Sixteen. That is the whole catalog, and it is arranged in eight pairs because half the people who call this office ask for one place when the one beside it fits them better. Somebody wants the Dolomites and describes a week that is really the Julian Alps. Somebody wants Connemara and means Donegal. The pairing is not a marketing device. It is the shape the questions actually arrive in, so it is the shape the list takes, and where these sixteen trips go follows from that and nothing else.
You can book a vacation package from this list. Here that means one specific thing and no more: send the request form, a person here reads it, and the reservation is arranged with the company that operates the trip. This office takes no payment at any point, holds no card number, and there is no checkout anywhere on this site. The operating company pays a commission after travel is complete. That is the entire arrangement, and it is why the list is short rather than long. Sixteen places can be held in one head. Four hundred cannot, and an office claiming to know the difference between two similar valleys should be able to prove it holds both of them in mind at once.
Six nights across four islands, bicycles carried free on the yellow inter island ferries, luggage moved by road on the main island and by boat beyond it, riding days of 18 to 34 miles on near flat ground.
from $2,410 per person
Six nights in four places, riding twenty to forty miles a day between them on signed routes, with bags moved by road and every crossing made on a bridge.
from $2,270 per person
Six walking days between five villages on the south flank of the Sierra Nevada, with bags moved by road each morning and a fixed bed each night.
from $2,090 per person
Two bases, four nights in the Cares valley and three in the Sella side, walking on six days, with one cable car ascent and a rest day that most people spend low.
from $2,340 per person
One rented house or room on the east coast, a hire car collected on the island, six nights, no packing up in the middle.
from $2,120 per person
Ferry over from Oban, one house or inn for all six nights near the middle of the island, a hire car collected on arrival, and days planned around driving times rather than map distances.
from $2,290 per person
One house or small hotel for all seven nights, a hire car collected at the airport, and days built around walking, driving the inlets, and sitting out weather.
from $2,180 per person
Seven nights in the northwest corner
One rented house or guesthouse for all seven nights, a small hire car from Dublin or Knock, and days built around walking on headlands, strands and one or two inland hills.
from $2,260 per person
Six walking days between mountain huts on marked paths, two nights in valley hotels at either end, bags driven ahead each morning.
from $3,240 per person
Eight nights on foot across limestone
Six walking days linking mountain huts on foot, two nights in valley lodging at either end, and a road transfer that moves your main bag between valley points while you carry a day pack over the passes.
from $2,760 per person
Volcanic country west of the rhine
One guesthouse for all six nights, five walking days out and back by local bus or short transfer, luggage stays put.
from $1,880 per person
Six nights in one Harz town, breakfast daily, a six-day regional rail and bus pass, one narrow gauge return ticket, printed route notes for eight marked day walks and a stamped path book.
from $1,940 per person
Six nights on one moor where the high ground ends in the sea
Six nights in one house or inn, with walking from the door on four days and a short drive to a coast path start on the other two.
from $1,990 per person
Six nights in one rented house between the coast and the wall country, a hire car from arrival to departure, and a written day plan that leaves every day optional.
from $2,040 per person
One village base for all seven nights, a small hire car from the airport, and a market morning within forty minutes on every day of the week.
from $2,680 per person
One rented house or hotel base, a hire car for the whole week, and days built around two river valleys, the dry plateau between them, and two or three cave sites booked in advance.
from $2,210 per person
The reason the list stops where it does
A long catalog answers a different question. It answers "do you sell it", which any office can answer yes to by picking up a supplier list. The question that arrives here is narrower: the Picos de Europa or the Alpujarras, the Harz or the Eifel, and which of the two matches the week somebody has described. Answering that takes knowing the walking surfaces, the driving distances, the months the buses run, the way one of the two empties out in September and the other does not. Sixteen places is roughly what one office can carry at that depth.
So the pairs are set down side by side in plain facts, and the office does not pick for you. Not once, not by hinting, not by listing one first. Arran and Mull are both there. Exmoor and Northumberland are both there. The differences are stated as measurements and the choice goes back across the desk where it belongs.
Asked about somewhere that is not here
It happens most weeks. Somebody writes asking about Crete, or the Azores, or a river in Portugal, and the answer is the same every time: that is not something this office arranges. No referral to another company, no vague promise to look into it, no quiet substitution of one of the sixteen in its place. A written note comes back saying the list does not cover it, and that is the end of it.
If one of the eight pairs is close to what was described, the note says which pair and why, with the facts that make it close and the facts that make it different. Then it stops. Nobody here talks anybody into a place they did not ask for. If neither half of any pair fits, the honest sentence is that this is not the right office for that week, and it gets written that way.
You can plan and book a trip from these sixteen, or you can read the pairs and decide none of them is your year. Both endings are fine. The second one costs you a form and about ten minutes.
Four things this office will not put in writing about any of the sixteen
- Whether a place is safe
- Not stated, not implied, not ranked. Conditions on a mountain road or a ferry crossing change by the week, and an office in Charlotte is not the party who should be telling you what is safe on a given day. Ask the operating company and local authorities.
- Papers at a border
- This office does not advise on visas or passports and does not assist with either. What documents you need is between you and the issuing authorities. Nothing on this site is a substitute for asking them directly.
- Cover for a trip
- No insurance is sold, arranged, recommended or discussed here, and no product is named. Whether you carry cover and what it contains is entirely your own decision, made elsewhere.
- Which company runs it
- The operating company gets named in the written figure that reaches you, and nowhere on this page and not in any listing. Every trip here is run by an independent company; this office arranges the reservation and operates nothing at all.
Two more things, since people ask. Nothing on this site is a comparison of one company against another, and no place on the list is rated, ranked or scored against any other. The eight pairs are set out in facts. That is deliberate, and it is what the pages here are for.