterkept secret. Hunt truffles with hounds and a guide who treats you like family. Climb down into Orvieto’s underground city, then back up for Sagrantino and a view worth the descent.

Veneto Venice’s gondolas get the postcards, but Veneto’s soul is in its vineyards. Taste Valpolicella and Amarone, poured by families doing this since before Venice welcomed travellers. Bike the back roads, then let the wine explain the lack of hurry.

NORTH AMERICA B & R ’ S B A C K YA R D , A N D O N E O F I T S G R E AT E S T A D V E N T U R E S .

To the west, the Canadian Rockies at dawn; the east and Newfoundland’s icebergs drifting past ancient sea cliffs; or south for Oaxaca’s mezcal country and Zapotec trails. North America is B&R’s home continent, which means decades of relationships, deep regional knowledge, and access few travellers ever get. 24

British Columbia

MEXICO

OAXACA

M A R I G O L D S , M E Z C A L , A N D A N O P E N I N V I TAT I O N .

“Favourite meals and moments were at the floating garden and the cave … the taco tasting tour with Victor, and the picnic lunch made by Tomo and Armando on the hike—it was magical!” – A M Y S . , S T. P E T E R S B U R G , F L

Marigolds appear f irst. Thousands of them, strung in arches and heaped on altars, their colour so concentrated it seems to vibrate against the October light. Then the smoke, incense drifting through the streets of Oaxaca, mixing with the smell of roasting corn. Día de Muertos smells and sounds like nothing a photograph can hold. “The perception of a lot of travellers is that Mexico is a beach destination,” says Dane Tredway, B&R’s Experience Designer for Mexico. “But there is so much opportunity to explore the vibrant culture here, enjoy the outdoors by biking and hiking while staying at design-led boutique hotels. And with Oaxaca being known as one of the best places in the entire country to celebrate the Day of the Dead, it’s something very different.” The three-day festival, October 31 through November 2, has a progression of tone that most outsiders don’t expect. “In the f irst few days, as families are creating altars for loved ones, it’s more of a time of quiet reflection,” Dane explains. “As the festivities progress, it becomes more of a celebration of life. The idea is that they’re welcoming the dead back into the land

of the living—a time to rejoice and reconnect.” Each village around Oaxaca City marks the days differently: some cemeteries are contemplative, others alive with comparsas, brass bands who wear elaborate costumes. What surprises most visitors is how welcome they are in all of it. “You’ll be walking through the parade and people are handing you mezcal shots,” Dane says. “You’re very much encouraged to participate, as opposed to looking in from the other side of the looking glass.” The days between festivities are equally full, and equally distinct. Easy bike rides through near-desert landscape, hiking in the Sierra Madre foothills between two of the Pueblos Mancomunados, eight Zapotec villages that turned away from mining to protect their culture through ecotourism. One morning begins at the petrif ied waterfalls of Hierve el Agua, mineral-rich water frozen mid-cascade over centuries into formations that look more like architecture than geology. From there, the route continues on foot through an agave-studded landscape to Casa Silencio, a design-forward mezcal distillery that sits in an agave f ield. The tour moves through the palenque and fermentation areas before settling at a stone table for a f ive-course sunset dinner paired with special-edition mezcals. “It’s truly spectacular,” Dane says.

EXPERIENCE DESIGNER

Dane Tredway

United States, Canadian Rockies, Newfoundland, Mexico

Dane has lived and worked on five continents, joining B&R in 2012 as a guide before moving into trip design. He has led journeys from Newfoundland to Ireland to Sri Lanka, and his specialty is experiences that simply cannot be found anywhere else—from the world’s finest hotel architecture to the table settings of his legendary B&R picnics.

NORTH AMERICA

NEWFOUNDLAND N O F O R M A L I N V I TAT I O N R E Q U I R E D .

N O B O DY S E N D S A FO R M A L I N V I TAT I O N T O A K I T C H E N P A R T Y. Rather, word gets out. The boat leaves the dock at Trinity as the light starts to soften, a small crossing from the harbour to a private home on the far shore, the kind of place that looks, from the water, like it’s rooted to the landscape around it. You disembark with a drink in hand, introduced to the founder of a local theatre company who has been telling Newfoundland’s stories for a decade and then some. She doesn’t perform so much as captivate, with tales about what life looks like on this peninsula, about the f ishing stages, and the families, and the particular kind of stubborn, joyful pride that def ines a community shaped by the North Atlantic. Then dinner. A lobster boil up over an open f ire. It tastes better eaten outside with your hands than it ever would from a restaurant plate. The conversation loosens, and more stories start (it is Newfoundland after all, and here, storytelling is a sport). When the bonf ire catches, the music follows with f iddles coming alive. If the weather has other ideas, everyone moves inside, and somehow that’s even better—a kitchen full of people who didn’t know each other this morning, dancing on the flagstones while the Atlantic does whatever it likes outside. You came for the lobster. You’ll go home with a joy that’s hard to explain to someone who wasn’t there.

BRITISH COLUMBIA

Canada’s wildest address Accessible only by seaplane, Clayoquot Wilderness Lodge sits on 600 acres of pristine Vancouver Island wilderness. It’s a Three Michelin Keys property where luxe canvas tents look out over oldgrowth cedar forest and the still waters of Clayoquot Sound. Black bears wander the shoreline. Orca surface in the Pacif ic. Dinners are built from foraged, locally sourced ingredients. This is Canada’s wild west, immaculately appointed and impossible to forget.

EXPERIENCE DESIGNER

Erin Reed

Georgia, Greece, Croatia, Türkiye, Bulgaria, Slovenia, Montenegro, British Columbia

With 18 years at B&R—in the atelier, on the road, and training guides—Erin designs trips rooted in genuine connection to place, people, and the natural world. Her curiosity is, by all accounts, insatiable.

FRANCE SEVEN REGIONS, EACH ONE A D I F F E R E N T F R A N C E E N T I R E LY .

Châteaux of the Loire. Lavender fields in Provence. Vineyards in Burgundy that have been producing wine since before France was a country. From the rugged Breton coast to the sun-warmed back roads of Alsace, France rewards those who move through it slowly. And for B&R, it’s a second home. 30

Burgundy

FRANCE

BURGUNDY D I N N E R S TA R T S AT T H E C H E E S E S H O P.

“Our guides, Tom and Theo, were amazing. Educating us on the region and especially the French wines and cuisine. Most memorable moments: our cooking class, wine-barrel making, multiple vineyard visits and wine tasting, fabulous lunches and dinners, little touches such as Tom procuring mustards for gift giving and Theo motor parasailing to drop our T-shirts!” – JOAN D., KNOXVILLE, TN

The key to every great meal is its ingredients, which is why this afternoon begins not in a kitchen but at the cheese shop. Your guide for the day, a Beaune-based chef whose energy f ills a room before she says a word, moves through the market on instinct. The fromagerie. The boulangerie. A stop here, a taste there, and a conversation with the woman behind the counter who tells you more about Burgundy than any guidebook could. “She unlocks Beaune for travellers,” says Eugénie Weiss, B&R’s Experience Designer for the region. “She’s really a liaison between gastronomy and wine.” When you arrive at what the chef calls her lab, a beautifully appointed private kitchen in the heart of Beaune, designed as much for learning as for living, the shopping has become a story and the story is about to become dinner. The cooking is collaborative not instructional. You’ll roll the cheese puffs for the appetizer, prepare the mustard ice cream that garnishes the gazpacho, fold the batter for the chocolate mousse—the jobs where a mistake is still delicious—while she handles the main course with

the kind of conf idence that only decades in the kitchen produces. The wine, of course, is local. You’re in Burgundy, after all. “It is always such a hit,” Eugénie says. There is something about the combination of a kitchen that feels like home and a host who makes everyone feel like they belong in it that makes it diff icult to

BORDEAUX & DORDOGNE

LUNCH INSIDE 1,500 YEARS O F H I S T O R Y.

describe without sounding like you’re exaggerating. The food is extraordinary. The wine, equally so. What stays with you is the feeling of having been genuinely welcomed into someone’s life for an evening, and fed the way a very good friend would feed you. And dinner ends when it ends. Because nobody is watching the time.

EXPERIENCE DESIGNER

Eugénie Weiss

Burgundy, Provence, French Riviera

Born in Burgundy and with B&R since 2005, Eugenie knows France the way most people know their own street. Her network of winemakers, chefs, and artists reveals each destination at its most authentic.

One of the last working windmills in France is a reasonable warm-up act. But after cycling the f inal stretch to the village of Francs and climbing to a promontory where a château has stood for 1,500 years, the view that opens up across the rolling Saint-Émilion landscape stops you before your host has a chance to say hello. Today’s lunch venue: a château that has a history accumulated in layers. King Clovis is said to have passed through in the f ifth century. An architect couple later poured years into restoring it to what it once was. The result is what Jérôme Boré, B&R’s Experience Designer for Bordeaux and Dordogne, calls “eating in a museum.” Seasonal salads, fresh f ish simply cooked and perfectly timed. The wine is poured from the estate’s own cellar. When it rains, the table moves under ancient stone arches. When it doesn’t, lunch happens with all of Saint-Émilion spread out below. Somewhere between the f irst glass and the last, 1,500 years of history becomes part of your story.

FRANCE

PROVENCE & FRENCH RIVIERA P R O V E N C E , P O U R E D G E N E R O U S LY .

T H E R E I S A PA R T I C U L A R K I N D OF AF TERNOON IN PROVENCE T H A T ’ S V I R T U A L LY I M P O S S I B L E T O D U P L I C AT E E L S E W H E R E . The light is thick and golden. The vineyards go on further than they need to. Somewhere nearby, lavender and cypress trees are doing exactly what postcards have always promised they would.

In Luberon, a small winery in Oppède makes wines from grapes grown in limestone-rich soil between the mountains and the sea. There’s a seat waiting for you there at a table set among the vines, and a picnic is being unpacked from a market basket by a local friend who seems to know everyone in the region and has a story about each of them. The host for lunch is a Franco-American sommelier who trained under Alain Ducasse, which means his credentials are not to be taken lightly. Along with that skill, he brings warmth and generosity that’s emblematic of this region. He manages to be simultaneously the most knowledgeable person in the room and the most fun to sit next to. “He’s had a million lives,” says Eugénie Weiss, B&R’s Experience Designer for Provence. “You can never be bored with him.” The picnic—melon, tomatoes, charcuterie, bread, and cheese from the morning’s market—is the kind of meal that sounds simple but bursts with flavour. The rosé perfectly chilled. The stories out of this world. And the afternoon becomes the one everyone talks about on the way home.

