The First Six Months of Touring in 2024

Hello and welcome to Travel England Tours and our new blog - starting with the first 6 months of touring in 2024. 

The winter months always are slow in the tour/guiding industry. We normally have November to February off touring and start back to work in March. The winter months are when we take new bookings, amend tours, the website etc… and develop your itineraries. 

The Start of the Tour Season

We started our 2024 season in January 2024 with a couple of battlefield tours. We travelled to Arnhem in Holland to follow the path of Airborne and land attack in Operation Market Garden, which was a private tour. We stayed in Brussels and started at Joes Bridge, travelled on the Hells Highway, Nijmegen and Eindhoven. We finished off in Arnheim Holland, where we spent 2 days and nights touring the battle locations and staying next to the bridge in Arnheim, which gives a sense of what would happen there in September 1944.

We then went up to the Ardennes forest in Belgium, where we toured for 3 days around the Battle of the Bulge in The Ardennes forest area. As we visited these locations in January, you got a real feel for the fox holes and positions where the allies dug in and the German counter attacks in the freezing cold.

Battlefield Tours in March

March is always a busy month for us - we run our yearly Battlefield tour from the North East of England to a different location every year. This year was Normandy D Day the 80th anniversary, where we had a 52 seat coach full. We stayed In Caen in Normandy and toured for 3 days around the 5 beaches, Sword, Juno, Gold, Omaha and Utah.

We visited the numerous sites, villages and locations inland from the beach, in the British, American, and Canadian sectors in Normandy France, and had a brilliant time of it. Previous tours have been on the Somme battlefield, staying in Arras France and Ypres Salient and the Western Front staying in Ypres Belgium.  

A Busy April, May and June in Various Countries

April was a good steady month of touring, mainly in the Cotswolds and London this year. We changed our business plan in 2024, and opened new areas of business such as Northumberland, (Roman Wall) etc,  the Cotswolds and London.

May was a hectic month of touring and for transfers. Using four to five different tour guides on a daily basis -  we were completely booked out with tours in various countries - England, Scotland, Wales, France and Belguim. 

June was again full on - which you cannot complain about!  We had multiple tour guides out working and chauffeurs on throughout the month.

The areas mostly covered in England and Scotland were the Yorkshire Dales, Northumberland, the Lake District, Devon and Cornwall, the Cotswolds, the Scottish border areas and the Peak district, with LHR collections and drop offs from our chauffeurs. All these areas are well trodden paths for Travel England Tours. 

Numerous Great Tours in July

July we have also been very busy throughout the month. We have visited Blenheim palace and Sir Winston Churchill's grave on numerous tours this month.

The beautiful village of Castle Combe in the Cotswold is also popular with our clients. We have had a  couple of great tours to Normandy this month as well. We changed our accommodation this time and stayed at Ouistreham the port of Caen which was an excellent location to stay. 

We will be posting a monthly blog about our tours and the locations which we have visited over the previous months.

We have had a very busy few months so far this year, with lots more to come before we finish in November 2024.