Spain

This was a perfect trip...Seamless. My 8th VBT bicycling trip and all were good but this one was exceptional because our leaders were exceptional. Great biking, great cultural events and guided tours, wonderful food, very cohesive group of 22 guests who really liked each other every single day. Bravo Javi and Andrea..I hope we meet again!

Our favorite VBT trip to date. The cultural experience rivaled the well planned cycling routes. Time spent on and off the bicycle created lasting memories for joyful reflection.

We loved this trip! Beautiful and varied biking routes; knowledgeable, competent and engaging guides, top-notch hotels, delicious food and interesting cultural activities. I wish I could do it all over again!

We thoroughly enjoyed our first VBT experience. The tour route was very well laid out and we cannot not say enough about how impressive our tour leaders, David and Frederico, both of whom are natives of Portugal. Kudos to VBT for the way they planned and conducted our tour!

This self-guided ride through the Costa Brava area was our first experience with VBT; we did the trip with our daughter and her husband. We are all fit and active, but only one is an experienced long distance bicycle rider, and none of us had trained for this trip extensively. We selected e-bikes (also relatively new to most of us) and were thrilled with the whole experience. Accommodations were great, the Ride with GPS app was terrific, and our local host was available every morning to check in with if needed. We hope to do another VBT ride together!

As my wife and others have mentioned the routes, scenery and accommodations were all excellent, as were the bikes! We chose the carbon road bike option since that’s what we ride at home. After a couple of stops to get the seats adjusted to our liking we were off and found the bikes to be very comfortable and well geared for the hills. We’re in our mid sixties and trained over the summer working up to doing 3-4 rides per week with lengths of 20-40 miles and elevations from 900’-2,100’. That training was sufficient as we found none of the climbs too difficult (although we did choose the longer, less elevation route leaving Girona). While the bikes did have a bar end mirror and a clip on tail light I was glad we brought our own helmet mirrors and front and rear lights. They made the few short sections of high traffic roads much less nerve racking. The drivers were all very courteous however, passing with the required 1.5m clearance. At a rest break a car even stopped to see if we needed any assistance! In addition to the lights and mirrors we also brought wireless earbuds to better hear the excellent Ride with GPS route cues, only using the right ones so we could still easily hear traffic. I do wish we had brought our own phone mounts as the ones provided use rubber corner straps which makes accessing your phone for photos difficult and time consuming. In addition, if they’re not strapped properly the phone can fall out as my wife’s did. Luckily we found it and there was no damage. All in all a great trip even though the bike accessories could be improved.

Mallorca exceeded my expectations for beautiful scenery and wonderful rides. The guides did everything possible to make sure our experience was a great one. The hotel in Polença gets 5 stars for location since it's on the main square, but the breakfasts and accommodations were just so-so. A winery visit was a top-notch experience - a beautiful setting for a wonderful lunch. A biker's paradise in April and, all in all, a great trip!

Absolutely delightful trip. Beautiful location with lots of interesting activities (vineyard and olive oil farm tours, swimming in the Mediterranean, tour of sea salt production facility) and fantastic guides. And especially great food. Easy routes. Cannot recommend highly enough.

We love VBT and the best part of this trip was our leader, Manu. He is awesome! All VBT leaders are great, and he is at the top. It was the initial offering of the trip, and some kinks will be addressed, I am sure. Coordinating the boat and the buses (there were A LOT of buses) and biking is complex. We enjoyed the chance to mix with other travelers on the boat. We enjoyed unpacking only once. The Douro is not a river where you can bike alongside, like the Danube--so there is a lot of bus transfer time on twisty steep roads (some complained of car sickness). It is a hilly area--definitely on the "moderate" scale, not the "easy-moderate" scale. Climate always a question-in late April we had both cold (40's) and wet and warm (70s) and sunny. The olive oil mill and winery were good experiences. The archeological site was sketchy.... If you like hills and don't mind the bus, a good trip to some less accessible areas.

Incredible experience getting out to the villages and learning about the history of the land. The guides were terrific, tending to our needs while riding and along the way. I would suggest that if you are considering a road bike for this tour, think twice and go with the e-bike simply because there is a fair amount of areas where you will ride on cobblestone, which proved to be tricky for even the experienced road bikers in our group.

I had a wonderful time on the VBT Andalusian Spain trip and would highly recommend this trip to anyone who might be interested. The scenery is beautiful and the towns we visited had so much history. Our guides could not have been better. They made the trip both fun and safe. I went solo and felt like I gained 18 new friends. The food and lodging were top notch and the rides were totally manageable even for someone who is not an avid rider - but if you have a doubt about your abilities rent an E-bike and your worries will be over!

Great way to experience Andalusia from rural, small town, big city. Very much impressed with it all.

Another great experience with CW, this time in Northern Spain. Top quality guides (who were also a lot of fun), carefully curated walks (including parts of the various Caminos), interesting and authentic places to stay and great meals, especially the fantastic lunches (in places we would never have found). The walks were accurately rated at easy to moderate. Overall, a fantastic vacation - I learned a lot about Northern Spain and had a great time doing it.

The tour was outstanding in every way. The two guides were excellent. My only complaint is with the travel arrangements which were resolved, I believe, only because I complained vociferously. .

I’ve taken many CW and VBT trips- Mallorca is right up there at the top ! Wonderful guides Isabel and. Helle made sure everything was optimal even though the weather didn’t completely cooperate. their Plan B museum visit gets my A+. Scenery, accommodations, food, and visits to citrus farm and salt flats were outstanding! Highly recommend

Loved this tour! The guides, Hille and Isabel, were knowledgeable about Mallorca and Deia, and shared the information in an interesting manner; plus they were highly competent group leaders who were fun, funny and upbeat. Fellow hikers were friendly and interesting, and as a group we created a comfortable esprit de corps. The hiking was designated as easy to moderate, with seemingly something for everyone in the group - stronger hikers often took the lead while others walked at a slower pace. The 4 - 5 star accommodations were extremely comfortable and the food was fantastic (and a lot more than most of us usually consume)! This was my first hiking tour, and I look forward to doing another.