PROVENCE & FRENCH RIVIERA

Cousteau dove here, so can you Seven minutes by boat from Bandol, Île de Bendor is a private Mediterranean island where rooms look out over open water and cottages come with their own garden terrace. Dive the coves where Cousteau made his earliest dives, take a private studio session with a resident ceramicist or perfumer, or simply let the afternoon unfold over Provençal wine at a table above the sea. The French Riviera, without the crowds.

France “Born and raised in Burgundy, I’ve spent a lifetime immersed in its vineyards, villages, and traditions. What I love most is sharing my region through the eyes of a local— opening doors to remarkable people, hidden places, and experiences that simply can’t be found on a map. My hope is that every traveller leaves feeling they have not simply visited Burgundy, but truly belonged here.” – E U G É N I E W E I S S , E X P E R I E N C E D E S I G N E R , B U R G U N DY

EXPERIENCE DESIGNERS

Marya Valli

Switzerland, Corsica, Normandy & Brittany

Jérôme Boré

Loire Valley, Bordeaux & Dordogne, Alsace, Champagne-Ardenne, Provence & French Riviera

Seattle born and Corsican settled, Marya has been with B&R

Born in France and passionate about food, wine, and terroir,

since 1999. From sand-sailing Norman beaches to gathering

Jérôme has been part of B&R since 2006—f irst as a guide, now

wild herbs through the maquis, she designs trips that engage

designing trips that reveal France’s storied regions at their

all the senses and keep living traditions very much alive.

most authentic.

Loire Valley A river valley with 300 châteaux and not a single bad view among them. Turrets, moats, vineyards rolling out like a welcome mat. It’s also a playground for gourmands, where wine growers take their work seriously enough to wear ceremonial robes.

Alsace Half French, half German, entirely its own thing. Some 2,000 years of history have left half-timbered towns that look stolen from a storybook and a wine list that tells just as many tales. Cycle the Route des Vins and taste Grand Cru Rieslings poured by the families who produce them.

ChampagneArdenne Grand Cru villages, UNESCOlisted vineyards, and historic cellars that most visitors never see—explored by bike, with family growers who pour the good stuff before anyone’s thought to ask.

Normandy & Brittany One bike ride connects two coasts that couldn’t feel more different. Normandy carries its history close to the surface, from D-Day beaches to Mont-Saint-Michel. Brittany answers to its own, with Celtic roots and a rugged coastline closer to Cornwall than Paris.

Corsica Not France nor Italy, and proud of it. Granite peaks drop straight into water so blue it looks fake until you’re swimming in it. Pedal cliffside roads with Tour de France pedigree, then cool off in coves most of the Riviera crowd will never f ind.

SPAIN & PORTUGAL TWO COUNTRIES, ONE PENINSULA, R E M A R K A B L E D I V E R S I T Y.

Spain moves at full volume. Portugal answers in a quieter key. Together they offer a range of landscapes, cultures, and culinary traditions that rewards the curious traveller at every turn. Explore the Basque coast to the Alentejo plains, the Camino’s ancient roads to Mallorca’s cliffside coves. 38

Alentejo

S PA I N

BASQUE COUNTRY L U N C H B Y R E S E R V AT I O N . D I S C O V E R Y B Y A C C I D E N T .

“The region shares the best of the Basque culture: innovation combined with love of traditions. And you’ll find history, from the Camino de Santiago to fortified medieval villages and the UNESCO Monasteries of Yuso and Suso where the oldest preserved texts in the Spanish language were found.” – NINON VLUG, EXPERIENCE DESIGNER, BASQUE COUNTRY

Morning begins at the Gehry-designed Guggenheim and a private, immersive tour of one of the world’s most extraordinary buildings, with a guide who knows every gallery, commission, and story behind the titanium curves that have def ined Bilbao since 1997. By the time the group steps back out into the city, art has been the subject of the entire morning. It is about to become the setting for lunch as well. Your guide, who grew up in Bilbao’s Old Town, knows its streets, history, and people with the particular intimacy of someone who has never really left. The walking tour ends at an apartment building on a street that has been here in one form or another since the 16th century. The current building dates to 1840. From the outside, there is nothing to suggest what is happening within. Inside, the walls are hung with paintings—local Basque artists, some international, and photographs of the woman who has spent her life collecting and

The kitchen, visible through the door, is painted f loor to ceiling with murals of Bilbao. She went to the Mercado de la Ribera that morning

championing them. She is also your host for lunch. The

to f ind what was best. The menu ref lects that—set,

Romantic Room. The Arabic Room. Each has its own

seasonal, entirely Basque. She serves at the table and

character, every window overlooking the street below.

pours the wine throughout. It is not a restaurant. It

P O R T O & D O U R O VA L L E Y

A M O U N TA I N L O D G E W E A R I N G F I V E S TA R S . One of Portugal’s f irst pousadas—historic hotels built for exactly this kind of view— Casa de São Lourenço has called the Serra da Estrela home since 1940, reborn as a f ive-star boutique hotel that never stopped being a mountain lodge at heart. Suites offer floorto-ceiling views of the glacial valley below. Its restaurant draws on ancestral Beiras recipes and the season’s best from the mountain. A One Michelin Key property, and well earned. ANDALUCÍA operates by reservation only and is known almost entirely by word of mouth among locals.

THE BASE CAMP FOR A N D A L U C Í A ’ S B E S T D AY S .

“It’s very intimate and totally different from lunch in a regular restaurant,” says Ninon Vlug, B&R’s Experience Designer for the region. More than once, a traveller has left with a painting tucked under their arm. The best days in Bilbao tend to end that way.

EXPERIENCE DESIGNER

Ninon Vlug

Camino de Santiago, Rioja, Ribera del Duero, Basque Country

An enthusiastic cyclist and with B&R since 2019, Ninon has called Spain home since 2010 and knows it with the intimacy of someone who has spent 15 years exploring every corner of a creative, endlessly surprising country.

Whitewashed courtyards, fragrant gardens, and the unrushed rhythms of Andalucía— Finca Cortesín sits just a mile from the Mediterranean coast near Casares and is widely regarded as one of Spain’s f inest resorts. A championship golf course, a 2,200-square-metre spa, and restaurants spanning Mediterranean, Japanese, and Spanish traditions make it a destination in its own right. For B&R travellers, it serves as the perfect base for three of the most memorable days in Andalucía.

PORTUGAL

DOURO VALLEY T H E D E S C E N T I S W O R T H I T.

Vineyard descent to private boat. The ride begins where the Douro Valley hasn’t quite become itself yet, granite boulders scattered across forested hillsides, traditional stone houses, small farms tucked between the trees. The smells are pine and wild herbs. Then, a few kilometres in, everything changes. Trees give way to terraced vineyards cascading down steep hillsides, and far below, the river appears. “The ride is not easy,” says João Carvalho, one of B&R’s Experience Designers for Portugal. “But every time you get to the top, the views are absolutely incredible.” The descent through Provesende, a village whose stone lanes have barely changed since the families who worked these vineyards settled here two centuries ago, brings you into Pinhão, where the path f inally levels and the Douro is right beside you. The boat is waiting at the dock. For the next two hours, the valley is experienced from its heart. Lunch arrives on deck: salt cod fritters, local cheeses, seasonal salads, apple bolinhos. There is no scheduled entertainment. Sometimes the group sits quietly, watching the terraces drift past. Sometimes someone connects their phone to the sound system and by mid-afternoon people are dancing on the top deck. “To me,” João says, “this full experience captures the essence of the Douro.” The vineyards, the villages, the terrain felt in the legs—and then the river, which makes sense of all of it.

PORTO & DOURO VA L L E Y

Keeping more than craft alive In the mountains of Serra da Estrela, a working wool factory has been running since the 19th century, its machines still dating to an era when everything was built to last. The visit follows wool through its entire journey—raw fleece to f inished blanket, coat, or dress—and the experience is as tactile as it is illuminating. You touch, smell, and feel it transform between stages. What makes the visit most memorable is what the factory represents: a community kept alive. It supports a local sheep breed, preserves generations of textile knowledge, and provides livelihoods in a region that has long struggled to hold on to its people. The wool is the product. The community is the heart.

EXPERIENCE DESIGNER

João Carvalho Por tugal, Por tugal Islands

A Lisbon native with a passion for adventure, arts, and bringing joy to everyone around him, João has been part of B&R since 2017—as a guide f irst, now designing trips across the Iberian Peninsula. As a father of two, he has a gift for helping travellers of all ages f ind the balance between serious fun and serious luxury.

Spain & Portugal “Come once, discover one region, and you realize there are so many others that can offer just as much.” – J O Ã O C A R VA L H O , E X P E R I E N C E D E S I G N E R , P O R T U G A L , PORTUGAL ISLANDS

EXPERIENCE DESIGNER

Alvaro Diez Diaz

Por tugal, Por tugal Islands, Mallorca, Menorca, Andalucía , Catalonia

Alvaro has climbed Azorean volcanoes, biked Mallorca’s hills, and logged serious time in the Douro Valley’s vineyards. Since joining B&R in 2015, his deep local connections across the Iberian Peninsula have unlocked experiences unavailable elsewhere.

Mallorca Limestone cliffs drop into water somewhere between sapphire and impossible. Climb the Serra de Tramuntana by bike, the same mountains that have drawn serious cyclists for decades, then cool off with lunch on a boat in an unnamed cove.

Camino de Santiago Take the lesser-known Winter Camino through Ribeira Sacra’s river canyons, stop for a private tasting at a vineyard most pilgrims walk past, and sleep in Spain’s grand castles or monasteries turned hotels. A thousand-year-old pilgrimage taken the quieter way.

Catalonia

Rioja

This region produced Gaudí, Dalí, and Picasso, proof of a place committed to doing things differently. Ride the Costa Brava’s cliffs by morning, the Pyrenees foothills by afternoon, and eat tapas unlike anywhere else in Spain.

Award-winning wine comes to mind, but this fertile region in northern Spain offers so much more. Bursting with creativity, gravity-defying architecture, and cutting-edge design while maintaining a strong connection to its heritage, this region captivates your senses—and leaves an impactful aftertaste.

