Walking holidays and hiking tours in Scotland
Introduction
Since 1995, About Argyll Walking Holidays have run high-quality, essentially personal guided and self-guided walking holidays and hiking vacations throughout Argyll in the West Highlands and Islands of Scotland, building up a reputation for care and quality. Over the years, in exploratory spirit, we have added ventures further afield: Galloway, Highland Perthshire, Arran, the Small Isles and all the way north to the magnificent otherness of Norse/Scots Shetland Islands.
Our holidays are designed for people who like to enjoy historical,
natural and geological themes and the pure pleasure of walking. We
explore the hills, the lochs, boundless seascapes and islands. During
the walks you can enjoy historical, natural or geological themes, the
solitude of secret places.
We don't aim to break speed records
when we walk, but the going can be rough. Scotland is one of the last
places where you don't have to stay on paths and tracks. During our
guided holidays we will take full advantage of this and our hikes will
be in remote and quiet places undiscovered by most tourists.
Anyone
with Highland, especially Argyllshire, ancestry might be particularly
interested to see the country to which a part of them belongs. Our walks
visit the countryside of, amongst others, the Campbells, MacDonalds,
MacDougalls, MacIntyres, MacKinnons, MacLachlans, MacLeans and Stewarts.
Our
walking trips and hiking tours are usually 8 days, with 7 nights
accommodation and 6 walking days. All our holidays start and end in
Glasgow.
We also do private guided itineraries
where the whole schedule would be drawn up to suit your particular
interests and the time you have available. These can be themed. Examples
of special interest private guided itineraries are: Whisky and Walking
in Islay, Walking in the footsteps of your ancestors, history, wildlife,
geology. Please ask.
We offer you
Confidence that you are going the right way - our well-qualified, well-informed and enthusiastic guides will look after you. They’ll do their best to make your holiday interesting and memorable. Each of them lives in Scotland, knows it well and has some special interest in its environment. They all very much enjoy sharing this knowledge.
All our guides have mountain leadership and first aid qualifications, with experience of leading groups of various ages over all sorts of ground in all weathers and seasons.
Small groups - usually between 4 and 8.
An attractive, well-thought-out walking programme - walks and hikes to remote and quiet places undiscovered by most tourists. You can enjoy historical, natural and geological themes and the pure pleasure of walking.
Carefully selected comfortable accommodation - we book and arrange this for you, taking care to find a B&B, guest house or hotel that is individual in character and offers good food, comfort and a friendly welcome.
Road transport in our minibus - we collect you from Glasgow (city or international airport) on your first day and take you back at the end of your holiday. Throughout your holiday we also provide local transport as needed, evenings included.
Transport by (charter) boats and ferries - as required.
Visits to museums and other places of interest - entrance fees are included where these are an integral part of your programme.
Get-togethers in the evening - in a variety of carefully selected restaurants and pubs to set the scene for the next day's walking. Although evening meals are not included in the price, your guide will always take you somewhere good. We usually eat in a different place each evening, giving everyone the opportunity to try a range of Scottish dishes and ambiences.
and most especially
Personal care and attention in all that we do for you.
Walking or Hiking?
The word 'hiking' isn't used as much in the UK as it is in North America. In the UK we tend to use 'walking' to cover such a wide range of activities that it can mislead. North American readers should probably think of About Argyll's walks as hikes, but at the gentler end of the range. You'll need though boots with a good tread, that provide adequate ankle support. No boots with smooth soles; no walking shoes, no trainers nor similar very lightweight shoes which won't cope with the rougher or wetter ground and could be dangerous in steeper places.
We offer two grades of walking / hiking:
(Luxury) Walking Tours
Our (luxury) walking / hiking tours are a good introduction to hiking in Scotland for people with basic fitness. The holiday combines hiking with visits to places of interest. Daily distances won’t exceed 6 miles (10 km) plus varying amounts of ascent, and we don’t expect to hike for longer than 4 hours. Most of your hiking will be on paths, tracks or quiet roads, although the surfaces can be wet and rough; there will be some steep sections along the way, but no climbs as great as thousand feet (300m), even in total.
Walking / Hiking Holidays
Our walking holidays and hiking vacations are designed for people who are fit and used to walking all day. We will walk up to 11 miles (17 km) per day with an average 1000ft/300m of ascent. On one day it might be as much as 3000ft/900m but there are also easier days. Our routes sometimes traverse pathless glens, climb mountains or thread remote passes and there may be some scrambling. On most days as much of our time is spent off path as on it. Scotland can be very wild and tough going: 10 miles here is often much harder than 10 miles elsewhere. All that said, we don’t want to break any speed records, especially not when going uphill and you’ll have all the rewards of walking in one of the most beautiful and fascinating parts of the Highlands and Islands.
