Love this forum! 4 of us looking for a week long hiking experience in Wales for early October 2024. Looking for a tour operator to arrange the trip. Mix of spectacular nature, magical villages, authentic food & beverage, quaint accommodations. EASY RIGHT? Lots of opinions out there - need recommendation for tour operator AND general geographic preferences - NSEW Wales? Thanks for your thinking on this!
xo
kks
So are you looking for a group tour or a private tour guide?
Here's a post from last year that might have some information in it for you:
https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/wales/recommendation-for-small-group-or-custom-guided-tour-of-wales
I can't help with a tour operator, but have a suggestion for you to look at.
www.hfholidays.co.uk I would look at their "country house" options. I think there are at least 2 in Wales. It is a UK company that does walking tours. You would just have to make the flight arrangements and onward travel to get there.
I haven't tried them yet, but have a booking with them in a few months time for a 7 day walking tour. I'm hoping it works well for me and I can try a few of their destinations.
We used Contours when we hiked the West Highland Way a few years ago, and will be using them again this year to walk in Wales, and in the Peak District. The lodgings in Scotland were wonderful, the luggage transport always timely, and the information was on target. I highly recommend you check them out. https://www.contours.co.uk
We used Celtic Trails to book a self-guided hiking holiday in Wales, and I would use them again. But lately we have been going with HF Holidays for guided walking, so I heartily endorse Katy’s suggestion. We really like their accommodations, food, hikes, guides, and the company of other hikers, mostly in the 55+ age group.
On our last holiday with them, there was a group of 4 women, all restored academics, from Bristol. They took a liking to us, and we to them, and it was lots of fun.
HF Holidays is a member-owned cooperative, and their prices are very good. Non-members are welcome, with a small supplemental fee.
This is the opening page on their Wales holidays:
https://www.hfholidays.co.uk/destinations/united-kingdom/wales
Here is a complete listing of their Wales holidays, from 3-days to a week, coastal hikes and inland/hilly hikes, filtered for availability in October:
Unfortunately, is appears they do not offer the coastal trails in October. I wonder if that suggests something about the weather? Perhaps too windy?
And this is the trip brochure for one of the 7-day programs in the Brecon Beacons, for an example:
There is a group out of the UK I have often looked at but not participated with (yet): Walking Women. While they have an enticing and robust calendar that does not appear to cover Wales in October, they do arrange what they call Private Holidays. Enjoy the website and trip possibilities, if nothing else.
I hate to keep throwing links at you but here are two in case you need more options. 😊 Visit Wales, the country's official tourist center, has an abundance of vetted tours and guides to offers. You can find that here: https://www.visitwales.com/inspire-me/holidays/road-trips-and-guided-tours-around-wales
If you want a private guide, they also refer you to a list of Wales Best Guides, which you can find here: https://www.walesbestguides.com/guides/
You did not express a preference for coastal or inland hills and parks, but I will note that Contours seems to do mostly coastal paths. The other options are Offa’s Dyke Path, Severn’s Way (which is mostly outside of Wales) and a circumnavigation of Snowden.
I was curious why HF Holidays does not offer coastal paths in October, and found this on a website devoted to the Pembrokeshire coastal path, under “best time to hike”:
March, April, and October are the quieter months, however, the weather tends to be either glorious sunshine, >or flooding the locality. Be warned, either is possible so don’t be disheartened if you find yourself walking 7 >days in the rain. It does sometimes snow in March too.
I will be back with more comments later—-I need to have a look at my guidebooks on hiking in Wales.
October is more risky weatherise as that is when the Atlantic depressions are more likely to move in. (November & December are the wettest months on average).
May & June is when you are more likely to have good weather yet still avoid the busy summer months of July & August.
Note that Monday May 6 is a national holiday. Schools are also off the last week of May & last week of October.
I'll chime in with the obvious: days are short in October, so you'll need to plan carefully to avoid getting caught out in the dark.
And a memory: One sunny summer day, decades ago when I was a young woman, I walked (hiked) solo from Chepstow to Tintern Abbey and then caught the bus back to my B&B. The route went through farm fields involving climbing a stile every so often. At one point I had a rather anxious encounter with an Aberdeen Angus bull. The scenery was lovely, but I've never waded through so much mud in my life. Luckily my B&B host was realistic about dealing with my mud-covered shoes and trousers, LOL.
