For over two decades, we have been tailoring comprehensive bus and walking tours to the hallowed sites where American history unfolded. By laying eyes upon the scene, and walking the ground in conversation with the most authoritative and passionate guides, we gain a fuller understanding of the events that transpired there.

2024 TOURS & events

1864 to War's End
March 1-3, 2024 Conference

The conference's all-star lineup of speakers will anchor their presentations on the pivotal year 1864 (160th anniversary), featuring Gary Gallagher, Harold Holzer, Gordon Rhea, Craig Symonds, and Joan Waugh. Headquartered in Monterey's historic Custom House Plaza, on the beautiful Central Coast of California.
Click here for more information

The Battle of the Little Bighorn
August 2-4, 2024 small group tour with Jim Hessler

This custom, small-group van tour will visit rarely-visited and difficult to access sites, including Deer Medicine Rocks and the Crow's Nest, before making a comprehensive exploration of the battlefield. Hardin, Montana.
QUERY for more information
Picture
7th Cavalry Markers on Last Stand Hill. (NPS / Victoria Stauffenberg)

The Apache Wars
October 14-21, 2024 small group tour with Neil Mangum

Starting and ending in Phoenix, this one-of-a-kind tour will explore a broad array of Arizona Apache Wars sites, including a number of museums and the ruins of the Warm Springs and San Carlos Agencies, sites associated with Crook's Tonto Basin Campaign, and the Cibecue Creek battlefield (while there, we'll enjoy a cultural program by the White Mountain Apache Crown Dancers). The tour also includes strong emphasis on the Chiracahua Apache with visits to Cochise's Stronghold, Fort Bowie and Apache Pass, and the Geronimo Surrender Monument. Additionally (because we're there) we'll see two Civil War battlefields (Valverde, and Picacho Peak), the astounding Pima Air & Space Museum, and historic Tombstone. The detailed itinerary and registration info for this tour will be posted here in the next couple weeks (by Thanksgiving). QUERY for more information 

Coming in 2025 . . .

— The Wilderness and Spotsylvania ​— hiking tour of all NPS trails --
​with Gordon Rhea  (Fredericksburg, VA)
 — Arizona & New Mexico Through the Ages with Neil Mangum
Spring 2025  (Phoenix, Arizona), includes a visit to Ground Zero at the Trinity Test Site, White Sands Missile Range (rarely open to the public). 

McClellan and Lee
The Seven Days Battles 
June 10–12, 2022
​with Robert E. L. Krick​
(Richmond, Virginia)

One evening event and two full days of bus tours covering the Seven Days. "The thirty thousand men killed and wounded in the Seven Days’ equaled the number of casualties in all the battles in the western theater—including Shiloh—during the first half of 1862 (James McPherson, Battle Cry of Freedom).
  Click here for full itinerary.

Grant and Lee
The 1864 ​Overland Campaign
June 14–18, 2022, with Gordon Rhea
(Richmond, Virginia)

After an opening night reception and orientation at our Richmond Airport hotel, enjoy four full days of battlefield tours with the preeminent historian of the monumental Overland Campaign. Our bus and walking expeditions will explore the Wilderness, Spotsylvania, North Anna, and Cold Harbor battlefields on successive days.  

Billy the Kid and
​the Lincoln County War
August 4–8, 2022
​with Neil Mangum
(Albuquerque, New Mexico)

Ride along for a deep dive into the life & legend of Billy the Kid, and the Lincoln County War, with historian-guided tours of the sites and scenes of Billy’s life, and death.  We'll range from Mesilla and Blazer's Mill  to the Tunstall murder site and historic Lincoln, ultimately making our way to Fort Sumner, where the Kid was gunned down, and where he was buried.   

"From where the sun now stands,
​I will fight no more forever"
Chief Joseph, & the Flight of the Nez Percé
Aug. 28–Sept. 5, 2022 
​with historian Neil Mangum
​(from Spokane, WA to Great Falls, MT)
9 nights and 8 days following the Nez Percé Trail, with one full day in Yellowstone National Park, and a visit to the acclaimed Buffalo Bill Center of the West in Cody, Wyoming. The Nez Percé fought off and eluded pursuing U.S. cavalry for 1,170 miles over 128 days. We'll trace the route (in a luxury motor coach) through some of the most beautiful landscapes of the American West, with scheduled stops and comfortable lodging along the way (included in your registration). 

​two hundred and one years on​
The Santa Fe Trail
October 3–11, 2022
​with Neil Mangum
(from Kansas City to Albuquerque)
Ride along with the former Southwest Regional Historian for the National Park Service as we commemorate 201 years of history on the Santa Fe Trail. We'll visit museums, extant wagon ruts, forts, Pueblos, battlefields and more on the Great Prairie Highway. Registration and Full Itinerary
Bad to the Bone: 
​Outlaws & Gunmen
Beginning and ending in El Paso, retired National Park Service historian Neil Mangum will lead an adventure in the tracks of John Wesley Hardin, Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, Elfego Baca, Pancho Villa, Johnny Ringo, and the legends of Tombstone. 
​El Paso, Texas. October 11-17, 2023. 
Above: Fort Sumner, New Mexico — site of the Pete Maxwell residence (formerly the officers quarters), where Pat Garrett gunned down Billy the Kid. The building was lost to flooding from the nearby Pecos River.