Horseback riding vacations

The Ireland tours I looked at on RidingTours.com look wonderful! The Irish are horse-crazy, anyway, and I think you should have no concerns about how well cared for the horses are there. I looked in particular at the Connemara tour, since I'm familiar with the area (though not on horseback). It looks like it covers all of the most gorgeous parts of Connemara at a reasonable pace. It sounds like they give lots of thought to the care of the horses in planning the necessary downtime to refresh them along the way.

Oh, and Steve -- they travel by horse on a riding tour, not by bus.

Steve: No need to be so supercilious about bus tours. For some people they are the answer, for others, not. I've gone on about 5 bus tours over the years, maybe more, and always had a lot of fun. I PREFER to travel independently and usually do, but if an interesting tour comes my way I take it.

By the way, never have I been on a bus with 50 people. 40 yes, not 50. Oh, and I admire the way you slam bus tours but always cleverly manage to exclude Rick Steve's tours from your tirade. Kinda smarmy.

No, Steve, of course they don't cover the whole island of Ireland by horse. You would know that if you bothered to look at the websites.

As for bus tours, I have been on two - one in Costa Rica, one in China. Otherwise, I have traveled independently (and often solo). On my two tours, one had 40 people but was an unbeatable deal costwise. The other had a whopping total of 15 people on the "big bus", and was also an incredible deal that we could not have done cheaper/better ourselves. In both cases, we learned so much more on the tour than we would have on our own because of our wonderful national guide (who traveled with us) and local guides in each city. Rick's tours aren't as different from the others as you might imagine. Steve, please don't presume to speak for anyone but yourself when you warn people away from bus tours. Sometimes they are the best option.

Just to add - these are definitely not bus tours; they are primarily inn-to-inn rides and you are assigned a horse for the whole trip, sometimes riding 6 hours a day. Most groups are between 8 and 12 people; it would be unmanageable to wrangle a group of 50 riders. There are days on most tours where you take a morning off from riding and go with your group, if so inclined, to visit the town, a winery, a castle, something like that.

It's definitely not the same as just renting a horse for an hour while you are in Europe.

Nancy - thanks for the info on the Connemara ride. That helps with one of my other questions, which is whether some of the tours actually hit prime vacation spots and it sounds like they do.

Still would love to hear if anyone has actually done one. I'll check out some other forums and sites too for that.

I have not personally been on these tours, but some close family members regularly take riding vacations. They are serious horse people who ride regularly at home as well. Their only substantive complaints have been about the operators that expect the riders to do daily tacking and grooming of the horses. They do that at home and would rather have someone else do it on vacation. If this makes a difference to you, be sure to check. Also, keep in mind that for the most part these are independent operators who advertise through the large websites.

Have fun! I've heard some great stories from my relatives.

Hello Kimberly,
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I'm a travel writer and Lodging Editor based in the San Francisco, California area. As I review two properties a week, and travel world-wide, I thought I'd combine my passion of travel with horseback riding.

Check out my site for riding recommendations. Let me know where you end up. Perhaps you can write a guest post review for me?

A good friend has done two tours, with different companies [Equitours and Cross Country International] in the Loire valley and in southern Portugal. She says, "The two I've been on (one with each company) included everything except the airfare to and from. They pick you up at the airport and take you to the starting point. Then you travel by horseback to points between the start and finish. We stayed in hotels occasionally, but mostly castles converted to inns, hunting lodges, and B&B's." She had a great time; her only problem was that each rider specifies his/her skill level and signs up for an appropriate tour. Her France tour was intermediate level [walk, trot, canter, gallop] but one of the riders turned out to be a beginner who fell off the first hour. So they all had to stick to walk/trot for a week. They were in the saddle 8-9 hours a day but also had time for winery tours, castle tours, and other tourist treats.

My niece and her roommate did a trip in southern France where they stayed in one location and took horses out for the day; they were given maps but basically were on their own. So that's another option if you're a confident rider - and map reader! I can find out the company and more details; PM me if you'd like more info on either of these. And have a great time!

If you have the Create Channel (a PBS channel), watch for Darley Newman's Equitrekking show. She goes all over the world doing just this. I imagine if you google Darley Newman's Equitrekking you can find out more about the show and she probably has links to the companies she features in the shows.

I did a riding tour with Cross Country International (now out of business) several years ago; the tour was in southern Tuscany at a place called Il Poggio (you can google it; it's still around). I enjoyed it quite a bit, but probably won't do one again.

My husband and I are not tour type of people, and some of the normal features of a tour type of vacation, I didn't like. Because husband came with, and he doesn't ride, it made more sense to do the kind of tour where you stay in one place, and ride from there each day. The meals were only fine, not great, with somewhat-fixed menus. We go to Italy partly to eat, so it was limiting to us that we couldn't go out to various restaurants (though we did go off on our own two nights). However, the location was gorgeous, the rooms wonderful, and the horses were well-cared for and in great condition.

While I enjoyed riding (I was a low-intermediate rider), I also love lots of other things in Italy, and spending so much time riding meant we couldn't do other things. Obvious, I know, but I decided that I'd rather do a bigger variety on one vacation. Maybe a two-day ride would be better for me!

The terrain where we rode was VERY steep, which I wasn't used to. We mostly walked and trotted, partly because of the terrain. And the steepness was not obvious from the description or pictures of the tour, so I didn't anticipate that. I loved being able to be off in the countryside.

I would assume all of those companies are more like consolidators; they set you up, but everything else is done by the people running the tour incountry. You can book directly with stables in France, Italy, whatever. I might have done that, but I felt as an inexperienced rider, it was best to work with a company that had checked out the operator and the horses.

Thanks for some of the specifics Lexma and Kathleen. Very helpful. This might potentially be a solo trip, so I thought a tour on horseback was a good way to travel solo my first time.

Yes, Darley Newman is like the Rick Steves of the horse travel world. She has lots of recommendations for equestrian travel on her site, including Ireland and Scotland. http://www.equitrekking.com. I've heard rumors that they are starting tours soon too, so you might be in luck!