- Price
- Typically £459 half day to £942 full day with two guides
- Planning deposit
- £50, refunded against the tour price — often waived
- Group size
- Up to seven guests
- Lead time
- The biggest single factor — months beat weeks
- Terms
- Confirmed at enquiry
The short answer: bespoke tours are priced individually, but they typically sit at a similar level to our equivalent private tours — from £459 for a half day to £942 for a full day with two guides, for groups of up to seven. Requests that need significant new research or specialist outside expertise may be priced higher, and we always explain exactly how we have arrived at a figure before you commit to anything. Some enquiries also carry a £50 planning deposit, fully refunded against the tour price when you book. Terms are confirmed at enquiry.
That is the honest summary. What follows is the longer version: why bespoke days do not have a printed price list, what the deposit actually protects, what your money is buying that a standard tour cannot offer — and the situations where a bespoke tour is the wrong answer and something cheaper will serve you better.
Why there is no fixed price list for bespoke days
Every other product we sell has a number next to it. A scheduled seat is £79. A private tour is a fixed price per group. A bespoke tour cannot work that way, because the thing being priced does not exist yet.
Four variables move the figure. The complexity of the request — a lightly modified version of an existing route needs far less work than a day built from scratch around, say, the Quaker movement in seventeenth-century Westmorland. The number of guides — some subjects genuinely benefit from two of our team working together, and a two-guide full day sits at the top of the typical range. The distance covered — a day that ranges from the Lake District across into the Yorkshire Dales or Lancashire involves more driving than one that stays in a single valley. And any admissions or bookings we arrange as part of the day.
What does not vary is the promise attached to the number: you get a clear price before you commit to anything, and if the figure is higher than the typical range, you get the reasoning alongside it.
The £50 planning deposit, demystified
This is the part of bespoke pricing that raises the most questions, so here it is plainly. For enquiries that need significant research and planning, we ask for a planning deposit of £50. It is fully refunded against the tour price when you book — so if you go ahead, it has cost you nothing. What it does is protect the hours we invest in building an itinerary, and it means every serious enquiry gets serious attention rather than competing with speculative ones.
Just as importantly: the deposit is not automatic. For straightforward requests — a tweaked version of an existing tour, a familiar theme we have run before — we may waive it entirely. We tell you clearly at the enquiry stage whether one applies to your request, before you pay anything at all.
What the money actually buys
A bespoke price covers the day itself — vehicle, guiding, planning — but the real product is the work you never see. Before you travel, someone on our team has researched your subject specifically, designed a route that serves it, checked what is open and what has changed, and thought about how to pitch the day to your level of existing knowledge. We do not publish bespoke itineraries, and we do not reuse them as off-the-shelf products; the outline is shared with you before you book, and the day is built for your group.
It is worth being direct about the underlying philosophy: the knowledge is in the storyteller, not on the page. An itinerary is a list of places. What you are paying for is the person standing next to you who spent their evenings working out why those places, in that order, tell the story you asked for.
Bespoke versus private: a worked comparison
Because bespoke days are typically priced at a similar level to their private equivalents, the comparison is straightforward. A private version of a scheduled full-day tour runs from £915 for up to seven guests; a bespoke full day with two guides is typically £942. For a full vehicle, the difference per person between a fixed-itinerary private day and a fully custom one can be just a few pounds.
The half-day arithmetic is similar: private historic house tours are £459 per group, and a bespoke half day typically starts at the same £459. In other words, the premium for "built from scratch" over "run exclusively for you" is small — the meaningful cost difference is between either of these and simply booking seats on a scheduled departure, which remains by far the cheapest way to travel with us for one or two people.
When a bespoke tour is the wrong choice
We would rather tell you this before you enquire than after. A bespoke tour is not worth the money if what you actually want is one of our existing routes — in that case book it privately with a fixed price and free cancellation up to 24 hours, or simply book seats on the scheduled departure. It is also the wrong tool if your dates are very close: good bespoke work needs lead time, and we will say so rather than deliver something rushed. And if your interest is broad rather than specific — "we'd like to see the highlights" — a scheduled tour already does that superbly, at a fraction of the price.
Where bespoke earns its price is when the subject matters to you specifically: your family's history, your academic field, an author you have read for decades, a corner of northern England nobody runs a standard tour to. For that, there is no substitute — because no standard product exists.
How the money side unfolds, step by step
You enquire — free, no obligation. We reply personally, usually within 24 hours, and tell you whether a planning deposit applies. If it does and you are happy, you pay £50 and we start building. We share the outline of the day with you before you commit. You book, the deposit comes off the tour price, and the day runs. There are no other charges hiding in that sequence; any admissions or extras we arrange are named in the price we quote, and the terms of your specific tour are confirmed at enquiry.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much does a bespoke Lake District tour cost?
Bespoke tours are priced individually, but typically range from £459 for a half day to £942 for a full day with two guides, for groups of up to seven guests. More complex requests requiring significant research or specialist expertise may be priced higher — and we always explain how we have arrived at a price before you commit. Terms are confirmed at enquiry.
What is the £50 planning deposit and do I always have to pay it?
For bespoke enquiries that require significant research and planning, we ask for a £50 planning deposit. It is fully refunded against the tour price when you book, so if you go ahead it costs you nothing. For straightforward requests — such as a modified version of an existing tour — we may waive it entirely, and we tell you clearly at the enquiry stage whether one applies.
Is a bespoke tour more expensive than a private tour?
Usually only slightly. Bespoke tours are typically priced at a similar level to our equivalent private tours — a bespoke full day with two guides is typically £942, compared with private full-day tours from £915 per group. The bigger price gap is between either option and booking individual seats on a scheduled tour.
Do I get to see the itinerary before I pay for the tour?
Yes. We share the outline of the day with you before you commit to booking. We do not publish bespoke itineraries openly, because the itinerary alone, without the guide who built it, is worth very little — but you will always know what your day involves before you pay for it.
Does the price change with the number of guests?
No. Like our private tours, a bespoke tour is priced per group, not per person, for up to seven guests. Seven guests pay the same total as two — which means the per-person cost falls sharply as your group grows.
Are admission fees included in a bespoke tour price?
It depends on the day we design. Where the itinerary includes attractions with admission charges, or bookings we arrange on your behalf, these are factored into the price we quote — and we itemise what is included when we present it. You will never encounter a charge on the day that was not in the quote.
Sources & further reading
- The English Lake District — UNESCO World Heritage List
- Lake District National Park Authority — Visitor statistics
- VisitEngland — Know Before You Go: booking tours and experiences
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