Stoke Travel

Party travel for the open-minded international

 

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    You’ve never met anybody like us; we’re going to get along wonderfully.

    We are Stoke Travel…

    We’re the favourite choice for the backpacker on a budget, the student with some study-abroad holidays to burn, the gap year gapper looking to do something outrageous, the solo traveller searching for travel buddies, soul mates, or just somebody to have a (lot of) laughs with, or the group looking to travel with an even bigger group of absolute legends.

    Our Stokies want the most affordable experiences at the world’s wildest, most popular and craziest festivals and destinations with an authentic feel, a flexible schedule and options to suit your budget. The best fiestas are easily accessible with our low cost, high fun trips. You could say travel parties and festivals around Europe are our jam.

    What does Stoke Travel offer?

    Everything you need for the best experience

    Check Out the Stoke Travel Magazine

    Our History

    2006

    Birth - Smashed Travel

    Everything needs to be born, including your parents and even travel companies. Stoke was conceived in a dungeon, on a hill, in a house, in San Sebastian. It was the year 2006, as our lord’s crow falls, and one Stuey Jones and Toby Paramor sat on the floor, for lack of furniture, among the mould, for lack of ventilation, and…

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    Birth - Smashed Travel

    Everything needs to be born, including your parents and even travel companies. Stoke was conceived in a dungeon, on a hill, in a house, in San Sebastian. It was the year 2006, as our lord’s crow falls, and one Stuey Jones and Toby Paramor sat on the floor, for lack of furniture, among the mould, for lack of ventilation, and conceived of a better way to spend summer than sitting on mouldy unventilated dungeon-floors drinking cheap cask wine, albeit in a stunning city.

    They dreamed of Basque beaches across Spain and France, of camp grounds and cliff-top sunsets, and sunset cocktails, and sunset sessions, of pine forests and the open air – in short, of a better locale to drink cheap cask wine.

    Alas this was the first board meeting, in the first boardroom, and with it Smashed Travel was born, and out of this messy birth breached a Surfari covering Spain and France, and an excuse for Stu and Toby to continue surfing and partying up and down the coast.

    Our two pioneers printed black and white, hand-drawn flyers and handed them out on pub crawls, and then convinced backpackers to join them in their crudely spray painted VW van, loaded to the high heavens with surfboards, up and down the coast, in and out of all kinds of mischief.

    Boy oh boy, didn’t the various law authorities delight in pulling us over whenever they could.

    2009

    Growth Spurts - Stoke Travel

    From these humble beginnings the brand grew, changing from Smashed to Stoke (try convincing your parents to fork out for a Smashed Travel tour), and we expanded rapidly. Our marketing plan was to simply Do whatever we feel like doing, go wherever we want to go, tell as many people as we can about it and hope that they turn…

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    Growth Spurts - Stoke Travel

    From these humble beginnings the brand grew, changing from Smashed to Stoke (try convincing your parents to fork out for a Smashed Travel tour), and we expanded rapidly. Our marketing plan was to simply Do whatever we feel like doing, go wherever we want to go, tell as many people as we can about it and hope that they turn up. The more that turn up, the bigger the party.

    From this stroke of marketing genius the prospectus grew. First it was the Running of the Bulls, which was run out of a van parked on the side of the road (ask a Stokie about the Finnish hitchhiker and the 100gms of hash we didn’t know he was carrying until it was too late). Then the Rolling Circus, also run out of the van, from San Sebastian to Madrid, Barcelona and Paris, Bruges, Amsterdam, Berlin and Munich, aka the European guide on how to almost starve to death but still look cool. After the circus we set up at Oktoberfest, with a grand total of 100 Stokies (we now get well into the thousands), attracting the heckles of all the other, at that time more established, travel mobs, and the list just kept (keeps!) on growing.

    2010

    African Winters

    The realisation that four months of summer a year aren’t enough to keep us fed for 12, we moved to Morocco for the winter months, partly to surf, somewhat to “dry out” (booze is hard to come by down there), totally to be immersed in a different culture. The Moroccan Surf House in Taghazout was born and continues to service…

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    African Winters

    The realisation that four months of summer a year aren’t enough to keep us fed for 12, we moved to Morocco for the winter months, partly to surf, somewhat to “dry out” (booze is hard to come by down there), totally to be immersed in a different culture. The Moroccan Surf House in Taghazout was born and continues to service winter refugees to this day. P.s. we totally found a beer source.

