EF Adventures and Backcountry Team Up to Redefine How Americans Gear Up and Show Up for Guided Adventure Travel
There is a particular kind of dread that settles in about three weeks before a big trip abroad — not about the flights, not about jet lag, not even about whether your legs can handle seven days of hard hiking. It's the gear panic. Hooded rain jackets that are too heavy, trail runners broken in on the wrong terrain, base layers that seemed fine in a Vermont October but will be useless in a Norwegian drizzle. For the millions of Americans who book guided active travel every year, packing correctly for a specific destination, at a specific time of year, on terrain they've never actually walked, is one of the most underappreciated logistical challenges in outdoor recreation. The industry has long known this problem exists. Now, two heavyweights have decided to do something real about it.
EF Adventures, a leader in active travel and cultural immersion, and Backcountry, the online specialty retailer for outdoor gear and expertise, announced the launch of a collection of hiking and multi-adventure tours across three continents departing in 2027. The announcement, formalized in October 2026, represents something the guided adventure travel sector has been circling for years: a structured, institutionalized way to connect trip planning with gear planning, from the moment a traveler puts down a deposit to the moment they lace up their boots on foreign soil.
Two Brands, One Mission: Closing the Preparation Gap
The idea behind the EF Adventures x Backcountry Collection is to pair EF's long history of leading active travel trips with Backcountry's gear knowledge and regional outdoor expertise. That framing matters. This isn't a marketing arrangement where one company slaps another's logo on a brochure. The collaboration is built around a specific consumer problem that the outdoor industry has quietly wrestled with for decades: the gap between booking an adventure and actually being ready for one.
Active travel can be intimidating. Even experienced travelers may not know what to pack for an adventure in a new country. The wrong gear can turn a great trip into an uncomfortable one. That's not a trivial inconvenience — on a seven-day trek through Patagonia or a multi-day traverse of Norway's fjord country, a wrong boot fit or an inadequate waterproof layer can derail the entire experience. The EF Adventures x Backcountry partnership is built explicitly around solving that problem before departure.
Registered travelers are paired with a dedicated Backcountry Gearhead for one-on-one packing and preparation assistance. This Gearhead model is Backcountry's long-standing differentiator in the crowded online outdoor gear marketplace — a staff of specialists who know the product catalog deeply and can match gear to conditions, body type, fitness level, and budget. Applied to specific, dated itineraries with known terrain and weather profiles, the model becomes considerably more powerful than a generic gear recommendation engine.
"We've spent thirty years helping people figure out what they actually need for the conditions they're heading into, and the honest answer is that most gear questions are really trip questions," said Kevin Lenau, President at Backcountry. That quote cuts to the heart of what Backcountry is attempting here. Selling gear without context is retail. Selling gear in direct service of a specific adventure, with knowledge of the exact terrain, weather, and physical demands on the calendar, is something meaningfully different.
"These four itineraries gave us something specific to solve for, glacier travel in Norway, wind and rain in Patagonia, sun and heat in the Southwest." The implication is that Backcountry's Gearheads aren't generating generic packing lists — they're working backward from the landscape itself, from what the mountains actually demand, and building gear selections that reflect those specific realities.
Who Is EF Adventures, and Why Does This Partnership Make Sense?
EF Adventures has spent 60+ years building tours that go deeper than the trail, into the stories most travelers never find. That longevity matters in the guided travel space. EF is not a startup playing in adventure travel — it is a company with deep roots in educational and cultural travel that has expanded into one of the more comprehensive active travel catalogs in the business.
EF Adventures is unique in the world of guided active travel as the only major tour operator that actually has a pro cycling team competing in the highest level events, such as the Tour de France, Giro d'Italia and Vuelta a Espana. That cycling pedigree gives EF a credibility signal in the active travel market that most competitors simply cannot replicate. When an outfitter's name is on a professional peloton at the highest level of the sport, it communicates something about the organization's seriousness that no amount of marketing copy can manufacture.
