Cotswolds Walking Tour

It sounds like a wonderful time!

For the guided tour did you stay in one location and walk from there or did you move hotels each night?

Where did you stay for your self-guided portion? It sounds like this was a "move every night to different lodging" and they transport your bags?

People often ask about walking the Cotswolds so it's good to have a positive trip experience to point to.

Thanks for taking the time to post!

Hi Pam...Prior to the beginning of the self guided tour we stayed 3 nights in London on our own. Then we took the train from London to Moreton-in-Marsh and stayed one night in Moreton-in-Marsh (again on our own). For the first day of our self guided tour, we walked from Moreton-in-Marsh to Stow-on-the-Wold and slept in Stow. The 2nd day was a walk from Stow to Lower & Upper Slaughter and then to Bourton-on-the-Water. We could have walked back to Stow at that point, but decided to take a taxi back to Stow so that we could enjoy more time in Bourton. Slept in Stow that night. For the third day, we were transported by the tour to Guiting Power where we then walked to Winchcombe (absolutely gorgeous walk!). Slept in Winchcombe that night. Our luggage was transported by the tour each time we changed locations. The self-guided tour was designed with suggestions from Cotswolds Walks, very flexible to meet our interests/desires. During the guided tour we stayed 3 nights in Chipping Campden and 3 nights in Cirencester. During this tour we either walked from our hotel location to other villages or we were transported to other villages and made our way back to our hotel location. One of the days was not spent walking and instead was a visit to Highclere Castle “Downton Abbey”. We averaged about 7 miles a day, but you can plan the trip for varying numbers of day to either reduce or increase your average mileage per day.

Good to know that Cotswold Walks would custom make/tailor a self guided walk to your requirements. I know a lot of British posters to the forum raise an eyebrow at the continuing huge popularity of the Cotswolds but if it’s where people want to visit, who am I to protest? The Cotswold Walks website makes it look spectacular anyway! My own approach has mellowed a bit, given that as I’ve stayed in and hiked the Cotswolds on multiple occasions it would be hypocritical of me to overly object! I’m glad that your trip went so well and that CW proved so able. Glad the food was up to muster too - it has long been a myth that British food is below par (although you can still stumble upon it if you are unlucky). And one of the great joys of walking in the British countryside is that there’s very little out there that might view you as it’s next meal - the ones that do are the very small as opposed to the large and fierce. As Al Murray noted ‘squirrels are not going to hunt you down in packs’!

Thank you for the nice trip report. I've bookmarked it for future reference.

Several years ago we used Cotswold Walks for a self guided walk from/to Bath using the public right of ways. The directions were as much fun as the walk -- go over the stile and walk to the big tree, and other descriptions that we had to figure out. We did not have GPS, but enjoyed it just the same. It was such a memorable experience. So glad Andrew Guppy is still helping walkers!

Thanks so much for the additional information regarding your overnights. 7 miles is not too bad a day especially taking your time.

Sounds like a great tour! A few days walking on your own & a few days guided. We did a 1 day driving tour of Cotswolds villages a few years ago & noticed couples and small groups that were clearly hiking from village to village. My husband & I have that on our list of potential trips (so many places, so little time!).

One question we had: Did you find it easy to find a restroom when needed? Only having been in that area for 1 day, it seems to me that the villages are close enough that you're hiking to/through a couple villages each day. It would be easy to stop for a drink or lunch in a pub & use the restroom. Did you find that to be the case?

Thanks!

Thank you Moonheadsc for that trip report. My husband and I are interested in following your exact trip. Would you private message me the particulars so we can book for June 2022? Also was there anything you would change or want to include in hindsight? We were in the cotswolds for one day 19 years ago and I've wanted to return ever since and spend a week walking.

Great trip report. Very interesting especially all the details.
Thank you for taking the time to write it.
Sounds like a couple of great tours; glad you had fun.
We would love to do a guided walk with Cotswold Walks, but no way we can do 7 miles a day.
I will check their website to see if they do any short walks.

I will ask a question, if you don't mind, about your 3 nights in Cirencester.
Do you remember the names of any good restaurants or pubs where you had a good meal there?
We are including Cirencester in a future trip in order to go to the Corinium Museum (Roman Britain items) there.
Thank you.

Rebecca - the Cotswold Walks website has a ‘contact’ section and they clearly do custom tailored Walks as they appear to have done for the OP (though it seems these would be self guided). As they say in my part of the world “costs nowt to ask”. Failing that there are several books that come up on Amazon if you type ‘short Walks in the Cotswolds book’ but again you’d be self guiding. Self guiding isn’t as intimidating as you might imagine but yes, taking your courage in both hands and venturing out into the countryside in a foreign country requires a certain amount of bravery. Ideally once you’ve done it a couple of times you’ll wonder what it was that you were worried about.

