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UK Travel Planning
The UK Travel Planning Podcast is full of practical tips and advice to help you plan your dream trip to the UK whether you are visiting England, Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland.
Travel expert Tracy Collins shares years of knowledge and experience of travelling to, and around, the UK to help you plan your UK itinerary.
Listen to special guest interviews full of travel inspiration and practical tips for popular and off the beaten path destinations. Learn more about the best ways to travel around the UK (including by train), about British culture and history and much more!
Tune in and let us help you plan your perfect UK itinerary with all the places and experiences you have been dreaming of. UK Travel Planning - helping YOU plan YOUR perfect UK vacation.
UK Travel Planning
Discover North Wales: Top Experiences and Hidden Gems You Can't Miss
This week's episode immerses you in the beauty and experiences Wales has to offer. John Hadwin joins us to unveil hidden gems and top recommendations for exploring this remarkable country. You’ll learn about the rich history, stunning scenery, and mouth-watering cuisine that make Wales a must-visit destination.
• Discover the top experiences to explore in Wales
• Why Wrexham is quickly becoming a tourist hotspot
• Insider tips for making the most of your Welsh adventure
• Highlights of local cuisine including Welsh Rarebit
• Importance of allowing time to truly appreciate Wales
• How to work with local experts for a memorable visit
⭐️ Guest - John Hadwin of Boutique Tours of North Wales
📝 Show Notes - Episode 143
🎧 Listen to next
- Episode 128 – Explore North Wales + Beyond with John Hadwin
- Episode 89 – Boutique Tours of North Wales with John Hadwin
- Episode 52 – Exploring North Wales with Doug Collins
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Think about visiting Wales but not sure where to start. In episode 43 of the UK Travel Planning Podcast, I chat with John Hadwin of Boutique Tours of Wales about the top experiences that make this country so special, from breathtaking outdoor adventures to rich history, culture and incredible food and drink. John shares his expert recommendations, including some hidden gems and seasonal must-dos. We also discuss Wrexham and why exploring Wales should be on every traveler's list. Tune in for insider tips and inspiration for your next Welsh adventure.
Speaker 2:Welcome to the UK Travel Planning Podcast. Your host is the founder of the UK Travel Planning website, Tracey Collins. In this podcast, Tracey shares destination guides, travel tips and itinerary ideas, as well as interviews with a variety of guests who share their knowledge and experience of UK travel to help you plan your perfect UK vacation. Join us as we explore the UK from cosmopolitan cities to quaint villages, from historic castles to beautiful islands, and from the picturesque countryside to seaside towns.
Speaker 1:Hi and welcome to episode 143 of the UK Travel Planning Podcast, and this week I am joined by John Hedren. Again Again, john, this is the third episode that John Hadwin has been on my podcast to talk about all things Wales.
Speaker 3:Oh, thank you very much, Tracey. It's a privilege and I'm so enamoured that you keep coming back and I know the reason why Go on and tell me. Because nobody knows anything about Wales.
Speaker 1:Well, clearly you are our Wales expert, Definitely so. Episode 89, last year you were on, and just before Christmas on episode 128, talking about cruise ship excursions. Now today we're going to talk about what you consider to be the five best experiences that you can have. Now, I know your kind of specialism is North Wales, but there's two things I really want to talk to you about. One is I know you go to Liverpool, which, before anybody tells me, I know it's not in Wales, but I know you do excursions to Liverpool and I love Liverpool. But I have to start with talking about Wrexham. So introduce yourself, tell us who you are, what you do, and let's talk about Wrexham.
Speaker 3:John, Okay, lovely, okay, lovely, thank you.
Speaker 3:Well, I'm John Hadwin, the owner, proprietor and the only person bar my lovely wife running Boutique Tours, so when you come out with me, you get me and I'm with you from your first inquiry right to the end of the store physically. So, yeah, I've been operating tours since 2009 under the name of Boutique Tours and very much specialize in Wales, and private tours have come into a league of their own, certainly since COVID, and it's a very niche market. And if I've got to sum up a visit to Wales, one of the best ways of doing it is actually not that I'm blowing my own trouble here, but public transport is not great. So if you want to get around in a very limited time, uh, you've really got to consider making the most of that time and making most of your visit, probably utilizing somebody like myself, uh, to help you get the best out of your visit to, to Wales. So, yeah, we've got a beautiful country, very historic, very scenic and what I call Britain's best-kept secret, and everybody who comes out with me vouches for that.
Speaker 3:It's very experienced when we go touring, so a couple of celebrities I know you put me up there as one, oh yeah, absolutely, we've got a couple of hollywood celebrities with, uh, ryan reynolds and rob macklehenny, who, um invested in a pretty unknown football club in the north eastern corner of wales, wrexham afc. They were languishing in the non-league football leagues and, um, they came along and put a proposal to the the members. Now the club is owned by the people and, uh, they allowed them to buy in and it's been a fantastic success. And, of course, they brought their hollywood experience with them and brought out the tv series uh, welcome to wrexham. Uh, which has been a massive hit worldwide.