EF Adventures fields a full catalog of guided cycling trips to hotspots such as Tuscany and Burgundy, as well as hiking and multi-sport trips across five continents. EF Adventures offers 40+ guided itineraries across 25 countries and 5 continents, combining active experiences such as hiking, biking, kayaking, yoga, and ziplining with meaningful cultural immersion and local learning opportunities. The breadth of that catalog is significant — it means the Backcountry partnership doesn't have to be confined to the four launch itineraries. The infrastructure is already in place for a much broader rollout as the collaboration matures.
Backcountry, headquartered in Park City, Utah — itself one of the premier outdoor recreation communities in the country — brings a different but equally essential kind of credibility. Backcountry is where serious outdoor enthusiasts go when they need gear that performs — not just looks the part. With expert Gearheads on hand to match you to the right kit, and a catalog that covers everything from trail shoes to technical layers, they've been equipping adventures for years.
The Four Itineraries: Where the Rubber Meets the Trail
The collection of new tours reaches three of the world's most iconic mountain landscapes: the glaciers and fjords of western Norway, the alpine ridgelines of Italy's Dolomites, and the wind-scoured peaks of Patagonia. The four tours span moderate to challenging activity levels and run from 7 to 14 days, with one departure per itinerary in 2027. These aren't entry-level sampler trips. The destinations chosen for this debut collection are among the most demanding, weather-volatile, and logistically complex places on earth for hiking and multi-sport adventure — which is precisely why the gear consultation model is so well suited to them.
American Southwest: Sedona, the Grand Canyon, and Zion
The collection starts with a tour close to Backcountry's global headquarters in Utah. American Southwest Hiking with Backcountry: Sedona, the Grand Canyon and Zion takes travelers through the red-rock canyons and high-desert trails of Backcountry's home state of Utah and the greater Southwest — the terrain the brand's Gearhead Experts know best. This is a smart opening move. Anchoring the collection's debut with a domestic itinerary gives American travelers who may be adventure-curious but internationally hesitant an on-ramp to the broader collection.
The American Southwest is deceptively demanding terrain. Sedona's red-rock slickrock and technical canyon trails require different footwear than the forested switchbacks of the Appalachians or even the alpine meadows of Colorado. The Grand Canyon's Rim-to-River descents and the long exposed ridgelines of Zion demand respect for heat, hydration, and sun exposure in ways that hikers accustomed to Pacific Northwest or Rocky Mountain conditions often underestimate. Backcountry's institutional knowledge of high-desert hiking — the right trail shoe for sandstone, the right sun protection for canyon country, the layering system that works when temperatures swing 40 degrees between sunrise and midday — is genuinely valuable here. The American Southwest tour runs 7 days, with a 9-day option that includes a Zion National Park region extension.
Norway: Glaciers, Fjords, and Serious Weather
Norway is a landscape that punishes under-prepared travelers swiftly and without apology. The fjord country of western Norway — Bergen, the Sognefjord region, and beyond — delivers some of the most spectacular hiking on earth, but the weather is famously mercurial. A bluebird morning in July can dissolve into horizontal rain and 40-degree temperatures by early afternoon. Glacier travel adds technical demands that most American hikers have never encountered. Crampon fit, ice axe basics, and the specific layering required to stay functional on a glacier ice field are not things a hiker can improvise.
EF Adventures' Norway Multi-Adventure takes travelers through Bergen and the Sognefjord Region over 9 days, with an optional 13-day extension that includes the Bodø area, the Lofoten Islands, and the Oslo region. The Lofoten Islands in particular have emerged as one of the most coveted hiking destinations in Europe over the past decade — a dramatic archipelago above the Arctic Circle where jagged peaks drop almost directly into the Norwegian Sea. The combination of exposure, unpredictable weather, and physically demanding terrain makes this one of the trips where Gearhead consultation could most meaningfully change a traveler's experience.
