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Walking Tours in England 2017

I heard many years ago about these tours where you can walk from pub to pub, spend the night and walk on. Anyone have any experience doing this on your own without a guide? Or if you have had a successful one with a tour company, I'd like to hear about it. This has been something I've wanted to do for a very long time. There are many websites but not sure how to pick the best one. jy

Posted by
5835 posts

Classic English walking tour is the Wainwright Coast to Coast walk. We overnighted in a combination of small country inns and hotels and B&Bs, dinning in local country pubs for the most part. A number of other walkers did their own lodging bookings but used luggage transfer services. A few were entirely self-contained.

We did it the easy way, paying the tariff for the Contours Walking Holiday booking service. Contours took care of all the logistics, booking sequential lodging, luggage transfer service and providing maps and route guides. We did the walking. I should add that the walking tour is customized for preferred number of walking days, start date and added layover days.

Posted by
6431 posts

Friends of ours took this walk with National Geographic last spring and enjoyed it very much. They're fit in their late 60s and did a lot of training with long walks, but they said some days were pretty arduous. However, there were easier alternatives on the longest days. I think it's the Wainwright route described above.

Another "classic" walk is along Hadrian's Wallfarther north. There's a company called "Hadrian's Haul" that will lug your stuff from pub to pub.

Posted by
669 posts

We had a great self-guided trip using Cotswold Walks. We did a 4-day walk to/from Bath (but they offer many other routes). Walking on the Right-of-Way system was eye opening for us, but would have been impossible without the very specific, detailed instructions provided. The villages we stayed in were so charming and the B&B's were lovely. Check them out!

Posted by
2773 posts

We walked the Cotswold Way National Trail, we planned and booked everything ourselves. It was so easy to plan.

Posted by
528 posts

Hi, we used Cotswold Walks, for a self guided walk. The maps were very detailed and accurate. This company has both guided and self guided walks. You could plan your own walks, purchase your own maps online. We did that, also. But they were shorter, circular walks using a car to get us to different villages.

For some information you might find of use here is National Trail link. Also, we used The Cotwolds Tour Guide .

Posted by
110 posts

One can do similar along the Hadrian's Wall National Trail. There are also several baggage courier services that will schlep your bags from one pub/inn/hostel to the next so you don't have to carry it all with you.