    2011

    Barcelona Babies

    Needing a more permanent base we move to the funnest city in the known universe, Barcelona. From there we eked out an existence when we weren’t running amok in summer, or surfing in Morocco. Times were tough in parts, Stokies were known to live off donated kebab bottoms and perform bar tricks for half-drunk beers, but we survived. From there…

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    Barcelona Babies

    Needing a more permanent base we move to the funnest city in the known universe, Barcelona. From there we eked out an existence when we weren’t running amok in summer, or surfing in Morocco. Times were tough in parts, Stokies were known to live off donated kebab bottoms and perform bar tricks for half-drunk beers, but we survived.

    From there Barcelona has become our base. We now donate the half-eaten kebabs to more needy travellers and fully drink our own beers, but the spirit of survival that helped us get through those long European winters haven’t been forgotten. In fact, just ask us about them, we’ll be happy to regale you in fine detail about just how tough we did it while we were getting set up.

    2011

    All Grown Up

    After a while more and more backpackers and students were joining in on our madness, and things got a little serious. We consulted lawyers and other people with shoes and determined it was time to get legal. Offices were sought, staff hired who actually knew things, and Stoke Travel became an official, although oftentimes not for profit (unintentionally), business.

    All Grown Up

    After a while more and more backpackers and students were joining in on our madness, and things got a little serious. We consulted lawyers and other people with shoes and determined it was time to get legal. Offices were sought, staff hired who actually knew things, and Stoke Travel became an official, although oftentimes not for profit (unintentionally), business.

    2012

    There’s No Such Thing as Bad Press

    Realising that he’s not going away anytime soon, Toby and Stu take on long-time Surfari manager, Wade Gravy, on as a partner. The plan is to create media the likes of which backpacker travel has never seen. Advertisements are created, and banned; provocation ensues with gratuitous honesty. At that time we figured that backpackers just wanted to have fun, to…

    Read More

    There’s No Such Thing as Bad Press

    Realising that he’s not going away anytime soon, Toby and Stu take on long-time Surfari manager, Wade Gravy, on as a partner. The plan is to create media the likes of which backpacker travel has never seen. Advertisements are created, and banned; provocation ensues with gratuitous honesty. At that time we figured that backpackers just wanted to have fun, to party and make out with each other, and see sights but not as a part of a checklist. Nothing’s really changed….

    A chance meeting with Denis Geary, the dreadlocked CEO of Wicked Campers Europe, results in a diabolical partnership that sees Wicked use Stoke for their festival needs and Stoke using Wicked for their notoriety and professionalism. The garish and provocative Wicked fleet joins Stoke and the party doubles, as does our pulling power at Europe’s festivals. This partnership really gets things cranking.

    2013

    The Stoke Bar

    It seemed like a no-brainer – get a bar, thereby fulfilling our fantasies, and using it to make big bucks, and act as a HQ for our travel operations. Turns out it was a bit of a no-brainer, as Stoke’s productivity hit an all-time low during this époque – who would have thought that we’d drink our own bar dry?

    The Stoke Bar

    It seemed like a no-brainer – get a bar, thereby fulfilling our fantasies, and using it to make big bucks, and act as a HQ for our travel operations. Turns out it was a bit of a no-brainer, as Stoke’s productivity hit an all-time low during this époque – who would have thought that we’d drink our own bar dry?

    2015

    Growth

    Since those halcyon days Stoke has only gone from strength to strength, achieving annual growth of over 50% between 2011-2014. We’ve now expanded to some 24 destinations and counting Europe wide, as well as forays into Morocco, as mentioned, and Brazil. Canadian mega-travel-group, I Love Travel, join with Stoke and with them bring much needed experience and professionalism, blowing Stoke’s…

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    Growth

    Since those halcyon days Stoke has only gone from strength to strength, achieving annual growth of over 50% between 2011-2014. We’ve now expanded to some 24 destinations and counting Europe wide, as well as forays into Morocco, as mentioned, and Brazil.