EF Adventures travelers will have access to expertly curated gear and apparel recommendations from Backcountry's in-house experts known as Gearheads — that might mean the right boots for a hiking trip in the Alps, a proper rain jacket for Norway, the right backpack for a multi-adventure itinerary in Costa Rica. For a Norway departure in particular, that rain jacket conversation is not a minor detail. The wrong waterproof layer at 2,000 feet in the Sognefjord region, in persistent Norwegian coastal rain, is a trip-defining mistake.
Italy's Dolomites: Alpine Culture and Relentless Climbing
The Dolomites occupy a singular position in the world of adventure travel. The Swiss and French Alps, the Dolomites, Northwestern Canada, Patagonia and the American West have long been the gold standard for hiking destination travel. Italy's northeastern mountain range is, if anything, the most visually arresting segment of that list — a UNESCO World Heritage landscape of vertical limestone towers, emerald valleys, and centuries-old rifugio huts where hikers have been rewarding themselves with pasta and local wine since before adventure travel had a name.
The Italy Biking tour within EF's Dolomites collection is an 8-day cycling tour that tackles some of Italy's most iconic climbs, including routes featured in the Giro d'Italia. Riders conquer legendary mountain passes such as the Sella Ronda circuit, Passo dello Stelvio, and Passo Gavia, while experiencing alpine culture, historic rifugios, and breathtaking scenery throughout the Dolomites and Italian Alps. The multi-sport dimension of the Dolomites offering makes gear selection particularly complex — a traveler needs to think simultaneously about cycling kit, hiking footwear, layering for altitude, and the wide temperature swings that characterize alpine elevation in the Italian northeast. This is precisely the kind of multi-variable puzzle that a dedicated Gearhead consultation is built to solve.
Patagonia: The Ultimate Proving Ground
If Norway is demanding and the Dolomites are iconic, Patagonia is humbling. The wind-scoured peaks of Chilean and Argentine Patagonia represent some of the most extreme day-hiking and trekking terrain accessible to recreational travelers anywhere on earth. Torres del Paine's W Trek, the Fitz Roy massif above El Chaltén, the Grey Glacier — these places have broken experienced hikers who arrived with the wrong gear, the wrong expectations, or both.
Patagonia is a Bucket List hiking destination, as is Peru around Cusco and Machu Picchu. But Patagonia sits in a different category for sheer environmental volatility. A single day on the W Trek can cycle through sunshine, driving horizontal sleet, gale-force wind, and calm again — sometimes within the space of an afternoon. The gear demands are correspondingly specific: windproof outer layers rated for sustained high winds, footwear that handles both wet rock and trail mud without sacrificing ankle support, and base layers that manage moisture in conditions where staying dry is functionally impossible but staying warm is essential.
The co-created tours will combine EF Adventures' signature blend of active exploration and cultural immersion with Backcountry's expertise in outdoor gear and lifestyle. Nowhere in this four-itinerary collection is that combination more valuable than in Patagonia, where cultural immersion — gaucho ranches, local wine regions, the frontier outpost character of towns like Puerto Natales — sits alongside some of the planet's most demanding recreational terrain.
What Travelers Actually Get: Benefits and Access
EF Adventures and Backcountry announced a landmark strategic partnership pairing the premium guided tour operator for active travelers with the leading online retailer of premium outdoor gear. The collaboration names Backcountry as EF Adventures' preferred outdoor gear partner, giving travelers access to Gearhead-curated gear lists, exclusive gear and apparel benefits, and Backcountry Summit Club Plus membership, while Backcountry customers gain exclusive deals and upgrades on world-class hiking, biking, and multi-adventure tours through EF Adventures.
The Summit Club Plus membership angle is worth unpacking. Backcountry's Summit Club is the retailer's loyalty and membership program, and Plus tier access typically opens up expanded discounts, priority Gearhead access, and early sale windows. For a traveler booking a $6,000-plus trip to Norway or Patagonia, the gear budget for a single expedition can easily run $500 to $1,500 — high-quality rain shells, technical mid-layers, hiking boots, trekking poles, and a purpose-built pack don't come cheap. Membership-level discounts at a major outdoor retailer, applied against a purpose-built gear list for a known itinerary, translate into meaningful real-dollar savings.