Get fit for your trip
We partnered with Fit for Trips to make sure that you will fully enjoy your hiking trip to Scotland and reduce the risk of injuries. Fit for Trips has developed fitness programmes specific to our walking tours and hiking holidays to help you get in shape, making your holiday as enjoyable and rewarding as possible. Fit for Trips will design a personalised fitness program for you. Whether you like to do it in the gym or at home you'll be given a fitness program that matches your needs and likes. Every program comes with a money-back guarantee if you are not satisfied for any reason and customers of About Argyll Walking Holidays will get a 20% discount. Click here for more information.
The groups
Our groups are made up of individuals who, whatever their background, share a common love of walking in Scotland and a joy in discovery of people and places, of history, wildlife and all the other aspects of life in the Scottish Highlands and Islands. Wherever we're from, we're all curious to find out what's around the next corner.
In recent years, our walkers come from the USA, Canada, mainland Europe, Britain, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand. This international mixture has made for a thoroughly enjoyable atmosphere which has been shared equally by those who come on their own, and those who book with their partner or friends. We know that several new and lasting friendships have come about through walking with 'About Argyll'. Why not come and join us this year?
Think you're too old? too young? As far as we're concerned sufficient fitness is what matters, along with willingness to walk in rough countryside, not age for its own sake. Our oldest walkers are in their 80s - very fit admittedly. Our youngest visitor has been 16 (a caveat here - our programmes aren't designed with under 18s in mind). Main age groups that we see? 40s / 50s / 60s.
Who are we?
About Argyll Walking Holidays is based in the southwest Highlands of Scotland. It is run by Frieda Bos in co-operation with a team of guides who are not only keen walkers, but also know Scotland really well in all its aspects. Our aim is to run high-quality, small-scale, essentially personal hiking vacations. We view our clients as friends who are entitled to a professional service. We spend time in the field to plan and prepare each holiday so that we are confident of offering you an out-of-the-way experience worthy of the tradition of John Muir’s “natural beauty hunger”. We organise our walking holidays with freshness and enthusiasm so that you can get the most out of visiting this beautiful land.
We have been operating since 1995. Many of our clients have returned for a second, third or even fourth and fifth time.
Your guides
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Stewart Richardson Stewart lives in East Kilbride and has been walking in the Scottish hills for most of his life. He has travelled in Europe and has visited Antarctica and Africa. He is an active mountaineer and has an interest in wildlife and the history of the Scottish highlands. When he is not climbing mountains he loves photographing them. Stewart worked as a freelance outdoor instructor teaching navigation and climbing before joining About Argyll. |
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Alastair Ewen Having been brought up in Shetland and Orkney, Alastair has a passion for Scotland's islands. He's travelled and led guided tours to the west coast of Scotland for many years. He has a thorough knowledge of the natural and cultural history of the Highlands & Islands of Scotland. |
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| Lesley Bryce Lesley has a background in languages and sales and has travelled widely both for business and pleasure. She has been active in the Scottish hills for over 20 years - she has a sound knowledge of Scotland's mountainous regions and is passionate about walking in Scotland and the outdoors. She is particularly interested in the protection and preservation of wildlife and in managing our impact on the wild places we visit. Lesley speaks English and German. |
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Nigel Scriven Nigel has lived in Argyll most of his life. He has a degree in ecology, which led to a teaching career in environmental and outdoor education in Argyll. He now works part-time for a number of Scottish outdoor and environmental organisations, leading field trips and doing environmental surveys throughout Argyll. Nigel has founded the Cowal Natural History Society, he is Chairman of Argyll Bird Club, and Treasurer of the Sanda Island Bird Observatory, making annual visits to Sanda to ring seabirds. In between all these jobs he goes hill walking in Scotland, Europe and further afield. He enjoys sharing his knowledge with other people. |
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| John Fisher John is the founder of About Argyll Walking Holidays and he worked for nearly 20 years at an outdoor centre in Argyll, teaching environmental studies and mountaineering. He has also worked as a quality manager for a training company and for a mental health charity. He thinks of himself as a "jack of all trades", with interests across geology, landscape, wildlife, local history and culture. Interests that he very much enjoys sharing. John speaks English and French. |
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| All our guides are qualified mountain leaders. | ||
| Frieda Bos Frieda organises bookings and will be your first point of contact to make sure all your questions are answered promptly. She also takes people to and from Glasgow and moves the minibus during some weeks. Frieda is Dutch and lives in Scotland since 2002. |
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Sustainable walking holidays
Since the start of the business in 1995, About Argyll Walking Holidays has consistently aimed to provide responsible travel to wild and remote places in the Highlands and Islands of Scotland. We offer you the chance to experience the solitude of these places in a sustainable and environmentally-friendly fashion. You will see wildlife and wildflowers that are almost extinct in other parts of Britain and Europe. On our doorstep live golden eagle and peregrine falcon, red deer and otter, wild orchid and sundew - just a few of the many species making up the unique Highland ecosystem. We consider this intricate and sometimes delicate web of life and landscape to be irreplaceable and a source of inspiration to us all. A century ago, John Muir, Scotland’s greatest contributor to the developing concept of conservation, talked of humanity’s ‘natural beauty hunger’. We think that this is the perfect place to satisfy that hunger, provided always, as Muir made clear, that it is done with respect for the sources of that beauty.
