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Your Spirit of Adventure
Your Spirit of Adventure
Blog 13th January 2021
At the end of our last blog, 6th January 2021 - Looking Forward to 2021 and Back… We said we look forward to posting blogs as we carry on our adventures in a different 2021. Our private tours of Scotland and Ireland may not be as frequent throughout 2021, but we hope to get out there with you and start exploring again soon.
We mention on our website and on our social media pages that we encourage you to ‘find your spirit of adventure’ when you are looking at our tours of Scotland. So, what do we mean by this? Well, first and foremost, we are not an adventure tour company who are going to have you clinging on for dear life while on a white-water raft! And we are not going to have you cycle over a mountain pass at over 2000ft! Although, we can book such activities for you, we do know a lot of excellent specialist operators in Scotland.
Our ‘Spirit of Adventure’ is a much easier affair – we do the adventure part for you, and all you must do is come along, and bring the ‘spirit’ part of it. Our tours feature many off the beaten track gems and places where tourists do not frequent in big, or sometimes even small numbers. Our tours are designed to explore places and help you to discover their past. After many years of doing our tours of Scotland we have refined how we do our tours and, most often, the best moments are when we include fascinating sites that have managed to stay out of the mainstream.
Famous tourist attractions like The Arc de Triomphe, The Ancient Pyramids of Egypt and Edinburgh Castle are what pull us in and get us interested in destinations and, once we are interested, our mind is pretty much made up – Let’s go! These headline grabbers are important for the tourist industry of any country, but they are merely a starting point! It is up to the tourist boards, tour operators and tourists to dig deeper and have the courage and confidence to go that bit further and explore more. The famous sites must be visited, there is no denying that. At our tour company, we have learned that getting to the must-see sights early or late in the day is a much more pleasurable experience. Scotland is lucky to have some of the big names in world tourism, Edinburgh Castle, The Edinburgh Military Tattoo, Loch Ness and its Monster, The Isle of Skye, Famous Whisky Distilleries and Glencoe, but this is just the tip of the iceberg. The best way to compliment these famous sites is to get out there and experience the not so famous places, or as it is otherwise known – the local gem.
It is easy for us to accomplish this; it is our business; we are a tour operator who specialise in local places. First and foremost, we love touring and sightseeing in Scotland. We love showing you the places that you have read about and enlightening you even more on those famous places. But over the years we have moved to a more adventurous approach when it comes to sightseeing and this is because tourists are constantly asking to us to, “Take us to the places you love, let’s go off the beaten path a little more”. With every passing year, as tourism grows, people are becoming more confident, and that is what a spirit of adventure is all about, confidence. We are also aware that you don’t want to miss the famous sites, so it is a balancing act to include these places but still make a trip feel ‘local’. We have worked on this, and so far, have had great success with mixing up the popular with local. This is where we came up with our local flavours theme, include the famous sites but then get to know the country by visiting hidden gems and local communities. We take back roads and uncover viewpoints where it may only be you who is standing there.
One of the benefits of being more adventurous and going against the tourist crowd is your impact, or lack of it, on the natural environment. Taking the route less travelled is always more rewarding and we take pleasure in lightening the load on areas that has heavier tourist activity. It is also worth noting that it is an amazing experience to visit a castle or ancient settlement with no other tourists but yourself. I guarantee you, this will be memorable, and it may even be the once in a lifetime experience you are looking for.
So, if the truth be told, the simple act of travel, of getting up and going, is a spirit of adventure in itself! There is the planning of your trip and then packing for it. There is the small matter of leaving home for one or two weeks with hopefully just the right amount of your own belongings to get you through the time of absence from your homeland. Travelling to the airport, getting through customs, getting on an aeroplane to a place you might never have been before! New customs, language barrier, drive on the left, or drive on the right the adventure goes on… Exciting isn’t it!
Everyone loves an arrivals hall at an international airport, and that is because it is the place where you, quite literally arrive into a new world! You are walking on ground in a new and different country. At last, the planning is over, and you are now here. The air feels different, the pace is different, the coffee tastes different, the people look different, the cars are different, everything is not like back home, oh yes, give me more! The spirit of adventure is truly alive and well here. There is also a sense of achievement, I know this sounds a bit farfetched, but when this lockdown is finally over and we can travel overseas again, it will feel like an achievement!
When you have settled into your rhythm in your new destination, there is a whole lot of new to explore, so get out there and discover. The world is an amazing place and most of the people living here will welcome you, it is an experience like no other. And, if you come to Scotland and book a tour with us, bring your spirit, because an amazing adventure awaits…
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