    Canadian mega-travel-group, I Love Travel, join with Stoke and with them bring much needed experience and professionalism, blowing Stoke’s latest yearly numbers to over 16,500 guests, who between them put away some 90,000L of beer. And we’re only just beginning.

    2016

    London Calling

    For the first time since our inception, Stoke really turned its attention to London and made moves that would appeal to the antipodean expat community in the big city. We launched the London Big Day Out, a day, a big one, of sports and music, partying and nostalgic comfort food from Australia and New Zealand. For those who’ve known Stoke…

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    London Calling

    For the first time since our inception, Stoke really turned its attention to London and made moves that would appeal to the antipodean expat community in the big city. We launched the London Big Day Out, a day, a big one, of sports and music, partying and nostalgic comfort food from Australia and New Zealand. For those who’ve known Stoke for a while, the choice to host a sporting day would seem a little strange, but you should know that we’re the work hard/play hard type and we made sure that all the exercise was washed away with cheap drinks, bad dancing and even worse decisions.

    And in order to get in with the London dandy set we started taking groups of frocked (and pissed) up lovers of horses, gambling and champagne to the Royal Ascot race meet, where we made sure to completely ruin our fancy outfits with ridiculous shenanigans.

    Rounding out our London domination, we commandeered a train and sent it into Scotland to get buck wild with Edinburgh for its Hogmanay New Year’s Eve celebration, an evening of fine conversation, haggis, loose street parties and stranger pashing. With the addition of Hogmanay our London foray was an overwhelming success, and now we have a dedicated team working out of London, for travellers of all stripes who find themselves ensconced in Old Blighty.

    2017

    Glamping and Greece

    Admitting that while our regular camping is amazing (seriously, who offers more than us, for the tiny price?), we came to the conclusion that some travellers have a little bit of extra money saved up and want to treat themselves from time to time. Enter our very popular (sold out!) glamping option at most destinations. Better beds, with cozy bedding,…

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    Glamping and Greece

    Admitting that while our regular camping is amazing (seriously, who offers more than us, for the tiny price?), we came to the conclusion that some travellers have a little bit of extra money saved up and want to treat themselves from time to time. Enter our very popular (sold out!) glamping option at most destinations. Better beds, with cozy bedding, more space, electricity and mirrors, so you’re all charged up, refreshed and as hot as can be.

    2017 was the year that saw us host more guests than ever before, 20,000 travellers including 7,500 at Oktoberfest alone. We’re doing double the trips, we’ve reinvented The Running Of The Bulls by concentrating more on the party (cultural and crazy) and less on the bullrun, hosting bands and food trucks at the El Molino campsite by the river with our Stoked in the Park festival; Ibiza Beach Camp was sold out for the entire summer, the San Sebastian Surf Camp settled in wonderfully into its new hillside farmhouse (also sold out!), and our Barcelona team had a gangbusters summer on the boats and in the city.

    It became the right time to give back to travellers in need, so we started up our Charitably Stoked division that works to raise money so we can support the refugees struggling to survive on Europe’s borders. This year we raised funds through our drinking cups’ voluntary donation system, and flew with the crew after Oktoberfest to Chios, Greece, to see the situation firsthand, donate the money we’d raised to charities working in the area (while soaking up the Aegean sun and our share of ouzo).

    2018

    Stoke Meets Music

    This is the year when we moved massively into the festival travel space with the super successful launch of Stoked in the Park, Pamplona, our music and goodtimes festival that happens alongside the Running of the Bulls. In 2018 we hosted Australian electro lords, Art Vs Science, who blasted the fields with their absolute bangers and got our bull run…

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    Stoke Meets Music

    This is the year when we moved massively into the festival travel space with the super successful launch of Stoked in the Park, Pamplona, our music and goodtimes festival that happens alongside the Running of the Bulls.