Portugal Islands In the Azores and Madeira, nature takes centre stage. Volcanic islands where hiking trails wind through crater lakes and wine grows out of actual lava rock. Soak in hot springs, watch whales from clifftops, and taste a Verdelho grown behind walls of stacked black stone.

Alentejo Cork forests, whitewashed villages, and some of the clearest night skies in Europe. Ride between vineyards on Lusitano horses bred for centuries here, then end the day at a beachside table, sand between your toes.

Portuguese Camino The coastal cousin of the famous pilgrim route, tracing Atlantic clifftops and Roman roads from Portugal into Galicia. Bike past orange blossom groves in Ponte de Lima, sleep in a seaside fortress, and arrive in Santiago having earned it.

BRITISH ISLES H I S T O R Y, L A N D S C A P E , A N D H O S P I TA L I T Y I N E Q U A L M E A S U R E .

The Cotswolds in golden afternoon light. The Scottish Highlands in dramatic silence. Ireland’s emerald fields and stone-walled lanes. The British Isles move slowly and reward those who do the same— with extraordinary countryside, remarkable history, and a pub at the end of every good walk. 46

Ireland

BRITISH ISLES

IRELAND

I R E L A N D ’ S B E S T TA B L E I S 3 , 0 0 0 Y E A R S O L D .

“I am now well versed in ‘undulating’ hills. I did find the ride to be a bit more challenging than I thought but the rewards of completing each ride were worth the challenge!” – E I L E E N G . , G A R D E N C I T Y, N Y

The Beara Peninsula keeps its secrets in plain sight. Out here, on the remote southwestern tip of Ireland, the landscape is densely studded with Bronze Age remains, wedge tombs, standing stones, and stone circles that have been part of this hillside for over 3,000 years. Some, like the Uragh Stone Circle, stand between mountain lakes with a waterfall behind them, as if whoever chose the site understood that the setting would outlast any explanation of its purpose. Others stand quietly in farmers’ f ields, unremarkable from a distance and extraordinary up close. Your guide for the morning is an archaeologist who has spent years studying these sites and what they meant to the people who built them. She walks the group through the theories: ritual gathering places, burial markers, astronomical alignments, sacred boundaries between worlds. None of them fully account for what you feel standing inside one. “They’re quite mystical,” as Lucy Clark, B&R’s Experience Designer for Ireland, puts it. “And they’re normally in fantastic spots,

because whoever built them put them where the view was good.” Then it’s time for the picnic lunch. In the days leading up to this morning, your guide has been foraging the peninsula’s coastline and woodland, spotting and picking sea spaghetti,

pepper dulse, chanterelle mushrooms pulled from the forest floor, sea beet and wild radish gathered from the shoreline, berries for the dessert. The result arrives spread across the grass beside the stones: seaweed salads, mushrooms in a warm cream sauce, oxtail slow cooked with Guinness and wild thyme, sourdough bread, local cheese, and a line of small glasses with fermented botanical drinks, chanterelle-infused vodka, and a gin made to her own secret recipe. There is no restaurant in the world that can replicate this particular lunch. The ingredients were growing here days ago. The stones have been standing here for three millennia.

IRELAND

The e in whiskey has a story The Cliffs of Moher are behind you. Your legs have earned some rest. Ten minutes from the hotel, down a lane in the simple village of Ballyvaughan, a traditional Irish whiskey bar with an expansive selection has been expecting your arrival. The owner is there to greet you and walk you through a tasting of Irish whiskeys, their differences, their quirks, the reason Ireland spells it with an e when Scotland doesn’t. It’s the kind of knowledge that arrives naturally in a place like this, over a glass, before anyone’s thought to ask. Then a toast and dinner just down the road.

BRITISH ISLES

SCOTLAND THE END OF THE ROAD. T H E S TA R T O F S O M E T H I N G .

Tongue is about as far north as Scotland goes. The village sits at the edge of the Kyle of Tongue, a sea loch that opens to the Atlantic, with Ben Hope and Ben Loyal rising behind it and Castle Varrich, a small, ruined keep, perched on the hillside above the water. Getting here takes commitment. Lundies House makes it entirely worthwhile. A former 19th-century church manse reimagined as a boutique hotel, Lundies is ref ined without being fussy. Scottish heritage and Scandinavian design sit in quiet harmony throughout. The dining room is where it all comes together—candlelit and home to a hand-painted mural by French artist Claire Basler, whose work has drawn guests to request specif ic rooms for that reason alone. Pre-dinner drinks happen in the courtyard around a fire pit, with the long northern light illuminating from above. Then dinner: three courses rooted in the landscape, local seafood, and foraged ingredients served on bespoke ceramics. “The food is knock-your-socks-off brilliant,” says Lucy Clark, B&R’s Experience Designer for Scotland. “Light, lots of vegetables. They’ve just got it spot on.” Outside, the North Coast 500 road-trip loop runs past the door, coastal walks lead to Castle Varrich’s sweeping views of the Kyle, and the mountains are there for those who want them. It is, in every sense, worth the drive. You’ll spend the journey home already working out how to come back.

British Isles “Ireland is about the people. The sense of humour, the way that so many people are natural storytellers, and the music that is ingrained in their culture from a really young age. It’s something I really love about Ireland, and I think it’s quite special.”

Wales A coastal path running 300 kilometres past Iron Age forts older than England itself. Climb Cadair Idris through landscapes thick enough with legend that locals know which mountain a giant is buried under. Castles at every headland, puff in colonies on Skomer, and pubs where the legends come f irsthand.

– LUCY CLARK

EXPERIENCE DESIGNER

Lucy Clark

United Kingdom, Ireland

With 25 years of travelling under her belt, Lucy has been a backpacker, worked in luxury hotels, and travelled on incredible rail journeys. She is always up for a challenge to uncover something new for well-seasoned travellers. Based in the UK, she can often be found walking the windy hillsides of Scotland.

England Bike or hike between honey-stone villages with destinations like Highgrove Gardens, four decades in the making by the man who is now king. The Roman Baths, viewed away from crowds. And Castle Combe, often called England’s prettiest village, which undersells it.

NORTHERN EUROPE WHERE THE LANDSCAPE DOES T H I N G S T H AT S E E M I M P O S S I B L E .

Fjords that drop straight into the sea. Volcanoes that share an island with glaciers. Faroese islands rising out of the North Atlantic, their sea cliffs alive with puffins. Northern Europe, where the natural world is still largely in charge, is for travellers who want to feel small in the best possible way. 52

Iceland

NORTHERN EUROPE

NORWAY Y O U A R E B E I N G W AT C H E D .

“Norway is defined by the concept of friluftsliv—a way of life centred on spending time outdoors, living in harmony with nature, and treating the environment with deep respect. This philosophy shapes how we experience the country. Rather than simply admiring Norway’s spectacular scenery, we aim to immerse travellers in the lifestyle that has evolved around it.” — T I B O R B A R N A , E X P E R I E N C E D E S I G N E R , N O R W AY

There is a moment, sometime in the f irst hour of your arrival at Wolf Lodge, when you become aware that you are being watched. The lodge sits inside the wolf enclosure of Polar Park, the northernmost animal park on Earth, in a secluded valley high above the Arctic Circle in Bardu, Troms, in Northern Norway. These wolves, accustomed to human presence in a way that wild wolves are not, circle the property at close range, amber eyes tracking movement through the trees. They are not behind glass. The only barrier between you and them is the mutual, slowly developing curiosity. Typically, only 15 groups stay here each year. Its three suites—Frøya, Brage, and Frigg, named for Norse gods—hold a maximum of six guests total. A private chef handles the kitchen, a devoted wildlife host is at your disposal throughout, and the park’s head animal keeper, a founding member of Polar Park in 1993 who returned after 13 years in the Norwegian military, leads you into the enclosure itself. A face-to-face encounter with an animal that humans have feared, revered,

and mythologized for millennia. The wolves here have been raised with human contact as part of their natural environment, a welfare program established for the animals’ benef it. What that means in practice is that they regard you with interest rather than threat, and you will quickly f ind yourself doing the same.

N O R WAY

The fjord at full force

After hours, when the park’s day visitors have long gone, the valley belongs entirely to your group. Outside the enclosure, the Norwegian landscape overwhelms. In winter, the aurora borealis moves across the sky from late August until April. In summer, the midnight sun never fully sets. Dog sledding, snowshoeing, Sámi cultural visits, and f jord cruises are available, depending on the season. Every stay generates a donation to the Polar Park Wolf Welfare Fund. None of it quite prepares you for the eyes through the trees. That particular feeling of being watched by something ancient and entirely indifferent to your itinerary is what people tend to mention f irst when they return home.

The Geirangerf jord arrives all at once—sheer rock walls rising hundreds of metres from the water, ancient farms clinging to ledges that seem to defy gravity, waterfalls threading down through the green. Most people experience it from a ferry, slowly. But you’re doing it differently. A RIB boat and a 70 km/h sprint across the surface of a UNESCO World Heritage Site immerses you in the f jord at full force— spray, wind, scale—and silence when the engine cuts out. Norway, at its most elemental.

Northern Europe

Iceland

“B&R is a cut above the others. The cultural component is like none other. Our local guides in Leiden, The Hague, at the cheese factory, and in the oyster area were fantastic.” – H O L L A C E W. , F O R T WO R T H , T X

EXPERIENCE DESIGNERS

Tibor Barna

Nor thern & Central Europe

Orsolya Kako

Iceland, Japan, Morocco, Faroe Islands

Guiding since 2009, Tibor has spent

Designing trips at B&R since 2012,

years exploring Central Europe, the

Orsolya excels at getting travellers

Baltics, and Scandinavia by bike—

off the tourist trail in destinations like

building lasting connections with chefs,

Iceland and Japan. She travels regularly

winemakers, and local characters

with her own kids, making her attuned

that reveal the everyday culture most

to family travel of every kind.

travellers never f ind.

Faroe Islands Puff in colonies, dramatic basalt coastlines, and a hiking culture that treats the outdoors as a philosophy. In between, a candlelit dinner in the archipelago’s oldest wooden house, traditional dance, and historical villages. This is one of Europe’s last genuinely undiscovered corners.

Snorkel the Silfra Fissure, where visibility runs over 100 metres and you’re drifting between two continents. Hike glaciers by day, soak in geothermal springs after, and at night, watch the sky put on a show for free.

Sweden Vast forests, open coastline, and the island of Gotland—a place that combines outstanding biking with centuries of layered history and a food scene that surprises. Sweden rewards those who move through it thoughtfully.

