Big Brother Backpacking is a tour company with a mission: to teach adolescents how to enjoy student travel in Europe as active participants, not merely as passive spectators. The company's Web site, www.bigbrotherbackpacking.com, states that "Big Brother Backpacking offers a unique way for young adults to gain the confidence and skills required for success in their future adventures, whether at home or abroad. Through our two-week or full-month programs, students will learn to successfully plan and organize an expedition, overcome foreign situations, and gain confidence in their own capacities."
If this sounds like code for "educational travel," there's a good reason: Big Brother Backpacking's founder and head guide, Evan Hadfield, is working on his master's degree in education. But don't confuse Big Brother's brand of educational travel with the usual mass tourism for adolescents: Its tours have a maximum of five participants, and travel is on trains and the occasional public bus, not by chartered coach.
We haven't sampled Big Brother Backpacking's offerings (for one thing, we're too old), but the tours sound enticing for energetic young people whose parents can afford prices of US $3,950 to $7,350 plus air fare. Tours range from a "two-week Alpen tour" to a "16-country full-month tour," with itineraries that can change on the fly depending on the weather, what the group wants to do, and the vagaries of local transportation schedules.
Side note: When we asked Evan Hadfield if some people might think "Big Brother Backpacking" sounds a bit Orwellian, he replied: "I thought of the Orwellian connection, but realized that it would probably be more of a boon than a burden. My students, being in the mid-teens, will probably not catch the reference yet, and the parents who do are already worried about safety, which it (sternly) implies. My wife thought of the name (she is Hungarian without an Orwellian knowledge) and in the interest of keeping her involved and happy, it was chosen immediately."
For more information about Big Brother Backpacking and its European tours for young people, visit www.bigbrotherbackpacking.com.
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