7 questions answered about your first walking holiday

The required fitness levels for our walking trips can vary depending on the walking holiday you choose. To help you choose a walking trip to suit your fitness level, we’ve given all of our tours a grade. Our helpful grades also indicate how much preparation you may need to do before you depart for your trip. For the majority of our walking holidays, no training is needed.

When researching walking trips, check the trip page to find its grade.

Yes, most of our walking trips have rest days built into the itinerary. Again check the grade of the tour – easier graded trips are more likely to have rest days and shorter walking days. If you’re keen to have plenty of time to try local food and drink and explore the destinations in depth, go for an easier grade walking holiday.

If you feel you need an extra day to relax during your holiday, it is possible to opt out of walking. Your Explore Leader will arrange transport for you if needed.

You can increase your amount of ‘downtime’ by choosing an easier grade trip, which have plenty of rest time so you can rejuvenate after each day’s walking. Also look out for our centre-based walking trips. On these holidays you’ll stay at the same accommodation throughout and take different walks each day. If you’re on one of these trips you’ll have the option to stay and do your own thing for the day if you’d like to.

This will vary depending on where you decide to go and we provide detailed advice on individual trip notes. Our general tip for walking clothing would be to pack layers as the weather can always be unpredictable. A decent pair of walking boots is essential. We recommend getting walking boots that are a little larger than your normal shoe size, to allow for a thick pair of socks (or even liner socks and thick socks together to prevent blisters). And don’t take new boots on your walking holiday – try to break them in by wearing them around the house or on walks before you leave for your trip.

Your Explore Leader will have a full first aid kit but we recommend having a small first aid kit in your daypack. Also make sure you’ve got at least one water bottle. You may want to consider a pair of trekking poles for harder graded trips.