Belgium

Netherlands

Bike into Ghent for an afterhours visit with van Eyck’s masterpiece, then glide back into the city by private yacht the next day. End the week at a Duke’s château, sipping the beer he brewed himself.

The Dutch have made flat land look like a party trick. Cyclists glide past leaning gabled houses and Golden Age masterpieces, then trade museums for market stalls— stroopwafels warm off the iron, oysters straight from the sea, tulips blurring by like confetti.

Finland Denmark Bike past the castle that inspired Hamlet, then row a real Viking vessel out onto the Baltic. Days end the Danish way: candlelit, fireside, and unhurried. It’s a state the Danes call hygge and treat as a national skill.

Enormous lakes, ancient forests, and a southwestern archipelago that can only truly be understood by paddling through it. In the far north, time spent with Sámi communities adds a depth that stays long after you’ve left the landscape behind.

CENTRAL EUROPE IMPERIAL GRANDEUR, M O U N TA I N T R A I L S , A N D S E R I O U S W I N E .

Austria’s Danube valley. Switzerland’s Alpine passes. Germany’s castlelined Rhine Gorge. Central Europe layers centuries of history beneath dramatic natural landscapes, and rewards those who move between its regions with the sense that each one is hiding something new.

Switzerland

CENTRAL EUROPE

SWITZERLAND W H E R E T H E C H E E S E I S A M A P.

“The picnic near the top of the valley on day 3 was such a special time. Biking up the long climb to be rewarded with beautiful vistas and delicious food in a gorgeous Swiss house is as good as it gets. An incredible day.” – D A N I E L B . , S A LT L A K E C I T Y , U T

It begins on the grass above the valley as the sun descends over the Alps and three of our host’s friends arrive carrying alpenhorns. The sound moves across the meadows and down into the valley below in the particular way that only such an instrument can manage. Gstaad spreads out below, the kind of view that reminds you why people have been coming to this valley for centuries. Local wine is poured. And then the host leads the group inside a special vault— and down. A steep staircase, then metal rungs, until the temperature drops to a steady cool and the smell of aging cheese fills the air. The grotto maintains a natural temperature of between 7 and 12 degrees Celsius year-round— no artif icial cooling required, just the physics of being underground and the management of humidity. What was once the municipal water reservoir has become something its original builders could never have anticipated: a round underground chamber lined with wheels of Berner Alpkäse and Berner Hobelkäse, lit by candles arranged around the space. Our host, a passionate cheesemonger, calls it a cheese cathedral. Standing inside it, you understand why.

The oldest wheel in the grotto dates to 1931. No longer for eating, it is a monument to the extraordinary durability of Alpine cheese made by experts. The regular Alpkäse is typically eaten much younger, at two to three years. The Hobelkäse, aged up to f ive years, arrives sliced on a mandolin because, by that point, it is too hard for

AUSTRIA

The concert just for you

a knife. Each taste connects, as our host explains it, to the hills around Gstaad, the cows that graze them, and the particular quality of the meadow grass in a given season. Every meadow, he explains, produces a subtly different flavour: altitude, grass variety, the angle of the sun. The cheese is a map of the landscape above. “The warm glowing light of the space somehow deepens the scent and the subtle tastes,” says Marya Valli, B&R’s Experience Designer for Switzerland. “You get why each meadow has a different flavour prof ile.” By the time you climb back out into the evening air, Switzerland has revealed something of itself that most visitors never f ind. The alpenhorns, the candles, the 1931 wheel in the dark. None of it on any map.

The church has closed for the day. The last visitors have f iled out and the doors have been pulled shut, leaving the interior in the certain stillness that old Baroque spaces hold better than anywhere else. Now your visit starts. A private exploration of gilded altars and soaring frescoed ceilings. Then the organ begins. A young organist, playing just for you, f ills the space with music that sounds like it was composed for this architecture. You climb to the loft and watch from a few feet away, then a conversation with the musician himself.

Central Europe “What I love most about Switzerland is its diversity: natural beauty, architecture, cuisine, languages. This is a place where I know everyone will glow with the joy of being in gorgeous nature—which is truly accessible to all, however much or little physical challenge you’re seeking—and with the attention to detail that makes each Swiss town spotless, charming, and welcoming.” – M A R YA VA L L I

EXPERIENCE DESIGNERS

Marya Valli

Switzerland, Corsica, Normandy & Brittany

Mario Koch

Nor thern & Central Europe

Seattle born and Corsican settled,

A former travel writer and chef, Mario

Marya has been with B&R since 1999.

has been designing complex, highly

From sand-sailing Norman beaches

individual trips since 2016. His dual

to gathering wild herbs through the

background means every itinerary tells

maquis, she designs trips that engage

a story—and every meal planned has

all the senses and keep living traditions

been held to an exacting standard.

very much alive.

Germany Castles line the Rhine Gorge roughly every mile, best seen from a bike saddle by day. Bavaria adds another dimension—Ludwig’s fairytale Neuschwanstein, cycling routes through the Alps, and beer gardens that have been perfecting the long afternoon since 1589.

Austria

Mozart, mountains, and meals that go from schnitzel to haute cuisine without missing a beat? Austria hits all the right notes. Bike past Danube vineyards, glide through glacier-fed lakes, and wander Baroque palaces with Habsburg flair. With cowbells in the hills and “Grüß Gott” on every trail, Austria blends old-world charm with Alpine adventure—perfectly in tune.

Hungary

Czechia

Budapest surprises most travellers—grand 19thcentury palaces, 25 thermal baths, the Danube at dusk. Beyond Hungary’s capital, Lake Balaton’s northern shore rolls through vineyards like a quieter Tuscany.

A castle theatre in Český Krumlov still rigs its own thunder and lightning, four centuries on, with a behindthe-scenes look most visitors never get. Bohemian brews. Moravia pours wine nobody talks about enough. Prague does both, constantly.

EASTERN EUROPE THE CONTINENT’S OLDEST STORIES ARE ITS LEAST CROWDED ONES.

Slovenia’s Julian Alps and emerald rivers. Croatia’s Dalmatian Coast and island-to-island sailing. Greece’s 3,000 years of civilization scattered across hundreds of islands and a mainland that still surprises. Eastern Europe is where the continent’s most compelling stories are being told—and most of the crowd hasn’t caught on yet. 64

Slovenia

EASTERN EUROPE

SLOVENIA

A F A M I LY TA B L E . A F A M I LY W E L C O M E .

“I can guarantee travellers that they’re going to feel the heart of the place. Slovenia has been on the fringe of cool for a really long time. People there are really wanting to host, wanting to show you what they have, and they’re really humble. I’m keen to bring people to a place where I feel the beating heart of it still.” — ERIN REED, EXPERIENCE DESIGNER, SLOVENIA

The road to lunch is not easy. By the time you roll into the small village an hour outside Ljubljana, legs carrying the memory of every hill between here and the morning’s start, you are ready for nourishment. The farmhouse appears on the horizon and, inside, a family has been preparing for your arrival. “In Slovenia, the people welcome us into their actual homes, onto their farms, and serve us because we’re their friends,” says Laura Benn, one of B&R’s Experience Designers for the region. “We know them so well, and they want us to bring our travellers to them.” Your guide’s parents are the hosts—his mother having picked the vegetables that morning, his father moving between the barn and the table making sure everyone has something in front of them. Lunch is served family style: fresh salads, light quiche, simple things made from what the farm produces and what the season offers. The barn doors are open to the surrounding pastures. His father opens a bottle of plum rakija, which is passed around with the kind of insistence that is impossible to refuse politely.

“It’s a challenging ride to get there. So by the time travellers arrive, they are ready for this lunch,” Erin Reed, Experience Designer for Slovenia, says. “And the family are impeccable hosts.” What makes the lunch work is not the food, though the food is good, but the warm welcome and the quality of attention that comes from

GREECE

DINNER, DANCING, AND ZERO TECHNIQUE REQUIRED.

being served by people who are genuinely glad you made the effort to get there. The ride after lunch is gentler. The legs are warmer, the conversation easier, and the Slovenian countryside—rolling, pastoral, impossibly green—feels like it belongs to you for the afternoon. You carry the farm with you for the rest of the day. And, if you’re honest, for a little longer than that.

The village of Livadi doesn’t get many visitors. When you arrive, a few heads turn, a few chairs shift outside the cafe. It’s the attentiveness of a small community when something slightly unusual is happening. What’s happening is dinner prepared by a cooperative of women: giant white beans, lamb, bread. You play a part in dessert, assembling a Greek-style layered treat under the tutelage of your hosts. After the meal, the square f ills. Traditional dancing that you’re encouraged— enticed, even—to join. Those gathered at the edges watch. The music is loud. And nobody cares about technique.

C R O AT I A

TÜRKIYE

The fishermen’s secret, now yours

THE AEGEAN KEEPS ITS B E S T S P O T S Q U I E T.

Wooden boats push off from the harbour at Rovinj as the light fades over the Adriatic. You are being rowed towards the old city walls, and waiting is a cellar door. This is where Rovinj’s fishermen have always come after a day on the water—tying up their vessels, dropping off their catch, and disappearing into these stone rooms to play cards, sing songs, and drink wine aged in barrels in that very cellar. Today, you join them. A round of cards. Cold cuts, cheese, sardines, and wine. History is better when you’re sitting inside it.

You wake up to the sound of gentle waves lapping on the side of your boat. The gulet, a traditional wooden sailing vessel, handcrafted on this same southwestern coast for centuries, has been at anchor since last night, tucked into a cove somewhere along the Turkish coast where the mountains drop straight into water that has no business being that brilliant. Viewed from your perch on the deck, the Aegean holds the early light in a way that makes the word “turquoise” feel inadequate. Laura Benn, B&R’s Experience Designer for the region, is not being hyperbolic when she says, “The water is truly the most turquoise water I have ever seen. I really can’t stress that enough.” The boat is generous in the way that matters most: space. Wide deck, open air, room to spread out and claim a corner as your own. By the time breakfast appears, the morning has already arranged itself around the view. A traditional Turkish spread—olives, white cheese, fresh bread, tomatoes, honey, fresh jam, eggs—is set on the table, it’s a feast really. There’s not another boat in sight, and the cove was chosen for exactly this reason. Far enough from anywhere and anyone else that the coast feels entirely yours for the morning. After breakfast, the anchor is raised. The day opens. The water stays that colour the whole way.