On a more general point, as far as I can tell, there seems to be a slight disparity between what UK walkers consider a hike and what US walkers believe (this is of course a massive generalisation and probably wouldn’t apply to long distance trail walkers on, say, The Appalachian Trail or PCT). It strikes me that on day walks UK walkers will cover a bit more ground than their American counterparts. My experience of US hikes is admittedly limited but we never covered as much ground as I would have expected to at home. Also my friends who have hiked more extensively in the US said they found the situation to be similar in their experience - in fact they asked their guide “what’s next then?” And were a little surprised to be told “you’re done for the day” (I think I can guess my friends response to this which was likely to be around navigating to the nearest bar!). In all our experiences we were in groups which may or may not have had a bearing on distances, catering for less ‘ambitious’ hikers.

Am I labouring under a massive misapprehension and is my current understanding merely balderdash and indeed, piffle? I should add we have an American friend who visits fairly frequently and we’ve almost killed her several times, via drowning in rain, collapsing from heatstroke and walking her distances that she might not have been comfortable with, but ever game, tried, all credit to her!

Ian

TinaC… I had no issues with finding a restroom. As you mentioned, the villages are close enough to pop into a pub for a bite/drink and use the facilities. My husband used “the woods” on occasion.

Nell… I’ll message you tonight with the particulars. No, I actually wouldn’t change a thing. We enjoyed every bit of our stay. I would say that it is important to book your dinners in advance. I don’t know if this is due to Covid or not, but many restaurants required prior reservations.

Rebecca… I loved Cirencester! We ate at 2 very good restaurants 1. Teatro and 2. Cote Brasserie (which I think is a chain, but very good). The Corinium Museum was wonderful, especially the mosaic floors!

IanandJulie… I think enjoyment of walking is very individualistic. I have friends throughout the U.S. who barely walk (always use public transportation or car) and I have other friends who LOVE to walk. My husband and I always walk on the weekends, usually averaging about 5 miles a day on one of our jaunts. But we have no problem walking 19 miles a day as we did in London. Also, when I mentioned that the average “walk” in the Cotswolds was 7 miles a day, that was specifically for the mapped out walk, not what we actually accumulated in a day. Because, of course, you end up walking more than just the “route”. We often tallied 12 miles or more a day, but that was our personal preference, it wasn’t necessary. I LOVE walking!

Moonheadsc - Totally agree and I think you have proved my impressions false as I suspect that the shorter walks I mentioned were due to ‘worst case scenario’ group walk planning.

Terrain is also important - six or seven miles in hilly terrain can sometimes feel like a very long and full day. There is I concur, no finer way of thoroughly immersing yourself in a countryside or landscape than by walking!

RE UK walking vs US hiking discussion.

Our UK walking (self-guided) B&B to B&B tours are an "apples to oranges" comparison to our Western US hiking (self-contained) backpacking holidays. Differences include:

• Luggage transfer service vs. self-contained backpacks carrying food
  and shelter.

• Our Coast to Cost walk's started/ended at sea level with the highest
  elevation (Helvellyn) was a little over 3000 ft ASL vs. Sierra Nevada
  backpack trip trailheads were usually over a mile high.

• Warm and dry B&B lodging and pub dinners vs setting up camp at the end of a walking day and self-catering dinners.

That said, we found some of the UK Coast to Coast footpaths that went straight up (and straght down) are more strenuous grades than some of our US Pacific Crest Trail with it's switch backs and flatter pitches. And the PCT doesn't have stiles or cross pasters with grazing bulls.

Edgar - I have enormous respect for those who carry their accommodation and facilities on their backs having done a ton of it in the past. These days old age and infirmity mean that I prefer to carry less on my back and enjoy the creature comforts of a pub or B&B, although the pack I lugged up the Pennine Way a couple of years back, was larger than I would have wanted, albeit of necessity.

Mile high altitude is another factor to add in to ease - or lack of - walking. I find I’m usually OK up to about 8000 feet (never a problem in the U.K. obviously!) then I turn to jelly (o) and it all gets a bit difficult! I’ve recently been watching a lecture on You Tube by an American couple who were sharing their experience of completing the U.K. (Wainwright) Coast to Coast Walk. They too were mildly taken aback by the propensity of British climbs to head straight up without benefit of ‘switch backs’ or what I’d term ‘zig-zags’ and were initially puzzled by the wide variety of stiles and kissing gates. They made it in fine style though and their views were most interesting. They described the C2C as a ‘horizon hike’ as opposed to the Appalachian Trail which they described as a ‘canopy hike’. The most I know about the AT is from You Tube and Bill Bryson’s excellent and amusing ‘A Walk In The Woods’, my own walking in the USA having been confined to some ambles in several of the National Parks in Arizona/Nevada. I fear time may be against me to do a heck of a lot more on that side of the pond but never say ‘never’!