Following John Muir’s inspiring example, we are dedicated to preserving and promoting the value of Scotland's wild areas by doing our best to reduce the environmental impact of our walking holidays and ensuring the long-term sustainability of tourism in the area. The Highlands and Islands of Scotland are one of Britain and Europe's last wildernesses, and we share with all who live or visit here a responsibility to protect and conserve their fragile ecosystems. Because we want you and future generations to continue to enjoy this unique natural environment, our walking groups are small, so minimizing negative impact while increasing our chances of seeing wildlife. If you would like, our guides can also offer suggestions to help you to minimize your personal environmental impact.
Size is particularly important in the Scottish wilderness, where our wide spaces and high mountains are nevertheless small and fragile in a global context. Here, we agree with Schumacher; “small is beautiful”, and especially in tourism. Our small-scale business provides local benefit, environmentally, culturally and economically, wherever we go. We work closely with many small, rural businesses – for example, you will stay in locally-owned accommodation and eat in local restaurants which use fresh, local produce. All of this contributes to the local economy. Our sustainable business practices also extend to the running of our office, where we keep the use of energy, water and other resources to a minimum, reduce and recycle our waste and send most of our correspondence by email or on recycled paper. We also try to reduce the impact of the carbon emissions from our minibuses by supporting Trees for Life, which uses our donation to plant trees in order to restore the ancient Caledonian forest of the Highlands.
We are committed to improving the sustainability, increasing the social and local benefits and reducing the environmental impact of our holidays and of our office even further. Some of the actions we are taking are:
- Monitoring the use of energy and the other resources we use in an effort to reduce them even further.
- Encouraging the B&Bs and hotels we visit to adopt greener and more sustainable practices by, for example, using locally sourced or fair trade food for our breakfasts and picnic lunches.
- Taking you to eat in places that use locally sourced food.
- Informing you about 'walking without leaving a trace'.
- Encouraging you to use public transport for your journeys to, from and, when not with us, within Scotland.
- Having a wildlife garden around our office with a pond, wildflower meadow and native trees.
- Liaising with the local community and supporting them as and when we can.
Click here to download the 'responsible visitor guide' from the Tourism Innovation Group and Scottish Natural Heritage.
To underline our commitment and policies, we are a member of the Green Tourism Business Scheme, which has recognised our efforts with a Gold Award, the highest award possible.
About Argyll Walking Holidays is also a member of Wild Scotland and we adhere to its Code of Practice.
Comments from our clients
Elizabeth Stevenson, USA
"Our holiday was amazing! The advanced planning was very thorough,
yet, we enjoyed flexibility as the week progressed. Not a minute was wasted
from the time we met in Glasgow until we departed company on the last day!"
Andrea Schulz, Germany
“Our guide was the most dedicated guide I have ever met,
and I will surely come back.”
Tricia Irish, England
“I liked getting “off the beaten track”, with everything organised for us.”
Ine van der Pluijm, The Netherlands
“I liked everything: the welcoming, the group and our guide, the walks,
everything I have heard and learnt during the walks, the places we visited,
the accommodation, the evening meals, everything!”
Cathie Montgomery, Scotland
“The holiday was outstanding, so full, so interesting,
so carefully and well-planned and considered, one day just flowed into the next.”
Gillian Moses, Australia
"It was all I hoped it would be - interesting, challenging enough
without being too much, lovely group of people to walk with."
Marie-Claire Christis, The Netherlands
"Exploring the wild nature of Scotland, gaining knowledge about its geology,
its wildlife and its history, walking in remote places with
no other people than our group – amazing!"
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