Eastern Europe

Romania

“The beekeeper stay was the most cherished experience, and we loved a late lunch with the shepherd. Lunch with different people in Istanbul helped us to feel closer to the people of Türkiye.” – ELIZABETH G., WILMINGTON, VT

EXPERIENCE DESIGNERS

Erin Reed

Georgia, Greece, Croatia, Türkiye, Bulgaria, Slovenia, Montenegro, British Columbia

Laura Benn

Georgia, Greece, Croatia, Türkiye, Bulgaria, Slovenia, Montenegro, British Columbia

With 18 years at B&R—in the atelier,

With a decade at B&R and a sharp

on the road, and training guides—

eye for design, Laura crafts trips in

Erin designs trips rooted in genuine

Eastern Europe that feel effortless—

connection to place, people, and the

and has a gift for ensuring travellers

natural world. Her curiosity is, by all

mark life’s big moments in style.

Pedal past fortif ied Saxon churches and medieval walled towns to a private dinner inside Bran Castle. Sighișoara, Vlad the Impaler’s birthplace, looks exactly as dramatic as you’d imagine. And Transylvania’s back roads stay nearly empty, even in high season.

Georgia The Greater Caucasus Mountains, some of the world’s most ancient wine traditions, and guides who seem to know everyone between the Black Sea and the Caspian. Georgia gets better the deeper you go.

accounts, insatiable.

Croatia Journey out of Diocletian’s old Roman palace, island-hop to Hvar’s lavender f ields, then hike or pedal straight across the border into Montenegro. Explore three countries’ worth of coastline, fortresses, and seafood—a reward at each kilometre.

Montenegro Cross the border from Croatia by bike, descend into the Bay of Kotor, and arrive somewhere that feels like a secret the Adriatic has been keeping. Medieval fortresses, pine forests, and a coastline that rewards the curious. 69

ASIA & PACIFIC V A S T A N D E N D L E S S LY L A Y E R E D .

Asia has a way of making you feel like you’ve been travelling too fast your whole life. A tea field in Kyushu. A bamboo forest at dawn in Laos. A Bhutanese family who will, without fanfare, change how you think about happiness. The Pacific adds another dimension entirely. Out here, the map stops making sense in the best possible way.

New Zealand

A S I A & PA C I F I C

JAPAN

O U T S I D E T H E N E O N . I N S I D E T H E C O U N T R Y.

“I could not imagine organizing a trip to Japan on my own that could compare. The accommodation, restaurants, and guide were excellent, and the walks and attractions well chosen.” – L E N O R E W. , S A C K V I L L E , N B

There’s a version of Japan that most f irst-time visitors see: Tokyo’s neon, Kyoto’s temples, the bullet train between them. It is extraordinary. It is also, Orsolya Kako will tell you, only the beginning. “I work hard to convince people to go outside of the usual suspects,” says Orsolya, B&R’s Experience Designer for Japan. “By doing that, they really get a broader sense of the beautiful nature Japan has to offer.” An hour outside Tokyo, the Japan that visitors rarely see begins to reveal itself—cedar forests, Shinto shrines nestled between the trees, rice paddies worked by hand, f ishing villages where the morning catch is brought in by boat. In Toyama, cyclists ride quiet coastal roads with the Tateyama mountain range reflected in the bay below, stopping at sake breweries, soba restaurants, and UNESCO-listed villages of thatched Gassho-style farmhouses that haven’t changed in centuries. On the Noto Peninsula, the roads are empty and the coastline is dramatic. In Kyushu’s south, tea f ields and volcanic landscapes unfold at the pace the region demands: deliberate and impossible to rush through.

Then there are the people. A lacquerware artist in Yamanaka Onsen whose craft has been passed down through f ive generations. A woodworking artisan who opens his studio because Orsolya has been coming to this region long enough to simply ask. A sake brewer in Toyama who walks you through a tasting with

SRI LANKA

WA L K T H R O U G H A M I N D AT W O R K .

the particular pride of someone whose family has been making this specif ic thing in this specif ic place for generations. “Meeting people who have different lifestyles is a really important way to experience the country,” she says. “You understand tradition and where the culture has come from. You really see more when you’re outside the neon of the cities.” The Japan that B&R reveals is, consistently, the one travellers say they didn’t expect—and can’t stop thinking about afterward.

Geoffrey Bawa never designed a building without f irst understanding the landscape it would inhabit. Sri Lanka’s most celebrated architect believed that a building should emerge from its surroundings rather than impose upon them, a philosophy best understood at his own estate. Lunuganga, Bawa’s weekend retreat on a cinnamon island overlooking Dedduwa Lake, was his life’s work and his laboratory—a garden estate he spent f ive decades shaping, planting, and ref ining. Terraced lawns descend towards the water. Pavilions sit open to the breeze. Trees frame views that feel composed rather than accidental, because they were. Walking through it is to understand, slowly and physically, how a mind that spent decades studying ancient monasteries and rock gardens eventually arrived here. Your visit is private, and it’s the moment the entire journey comes into focus.

VIETNAM & CAMBODIA

Y O U K N O W O N LY THIS: THERE’S A B O AT . You know only this: there’s dinner. And a boat. Wear something comfortable. Tuk-tuks deliver the group to the edge of the West Baray, one of the ancient Khmer Empire’s great reservoirs, catching the golden hour light across a surface so broad the far shore is barely visible. The boats push off into the warm evening air, drifting past smaller temples and ruins on the horizon. Where you’re headed remains, for now, a mystery. The shore you arrive at feels remote. A beach greeting of sparkling wine, then a walk through a small rural community—locals going about their evening, dogs underfoot, chickens unimpressed by the procession. The property f inally reveals itself: a cocktail bar where Cambodian-twist mojitos are made by hand (and where

you can make your own), musicians playing softly nearby, paper-folding demonstrations by local artisans. Everything—the hosts, the musicians, the folks making the cocktails—comes from the community a few minutes away. Dinner is a multi-course journey through Cambodian flavours. And then, at the end, something unexpected: the lights go off. For a few suspended moments, there is only the sound of the water, the insects, and the musicians continuing to play in the dark, torchlight flickering around the edges of the property. Time, for a few moments, stops.

J A PA N

A souvenir worth waiting for Deep in the Toyama countryside, inside an old farmhouse that has been transformed into a beautiful workshop, a craftswoman has been making washi paper—slowly, by hand, with good water. It’s the water that’s the key to quality. The experience begins outside, breaking down gampi f ibres with a wooden mallet on stone. Then into the workshop—concrete floors, plaster walls, a single well at the centre of the room—where the pulp becomes paper. Seasonal flowers can be pressed in if you choose. Two days later, the f inished sheet arrives at your hotel. If you’ve already moved on, she sends it home. Some things are made to last.

Pacific EXPERIENCE DESIGNER

Rob Greive

New Zealand, Australia

A passionate global adventurer, top-level ski coach, and former f ilm and T V industry hand, Rob has been with B&R since 2005—f irst as a guide, now designing trips across New Zealand and Australia. He researches, designs, and often guides his own itineraries, bringing f irsthand knowledge to every journey. His favourite pastime is seizing the moment, and his trips reflect that.

Australia This country refuses to pick a personality. Watch sunrise at Uluru with an Indigenous guide explaining the rock’s stories. Helicopter into Tasmania’s wine country for a lunch set up just for you. Dive the Great Barrier Reef. Or, all of the above.

NEW ZEALAND

WA I H E K E G I N DELIVERED TO QUEENSTOWN. The Waiheke Distilling Co. sits on the remote eastern edge of Waiheke Island at the end of a road that runs out of land above the descending waters of Pikau Bay. It is, by any measure, one of the more extraordinary places to taste gin—native botanicals, hand-crafted spirits, the kind of view that makes you want to stay longer than planned. One group did stay. They tasted. They loved the gin. And then, at the start of a two-week trip, they moved on without buying a bottle. Word got round to Rob Grieve, B&R’s Experience Designer for New Zealand. A quiet exchange with the group’s Waiheke guide conf irmed it. By the time the group reached their f inal hotel in Queenstown, a bottle was waiting in their room. A souvenir to take home, a flavourful memory of their time in this special corner of the planet, one f inal detail to make the trip unforgettable.

Asia

Bhutan

“I love the philosophy of food in Japan, and how fresh everything is. Through food you learn a lot about the culture—the care that they put into every dish, the presentation, the fine details of the entire experience. They want to make you feel like family.” – O R S O LY A K A K O , E X P E R I E N C E D E S I G N E R , J A P A N

A hike to Tiger’s Nest Monastery will have you climb 800 metres above the valley floor, ending at a temple built directly into the cliff face. Spot endangered black-necked cranes wintering in Gangtey Valley, one of the few places left where they still gather. Bhutan counts happiness as a national metric, and means it.

EXPERIENCE DESIGNERS

Nathan Lane

Cambodia, Jordan, Laos, Oman, Sri Lanka, Vietnam

Karen MacRae

Bhutan, Nepal, Thailand, Egypt, Indonesia, India

Guiding since 2001, trip designing since

With 20 years of guiding and planning,

2011, and over 200 trips deep, Nathan

Karen specializes in translating ideas

uses your dreams as his starting point.

into journeys that exceed aspirational

If your wish list includes something

dreams, bringing particular warmth and

nobody has done before, that’s exactly

expertise to family, friend group, and

what he thrives on.

multi-generational travel.

Laos

Oman

Saffron-robed monks collect alms at dawn in Luang Prabang, a ritual unbroken for six centuries. Glide on the Mekong past limestone caves f illed with thousands of statues of Buddha. Laos moves quietly, and that’s exactly what will stay with you.

Hike centuries-old irrigation channels through UNESCOprotected date groves. Share coffee and dates with Bedouin hosts in Wahiba Sands, swim Wadi Shab’s turquoise pools, and watch a 20,000-person mosque hold its silence. Oman has been hiding in plain sight.

Jordan

Thailand

Walk into Petra through a narrow canyon, watching the Treasury reveal itself stone by stone. Sleep under Wadi Rum’s stars in a Bedouin camp, then float effortlessly in the Dead Sea. History rarely feels this physical.

Bike through Chiang Mai’s hill tribe villages, then trade mountains for the Andaman Sea and island-hop by private longtail boat. End in Bangkok, where the street food alone justif ies the trip. Thailand operates at full volume, in the best way.

