Feburary 5, 2026

Roland Neave

Wells Gray Travel

Roland Neave is the President and founder of Wells Gray Tours, which was started in 1972. He started out running bus tours just to Wells Gray Park, but now the company goes to all seven continents.   

Roland was a student at Cariboo College (now Thompson Rivers).  BC Hydro did a study of the Fraser River, suggesting dams to prevent flooding as well as produce power.  Some of the proposals had dams on the Clearwater River that would have basically destroyed Wells Gray Park. Roland was part of a group that protested the dams, but they did this by running bus tours to the area. This was a very effective campaign, as many tourists protested.

Roland started his tour company doing bus trips to Wells Gray Park, then expanded to other destinations.  Later they opened offices in Vernon, Penticton and Kelowna, which allowed them to do more ambitious tours.  In 2010 they opened an office in Victoria.

This year tours to the US have been cancelled, since no one wants to cross the border these days!  But there has been more travel within Canada and to other countries. Now Wells Gray Tours does theatre/show tours and sporting events, as well as scenic tour in Canada and other countries.  A very popular thing each year is their mystery tour, where you don’t know where you’re going until you get there!

We enjoyed many pictures from years ago and saw how things have changed over the years.  Roland showed us a picture of their brand new coach, which seats 48.  They didn’t want the standard 56 seats – not enough leg room!  We were astounded to hear the price tag was $840,000!  A far cry from the picture of one of their first buses.

Roland talked to us about the importance of having travel insurance.  His advice is to get something that includes medical, trip cancellation, trip interruption, baggage issues, etc.

We saw pictures from many trips, with a great variety of destinations and modes of travel (coach, big ship cruise, European river cruises, etc.)  It made many of us think about travelling to places we had never considered before.

If you want to get information about upcoming tours, you can add your name to their “Interested List” and you will get a weekly email about newly released tours.