They only happen once, maybe twice, a year. Sometimes, it’s a weeklong event or a weekend affair. Other times, it’s a one-day thing. The challenge with special events, be it a buffalo roundup, a music festival or a foreign embassy open house, is that they draw big crowds.
Rather than fight thousands of other travelers for hotel rooms, parking and tickets, Travel Alliance Partners (TAP) offers itineraries that make it easy for travelers to get in, go behind the scenes and enjoy VIP experiences that aren’t available to the masses.
Foreign Embassy Open Houses
It’s an opportunity that’s available only twice a year: the chance to enter and tour foreign embassies in Washington, D.C.
“It’s a big undertaking to coordinate all the embassies and their attaches and their ambassadors because they’re, politically, very busy people,” said Kate Scopetti, president of TAP partner Mid Atlantic Receptive Services, known as MARS. The open houses, presented by Cultural Tourism DC and the Delegation of the European Union to the U.S., typically happen the first two weekends in May. One weekend focuses on European Union embassies, and the other’s theme is “Around the World.” As many as 40 embassies are open to the public for tours each weekend, and past favorites have included France, Spain, Italy, Hungary, Japan, Egypt and Turkey, to name a few. MARS guides are trained “how to embassy hop,” she said, and they know how to navigate between the four or five embassies the group will visit, avoiding the most crowded embassies at peak times.
MARS travelers also enjoy more access than the general public. Before the doors open to the public, MARS sets up one or two private tours on Friday and Saturday with an embassy representative for “some one-on-one experiences with that particular culture and a little more immersion,” Scopetti said.
MARS can also arrange additional experiences. Groups can eat dinner inside an embassy; visit the Mexican Cultural Institute of Washington, D.C.; or attend the Foreign Policy Classroom at the U.S. Department of State to watch a foreign policy briefing.
The itinerary, which can be customized for each group’s interests, also includes Friday tours at nearby historic mansions such as the Anderson House, which currently houses the Society of the Cincinnati; the 1894 Heurich Mansion, built by beer baron Christian Heurich; and Tudor Place, which was the home of Martha Washington’s granddaughter. Other options on Sunday include visiting President Lincoln’s Cottage or Smithsonian museums.
Custer State Park Buffalo Roundup
In 1914, Custer State Park in South Dakota got its first 36 head of bison, descendants of the range’s last buffalo, which some ranchers saved. The state added to its herd as time went on, but when the herd got too big for the park, officials started the annual roundup to auction off some bison, said Shebby Lee, owner and president of TAP partner Shebby Lee Tours.
Today, the herd is kept at about 1,300 head. Every September, professional cowboys and ranchers on horseback and in trucks round up the herd to corral them, brand them and separate the 5-year-olds that will be sold at auction.
For the event, which can draw up to 15,000 people, Shebby Lee Tours’ buses arrive early at one of two viewing areas — sort of rural parking lots — to get prime spots. For safety, the viewing areas are far from the action, so visitors should bring binoculars and telephoto lenses. But the event is still dramatic as the herd rumbles over hills, along ridges and beside creeks.
“It’s taken us a while to make sure people don’t think they’re riding horseback into the buffalo herd,” Lee said. “They’re dangerous. A buffalo can run faster than a horse and weighs over a ton.”
Once the buffalo are corralled, visitors can get up close. Buses drive visitors to the corral, or people can walk. There, sturdy fences separate spectators from the bison — which is good because “those animals are mad,” Lee said. “The mothers are hysterical because their babies are bawling, and they’re being branded. That’s pretty dramatic, too.”
The five-day trip is a hub-and-spoke itinerary out of Rapid City, South Dakota, that includes visits to Mount Rushmore, the Crazy Horse Monument, Badlands National Park and the historic city of Deadwood and a ride on an 1880 steam-powered train.
