*Not applicable to member pricing.
Welcome! We’re Destination Backcountry, a Brooklyn-based adventure guiding company dedicated to bringing our love of the outdoors to the city that needs it most.
Adventures
Our day hikes, overnights, yoga trips, and canoe & kayak trips provide everything you need to get from NYC to the wilderness: transportation, gear, meals, and, most importantly, the expertise to get you to the most wild and beautiful places in NYC. You can’t get to this kind of wilderness with a train ticket or an MTA pass. Some of them you can’t even get to with a trails map.
→ Explore all of our adventures
→ Explore all of our adventures
Academy
After years of guided trips, many of our members wanted to experience the outdoors from our side, and we couldn’t be happier to share our skills and love of the wilderness with eager learners. These degrees and classes are designed to take you from absolute beginner to expert in your preferred subject area, with DBA guides there to help each step of the way.
→ Discover what you can learn
→ Discover what you can learn
Who We Are
At Destination Backcountry, our guides and instructors are ambassadors to the outdoors, with one foot in New York City and one foot in the Catskills at all times. We have dedicated our lives to making the wilderness more accessible for everyone.
Outdoors for All: We firmly believe that everyone, from city-born and bred New Yorkers, to tourists from far-flung locales, to experienced hikers and climbers, have something new and beautiful to learn about the outdoors. We welcome all skills levels and pride ourselves on creating a welcoming environmental for all skills levels and ages. We were beginners once ourselves, and we firmly believe there shouldn't be artificial barriers in getting to the outdoors.
The Best Guides: It takes more than a guide license and a pair of boots to become a DBA guide. Our guides found a second home in the Catskills, climbed every peak, explored every trail, and found the hidden ponds where trout laze in the sun, before they dedicated themselves to sharing these places with their fellow New Yorkers. Our trips include impromptu ecology lessons, stories, hidden gems, gourmet meals, and so much more.
The Wildest Places: Whatever you’re hoping to find in the outdoors—respite from the city, a change of pace from your morning run, a breathe of fresh mountain air—we want to help you find it and learn how to do it yourself. This is our passion, and we can’t wait to share it with you. Many of our destination don't exist on a map or on a "top ten trails" list. They come from our own exploration and love of the wilderness.
Custom Trips
In addition to our calendar of adventures available to the public, we offer custom trips year-round, weekday or weekend, single day or overnight. We offer team building adventures, bachelorette parties, marathon training hikes, one-on-one skills training, supported hikes for production teams, and much more! Whatever it is you're hoping to do in the outdoors, we can help you with everything from permits to menu planning, customized to your goals, down to the smallest detail.
Vacations
At DBA, we don't just help you escape the city, we help you discover whole new worlds. We offer trips to Utah led by Destination Backcountry guides, and we partner with G Adventures to offer trips around the world.