Meet the Price Family

Rick Price

Rick Price and Paola Malpezzi Price are the owners and founders of ExperiencePlus! Trained as academics, they both have a passion for travel and learning. Rick, with a Ph.D. in Cultural Geography manages the business and practices "applied geography" as he designs new routes for our trip offerings. 

Favorite tour:

“I’m often asked what tour is my favorite. Honestly, I have to say I don’t have one. Every tour we offer is a great tour. Now, if you were to ask for my favorite experience on tour, I’d have to say the ride from St. Petersburg to Istanbul in the summer of 2006. After planning that tour for four years I was apprehensive that actually doing it might be anticlimactic. I was also worried about being on the road for eight weeks straight—including two weeks at each end. But, I pedaled all 2,620 miles of the trip, averaging 75 miles six days out of seven every week, it was extraordinary. I’ve not had so much fun in a long time. And eat? Did we eat! Every day we devoured huge breakfasts and dinners. It was great!”
To contact Rick, write to Rick@ExperiencePlus.com

Paola Malpezzi-Price

is co-founder of ExperiencePlus! Besides Rick’s chief adviser on company issues, Paola teaches French literature and culture, Italian literature and culture in translation and Women's Studies courses at Colorado State University where she is a professor. Beginning in the summer of 2007, Paola will also assume responsibilities as Chair of the Foreign Languages and Literatures Department.

In 2003, her book Moderata Fonte - Women and Life in Sixteenth-century Venice was published by Fairleigh University Press. She continues her research on women's issues in France and Italy of the Early Modern Period. Her book on the seventeenth-century writer Lucrezia Marinella should be published in 2007.

Favorite tour:

"France's Dordogne Tour has fascinating history, great roads and beautiful scenery. The historic aspect with the heroic ghost of Eleonor of Aquitaine looming overhead as you ride along the great network of roads with very little traffic and explore all the picturesque villages along the way."
To contact Paola, write to Paola@ExperiencePlus.com

Monica Malpezzi-Price

Monica, Rick and Paola's elder daughter, has spent most of her summer-life leading tours in Italy and France. In 2004, she accepted a scholarship offer to pursue a Master of Arts in International Development at American University in Washington DC. Now, with her MA in hand, she will be working in Italy helping manage new tours in Eastern Europe and in South America. She still looks forward to continuing her travels, both on tour and off tour, as she works on these new trips.

Favorite tour:

"I don’t have a favorite tour because every tour is so different—spectacular scenery and Austrian culture in the Dolomites, cloud forests and beaches in Costa Rica, fantastic food and wine in Piedmont—it depends what you want. But if you ask me why I like our Venice to Florence or Venice to Pisa tour, I have an answer. I think that tour provides a complete experience of northern Italy: while you travel through important art cities of Italy like Venice, Ravenna, Florence, Lucca and Pisa, you also see a side of rural Italy that most tourists don’t see. We bike through farmland and villages, meet local cyclists out for their afternoon ride, and all the while eat some of the best pasta that Italy produces. This tour really introduces Italy, and I never get tired of leading it!"
Write to Monica@ExperiencePlus.com

Maria Elena Malpezzi-Price

Rick and Paola’s younger daughter may be one of our youngest employees and tour leaders, but she is one of our most experienced. 'M.E.' has led tours in more than 10 countries, including part of the Expedition tour that ended in Turkey in 2006. Today, Maria Elena serves as Director of International Operations back at our Colorado headquarters office—until she begins her studies toward an MBA at the University of Colorado in Boulder during fall, 2007.

Favorite tour:

"We are often asked this question, and I always say. “It depends on what you’d like to experience.” But if I had to pick one very special tour, it would be the Camino de Santiago, from Roncesvalles to Santiago de Compostela.  Of all my “favorites,” this tour has enough of everything you could possibly want in a tour. On the Camino you find rich history, wonderful cuisine, varied landscape and fascinating people. There are few routes in the world where you bicycle or walk by 20 people speaking 5 different languages! Throughout history the Camino was a corridor that connected Europe. More recently it has become a path shared by thousands of people every year—exploring as they travel towards Santiago. You’ll find extraordinary cuisine, history, landscapes and great bicycling on many of our tours—but this particular one has just enough of all of these elements to make it extra special!"
Write to MariaElena@ExperiencePlus.com