Each trip features a Backcountry signature moment and is supported by specialized gear selection. The "signature moment" framing suggests that Backcountry's involvement won't be invisible — there will be branded touchpoints woven into the actual trip experience, not just pre-departure consultation. Select departures will even feature appearances from Backcountry athletes, bringing an added layer of expertise and storytelling to the experience. The presence of sponsored athletes — climbers, trail runners, mountaineers — on select departures adds a dimension that pure tour operators cannot easily replicate. It's the difference between hiking with a guide and hiking with a guide who also happens to be an accomplished alpinist with first-ascent experience in the range you're walking through.
To celebrate the launch, EF Adventures is hosting a sweepstakes. One grand prize winner will receive the ultimate active adventure: an EF Adventures tour for two valued at up to $20,000, a $2,000 Backcountry gift card to arrive fully equipped, a Backcountry Summit Club Plus membership, and a personal Gearhead to help plan and prepare for every step of the journey. The $20,000 prize valuation puts the stakes of the launch into perspective — these are not budget backpacker trips. This is the higher-end guided adventure market, where travelers expect logistical competence, knowledgeable guides, quality accommodations, and now, evidently, a dedicated gear expert in their corner from booking to boarding.
A Broader Industry Trend: The Retail-Outfitter Alliance
The EF Adventures x Backcountry collaboration doesn't exist in a vacuum. It reflects a broader structural shift happening across the adventure travel industry, where outdoor retailers and tour operators are recognizing that their customer bases are essentially the same people at different points in the same journey — buying gear for trips they plan to book, or booking trips that require gear they need to buy.
In January 2026, Intrepid launched its new partnership with outdoor retailer REI Co-op, offering two collections of adventures led by local tour leaders with discounts for REI members. REI and Intrepid arrived at a similar structural conclusion — that the retail relationship and the travel relationship can reinforce each other, creating loyalty and value for customers on both sides of the transaction. Their tours include a four-day Yellowstone llama trek, a women's expedition to Nepal, and a four-day hiking trip at the Grand Canyon's South Rim.
What separates the EF Adventures x Backcountry model from the REI x Intrepid arrangement is the depth of gear integration. REI's partnership with Intrepid is largely a distribution and discount arrangement — REI members get access to Intrepid trips at preferential rates. The EF x Backcountry model goes further, embedding gear expertise directly into the trip preparation process through the Gearhead consultation model and then extending Backcountry's presence into the physical trip experience through athlete appearances and signature moments.
The emphasis on the "collaboration" aspect suggests that the complexity of modern high-end adventure is too great for a single entity to handle alone. That's an honest assessment of where the market is heading. A single guided tour operator, however experienced, cannot simultaneously be an expert in Patagonian weather patterns, Norwegian glacier travel protocol, high-desert trail running shoe selection, and the specific technical apparel requirements of sustained multi-day hiking at altitude. The logical answer is specialization — and partnerships that make specialization accessible to the traveler.
Skill Requirements and What Moderate-to-Challenging Actually Means
The EF Adventures x Backcountry Collection is marketed as moderate-to-challenging. For the uninitiated, that language can be misleading — it sounds approachable, and in some respects it is, but "challenging" guided adventure travel at international destinations is not the same as a challenging day hike at the local state park.
Moderate-to-challenging on the W Trek in Torres del Paine typically means covering 8 to 12 miles per day on terrain that can include sustained uphill grades, exposed rocky ridgelines, and multiple river crossings over five to seven days of consecutive hiking. In Norway's fjord country, "challenging" can mean multi-hour ascents on trails with significant elevation gain to viewpoints that overlook the fjords from heights that require real cardiovascular fitness and sure footing on wet rock. In the Dolomites, via ferrata routes — iron rungs and cables bolted into cliff faces — represent an additional technical element that some itineraries include and that requires basic instruction even for fit hikers.
