TEAM ROADRUNNER
JOHN BASTON
Chief Expedition Officer & Naturalist
John has been a guide, explorer, and National Park Service Ranger for 30 years. For a decade he served as an Interpretive Park Ranger, teaching natural and cultural history to thousands of visitors in six different national parks. Feeling the draw of having a more intimate experience in the wilderness, he began guiding sea kayaking trips in Alaska, bringing thousands of visitors paddling and camping along thousands of miles of rugged coastline. Other areas continued to draw his interest, and in the next 10 years he guided hiking and wildlife watching trips in Arizona, California, New Mexico, Wyoming, Montana, and Baja California. His guiding expertise has been featured in Outdoor Magazine, Backpacker, Departures, Shutterfly, and Gear Patrol. After almost 10 years of building custom tours for Mountain Travel Sobek’s North American operations, John launched Roadrunner Expeditions, a culmination of his life’s work in the outdoors.
LORI VARSAMES
Chief Storyteller & Digital Shield Maiden
Incurable wanderlust has opened the doors to some surprising opportunities throughout Lori’s career. Leading bicycle tours throughout the wine regions of France catapulted her into the wine industry in 1999, where she sold for retailers, distributors, and importers around the country. She returned to France in 2005 to write her master’s thesis on the future of organic wines, which eventually snowballed into a major career shift from sales to writing and marketing. Having spent her career messaging about and promoting leading business pioneers in the wine, wellness and travel sectors made her excited to come work for Roadrunner Expeditions. These days, she prefers domestic travel, feeling like there’s always something new to discover right here at home.
