Embarking on a tour is a double-edged sword. They’re a great introduction to travelling in an unfamiliar region or country, especially if you are travelling solo, but can be limiting in choices and options. Plus you have to spend a lot of time in close quarters with complete strangers. So what are the dangers, and how do you know if a tour will be the right one for you? Here are the five biggest downsides of going on a traditional group tour when travel, along with the five best reasons to pick an Epic Snow tour.   Fear #1 – Only visiting the most touristy sites We’ve all been there or seen it in action. Gigantic coaches rolling up to major tourism drawcards in a long line, each spewing 40-80 passengers out onto the footpath, cameras around their necks, marching off after their assigned bright umbrella or flag wielding tour guide. They jump the queue to the groans of the masses of patiently waiting individual travellers who, despite pre-booking, will now only be able to catch a faraway glimpse of what they came to see. Meanwhile, if you’ve been on one of these tours, yes, you get an expedited view

In today’s world of cheap airfares for long distances flights with limited luggage weight allowances, we as the traveler are always looking to save as much weight and room as we can while still packing everything in. Traveling with your skis or snowboard can be a pain especially when these items take up a lot of our weight allowance and space. If you’re going for an extended time you may want to pay the extra fee on that budget airline and get an additional bag. If you’re going to get the extra bag, look at the not so budget airlines as these usually have the additional baggage allowance built into the airfare price. Here are a few hacks for saving weight and room. Board bag and ski bag. When buying a ski or board bag always keep an eye on the weight of the bag empty. Just because it’s a big bag and you can fit everything in it doesn’t mean it will save you in the long run. A bigger bag means more weight which can mean less gear to take with you. It’s a catch 22. You could get slogged for overweight baggage and the bag might not even

Kyneee Snowboards X Epic Snow Tours As most of you know, Epic Snow has teamed up with Kyneee snowboards for our Epic Col-lab board. But did you know when you book on tour to any one of our destinations you have the option to buy a Kyneee Pow Board or an Epic Snow x Kyneee board for HALF price! Check out the Japow Tour HERE to come ride with us in the deepest snow the world has to offer. To give you a little more incite about the Aussie snowboard brand we sat down for a quick chat with Kynan from Kyneee to pick his brains about what motivates him and what kyneee has for install for the future. Tell me a bit about the brand when did it start and where? Kyneee is a small board brand based out of Sydney. The brand officially started May 2013 but it’s been in the works for a lot longer. The “nope, we’re doing this” happened on a Canada trip. Doing research to purchase a new board and all the info seemed like jibberish. Companies get so caught up in branding tech features with individual names for their brand that it just

A short Myoko Powder run from Yesterday 24th January 2016 after a solid 50cm dump. This was shot Akakan off the Champion 3 Chair. There were so many more good turns had that day and more to come! love this place! To find ou more about Epic Snow Tours check out www.epicsnow.co

“this is first mate Scott speaking, we are starting our decent in to Narita airport, we have made up time a bit of time for the Epic Snow Crew and our arrival will be at 6:45pm” Yep that’s right a big ol shout out over the PA system on Jetstar as we started out decent into Narita. Our excitement level was high after hearing that although the good time started on our first leg to cairns and then on from there. We arrived at Gold Coast airport bright and early for check and got put in isle seats… who doesn’t love a bit of leg room! After having a conversation with the happy looking dude sitting next to us, he turns out to be Captain Paul was the pilot flying us on to Narita from Cairns! Didn’t he look after us on the long haul flight!. A quick convo in the terminal and we were in the cockpit checking out the flight deck and getting a tonne of happy snaps and meeting first mate Scotty …. What a couple of legends! The good times didn’t stop there! Introduced to Cabin Manager Nat who’s a mad keen skier and our attendant

When travelling to cold places its always good to plan your wardrobe before you go. I have so many first time working holiday visa kids heading to places like Canada, USA, Europe and Japan coming in to the shop saying that “they will just buy every thing over in place X when they get there”. To me this is dumb. What do you do when you get off the plane in say Calgary and its -30 outside and you brought your “Australian winter hoodie” yep thats right you freeze your arse off until you get to a shop to buy one and that may not be right away as soon as you land. Us veterans do know how to do the luggage pack and know that when we are on holidays that wasting time searching for that jacket that is just right takes away form precious time on the hill. So its always good to be prepared before you go and have every thing you need. A good start is the basics. Here are a few essential items to start with. Walking around wear – not ski gear although the cool kids do both Soft shell Jacket down parker/jacket for the

Avalanche Safety is imperative when going in to the back country, always Know Before You Go! ” It doesn’t matter if you have made thousands of good calls – all it takes is one bad call and that is one too many. Some days the mountains are screaming GET OUT OF HERE and some days they are saying come on in – it’s time to party.” – Jeremy Jones

Building Booters Who doesn’t love watching those epic video parts where the pro launches off a perfectly placed booter built in the middle of nowhere, spinning some switch 1660 quadrillion triple cork thing (pretty sure that’s a thing -ha) landing in to a perfect down ramp of untouched powder and riding out like the wizard they are. How did the booter get there? did they use a snow groomer ?why is it so perfect? Well, it takes patience and an understanding of the snowpack. All those backcountry booters are handmade and built by the filming crew and the riders. 1. Find the right location. When searching for that sweet spot, always make sure that there is a good run in where you will have enough speed and good landing zone (if you crash you don’t want to end up cartwheeling into a tree). Test the run in before you build to ensure you have enough speed. 2. How big do you make it? Once you have established that sweet spot you will want to work out the exact size of the height/distance you will travel in the air. If you want to go higher for a steeper landing build the

To get you stoked on the next Epic Snow Tour here is a 30 second short of Co-Founder Benny V shredding some deep deep powder in one of Myoko Japan’s secret spots. Its constantly knee to waste deep in this run with face shot after face shot. To find out more about Epic Snow’s tours, visit www.epicsnow.co for full tour details.