Walking tours

[Sunset]

I think I'd have to work up to doing one of these, by walking 5 miles per day in my neighborhood. I thought I was totally fine, until this spring on the river cruise, just the walking tours of cities, plus our go off on our own for maybe 3 hours left me super tired.
I was so tired I fell asleep during one of the ship's lectures..

 

[Nemo2]

I'm still trying to absorb the concept of paying someone else so that you can walk where and when you want to.

 

[audreyh1]

I'm still trying to absorb the concept of paying someone else so that you can walk where and when you want to.

So you don't have to do anything but walk?

 

[Nemo2]

So you don't have to do anything but walk?

We have experience with multitasking.

 

[audreyh1]

We have experience with multitasking.

Someone can decide they do not want to multitask. If they have the budget, who cares?

I totally get the tours where you don't have to do anything but show up, follow the activity recommendations for the day, and enjoy visiting with your fellow travelers. I've been on several birding and photography trips like that and the experiences were awesome. They were quite a bit more expensive than doing it on our own, but we didn't have to do any planning other than getting ourselves to the tour, which was lovely.

Actually - the birding on our own would have been exhausting and much less productive, and same with the photography opportunities. Sure, hiking from place to place may seem much simpler, but you still have to figure it all out, and that can take a lot of research and time, or you have a lot of false starts burning up time.

My sig line..... I don't always want to be the travel agent!

 

[Nemo2]

Someone can decide they do not want to multitask. If they have the budget, who cares?

Certainly not me....I merely stated that I was 'confused' by it......

(in my defense I've always had difficulty with conformity. )

 

[YVRRocketSurgery]

We did a self-guided walking tour of the Cotswolds that was kind of designed around how many miles we felt like walking per day. The accommodations were mid-priced B & B's mostly, although one was a cute cottage behind a pub. Don't remember the name of the company, but I think I found it using TripAdvisor. They gave us great directions and instructions.

+1 to the Cotswolds.
We didn't do a full dedicated trip to tour the Cotswolds but allocated a few days in the region and walked between a number of the towns. We just did a bit of research and did it on our own. The paths we took were pretty easy walks. It was a really nice part of our trip. One of my old managers did a dedicated trip with friends and raved about it.

 

[audreyh1]

Using a guided tour is conforming? I always thought of it as hiring experts to wait on you.

 

[Nemo2]

I always thought of it as hiring experts to wait on you.

That's one of the numerous reasons DW & I don't care for restaurants......we don't like to be waited on...we much prefer spontaneity.....(but only if it's coordinated and tightly scheduled ).

À Chacun Son Goût.

 

[bberris]

I've done two hut-to-hut mountain hikes in the alps (Italy and Austria). No need for a tour, just a guidebook from Cicerone. They have dayhikes for those who want to stay in a hotel in town, or you can go multiday with a light pack between huts (really more like a civilized hostel with a restaurant and bar.) Cost was about 50 Euro per day all in, less if you don't drink.

 

[Bryan Barnfellow]

Look into Macs Adventure (macsadventure.com). They offer self-guided walks and cycling trips all over the world, in varying levels of intensity. They arrange your stay along the route at B&Bs and hotels/small inns, etc. and move your stuff there. They also give you maps and tips on the trails. I've been looking at their offerings for parts of the ocean side walking tour of Pembroke coast in Wales. They also have a younger feel to them, which I like (even though I wouldn't say I am all that young, physically anyway).

-BB

 

[mh]

How big are the guided groups usually? Has anyone done guided and self-guided? What did you think of the difference?

I’ll be going with a group of 6 of us. So I was thinking self-guided but not certain. I’d like to be able to adjust itinerary and stay somewhere for an extra day if we wish. Can you do this with self-guided but not with guided?