Nepal

India

Honey hunters scale cliff faces on rope ladders below Annapurna, a tradition unchanged for centuries. Helicopter past Everest, trek the Khumbu Valley with a Sherpa guide, or track tigers in Chitwan. Eight of the world’s highest peaks live here.

The Taj Mahal at sunrise is one thing. A dawn tiger trek through Ranthambore’s teak forest is another entirely. Sleep in palaces built for maharajas, ride camels through Rajasthan’s desert, and f ind it’s the tiger tracks, not the Taj, you tell people about f irst.

Cambodia

Indonesia

Tuk-tuk into Angkor to watch Bayon’s stone faces emerge from shadow as the sun comes up. Climb through Ta Prohm, where centuries-old f ig trees grow straight through the temple walls. End the day with sunset cocktails and a Khmer feast in Siem Reap, the perfect reward for a morning spent among ruins.

E-bike beneath Mount Batur’s crater rim, then sail to Komodo Island where dragons patrol untouched beaches. Snorkel beside manta rays before golden hour drinks on pink sand. Bali earns every bit of its reputation, then keeps going.

AFRICA

T H E C O N T I N E N T T H AT C H A N G E S H OW YO U S E E T H E WO R L D.

Gorillas in Rwanda’s highland mist. Wildflowers in bloom in the Cape Winelands. The dunes of Namibia at first light. Africa is not a single destination but a collection of extraordinary ones—each with its own landscape, wildlife, and cultural depth. B&R’s active-first approach and 30 years of relationships ensure you experience it in a way most travellers never will. 78

Botswana

AFRICA

SOUTH AFRICA SIX FLORAL KINGDOMS EXIST ON EARTH. ONE IS HERE.

“South Africa is a country of magic, colours, beautiful energy, but, most of all, ubuntu. What a word! How much it has to teach societies in the world. B&R made sure we captured the essence of the country, beyond the five stars. We met amazing people, saw amazing animals, and every place we stayed made us feel at home.” – M O N T S E R R AT G . , G U A Y N A B O , P R

Most people come to Africa for the animals. What they rarely expect to be wowed by is the flowers. In the southwestern corner of South Africa, in a private nature reserve called Grootbos tucked between the mountains and Walker Bay near Hermanus, there is a landscape that contains more plant biodiversity per square kilometre than the entirety of Great Britain. This is the Cape Floral Kingdom, one of only six floral kingdoms on Earth, home to a plant group called fynbos that exists nowhere else. Grootbos spans 3,500 hectares of protected wilderness, its landscape restored to original fynbos after years of conservation work. Walking through it with a botanist guide is a lesson in scale, not vast plains but the vertical, intricate, almost impossibly dense scale of a world that exists between your knees and the ground. More than 1,000 plant species have been recorded here, seven of them new to science. Eighteen scientists currently work on the property, studying everything from soil health and water systems to

f ire ecology. The landscape you walk through has been shaped by flame as much as by rain. Hikes into the surrounding mountain ranges reveal the fynbos at different elevations and in different stages of its flowering cycle, your guide tracing the relationships between specif ic plants and the pollinators that depend on them.

TA N Z A N I A

THEY READ THE LAND. Y O U K E E P U P.

The reserve’s commitment to documentation runs deep. Grootbos spent over two years commissioning botanical artists to draw and record the species found here, producing a florilegium, a collection of scientif ic illustrations. South Africa has won the Chelsea Flower Show for the last decade running, in no small part because of the extraordinary plants that originate here. In the Winelands, just outside Stellenbosch, there are wine estates where the influence of the Cape Floral Kingdom can be tasted in the glass. The land, it turns out, gets into everything.

You set out in the early morning, and from the f irst steps, it’s clear that you are in someone else’s world. Your guide stops at a broken branch and reads it the way a person reads a sentence— it was this animal, moving in that direction, some hours ago. He passes a bush, pulls a small branch free and begins cleaning his teeth with it, explaining, without breaking stride, exactly what this particular tree is for and why. Every plant has a name. Every track has a story. Every piece of this landscape has been known, used, and understood for longer than most civilizations have existed. The morning with the Hadza, a group of nomadic hunter-gatherers in Tanzania, unfolds without agenda. They move, gather, and hunt as they always do, and you keep up as best you can. What is found is shared, and it needs no further ceremony. After the morning together, what lingers is not a highlight but the particular feeling of having walked through a landscape with someone who knows it the way you know your own name—without having to think about it at all.

AFRICA

MOROCCO M O R O C C A N T E A C E R E M O N Y.

RASHID’S MOTHER IS E X P ECT I N G YO U . The hike out of Imlil begins with a lesson. Your guide Rashid, a long-time B&R friend and Amazigh local whose family has lived in the Atlas Mountains for generations, shows you how to wrap a tagelmust, the traditional cloth that keeps the Atlas sun at bay, before setting off along the trail. By the time you reach his mother’s home a few kilometres outside the village, you’ve learned more about this landscape than any guidebook could offer. The house is simple, the views are not. A large terrace opens onto a view of Mount Toubkal, North Africa’s highest peak rising above the valley, and it is here that Rashid’s family meet you, carrying their best tea glasses and their finest teapot for a serving of Moroccan tea, as much a refreshment as an excuse to gather and chat. The children trailing behind with plates of cookies and small dishes of amlou—roasted argan oil, almond butter, and local honey blended together and served with bread. The tea is poured from a height, Rashid explains why, what the bubbles mean, where each ingredient comes from, but the ceremony is never solemn. It’s warm and a little chaotic (in the best way), and there is always a baby to hold. Travellers who have spent days in Morocco’s f inest riads and grandest medinas consistently name this terrace, this tea, this family, as the moment they remember most. “It gives me hope,” says Orsolya Kako, B&R’s Experience Designer for Morocco, “that all people can appreciate a good connection with a local.”

SOUTH AFRICA

The tide sets the menu Your guide reads the shoreline the way most people read a menu. What’s in season, what’s ready, what the tide left behind. The morning begins on the coast with her, learning to identify seaweeds, molluscs, and intertidal plants that have fed people on this peninsula for centuries. Then a walk back through the seaside village to her home, where she and her partner have lunch waiting. He’s a craft brewer and organic farmer. His beer arrives alongside whatever you’ve foraged that morning, prepared simply and served at their own table. The kind of lunch that’s truly of the land.

EXPERIENCE DESIGNER

Orsolya Kako

Iceland, Japan, Morocco, Faroe Islands

Designing trips at B&R since 2012, Orsolya excels at getting travellers off the tourist trail in destinations like Iceland and Japan. She travels regularly with her own kids, making her attuned to family travel of every kind.

Africa “Africa is not a single story but a continent of intense diversity. Everyone comes to Eastern and Southern Africa for the wildlife but leaves having fallen in love with the smiles and warmth of the people. The depth of complexity each region offers teaches you about yourself and opens your eyes to things you didn’t realize you cared about.”

Botswana Glide by mokoro, a dugout canoe, through the Okavango Delta at sunrise, close enough to hear hippos surface beside the canoe. Sleep under Kalahari skies where the Milky Way shines. Few places feel this untouched.

– CHRISTINE TUCKER

EXPERIENCE DESIGNER

Christine Tucker

Southern Africa, Eastern Africa

For Christine, designing a trip is about telling a story. Her journeys are rooted in experiences that stay with travellers long after they return—getting feet on the ground, into the lives of local people, and sometimes outside comfort zones. She is inspired by how children experience the world and brings that same openness and curiosity to every itinerary she designs.

Zimbabwe Canoe past elephants drinking at Mana Pools, then stand close enough to Victoria Falls to feel the spray on your face. Visit Matobo Hills, where rock art has survived for millennia. Zimbabwe is made for those willing to get a little wet.

Seychelles An archipelago of 115 islands scattered across the Indian Ocean, each one more improbable than the last. Giant tortoises, coral reefs, and the coco de mer palm, found nowhere else on Earth. We know which islands are worth the boat ride.

Zambia

Rwanda

Track leopards on foot in South Luangwa, the birthplace of the walking safari, feeling the ground differently than from a vehicle seat. Canoe on the Zambezi, then watch Victoria Falls send mist into the sky.

Trek through misty bamboo forest until a silverback gorilla appears, close enough that your guide motions exactly how still to stay. Hike tea-covered hills after, and meet the people rebuilding a country after its hardest chapter. Rwanda earns every bit of awe.

Namibia

Egypt

Alter your understanding of what a desert is supposed to look like. Climb Sossusvlei’s dunes, among the oldest and tallest on Earth, then track desert-adapted elephants through Damaraland’s red valleys. Run your f ingers near 6,000-year-old rock carvings at Twyfelfontein.

Stand inside Abu Simbel, carved directly into a cliff face 3,200 years ago, and watch the sun catch the same stone it has for millennia. Sail the Nile past Luxor’s temples, then wake in the remote oasis that is Siwa. This is a front-row seat to ancient history.

Kenya Bike across Borana Conservancy as giraffes amble alongside, then track lions on foot with a Maasai guide who reads every print in the dust. Sleep under canvas while lions call somewhere close.

LATIN AMERICA A N C I E N T C I V I L I Z AT I O N S , W I L D L A N D S C A P E S , AND EXTRAORDINARY FOOD TRADITIONS.

Latin America spans two continents’ worth of landscapes, cultures, and culinary traditions, from the Inca Trail arriving at Machu Picchu at sunrise to Patagonian peaks reflected in still, glacial water. Travellers who go beyond the headline destinations are rewarded with places that take longer to reach and still longer to forget. 86

Peru

L AT I N A M E R I C A

PERU A R R I V E O N F O O T.

“It was evident from the first day that Paola has developed very strong relationships with each of the ‘Makers,’ so we got the benefit, which made the trip extremely special. The final night was perhaps the most special … a perfectly orchestrated final goodbye around the fire turned into a spectacular with drumming and dancing. Completely unexpected and over the top, but it proved that Paola herself is one the Makers.” – G E O R G E M . , VA N C O U V E R , B C

The question isn’t if you’re going to Machu Picchu but how. Stephanie Gulledge, B&R’s Experience Designer for Peru, has guided the Inca Trail more times than she can count, with travellers ranging from teenagers to people well into their 70s. She’s clear about her preferred way to take the journey: “Arriving by foot, as opposed to by train and bus, is really what sets the experience apart.” The distinction begins long before the trail itself. B&R’s approach treats Machu Picchu as a crescendo rather than an attraction—something to be understood before it’s seen. “We spend the days leading up to it telling the story,” Stephanie explains. “We want travellers to understand what they’re going to be seeing, and to arrive and feel the power and majesty of the sanctuary.” The altitude acclimatization, the Sacred Valley walks, the pachamanca lunch on Inca terraces, a feast slow-cooked under hot stones, the home-cooked dinner with local friends, all of it is orchestrated so that by the time the trail begins, the place has already started to mean something.

