Intrepid Travel has partnered with slow-travel specialist Byway to offer customers flight-free holiday options in Europe.
Byway will offer to arrange flight-free, slow travel to customers who book a European small group tour with Intrepid, providing travel by train, sleeper train or boat for the start or end of a trip.
The multi-day Byway journeys include en route pauses and overnight stays, becoming an extension of the Intrepid holiday.
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The service is initially available for Intrepid trips in Italy and Spain, with more destinations to be added in the next phase of the partnership.
The tie-up between tour operators comes as Intrepid’s latest survey of 1,000 people found 54% of Britons think travelling sustainably is important, while a further 26% are interested in hearing more about the topic.
Example itineraries include a 16-day Your Journey to Venice trip which begins with four days of travelling from London to Venice by train, stopping in Paris, Zurich, Chur and Tirano, then joining an Intrepid group to take a culinary tour through Italy, before spending four days travelling home by sleeper train, stopping in Munich, Cologne and Brussels.
Susanne Etti, global environmental impact manager at Intrepid, said: “We are excited to be working with Byway in what we believe is an industry-first – two travel B Corps supporting each other to make it easier than ever for people to enjoy slow, 100% flight-free holidays.”
Cat Jones, founder and chief executive of Byway, said: “It’s going to take real industry collaboration to materially lower our carbon impact, and the best way to do this is to offer delightful, holistic, door-to-door, slow travel experiences.
“We’re delighted to be partnering with Intrepid, a well-known and superb tour operator, to offer their customers truly flight-free, round trip travel.”