How Our Self Guided Holidays Work

Self guided walking and cycling holidays offer freedom, independence and choice, allowing you to tailor your holidays in the UK & Europe to your interest and travel style.

Our detailed Route Notes will contain all of the information you need to plan how you would like to approach each day, giving you the freedom to set your own pace. As you are not limited by the constraints of group travel, you are free to shorten or lengthen your walk as the terrain permits and can even take a day off, although you may need to travel onto your next accommodation by taxi or public transport in order to do so.

With our large range of self guided walking or cycling tours, as long as you are reasonably active you will be able to find a suitable tour. Find out more about our trip grading.

Inclusions

We have designed our self guided walking and cycling tours to include a number of elements to help you enjoy your holiday more, while leaving out some things to give you more freedom to tailor the trip to your needs and interests. Refer to the Trip Notes for more information on the specific inclusions for each trip.

What’s included:

Detailed Route Notes
Accommodation
Luggage transfers
Any scheduled transfers as per Trip Notes
Emergency support
Some meals (mostly breakfasts)

What’s not included:

Transport to/from start/finish points
Most meals
Any entrance/park fees
Travel insurance
Personal expenses along the way
Unscheduled transfers required during the trip

Route Notes

While our tours vary in terms of difficulty, route finding is made simple and convenient with our specially prepared package of maps and route notes. On many of the walks it is easy enough to navigate carefully using the route notes provided with a cursory glance at the map. As holidays reach the higher grades, you will need to take more care and we would expect you to have at least some knowledge of using a compass. Maps for our tours also vary considerably, from up-to-date GPS referenced additions, to old map copies which may still be the only ones obtainable for a particular area. The differences in style, grade and destinations of our tours are features that make them of continual interest and delight to our walkers & cyclists.

Each set of route notes can contain the following elements relevant to the route:

History and information on the region and the route you are walking.
Detailed maps including points of interest and accommodation.
Detailed step-by-step descriptions (with pictures) of the route and information on detours/optional additions.
Transport timetables and information for getting there and away.
Safety information and advice.
Contact details of accommodation, transport, local representatives and emergency support.
Advice for things to do along the way.
Suggestions for dining and self catering.

Accommodation

Accommodation for each night of your self guided walking or cycling holiday is included in the trip price and in some cases you are able to tailor the type/level of accommodation to suit your needs.

Luggage Transfers

Self-sufficient walking and cycling holidays are great, but they can include the hassle of carrying your own luggage. To remove this stress we include luggage transfers in all of our self guided walking and cycling holidays in the UK & Europe. Some restrictions can apply to the weight and/or amount of luggage that you can take and details of this will be outlined in the Trip Itineraries.

Emergency Support

Things don’t always go to plan and for anything that you need help with, 24-hour emergency support is only a phone call away. Emergency contact details are provided in each trip’s Route Notes and with the assistance of our very helpful accommodation and transport partners, we will do our best to keep any interruptions to your holiday to a minimum.