Offa's Dyke path walking holiday

Planet

It is safe to drink the water from the tap in England, however, for customers keen to avoid buying single use plastic bottles we encourage customers the chance to purchase a discounted filter Water-To-Go bottle which combines three different technologies to remove over 99.9% of all microbiological contaminants in water.

We operate a ‘leave no trace’ policy on tour; our tour leaders are trained to promote this message to customers. As the focus of this trip is primarily walking, we aim to leave a minimal impact on the areas as possible. This trip actively encourages customers to reduce the carbon footprint to a minimum. We’ll walk the southern 70 miles of the route south from the traditional English town of Kington to the city gates of Chepstow. Along the way we’ll encounter Hay-on-Wye at the end of arguably one of the best day’s walking on the entire route, the highest part on the trail on the Hatterall Ridge crossing the Black Mountains, and joining the lovely Wye Valley to pass Tintern Abbey as we walk towards journey’s end at Chepstow.

We encourage all our customers to keep a safe distance from animals and not to feed wildlife as they become reliant on tourists. This is especially prevalent given the amount of bird life and livestock.

We’re committed to running our business responsibly. In our office we reduce, reuse, and recycle whenever possible. It’s in a refurbished mill, and we’ve also installed a waterwheel to generate electricity from the river. It was the first of its kind in Britain, gives us our own sustainable source of power and any excess goes to the National Grid.

People

On this tour we stay in a locally owned house originally built in 1676 as a hunting lodge for King Charles II. It highlights the flavours and history of the area, plus they recycle as much waste as possible. The Speech House Hotel is a privately-owned hotel and the proprietors believe that they have a responsibility to care for and protect the environment in which they operate. They are fully committed to improving the environmental performance across all areas of their business and encourage their customers to assist them in their efforts.

The hotel continues to implement innovative measures wherever possible such as those already in place, such as the use of Biomass wood pellet heating system, low wattage lighting, thermostatic heating controls, induction ovens and insulation throughout the hotel.

Breakfast and dinners are served at the hotel; however, lunches are taken in a variety of local eating establishments to help spread the financial benefits of tourism.

We offer financial aid to walking groups within the UK to maintain walking by young and old for future generations, rebuild broken paths and bridges washed away. This falls under an organisation named the Charitable Trust.

We cap passengers at a maximum of 18 customers so as not to impact on the environment surrounding the Offa’s Dyke Path, especially as we explore primarily on foot and on ‘rights to roam’ land. We use as many locally owned services as possible throughout this trip.