Most of your week will be spent without us. Borrow a local for an hour and we will tell you where to stay, what to skip, which valley to save for the good weather — and where, honestly, to eat.
Guests have asked us to do this for years. We have finally made it a proper thing.
You tell us your dates, your base — or ask us to choose one — who is coming and what you love. We talk for half an hour or so, by telephone or video, and you ask every question you have been saving up. Then we write it down: a day-by-day plan for your trip, built for your actual party rather than for a generic visitor, and sent to you within five working days.
It is the knowledge we would give a friend who rang up to say they were coming. The difference is that it arrives in writing, in the right order, with the reasoning attached — so you can see not just what we suggest but why.
Anyone can list the ten best places. Knowing which two to leave out of your particular week is the useful part.
Book a day with us and we will happily spend fifteen minutes on the telephone helping you place it in your wider trip. No charge, no ceremony. It is simply how we would treat a guest.
The full service: a thirty to forty-five minute consultation, a written day-by-day plan, and one round of follow-up questions by email. Per trip, not per person.
The whole £95 comes off it. Book a bespoke tour within twelve months and the planning has cost you nothing at all. You never pay the £95 twice.
We are a tour company, not a travel agent or package operator, so every bed, train and table stays booked directly in your own name. We recommend; you stay in control, and your money never passes through us on its way to somebody else.
We take no commission from anywhere we send you. That is the entire reason the advice is worth paying for.
Phil worked for a tour company before he came to us, which means he has heard every planning question there is and enjoys the awkward ones most.
He walks, he photographs, and he has an unreasonable memory for which car park fills first on a bank holiday. When a question needs a specialist — a literary route, a garden at its peak, why that rock is that colour — he asks whichever of the guides knows, and tells you what they said.
Lake District Tours offers a personal trip planning service: a thirty to forty-five minute consultation with a local team member, a written day-by-day itinerary tailored to your dates, party and interests, and one round of follow-up questions by email. The fee is £95 per trip, not per person, and is redeemed in full against any bespoke tour booked within twelve months. We advise on and recommend accommodation, travel and restaurants; you book them yourself, directly, in your own name.
Send your dates and a line about who is coming. We will reply personally and tell you honestly whether a plan is worth £95 to you.