5 British Isles vacation packages to get excited about in 2024
We couldn’t be more excited to take you on these brand-new or new-and-improved tours to Ireland, Scotland, Wales and Southern England.
Get ready for an exciting year of British landscapes, Irish folklore, Scottish whisky, English sea monsters and more…
1. New Western Ireland tour
2024 brings a brand-new Geocultura tour to Ireland. Expect a brilliant blend of landscapes and legends, coastlines and castles, mountains and music.
In September, starting and finishing with a night in Dublin, we visit West Ireland with our seven-day tour to Galway Bay and the Cliffs of Moher. In between exploring a UNESCO Global Geopark, movie-worthy scenery, and Iron Age forts on the amazing Aran Islands, you’ll stay in a cosy inn that’s in the heart of the Geopark.
This tour is the best introduction to Ireland’s unique and wonderful food, culture and landscapes that we can think of.
2. Short tour of the Scottish Highlands and Isle of Skye
Always one of our favourite places to show you, Scotland has enough spectaculars to keep you awed for years – which is why we’re going there in 2024. The country’s stories, scenery and charismatic local guides just keep us wanting more!
In August we’re journeying from Edinburgh to the Misty Isle on our five-day, four-night Isle of Skye Vacation Package. This tour is characterised by dramatic lochs, whisky distilleries and dramatic slow-motion landslips, as well as hotels that feel as much a part of the landscapes as the surrounding mist-draped hills.
3. Scotland, through a lens
We told you we can’t get enough of Scotland! Our second tour to the country is a 4-night photography tour of the Isle of Skye and the Scottish Highlands, 18-22 September. As well as learning to see the place through the landscapes’ deep-time origins and amazing stories from the past, your guide, professional photographer Alex Hare, will teach you to capture the views of hidden lochs and towering peaks with your camera.
Alex is perfectly placed to guide this tour. He’s taught university-level photography students and hundreds of adults of all levels through his own workshops. And he’s an experienced photo tour guide. Whatever your level of experience, Alex can help you snap the scenery better – whether you’re working with a smartphone or SLR. Local experts and guides are on hand to offer you extra insights about the places you photograph, too.
4. Back to Scotland in 2025– this time for the whisky of Aberdeenshire and Speyside
Yes, it’s back to Scotland again in 2025, this time to the other side of the country. In May 2025 our new five-day Scotland whisky distillery tour will take you to a range of esteemed distilleries and shows you the secrets of the landscapes behind the ‘water of life’. (Dates to be confirmed soon)
As well as sampling the finest drams from the heart of Scottish whisky country, you’ll learn all about the area’s glacial landscapes and hear stories of Scotland’s most intriguing people and places, from the Royal Family’s Scottish estate to outlaws’ hideaways.
As ever, we take you that step further into the stories. So, as well as visiting historic distilleries such as Macallan, Royal Lochnagar, Glenlivet and Fettercairn, you’ll go behind the scenes of the industry to learn about the traditional work of the cooper at Speyside Cooperage, which repairs whisky barrels from all over the world. Dates to be announced shortly. Please register interest and we will let you know when the dates are confirmed.
5. New fossil discovery puts a new angle on our Jurassic Coast tours
The world recently found out that the huge skull of a pliosaur, a ferocious apex ocean predator, has been prised from the cliffs of Southern England, a stretch of coastline at the heart of England’s only natural UNESCO World Heritage site. At 2 metres long and with around 130 razor-sharp teeth, the fossil is one of the most complete pliosaur specimens in the world – so incredible that it featured in a New Year’s Day David Attenborough special on BBC One.
The discovery will influence the itineraries of our six-day Treasures of Southern England tour in September 2024.
From January, the amazing fossil will be on display at The Etches Collection, which features in our Southern England tour.
We hope to see you on one or more of our tours in 2024!
See all upcoming tours for 2024, including our New Scientist Darwin in Wales Tour (Sept date)
Read reviews from customers who joined our tours in 2023 and earlier in 2024.