    In 2018 we hosted Australian electro lords, Art Vs Science, who blasted the fields with their absolute bangers and got our bull run survivors, plus a whole bunch of travellers who were there only for the music and the laughs, dancing. This followed on from Yolanda Be Cool headlining our London Big Day out, and paved the way for MNKY BSNSS to come all the way from Colombia to Munich to really get the Oktoberfest masses grooving.

    The other huge news for 2018 was the growth into the Stoke Brands suite, including Stoke Eats, food trucks and catering, Stoke Threads, street and festival wear, plus a gorgeous little shopfront down in Barceloneta, and Stoke Australia, which marks the beginning of our inevitable growth into many of our Stokies’ home country.

    2019

    And Beyond

    2019 and beyond: we’ll be moving more into music festivals, both at our campsites and across Europe, expanding our destinations, introducing Europe to summer camps for adults, and encouraging travellers to grow, learn, and do something maybe a little more nourishing — as well as party as often, and as hard, as they possibly can

    And Beyond

    2019 and beyond: we’ll be moving more into music festivals, both at our campsites and across Europe, expanding our destinations, introducing Europe to summer camps for adults, and encouraging travellers to grow, learn, and do something maybe a little more nourishing — as well as party as often, and as hard, as they possibly can

    Jobs, Internships, and more

    How to Get Involved

    If you love to get involved, love travel and think you have the required skills to improve the travel experience for thousands … Stoke wants to hear from you!

    Work With Us Contact Us

    Charitably Stoked

    It just makes sense that we would do whatever little we can to help fellow travellers in need. Through various initiatives both on site and at home in Stoke Towers, we’re collecting money and opportunities for refugees fleeing warfare and poverty. We’re fortunate to be able to travel because we want to, it’s only right to help those who don’t have a choice.

    CHARITIES WE SUPPORT ARE:

    Hello My Friend Working within Europe, Hello My Friend seeks to change the negative stereotypes surrounding refugees while creating projects that promote dignity, self esteem and a sense of worth within the refugee community.
    Kosta’s Kitchen A local restaurateur has taken it upon himself to feed the arriving refugees. We want to alleviate some of this burden from him by contributing towards employing staff to help out.
    Salvamento Marítimo Humanitario A Spanish Basque organisation that focuses on preserving human life by performing maritime rescues, as well as educating people on Human Rights.

    STOKE TRAVEL SUPPORTS REFUGEES BECAUSE WE BELIEVE IN A BORDERLESS WORLD

    STOKE TRAVELS CUP DEPOSIT SYSTEM GIVING BACK!

    Travellers will be asked to leave a €2 cup deposit when checking in at all Stoke Travel festivals and destinations. This cup you will be able to use during your stay with us at the unlimited bar and for your coffees to help you wake up in the morning.
    This is a deposit and is entirely refundable back to you, however you have the option to donate 100% of the deposit to the charities we support on Chios, Greece.

    Stoke in the Press

    Inside Munich’s adults-only Oktoberfest party – THESUN.CO.UK

    Our Sun girl checks out Stoketoberfest, an unofficial and very naughty offshoot of Munich’s famous Oktoberfest, makes the annual booze marathon look like a children’s tea party…

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    Haro Wine Festival: The Ultimate Wine Fight

    Climb up a mountain in Rioja for Haro Wine Festival otherwise known as Batalla Del Vino De Haro. The festival is considered one of the craziest food fights in the…

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    Springfest Munich Germany

    Sometimes known as Oktoberfest’s lesser-known but cooler younger sister, Springfest is all about authentic German beer, friendly locals and great vibes. It runs from 25 April – 12 May 2019…

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    Hogmanay’s Official Trainspotting After Party – Stoke Travel

    Who decided New Year’s Eve parties should stop when the ball drops? Join Stoke Travel at The Pear Tree, Edinburgh after the fireworks to ring in the new year Stoke-style!