6 - 8 is a typical size of the guided groups I have been on. They usually try to not make them too big. Depending on where you are going, setting up the lodging is usually the most intricate logistic for the trip. So guided or not , many times it is not easy to juggle the lodging schedule to stay somewhere an extra day. But if it’s guided it’s pretty much completely out. As I said before a lot would depend on where you were walking as to whether I would do self guiding or not. I mostly do guided because I usually can’t get any of my locals friends to go for various reasons and going solo is usually not a great idea on the ones I tend to do. If you are comfortable navigating the route you are doing with 6 people and at least some of you have done extended day hikes frequently self guided is fine. I would still probably use a company to do the lodging booking and shuttles because In my experience they generally would do a better of picking lodgings that I would.

 

[mh]

I think I'd have to work up to doing one of these, by walking 5 miles per day in my neighborhood. I thought I was totally fine, until this spring on the river cruise, just the walking tours of cities, plus our go off on our own for maybe 3 hours left me super tired.
I was so tired I fell asleep during one of the ship's lectures..

You definitely want to prove to yourself you are ready by walking something like 5 miles a day for something like a 5 days straight *using the shoes you will be using on the trip* well ahead of time. Ideally with some healthy ups and downs along the way. If you can’t hack that you will be miserable on the trip so keep doing it till you are comfortable walking that much. Thinking you will be fine and winging it is NOT a good idea.

 

[grasshopper]

Ok. Thanks for the Country Walkers recommendations. I do value someone else handling all the logistics. Like always, just wish it was cheaper.

Grasshopper,
I’ll be interested to hear your feedback on your Northern California trip with them. I was reading the itinerary for that one and it looks great. Beautiful area for sure. Please let me know how it goes.

We're back, we had lovely weather, and the smoke from the Napa/Santa Rosa fires, only bothered us in San Francisco. We liked 4 of the 5 inns we stayed at, our only 3 star inn was the only inn in town.

Our first day in SF found us warming up with over 10 miles of walking distance, Day 2, 8 miles to Sausalito across the Golden Gate bridge, and than 4 more miles in town. We had a car pick us and our luggage up in the morning dropped us off at the Tennessee Valley trail head while our luggage went on to our next inn in Muir Beach.

Rinse and repeat, left Muir Beach and on to Muir Woods with our destination Mountain Home Lodge, a relaxing and CA fare dinner. Next morning we had a long almost an hour drive to a Point Reyes trail and another 8 mile walk with a 1500 ft elevation gain.

The last inn was nice, but our prepaid dinner at the Sir and Star was way to classy for us. The next day a lincoln town car picked us up for the ride to the airport. 3 breakfasts included, 3 sack lunches which were really great, and 2 dinners one great on so so.


Like I said before this was just a looky-look, for a fall Italy trip. Was it worth the price of admission, maybe but we were happy with the trip which is all that matters.

 

[MuirWannabe]

We're back, we had lovely weather, and the smoke from the Napa/Santa Rosa fires, only bothered us in San Francisco. We liked 4 of the 5 inns we stayed at, our only 3 star inn was the only inn in town.

Our first day in SF found us warming up with over 10 miles of walking distance, Day 2, 8 miles to Sausalito across the Golden Gate bridge, and than 4 more miles in town. We had a car pick us and our luggage up in the morning dropped us off at the Tennessee Valley trail head while our luggage went on to our next inn in Muir Beach.

Rinse and repeat, left Muir Beach and on to Muir Woods with our destination Mountain Home Lodge, a relaxing and CA fare dinner. Next morning we had a long almost an hour drive to a Point Reyes trail and another 8 mile walk with a 1500 ft elevation gain.

The last inn was nice, but our prepaid dinner at the Sir and Star was way to classy for us. The next day a lincoln town car picked us up for the ride to the airport. 3 breakfasts included, 3 sack lunches which were really great, and 2 dinners one great on so so.


Like I said before this was just a looky-look, for a fall Italy trip. Was it worth the price of admission, maybe but we were happy with the trip which is all that matters.

View attachment 27044

Sounds great. Glad you enjoyed it. Thanks for the follow up.