Milngavie to Inverarnan walk on the West Highland Way

Planet

This self-guided walking holiday along Scotland’s West Highland Way is, by its very nature, slow and sustainable, with guests walking on average 21km per day along one of Scotland’s most famous long-distance walking trails. Guests have an opportunity to traverse some of Scotland’s most protected and treasured landscapes, Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park which has an impressive Biodiversity Action Plan in place, and also plenty of information on site on how to be a responsible visitor.

One of the national park’s ongoing projects is The Forest for a Thousand Years Project, a forest management plan in and around Cashel and Rowardennan, habitats not only for red deer, red squirrels and an array of birdlife but also reptiles such as adders and slow worms.

Although we do have tours during summer months, we also run our trips out of peak season, between March and October, not only to ensure that tourists support the local economy for three seasons of the year, but also to try and encourage walkers to keep their impact as low as possible on the environment during busy times.

With all of our tours, we offer a facility for our guests to travel to and around Scotland using bus and train. When possible, we recommend public transport transfers on our hiking and cycling holidays and, on this tour, guests can start the trip by train to Milngavie, and then take a bus transfer from Inverarnen to Glasgow or Fort William to catch a train home. Although guests’ luggage is transferred by a local provider on this holiday, the only transport used to get guests from one destination to another is their own feet!

People

The accommodation on this holiday is, for the most part, in small locally-owned hotels and guest houses. Tourism is one of the major sources of income in Scotland, especially in the Highlands. Only breakfast is included on this walking holiday and so we encourage our guests to buy lunches and snacks in local shops, and we will recommend dinner spots en route, or the accommodation provider will also provide dinner if requested. All our accommodations have been carefully selected based on a variety of criteria including their location, warm hospitality, a commitment to locally sourced produce food and to responsible tourism.

As this holiday takes guests into rural areas, this directs tourist spend directly into small, Scottish businesses, a world away from the mass tourism of the Royal Mile in Edinburgh. All of our host accommodations provide picnic lunches too, paid for locally, and we work closely with them to avoid single use plastics when packaging them. We always advise our guests to bring their own reusable sealable lunch box, and refillable water bottles of course.

Directing guests to local food in Scotland is important to us, not only so that they have an enjoyable cultural experience, but because they are also supporting the local gastro-economy, which is growing all the time in Scotland. Grace, our tour manager, knows all the best places to find local specialities, the finest local eateries and, of course, pubs in the trip notes. Grace also reminds guests to always practise Leave No Trace throughout their holiday.