ABOUT
ROADRUNNER EXPEDITIONS
We believe that nature is the best antidote for living in our modern age. When we connect with the natural world, something magical happens, allowing our stress levels to dissipate and our happiness to unfold. We also believe that travel is a masterful teacher, coaxing us out of our daily environment and forcing us to observe, question, and learn. This is why traveling to some of the world’s most beautiful natural places can be as rich a spiritual pursuit as an intellectual or physical one, creating transformational and perspective-shifting experiences for ourselves and others.
Guided by his tenure as an interpretive ranger in the U.S. National Park Service, Roadrunner’s founder, John Baston, imbues our team and every tour we create with the same values embraced by the parks. Hoping to inspire our guests with a love of nature and a call to preserve and protect it for future generations, Roadrunner Expeditions also strives to go beyond—to rouse guests to delve deeper, to travel wider, and to put a region into its cultural as well as its natural context.
We also believe that North America is the unsung hero of the travel world, a treasure trove of the planet’s greatest and oldest protected wilderness areas. As one of the last colonized corners of the planet, North America may have since become “civilized,” but thanks to heroes like Teddy Roosevelt and John Muir, so much of it remains wild, protected and free—all close to home, but still a world away.
We invite you to join us on these journeys with our team of inspired travelers and to take the Roadrunner spirit home with you.
TEAM ROADRUNNER
JOHN BASTON
Chief Expedition Officer & Naturalist
John has been a guide, explorer, and National Park Service Ranger for 30 years. For a decade he served as an Interpretive Park Ranger, teaching natural and cultural history to thousands of visitors in six different national parks. Feeling the draw of having a more intimate experience in the wilderness, he began guiding sea kayaking trips in Alaska, bringing thousands of visitors paddling and camping along thousands of miles of rugged coastline. Other areas continued to draw his interest, and in the next 10 years he guided hiking and wildlife watching trips in Arizona, California, New Mexico, Wyoming, Montana, and Baja California. His guiding expertise has been featured in Outdoor Magazine, Backpacker, Departures, Shutterfly, and Gear Patrol. After almost 10 years of building custom tours for Mountain Travel Sobek’s North American operations, John launched Roadrunner Expeditions, a culmination of his life’s work in the outdoors.
LORI VARSAMES
Chief Storyteller & Digital Shield Maiden
Incurable wanderlust has opened the doors to some surprising opportunities throughout Lori’s career. Leading bicycle tours throughout the wine regions of France catapulted her into the wine industry in 1999, where she sold for retailers, distributors, and importers around the country. She returned to France in 2005 to write her master’s thesis on the future of organic wines, which eventually snowballed into a major career shift from sales to writing and marketing. Having spent her career messaging about and promoting leading business pioneers in the wine, wellness and travel sectors made her excited to come work for Roadrunner Expeditions. These days, she prefers domestic travel, feeling like there’s always something new to discover right here at home.
