Have you ever looked at a self guided vacation itinerary and think “that looks perfect, but I wish we could start elsewhere?”. For Deb and John, North Carolina residents who wanted to spend time in Venice before and after their Croatian holiday, they knew they could trust Pure Adventures Self Guided Travel to help them plan their European cycling vacation. In this guest blog post by Deb, learn how the Pure Adventures staff went above and beyond to help these cyclists have the self guided trip of their dreams.
This was my third trip with Pure Adventures, but the first one to Croatia and the first with my husband John. My previous two trips, which were wonderful, were to western Ireland – one each with my son and daughter the summer after they graduated from high school before they started college. My daughter loved Ireland so much that she ended up spending a semester abroad in Galway when she was a college sophomore.
Planning all the trips was surprisingly easy, including the Croatian trip which involved a few more planning twists and turns than Ireland because John and I were combing the biking with short stays in beautiful, romantic Venice on either end of the holiday (much recommended).
As Pure Adventures’ Travel Coordinator, Ryan was our contact in North America. She was extremely helpful – we sorted out when we wanted to go and then we worked through the logistics of the pick-up/drop-off in Venice. First off, Ryan and her team were very accommodating to some last minute changes on our part. They provided us with great information on Croatia and the Istrian peninsula, where we would be riding, and details on the bike route and the hotels and inns where we would be staying in (which were all extraordinary!). We thought there would have to be a few glitches with scheduling and whatnot as the Istrian trip was a new one for Pure Adventures – but this proved to not be the case.
Having Venice, Italy as an option for the pick-up/drop-off point was really important for us, and the planning to accommodate this went off without a problem. In addition, we were provided with very easy to follow pre-trip planning documents and directions on what we would need to do before the trip got started. Basically, the Pure Adventures team made the overall planning stress-free.
So we’re already starting to plan our next trip ….