The Breakaway Travel Blog
Short on Vacation Time?
Aren’t we all wishing we had more time to travel! Even if you don’t have many vacation days left for the year, we offer a “taster” tour-- five-day/four-night versions of some of our more popular walking and cycling tours through France and the Swiss Alps, which typically last from seven to 11 days.
The tours, all self-guided or fully-supported independent, include the same level of service, such as well-maintained bikes for cycling tours, accommodations at charming inns and daily continental breakfast and dinner. A representative is also always on call to answer questions, move luggage each day and even deliver wine purchases to the hotel.
You can take your pick of the following tours for your work-week getaway:
Heart of Provence
Loire Gastronomic Cycling (the quality of cuisine is emphasized on "gastronomic" tours)
Abbeys and Vineyards Cycling in Burgundy
Hidden Valleys Cycling in Lot
Bays of Brittany Cycling
Walkers can choose tours of varying levels of difficulty in the Loire Valley and Alsace and Burgundy regions of France, as well as the Bernese Oberland in the Swiss Alps.
*Click on “additional information” for each trip to find information on how to shorten the trips.
Prices start at $995 per person for double occupancy and do not include airfare. Call us at 1-800-567-6286 for more details!
Labels: Bays of Brittany, Burgundy, Cycling, Lot, Provence, walking
And Another Aviation Update…
If you’re a frequent flyer like us, limits on the number of flights to an airport makes us cringe a little. So when we heard about new caps on flights to New York City, we were concerned. Although congestion is problem in the skies around New York City and we are all for improvements to air travel, all of our international trips require travelers to fly to major hubs, including New York City. As scheduling flights can be tricky, we hoped this wouldn’t negatively impact our client’s schedules.
Then we saw this
article in the Wall Street Journal about British Airways planning to fly new routes between continental Europe and New York City—whew! To do this, the airline said it will create OpenSkies, a subsidiary that will start flying a Boeing 757 jetliner in June from New York to either Brussels or Charles de Gaulle in Paris. So if you’re making travel plans for this summer, keep British Airways in mind!
Labels: air travel, British Airways, Europe, New York City
New for 2008
Yes, 2008 has finally arrived and so have lots of new tours from Breakaway Adventures!
New for this year include more than 20 tours from Nepal to South Africa. We won’t go through them all (you can visit our Web site to see the complete list), but some of the highlights include:
Back Roads of Provence Cycling
Lake Como Walk in Italy – Heck, you might even run into George Clooney as you traverse this beautiful landscape!
Everest Panorama -
Highlights of Peru guided walk – An 18-day guided tour of the best of Peru including the Inca Trail, Machu Picchu and Lake Titicaca.
Our new 2008 brochures are also available. If you’d like one, send us your information
here and one will be on its way to you very soon.
Watch out for your batteries…
Concerns that batteries on board planes could overheat and catch fire resulted in new regulations that took effect Jan. 1 for travelers who carry batteries on flights. According to the U.S. Department of Transportation, travelers are no longer allowed to pack loose lithium batteries in their checked luggage. Instead, passengers can pack spare batteries in plastic bags or original retail packaging in their checked luggage.
Now if you’re wondering about your laptop, camera, cell phone, etc…don’t panic. The new rules allow travelers to bring these devices on board or in their checked luggage if lithium batteries are installed on the item.
For detailed information about these new regulations, please visit
http://safetravel.dot.gov/whats_new_batteries.html.
Labels: air travel, batteries, U.S. Department of Transportation
See us on Camera!
Online video is definitely one of the hottest things on the Web these days, so we decided to join the club. New this year on our Web site (and you might find them on YouTube and a few other video sharing sites, too) are video previews of some of our tours.
You’ll get an overview of what to expect on our trips, and hear feedback directly from real clients. We’ll also give you a sampling of our accommodations, the landscapes of your journey, as well as a taste of the yummy cuisine that awaits.
Check the new videos out
here.
Malta, Cyprus Go Euro
Two Mediterranean countries that our tours visit have joined other European countries in adopting the Euro, making it easier for you to travel with a single currency.
According to the
BBC, they have both been members of the European Union since May 2004, and will be the 14th and 15th members of the eurozone.
For more information about the changeover and exchange rates in Malta, visit
http://www.euro.gov.mt/ or visit the
National Website for the Euro.
We offer both walking and cycling tours of
Cyprus and Gozo, a small island that is part of the Malta archipelago.
Labels: Cyprus, Euro, Gozo, Malta
