Seventeen. That is the number of places Birchway Point files, and it has been seventeen for a while now. If you want to book a trip to one of seventeen places, this office takes the request in writing, then arranges the reservation directly with the company that operates the trip. We take no payment from you at any stage. There is no card field on this site, no checkout, no basket, nothing that charges you a dollar. The operating company bills you on its own terms once the reservation exists, and it pays us a commission after you travel. That is the whole arrangement, and it is why we can afford to keep the list short.
Birchway Point is a booking office at 324 West Wendover Avenue in Greensboro, NC. We are not the company that runs any of these trips. We do not own vehicles, beds, guides or permits.
A long list looks generous and is mostly decoration. An office claiming two hundred destinations is quoting the same wholesale sheets everybody else quotes, and it cannot tell you the one thing that actually decides whether you go: when the book opens. Some of these seventeen release inventory on a fixed date once a year. Two are capped by a permit count that has not moved in a decade. Several are ordinary enough that a request three or four months out is fine, and one or two can be filled in a few weeks if you will take what is still unsold. Knowing which is which, per place, per season, is a memory problem, and memory does not scale to two hundred.
A few weeks outBornholm6 nights, from $1,890 per person
Three to five monthsGotland6 nights, from $2,380 per person
Eight to twelve monthsShetland7 nights, from $3,180 per person
Eighteen months or moreMont Blanc huts9 nights, from $4,180 per person
A few weeks outExtremadura7 nights, from $1,980 per person
A few weeks outAbruzzo6 nights, from $2,140 per person
A few weeks outThe Rhodope7 nights, from $1,920 per person
Three to five monthsThe Alentejo7 nights, from $2,460 per person
Three to five monthsMaramures6 nights, from $2,290 per person
Three to five monthsThe Peloponnese8 nights, from $2,640 per person
Eight to twelve monthsThe Kackar8 nights, from $3,260 per person
Eight to twelve monthsMasuria7 nights, from $2,880 per person
Eight to twelve monthsSaxon Switzerland6 nights, from $2,740 per person
Eighteen months or moreOverland Track9 nights, from $4,450 per person
Eighteen months or moreKumano Kodo8 nights, from $3,980 per person
Eighteen months or moreIsle Royale7 nights, from $3,540 per person
Eighteen months or moreThe Dry Tortugas6 nights, from $3,620 per person
What we tell somebody who names a place we do not file
We say so, in the first reply, and we say it plainly rather than stalling for a week while we shop around. It happens most weeks. Somebody writes in about a country we have never filed, or a specific property somebody recommended at a dinner, and the honest answer is that we would be learning it on your money and your calendar.
Two things can follow. Sometimes the request is close enough to something on the list that it is worth a conversation: same region, same season, same kind of week, different label. We will say which of the seventeen is the near neighbor and what is different about it, and you can decide whether that is interesting or not. Nobody is going to push you toward a package because it happens to be the one we sell.
Sometimes it is nowhere near, and then we tell you to find an office that files it. We will not take a request we cannot handle well. There is no fee involved either way, so there is nothing lost by asking, and you will have your answer the same working day.
The list does change, but slowly, and never because of one inquiry. A place goes on when we have had enough repeated interest to justify learning its calendar properly, and it comes off when the operating company changes hands or stops releasing dates we can rely on. If you ask about somewhere and we hear the same question six more times that season, that is how it gets considered.
Four things you will not read on any of these seventeen pages
- whether a place is safe to visit
- Not our call and not our expertise. We describe what a trip contains, how long it runs and what it costs. Anything about conditions on the ground, you read from the State Department and decide for yourself.
- documents at a border
- We do not advise on entry paperwork of any kind and we do not obtain it. The operating company states its requirements in writing and you verify them with the authority that issues them.
- cover for a trip
- We do not sell, arrange, recommend or hold opinions on protection for your money or your travel. If you want it, that is a separate purchase from a separate business.
- which company runs it
- Named in the written figure that goes to you, not on a public page. You will know exactly who operates your trip before you commit to anything, and you will have it in writing.
Send the place and the month
Give us the place, the rough month, and how many people. If the place is one of the seventeen we will come back with the request window and what the price covers. If it is not, we will say so. reaches a person that working day and a quoted figure arrives two to four working days after, because it is quoted against live availability rather than pulled off a sheet. If you would rather talk it through, speak to a travel agent at this office on (336) 680-4173. Full terms on changes are on the the cost of pulling out, and the steps from first message to confirmed reservation are set out on the the order the work happens in.