A group of 20 Americans sits somewhat nervously in the lobby of the Ambassador Hotel in the small mountain town of Brig, nestled in the Swiss Alps. Fiddling with luggage and glancing at the other participants, the group is meeting each other for the first time at the start of a seven-day tour of Switzerland.

A tour group like any other, you might think? Yes – except this group plans to spend the next week seeing Switzerland from atop eight wheels. . . on inline skates.

At this first meeting, no one could fault the participants if they second-guessed their decision to sign up for this trip. Who is crazy enough to actually pay to spend seven days on inline skates, anyway? In mountainous Switzerland?

As it turns out, the participants in this group are much like any other segment of the active travel industry. Among the group are a surgeon from Minneapolis; a retired teacher from Texas with her granddaughter; a couple from Colorado where the husband will skate while the wife bicycles; and a lawyer from California with her two 20s-aged sons. The average age of the group is 47 and people come in all shapes and sizes. This is no skate park-crashing group of teenage adrenaline junkies.

Birth of Skating

The concept of skating on wheels was developed hundreds of years ago in The Netherlands. However, it wasn’t until 1980 when the hockey-playing Olson brothers of Minnesota created the first modern pair of inline skates. Fastening a set of wheels to their hockey skates, the Olsons were soon zooming down streets to the envy of their hockey brethren. This was the start of the company Rollerblade and the boom that became the inline skating industry.

Inline skating was one of the fastest-growing sports of the 1990s. Statistics from the Sporting Goods Manufactures Association reveal that the sport peaked in 1998 at 32 million participants in the United States. Even now, with a more stable 21 million participants, inline skating is more popular than activities such as soccer and tennis.

With skating one of the most popular activities of the 1990s, it was only time before an aspiring entrepreneur merged the fields of skating and adventure travel. One could already travel the world atop bicycles, camels, or surfboards. Why not inline skates?

Skating in Switzerland

Back in Switzerland, the group of 20 straps on skates and dons helmets for its first skate of the trip. The day’s skate is along the Rhone River. Originally carved by glaciers, the valley is almost entirely flat and the paved path runs slightly downhill along the river – not enough to be visible but just enough to make skating that much easier. It turns out it is possible to find flat skating paths in Switzerland!

Near the end of the day, the support van (which has been up and down the entire route several times) is parked in a small Swiss village. Participants have gathered in front of the van to have a snack and chat about the sights they have seen. The wood houses on either side of the street seem ancient and the village might have been lifted from a children’s storybook.

The conversation stops as an old man comes shuffling down the road, cane in hand. The gentleman, at minimum in his 80s, approaches one of the younger females in the group and asks her what she is doing. Not conversant in German, the woman turns to the trip leader, who explains the concept of inline skate touring. This explanation is enough to encourage the gentleman to invite the entire group into his home for an impromptu tasting of homemade wine.

The group discusses how touring on inline skates often leads to these types of encounters. Curious locals are much more likely to initiate contact than when one is in a bus or even on a bicycle. In fact, skating is an excellent way to travel. It is fast enough to allow one to cover a decent distance in a day. At the same time, it is slow enough to not miss the flowers, cafes, and other sights that make travel so interesting.

The Week’s End

By the end of the week, the group has skated five full days, spent a day off skates hiking in the mountains, eaten Swiss specialties, stayed in excellent local hotels, and traveled from German-speaking provinces to French-speaking and back again.

Twenty separate individuals have become one cohesive group. It doesn’t always turn out this way, but the camaraderie of skating through a foreign country often leads to the formation of fast friendships. This is one trip these 20 travelers will never forget.