The hike itself is deceptive. The Inca steps are original—steep, uneven, and relentless. “I always say the best training is the stair stepper,” Stephanie laughs. But B&R’s version of the trail is nothing like the gruelling solo pilgrimages people imagine. Porters carry gear, water, and a catered box lunch from the f inest restaurant in Cusco.

PERU

The best table in Lima

Lunch midway on the seven-hour trek is set up with camping chairs at an Incan terrace or wherever the powerful landscape allows. “It’s one of those real wow moments,” Stephanie says. The approach to the Sun Gate—Inti Punku— is where effort becomes something closer to emotion. The climb is steep. Legs are burning. And then, suddenly, you’re looking down at Machu Picchu spread out beneath you. “It’s very quiet up there,” Stephanie says. “It feels very sacred.” What follows is a stay unlike most others. B&R travellers stay at the Sanctuary Lodge, the only hotel within the gates of the national park, which means that once the trail is done, there’s nowhere else to go and nothing left to organize. The citadel glows in the late afternoon light, available for a quiet evening walk long after the day visitors have f iled back down to the valley. “We arrive and settle in,” Stephanie says. “And then we share everybody’s stories and feelings about what it’s like to arrive at such a sacred place.” They’re conversations that tend to go quite late.

The space is warm and, frankly, extraordinary—not a restaurant or event space but the chef ’s personal home, which happens to be one of the f inest places in Lima to eat lunch. The house sits above the Pacif ic, its rooms f illed with bold, vivid textiles. The morning begins at a local market, where you select the ingredients before returning to her kitchen to help prepare them. Ceviche almost always appears. It’s Lima’s signature dish, after all, made from f ish that were swimming this morning. Peruvian wines arrive alongside, from an industry still surprising people with how good it has become. This is a trip properly savoured.

L AT I N A M E R I C A

URUGUAY AN AFTERNOON WITH MALLMANN.

“We have so many incredible local contacts and connections, coupled with incredible landscapes and hotels, which are all the special ingredients that we need to make a B&R experience. We can get you a reservation at one of the top 50 restaurants in the world, but we can also open the doors to a local family’s home. We have this opportunity to share the best of the best.” – STEPHANIE GULLEDGE

EXPERIENCE DESIGNER

Stephanie Gulledge

Argentina, Chile, Patagonia, Uruguay, Brazil, Peru

With an insatiable curiosity, Stephanie has a talent for f inding what’s around the corner, whether a new trail or a restaurant led by an emerging chef. With B&R since 2010, she spent eight years guiding, which gave her an intimate understanding of how journeys feel from the road. Now she channels that into designing trips across Latin America.

The f ires have been going since morning. Seven of them, poles, embers, open grates, smoke rising slowly into the Uruguayan sky. By the time you arrive at Francis Mallmann’s property in Garzón, the air already smells like dinner, though the meal is still hours away. That’s the point. The seven f ires aren’t a technique, they’re a conversation between this world-famous chef and the earth he’s been listening to for decades. Mallmann moves between them unhurried, talking as much as he tends to the food. “It doesn’t feel like a show,” says Stephanie Gulledge, B&R’s Experience Designer for Uruguay. “It feels like we’re here together, gathered in this place as people Francis wants to spend the day with.” Being genuinely welcomed in is just as memorable as the dinner that awaits. And when dinner arrives—pulled from flame, rested on wood, set on a table under open sky—the wait has been the best part of the meal.

Latin America EXPERIENCE DESIGNER

Tom Abraham

Ecuador & Galapágos, Costa Rica, Panama

Designing trips at B&R since 2010, Tom loves pushing travellers outside their comfort zone, whether that’s f inding an unexpected route or setting sail on a yacht-based adventure. For him, travel is about exposure to new experiences and the quiet conf idence that comes from embracing it. He is particularly passionate about what happens when the journey takes to the water.

Costa Rica

Argentina

Zip-line through the cloud forest canopy as howler monkeys heckle from above, then raft the Pacuare’s white water with the jungle closing in on both sides. Spot sloths between spa sessions. Pura vida isn’t a slogan here, it’s a fact.

Hike past glaciers calving into turquoise lakes, ride the Patagonian Steppe with gauchos, and watch condors work the thermals overhead. Buenos Aires is waiting at the other end, with tango and a steak worth the flight on its own.

Chile Bike Casablanca Valley’s vineyards towards the Pacif ic, pausing for barrel tastings with winemakers who’ve spilled every secret. End the week at VIK, a winery so architecturally bold it could pass for a museum. Then go farther: Patagonia and Atacama wait just beyond Santiago.

Panama Hike Mount Totumas’s mossdraped bamboo forest, then snorkel among coral just offshore from a private island terrace. Panama sits between two oceans and somehow keeps both to itself. Bragging rights, before everyone else f inds out how special this place is.

Brazil Rio is often considered the world’s most spectacular city, and the country only gets wilder from there. Amazon tributaries, mountain artisans, and beaches that seem to stretch forever. Come with energy and curiosity—Brazil will use up every ounce of both.

Ecuador & Galápagos A country of extraordinary diversity, from the Andean highlands and Amazon rainforest to the iconic Galápagos Islands—a living museum of wildlife and natural wonder.

BESPOKE M E M O R I E S T H AT F E E L M O R E ETCHED THAN SKETCHED.

BESPOKE

T H E R E A R E T R I P S Y O U TA K E . AND THEN THERE ARE JOURNEYS B U I LT E N T I R E LY A R O U N D Y O U . A B&R Bespoke journey begins with a conversation. Where do you want to go? Who’s coming? What would make this the one trip you’re still talking about in 10 years? From there, an Experience Designer who has spent years on the ground in the region you’re about to visit takes everything you’ve shared and builds something around it. The route, the rooms, meals, and rhythm. Every detail considered. None of it accidental. The result? A private dinner at a château with the Duke who brewed the beer you’re drinking. A morning tracking gorillas in Rwanda, an afternoon in a Kigali art gallery. A week in the Scottish Highlands with a clan chief as your guide, then making friends at the village pub on the way back. Sixty years of showing up in the right places have made all of this possible—and considerably more. You don’t have to choose between one or the other. That’s the whole point. Travel designed around you, your people, and the stories that will still be told at dinner tables years from now. You just need to say the word go.

Bespoke process: How it works Tell us what you’re dreaming of—we take it from there. An Experience Designer, who knows your destination deeply, builds your itinerary around it. Dates, routes, hotels, pace. Once maximum inspiration and excitement has been achieved, you’re paired with the perfect guide to facilitate laughter, learning and some surprises on the road. And when you’re home and dreaming of the next one, our dedicated Traveller Experience team takes your feedback, ensuring an even better future adventure.

BESPOKE

Designed for you, impossible to copy “One of the joys of travel is discovering that the most defining experiences happen in unexpected places.” – GEORGE BUTTERFIELD

Unrivalled expertise

Exclusive access

The best guides

Our Experience Designers combine deep local roots with decades on the ground. They know the region the way most people know their own street, and design every journey accordingly.

Over 60 years of relationships have built something that simply can’t be replicated. Private kitchens, family estates, behind-the-scenes encounters earned through decades of trust. Not bookable. Not googleable. Just ours.

With an average tenure of over eight years, B&R Guides are consummate hosts and some of the most fun people you’ll ever share a road with.

At your pace

A team that stays with you

Every Bespoke journey follows your energy, interests, and rhythm. The guides make it effortless. Your only job is to show up.

The B&R team is with you from the f irst conversation through every day on the road and long after you’re home. They know your journey—and know you.

Less concierge, more confidant The Traveller Experience team is your partner inside B&R. They get to know you well enough to make sure the right journey f inds you at the right time—and they stay in touch in between trips so that every trip feels more personal than the last. Your preferences, milestones, and family dynamics, the trip you’ve been quietly thinking about for years. Megan Oates, B&R’s Director of Traveller Experience, leads a team of tenured veterans whose relationship with each traveller deepens over time. The best safari camps book two years out. A 60th birthday trip needs more runway than you think. The sooner the conversation starts, the better the journey will be.

BESPOKE

MULTI-GEN TRAVEL V A C AT I O N S T H AT B E C O M E F A M I LY L O R E .

When three generations—or four—travel together, something shifts. It stops being a vacation and starts becoming the source of stories your family will still be telling in 20 years. The toddler who made friends with a Maasai warrior while the grandparents watched. The teens who outkayaked everyone on New Zealand’s Waikato River. The long Provençal lunch that somehow became dinner, with everyone still gathered at the table. These things don’t happen by accident. They happen because someone designed the space for them. B&R’s Multi-Gen Legacy trips are built around the beautiful complexity of a family in motion—different ages, energy levels, ideas of a perfect day—and the art of making room for all of it. Our Experience Designers choreograph the logistics invisibly, weave in insider access that works across generations, and build in enough flexibility that nobody feels managed. The result is a journey that gives every generation their own best day and brings everyone back together for the moments that become memories. The only thing left to do is gather your people.

By Sea

Safari & Wilderness

Villa Stays

A chartered yacht trades hotel lobbies for open water. Teens snorkel the coves, grandparents claim the sun deck, parents do a bit of both. Every morning, somewhere new.

Grandchildren encounter their f irst elephant. Parents track on foot at dawn. Grandparents raise a sundowner as the sky turns gold. Then everyone gathers around the f ire at night to share stories.

Kids in the pool, adults and grandparents reading on the terrace. A private estate gives every generation room to breathe and pulls everyone together for the moments that matter most. 99

SMALL GROUP

S M A L L E N O U G H T O M AT T E R . There’s a moment on every B&R Small Group journey—usually somewhere between a hilltop and a great glass of wine— when it hits you. This is exactly what travel is supposed to feel like. A handful of like-minded people moving through the world at the right pace, with guides who know where the best roads go and which doors to knock on. Some days, the plan is perfect. Other days, the detour is better. Either way, nobody’s rushing and the table is always set somewhere worth sitting down. That’s a B&R Small Group trip.

