Pedaling Beyond The Beaten Path

The Price sisters got into the bike touring business younger than most. As young girls, Monica Price and Maria Elena Price were the resident gelato experts for their parents’ bicycle touring company, founded in 1972. By the time they were teenagers, the sisters were tour leaders for groups of Americans pedaling across Western Europe.

Even so, neither of them expected to take over the business as young adults in 2008— much less grow the company well beyond its initial Italian routes.

Nearly two decades after assuming the reins of ExperiencePlus!, the Price sisters are expanding their bike tours into adventurous new locations with little to no cycling tourism.

The company’s new line of Beyond tours offer e‑bike trips through Arctic Finland, rural Tanzania, and the estancias of Chilean Patagonia in 2027. These tours will be rooted in local culture and the beauty of wild landscapes.

A Family Business Built On Two Wheels

ExperiencePlus! was founded in 1972 by Rick Price and his Italian wife, Paola Malpezzi-Price. Their first bicycle tour across Italy was partly organized as a way to visit Paola’s family, while also introducing Americans to a different way of traveling. The couple built cycling tours centered around quiet roads, custom bikes, local food and cultural experiences.

By the late 1990s, the company had expanded its tours into France, Spain, Portugal, Greece , Costa Rica, Switzerland, Croatia, Ireland and the United States. Rick trailblazed new biking destinations and tour types—including longer, expedition-style tours, like pedaling across Europe following the Danube River or coast to coast across South America.

Monica and Maria Elena grew up immersed in the business. The sisters stuffed envelopes with flyers marketing tours, and traveled with their parents on scouting trips.

“It was kind of like dinner with Dad was a management meeting,” Maria Elena told me in a phone interview.

As the company grew, the sisters pursued their own paths: Monica earned a graduate degree in international development, Maria Elena in international relations.

Then in 2008, their parents asked their daughters to assume full ownership of the company. Their daughters decided to take over.

"It was definitely trial by fire taking over during the financial crisis," Maria Elena told me. “Luckily, the foundation was very strong. We were able to scale the company pretty quickly.”

Scaling Bike Tourism With A Family-First Mentality

Today, the company employs between 20 and 30 full-time staff, depending on the season, along with 75 local guides in a dozen countries. During peak season, they manage near daily departures, including tours for other international travel brands.

Maria Elena is based at ExperiencePlus! headquarters in Fort Collins, Colorado while Monica lives in Italy where the company maintains a warehouse of about 500 bicycles. Both of their husbands are also employed full-time in the business.

Many of the staff and guides are the same ones who joined the company decades ago when their parents were at the helm—a testament to the “family-first mentality” of ExperiencePlus!, Monica said.

The sisters have faced plenty of challenges while running an international travel tourism company, including the COVID pandemic. "Between geopolitics and exchange rates, there's never a dull moment,” Maria Elena joked.

Another challenge for the Price sisters early in their tenure as owners was taking over as young women in an industry dominated by male founders.

“We did have to prove ourselves and work a bit harder to gain respect in the industry as we were young and female. I was 26 and Monica had just turned 30 when we took ownership,” Maria Elena said.

As they grew into experienced female entrepreneurs and also became mothers, the sisters had to navigate a work-life balance while raising young children.

“People always ask me how hard it is to be a woman leader,” Monica said. “It’s not the woman part. It’s the mother part that’s the most tricky for me.”

Scouting or leading multi‑day tours isn’t easy while parenting. However, both Monica and Maria Elena enjoy introducing their children, ranging in age from 6 to 14, to new locations and cultures, as their parents did for them.

Maria Elena’s husband oversees the company's data analytics, and recently announced a groundbreaking change for the company: e-bike reservations topped 50% of all ExperiencePlus! bookings this summer for the first time.

"We've seen e-biking explode in the cycling industry," Shannon Stowell, CEO of Adventure Travel Trade Association , told me in a phone interview. "The purists were a bit suspicious at first, but once you realize you can work just as hard on an e-bike—and go a lot farther—it really changed the game.”

The technology extends cyclists' ability to continue enjoying active vacations as they age. E-bikes also level the playing field for newcomers, and allow people with different athletic abilities to ride together.

"It equalized groups," Stowell said. "If you've got teenagers, parents and grandparents, suddenly everybody gets to the same place around the same time. It put some people back on bikes. My dad was one of those.”

Another difference in using e-bikes to tour is that clients arrive at their daily destination with plenty of energy to explore, rather than exhausted from pedaling all day.

Beyond Europe's Classic Cycling Routes

The Price sisters saw the rise in e-bike touring as an opportunity to design tours that explore local culture in places with little or no existing bike tourism.

“Traditional cycle tourism is clustered in Western Europe,” Maria Elena said. “Those core routes still matter, but they’re increasingly crowded and—with more frequent heat waves—increasingly hot, too.”

ExperiencePlus!’s new Beyond tours expand summer bike touring into cooler locations. They also open up winter cycling options in the Southern Hemisphere.

The Price family has decades of experience helping new regions develop bike-based tourism from scratch. Starting in January 2027, Beyond tours will take travelers to places few cycling companies have ever ventured: the Serengeti , Patagonia and the Arctic Circle.

"These aren't classic cycling destinations," Price says. “They are places where the bicycle becomes a way to understand the culture.”

Tanzania: Cyclists ride through rural villages between national parks and stay at a community-owned Maasai lodge, adventuring on safari drives to see wildlife before or after the day’s ride.

Chile: Travelers ride between remote estancias in Patagonia to learn about ranching culture while crossing some of South America's most spectacular mountain landscapes.

Finland: Guests pedal wide-open gravel roads just south of the Arctic Circle, spending evenings experiencing the country's centuries-old sauna traditions.

The company is ready to launch a Beyond tour in Jordan once the region is more politically stable. Future Beyond itineraries could include Morocco, Rwanda and Costa Rica.

A Rare Succession Success In The Adventure Travel Industry

ExperiencePlus!'s longevity as a family-run company may be even more remarkable than its latest innovative tour offering, according to Stowell. "There are a lot of adventure travel companies started by couples or families, but it's not common to see a complete succession from one generation to the next.”

He describes the company as "a gold standard" in the industry for how to pass down a travel company.

While ExperiencePlus! now offers e-bikes and features exotic destinations, the company’s underlying philosophy hasn't changed since the Price's first Italian bicycle tour more than five decades ago.

"It’s never really been about the bike," Monica Price explained. "The bicycle is just the vehicle that allows people to slow down, connect with a place, and understand it in a completely different way.”