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    A guide to Oktoberfest: The happiest place on earth

    I’ll be honest, when I first considered going to Oktoberfest, I saw it as a tick box experience that Kiwis HAVE to do when they live on this side of…

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    Mehr Reisen Für Weniger Geld

    Es ist immer dasselbe Problem, du willst die Welt sehen, aber du kannst dir kaum dein Mittagessen leisten. Dabei hilft dir Instagram auch nicht, wenn du permanent deine Freunde auf…

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    9 Places in Europe Ideal For Solo Travel

    Europe, because of how vast it is and with over 50 countries, still hasn’t developed one solid route that everyone takes. That’s why it’s important that if you’re a solo traveller, you know where…

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    5 REASONS TO VISIT EDINBURGH’S HOGMANAY FOR NEW YEAR’S EVE

    Hogmanay, is the original and the best New Year’s Eve celebration, set amongst Edinburgh’s ancient streets, where belting out Auld Lang Syne isn’t just acceptable, but mandatory, the festival being…

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    3 Things I Learned On My First Group Travel Experience

    I’m a serial solo traveller, so group travel is an entirely new experience. Solo travel comes with many perks (I get to do what I want, when I want, and…

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    New! Dispatches’ 2018/2019 list of Europe’s best fall and winter party destinations

    It’s been a long, hot summer across Europe … but, alas, it’s finally over. Did we hear a sigh? No reason to be down because we’re thinking about where the…

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    Oktoberfest Munich – Why the Stoke Campsite is the place to be! – Where’s My Tent?

    As we come to autumn of 2018, you might be thinking to yourself that the festival fun is all over. I’m here to tell you you’re wrong! The party is…

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    5 OKTOBERFEST TIPS YOU NEED TO KNOW

    Oktoberfest is the most famous celebration of beer in the world, in 2017, over seven million people flocked to Munich, with that many people and over 30 beer tents to choose…

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    FIVE THINGS TO DO WHILE WE’RE WAITING FOR SUMMER TO RETURN

    Are you sad to see summer go? With its passing the days have suddenly gotten too short, classes have started up again, and it’s no longer feasible to wear a…

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    Know How To Travel More For Less

    Aside from all the obvious and super annoying methods such as not going out for brunch three times a week, there are ways you can be super cash savvy and…

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    BBM Live Music News – Stoked in the Park Pamplona

    Stoked In The Park seeks to bring travellers back to Pamplona for San Fermin by showing them that the best type of travelling is all about the party. This year Stoked In…

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    Stoke Travel To Bring Stoked In The Park To Pamplona

    PAMPLONA, SPAIN. Stoke Travel is set to bring their Stoked in the Park music festival concept to Pamplona for the San Fermin Festival (the Running of the Bulls).

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    Art Vs Science Headlining Stoked In The Park Pamplona

    Run with bulls and parlez vous francais, this year at Sanfermines you’re going to use your flippers to get down PAMPLONA, SPAIN. Following the mad crazy success of Stoked in…

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    Bagsee Travel | What I’ve Learned from Stoke Travelling Europe

    There are many ways to travel – solo, in a couple, with friends, in a tour group, with family. Solo travel is challenging but rewarding – you don’t have the…

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    6 Reasons Why Springfest is Better Than Oktoberfest

    Springfest, aka Fruhlingsfest, A.K.A ‘Little Oktoberfest’ is like Oktoberfest, but better.

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    8 Tips to survive an Oktoberfest Stag Do!

    THE STAG DO EQUIVALENT TO CHRISTMAS OR HANUKAH – OKTOBERFEST IS A JOY FOR US ALL… UNTIL THE HANGOVER AFTER THAT IS. SURVIVE IT WITH OUR PRO TIPS!

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    Billetto – Get Stoked With Stoke Travel

    The favourite choice for the backpacker on a budget, the student with some study abroad holidays to burn, the gap year gapper with a gap in their galavanting, the solo…

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    Six things You Didn’t Know About Pamplona’s Running Of The Bulls

    The famous San Fermin festival of Pamplona, northern Spain, is best known for its infamous pamplonas running of the bulls run. While the festivities run between the 6th and 15th…

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    SPRINGFEST MUNICH WITH STOKE TRAVEL

    One of the places I’ve been desperate to visit is Munich’s Springfest! I’d been told by a few friends who went last year that it’s essentially like the famous Oktoberfest but slightly…

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    Which Is The Best European Festival For Your Squad?

    European festival season is almost upon us, and with it the best excuses to assemble your tightest squad and raise hell across the continent. But which festival will you go to?…

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