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SMALL GROUP

The details that make the difference

SMALL GROUP

Limited departures, unlimited access

Small by design

We run fewer departures because the experiences that def ine a B&R journey aren’t meant to scale. Private cellars, family kitchens, after-hours museum tours—these doors only open when hosts know exactly who’s walking through them.

Our groups average 10 to 12 travellers. Small enough for quieter roads, more personal meals, and the freedom to adapt as the day unfolds. You won’t feel like part of a crowd, because you won’t be in one.

Flexibility built in

Every day offers multiple routes— push harder, ease off, or take the scenic detour. Premium equipment, a support van that’s always close, and guides who read your energy mean the day bends around you, not the other way around. The itinerary is always solid; the rest is entirely up to you.

Guides who change the trip

B&R Guides are deeply knowledgeable locals who know the difference between showing you a place and making you feel welcome in it, and turn good days into ones you’ll be telling stories about for years. They’re also, without exception, excellent company.

Stays that earn their place

Designed, not assembled

Every journey is shaped by an Experience Designer who knows the region intimately, often from years spent living and guiding there. Routes, hotels, meals, and pace are orchestrated so that every day has a reason and a rhythm. The planning is invisible. The experience is the opposite.

Food and wine worth travelling for

Every property is chosen because it belongs in the journey—historic estates, family-run inns, castles, riads, design-forward hotels. Each is selected for its story, setting, and sense of place.

From Michelin-starred tables to a winemaker’s kitchen to a market-fresh picnic on a hillside, every meal you’ll enjoy is chosen to reveal something true about where you are. You don’t eat well by accident on a B&R trip. You’ll eat well by design.

Everything handled, nothing missed

Meals, wines, transfers, entrance fees, special experiences, and the small pleasures in between. No reaching for your wallet. No wondering what’s covered. From the moment you arrive, the only thing on your agenda is the journey itself.

Your kind of people

B&R Small Group journeys attract curious, considerate travellers who are genuinely interested in the world. Most travellers are surprised by how quickly it feels like they’re with old friends—and how hard it is to say goodbye at the end.

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2027 Small Group Trips Bike, hike, kayak, snorkel—often all in the same week. Multi-Active trips explore a destination in every direction it will allow.

Multi-Active

DEPARTURES:

Multi-Active

DEPARTURES:

JUN, SEP

FROM: $6,995.00

Multi-Active

Bali

Dolomites

SEP

Oaxaca

Multi-Active

DEPARTURES:

FEB, NOV

FROM:

$6,995.00

Vietnam, Laos & Cambodia DEPARTURES:

FROM:

$16,495.00

FROM:

Croatia to Montenegro

Multi-Active

Biking

DEPARTURES:

JUN, SEP

FROM:

$11,595.00

Sicily & The Aeolian Islands DEPARTURES:

Multi-Active

APR, MAY, JUN, SEP

FROM:

CONTACT

Privatize your trip Found the perfect trip but want it for your group alone? Our Privatize

Multi-Active

OCT, NOV, DEC $13,295.00

The world looks different from a bike. Quieter, closer, more alive. Our award-winning Small Group biking trips are built around exactly that feeling.

Chile Wine Country DEPARTURES:

JAN

FROM:

$9,995.00

Burgundy DEPARTURES:

Biking

MAY, JUN, AUG, SEP, OCT

FROM:

$7,995.00

option takes a Small Group itinerary and hands it over to you and your crew. The route is designed, the hotels are booked, the guides are ready. All you need to do is gather your people and decide which adventure to take over.

Loire Valley Châteaux DEPARTURES: FROM:

RE ADY TO GO PRIVATE? CALL OUR SMALL GROUP TEAM AT 1 -866 - 5 51 - 9 09 0

Biking

MAY, JUN, SEP, OCT $6,995.00

Alsace

Biking

DEPARTURES:

MAY, JUN, AUG, SEP

FROM:

$6,995.00

Bordeaux to Dordogne DEPARTURES:

Biking

MAY, JUN, SEP, OCT

FROM:

$6,995.00

Provence

Biking

DEPARTURES:

MAY, JUN, SEP

FROM:

$6,995.00

Normandy & Brittany DEPARTURES:

FROM:

$8,595.00

DEPARTURES: FROM:

$6,995.00

Prosecco to Lake Garda DEPARTURES: FROM:

Puglia DEPARTURES: FROM:

Biking

APR, MAY, SEP, OCT $7,995.00

Biking

MAY, JUN, SEP, OCT $7,695.00

Biking

JUN, SEP

Super Tuscan

FROM:

Biking

DEPARTURES:

FROM:

MAY, JUN, AUG, SEP, OCT

$6,995.00

Northern Greece

DEPARTURES:

Biking

MAY, JUN, SEP, OCT

FROM:

Ireland

Piemonte

Biking

MAY, JUN, AUG, SEP $8,495.00

Biking

APR, MAY, JUN, SEP, OCT $9,995.00

Southern Japan DEPARTURES: FROM:

Japan Toyama DEPARTURES: FROM:

Biking

MAR, APR, OCT, NOV $12,995.00

Biking

APR, MAY, SEP, OCT $12,995.00

Ultimate Morocco

Biking

Slovenia to the Adriatic Coast

DEPARTURES:

MAR, OCT

DEPARTURES:

FROM:

$13,495.00

FROM:

Netherlands

Biking

MAY, JUN, SEP $10,795.00

Biking

Mallorca

Biking

DEPARTURES:

APR, MAY

DEPARTURES:

MAR, MAY, OCT

FROM:

$8,495.00

FROM:

$7,995.00

Andalucía DEPARTURES:

Biking

APR, MAY, JUN, SEP, OCT

FROM:

$7,995.00

Spain Basque & Rioja DEPARTURES:

MAY, JUN, SEP, OCT

FROM:

Norway

Biking

JUN, AUG

DEPARTURES:

FROM:

$11,395.00

FROM:

Northern Portugal & Douro Valley DEPARTURES: FROM:

$7,595.00

Portugal Alentejo

DEPARTURES:

Biking

APR, MAY, JUN, SEP, OCT $6,995.00

Biking

Sri Lanka

Biking

MAY, JUN, SEP, OCT

DEPARTURES:

JAN, MAR

FROM:

$15,495.00

$7,995.00

Switzerland

Romania

Biking

DEPARTURES:

JUN, SEP

DEPARTURES:

FROM:

$8,495.00

FROM:

Biking

JUN, JUL, AUG, SEP $8,495.00

Cambodia & Vietnam

Biking

DEPARTURES:

JAN, FEB, MAR

FROM:

$8,995.00

Walking & Hiking The best way to arrive somewhere is on foot. Our expert guides lead you to beautiful trails at the kind of pace that lets a place sink in.

Cotswolds & Somerset DEPARTURES:

MAY, JUN, AUG, SEP

FROM:

$9,795.00

Iceland & Faroe Islands DEPARTURES: FROM:

Ireland DEPARTURES: FROM:

Hiking

MAY, JUN, AUG $13,795.00

Walking & Hiking

MAY, JUN, JUL, SEP $7,995.00

Dolomites

Hiking

DEPARTURES:

JUN, JUL, SEP, OCT

FROM:

$9,695.00

Japan

Walking & Hiking

DEPARTURES:

MAR, APR, NOV

FROM:

$10,995.00

Scottish Highlands DEPARTURES:

$9,995.00

Camino de Santiago DEPARTURES:

Walking

MAY, JUN, SEP, OCT

FROM:

The right bike changes everything—it’s the difference between seeing a switchback and feeling it in your legs. Sixty years of running trips by bike has taught us exactly what it takes to make a ride impossible to forget, which is why B&R’s fleet is chosen and built for exactly the terrain our journeys demand. Whether you’re chasing a mountain pass or cruising a vineyard valley, the only limit is how hard you want to push.

Hiking

APR, MAY, AUG, SEP

FROM:

Choose Your Wheels

Touring Bike

E-Road Bike

Ideal for riders who want to take in

The aerodynamic drop-bar position gives

the sights, this bike’s custom, upright

you the efficiency of a road bike along

position and flat handlebars ensure a

with the boost—ideal for longer distances

comfortable and enjoyable way to travel.

and more demanding routes where you

Offering road bike performance with

want speed without sacrificing comfort.

hybrid comfort for smooth, stable rides.

Go further, climb harder, arrive fresh.

$5,995.00

Basque Country: France to Spain DEPARTURES:

Walking & Hiking

MAY, JUN, SEP, OCT

FROM:

$7,495.00

Custom Performance Road Bike Built for B&R routes and the riders who take them seriously. This bike is equipped with a lightweight carbon frame, electronic SRAM shifting and

Amalfi Coast DEPARTURES: FROM:

Walking & Hiking

MAY, JUN, SEP, OCT $13,995.00

hydraulic disc brakes, and a 24-speed Bluetooth electronic groupset for

Find your trip

precise, effortless gear changes.

Every 2027 Small Group departure in one place.

Italian Lakes DEPARTURES: FROM:

Walking & Hiking

MAY, JUN, SEP, OCT

Scan to explore the full collection, and claim your spot.

$10,395.00

ALL PRICES IN USD

E-Bike

Four levels of electric assistance on a frame built to inspire confidence. Ride as hard as the day calls for or let the Bosch e-system meet you halfway—the power delivery is so natural it disappears and 44mm tires absorb whatever the road throws at you. Some days call for pushing harder, some for easing in. This bike is built for both.

G O O D T R AV E L L E AV E S SOMETHING BEHIND. The places we visit aren’t backdrops. They’re living communities, ecosystems, and cultures that planted roots long before we arrived and will exist long after we leave. B&R is a Certified B Corp, a designation awarded to fewer than 10,000 companies worldwide that meet rigorous standards of social and environmental performance. As such, our responsibility is to make sure our presence does more good than harm through offsetting travel, local partnerships built over decades, and our Slow Fund, which directs five percent of annual profits into conservation, education, and community initiatives in the regions we explore.

Make future you a little jealous

Ask any traveller who’s come home from a B&R trip what they remember and you’ll never get the same answer twice—a guide who reroutes the whole afternoon for one better view, a wine they still can’t f ind back home, the top of a climb they weren’t sure they’d reach. Sixty years in, we’ve learned that’s the whole point: we can’t script which moment becomes yours, only make sure that whichever one it is, it’s impossible to forget.

Ready to choose your next memorable moment? GET IN TOUCH 1-866-551-9090 BUTTERFIELD.COM INFO@BUTTERFIELD.COM S C A N T O S TA R T P L A N N I N G .

1-866-551-9090

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