The gear consultation model becomes especially relevant in this context because fitness and gear interact. A traveler who shows up to Patagonia with trail runners instead of hiking boots because they "read online that trail runners are fine" is a traveler who will struggle on wet rock in high wind. A hiker who arrives in Norway without gaiters because they didn't know the terrain floods the trail approaches in early season is a hiker who will spend their first glacier approach with soaking socks. The Gearhead model is designed to catch exactly these gaps — not to upsell, but to match gear to the actual physical demands of a specific itinerary on a specific date.
The Gear Philosophy: Why Specificity Matters More Than Brand Names
"Backcountry Gearheads live for helping people find exactly what they need to do more of what they love outdoors," said Kevin Lenau, President of Backcountry. The emphasis on "exactly what they need" rather than "the best gear available" is significant. The outdoor gear industry has a well-documented tendency toward over-specification — selling alpine mountaineering gear to weekend hikers, or ultralight thru-hiking equipment to travelers who would be better served by a more durable, heavier-duty setup. A destination-specific consultation model, anchored in actual knowledge of what conditions demand what performance thresholds, pushes back against that tendency.
EF Adventures brings small-group active travel expertise — hiking, biking, kayaking, paddleboarding, yoga, cultural immersion, and premium accommodations. Backcountry brings an outfitter's knowledge and a community of outdoor experts who understand what travelers need to pack to show up prepared on their next tour in Patagonia or the Swiss Alps. Small-group travel is itself a crucial variable in the gear conversation. On a small-group guided trip, there is less margin for one traveler's gear failure to become everyone's problem — a slower hiker due to blister problems or heat exhaustion affects the group's daily schedule in ways that solo or self-guided travel does not. Preparation, therefore, isn't just a personal responsibility — it's a social one.
What This Means for the Future of Guided Adventure Travel
As demand for experience-led travel continues to rise, partnerships like this signal where the industry is heading. It's no longer just about where you go, but how you show up — prepared, informed, and ready to fully engage with the landscape. That framing captures something real. The adventure travel market has matured significantly over the past two decades, and the travelers booking guided trips to Patagonia and Norway today are increasingly not first-time international adventurers — they are experienced outdoor people who have done domestic trails, who have a sense of their fitness level, and who want the details handled correctly.
EF Adventures' guided tours are designed for travelers who want to experience destinations beyond the typical tourist path, each blending adventure with authentic connections to local communities, traditions, and landscapes. The cultural immersion dimension is often underappreciated in coverage of active travel — these are not point-to-point athletic challenges with a guide. The best guided adventure travel integrates time with local communities, meals at tables that don't cater to tourists, and access to landscapes and people that independent travelers rarely reach. The gear infrastructure is in service of that deeper experience — it exists so that the traveler can be fully present for the landscape and the culture, rather than distracted by a failing waterproof seam or a boot that's developing a hot spot on day three.
Many new and notable multi-day trails have been popping up, and the recently opened border-to-border Trans-Bhutan Trail has been getting a lot of attention and drawing new trips from top outfitters. Portugal is opening the 2,000-mile Palmilhar Portugal, the world's longest circular hike in stages, many of which are already open. As the trail infrastructure expands globally and new destinations emerge, the demand for destination-specific gear expertise will only grow. The EF x Backcountry model, if it performs well across these four inaugural 2027 departures, creates a template that could scale to dozens of additional itineraries across two companies with already substantial combined reach.
The four inaugural destinations — Utah and the Southwest, Norway, the Dolomites, Patagonia — are not accidents. They represent four of the most searched, most aspirational, most frequently booked categories in the guided adventure travel market for American travelers. They are also four of the most climatically and technically demanding. The partnership is making its bet in the deep end, not the shallow end. If the Gearhead consultation model holds up across glacier travel in Norway and high-wind trekking in Patagonia, it will hold up anywhere. And with EF Adventures' 40-plus itinerary catalog as the potential backdrop, anywhere is the eventual goal.
