British Firm Walks Its Talk for True Bargain Holidays

Considering that the principal mode of transportation is your own two feet, you can’t help but wonder how the many companies offering hiking and walking tours can justify prices of $200 to $300 a day. Yet a company based in London, HF Holidays Ltd., while charging as little as $70 daily, manages to operate 70 high-quality walking tours in 16 countries, mostly in Europe, but also in the United States, Costa Rica, Nepal, New Zealand and South Africa.

HF’s tours, which run from February to October, are all-inclusive, providing lodging, baggage transportation and three meals daily. And there’s no single supplement.

Guests tend to be mostly active British middle-agers (75% are 45 to 55), slightly more women than men and overwhelmingly (80%) people who have “HF’d” before.

How, you ask, can HF do it for so little? One answer is that it doesn’t pay anybody anything. Seriously. Founded 87 years ago by a minister in Lancashire, England, it’s still a nonprofit outfit, staffed by unpaid volunteers. In England and Wales, HF owns most of the 20 country houses, farms and the like that are bases for its excursions.

Participating in one such excursion last year demonstrated to me how enjoyable an HF holiday can be. It was a three-day weekend jaunt, costing about $216, through the rolling hills of England’s South Downs, the stomping grounds of 19th century pastoral novelists.

The 40 participants split into smaller groups for each day’s different walking routes. Home base was Abingsworth Hall, just outside the West Sussex town of Storrington, on a property that had been a farm since the late 14th century.

The rooms were simple and cozy, with private baths (but no phones or TV) and a view across a broad expanse of lawn down to an idyllic lake. The food was hearty, interesting and better than the offerings at more than a few London restaurants I’ve been to. After dinner there were parlor games or dancing. In the mornings, guests were taken by bus to various points for walking itineraries, ranging from 6 1/2 to 9 1/2 miles.

Here are just a few of the HF walking programs in Europe (again, these land-only prices are all-inclusive): seven nights in Tuscany from $753; seven nights on the Greek island of Corfu from $889; seven nights in the Algarve region of southern Portugal from $721; seven nights in the vicinity of Ronda, in Andalusia, Spain, for $776; seven nights in France’s Loire Valley from $663; and seven nights in Poland’s scenic Tatra mountains from $776.

For more information: HF Holidays, Imperial House, Edgware Road, London NW9 5AL, England; telephone 011-44-181-905-9388, fax 011-44-181-205-0506, Internet https://www.hfholidays.co.uk.