Speaker 3:And I tell you, everybody who gets in the car with me now when we leave from Liverpool or Chester or they're in Wales, they want to go to Wrexham and they want to go and see the football club. So what is it about the club? Well, they've done a great job. There's a lot of personalities behind the scenes as well as the two guys, but you know we're very proud here in Wales. I am a soccer man, so if you do come touring with me, you're going to get the benefit of the soccer aspects and I get told off for calling it soccer.
Speaker 1:I was about to say that, John.
Speaker 3:Down the golf club. The guys always, like I say can tell you've been out with the Americans.
Speaker 1:When you said that I could hear Doug going. Why is he calling it soccer? It's football. But then, because you're a Liverpool supporter, he'll forgive you.
Speaker 3:I'll tell you I'm not.
Speaker 1:No, I thought you were. Don't say you're Manchester United, otherwise I have to stop the podcast.
Speaker 3:I always thought I was a schoolboy in Manchester City.
Speaker 1:Oh right, I was in.
Speaker 3:Manchester United. So it wasn't like that, I was too good for Liverpool, oh. So, anyway, let's get on the Welsh subject, wrexham. Basically, wrexham was founded in 1864. So they are the third oldest football club in the UK and uh, it makes them the oldest in Wales. And um, we have, with the race course ground, uh one of the oldest international football stadiums in the world, so that in its own right is uh got people's interest. Of course, we've hosted great FA Cup games there, the knockout cups, and we've got these great international games and European football matches. So, yeah, wrexham is in a league of its own.
Speaker 3:And of course, if you want to throw a little addition into Wrexham, look at the lager, the beer, oh okay, which is brewed, and we have the oldest lager in um in britain, um being produced in in rexamon. That is now being franchised through the two guys, ryan reynolds and rob mcconnelly, into the us. So rex is going places and you know they are uh, our newest city of wales. We only have seven cities in wales. So pretty much one of the last things before her majesty the queen passed away. She made wrexham uh a city, she gave it city status. So, um, wrexham has uh been a little uh sleepy back quarter of a mining industrial area. Uh, of course, we have no mining there now. So, um, now the football is uh helping create a great tourism industry and people absolutely, it's amazing if you come talking football in wales, you'll find them very passionate.
Speaker 1:There isn't another team so let's let's put that as our top experience. Well, there isn't. Is that that's a put that as our top experience? Because I I can guarantee that the majority of people who listen to this podcast will be fans should I confess I've not actually watched it yet. I will, I will do. I actually was talking to an australian friend of mine the other day and she was. She was talking about it and I was like am I the only person in the universe that has not watched this series? So, honestly, wrexham is totally on the map and I'm guessing you get a lot of requests for going to visit.
Speaker 3:And it's so easy to reach. It's just off the highway that runs through Wales. You know, if you're coming in across the English border, you're talking like 20 miles across the border to reach Wrexham. And the great thing is if you've watched the Welcome to Wrexham and um, the great thing is if you've watched the welcome to Wrexham is the? Um, the pub, the turf, um, everybody wants to visit the turf and if you go in there you do become the celebrity.
Speaker 3:If you're an international visitor, people do make time for you and um, I mean, I even get people behind the bar getting a picture. You know, photograph, uh, pulling. Get people behind the bar getting a picture, you know a photograph pulling pints behind the bar. Then we go around the other side of the ground and we go to the souvenir store and the shop. But if people want to come and see a game, the guys have now made international tickets a limited allocation for international visitors. Because there's such a following from the US. There is a held back ticket stock for you so you can get priority. And? Um, if you want help and assistance on the day, then you know, make sure you get me a ticket as well and I could come along with you and show you everything where it is, and even buy a pint of rex and beer or two that sounds like a good deal to me.
Speaker 3:I can also explain how the game goes if you don't know football, because it's a big difference to NFL, yeah or Australian football, which I know nothing about.
Speaker 1:I probably said that completely wrong as well. I'm not a sports fan at all. So let's talk about other experiences that you can have. So you can have your kind of your football fix uh fix, by going to wrexham, and your kind of hollywood star fix yeah, um. What else would you suggest that people experience when they go to wales?
Speaker 3:well if, if you're in that neck of the woods, it makes uh a great entrance and gateway to wales. Uh, coming in, um, you have a beautiful historic house down the road called the Iardig, which is a bit of life in a manor house, from upstairs, downstairs lifestyle, so think of Downton Abbey. It's our equivalent in Wales. Further on down the road and quite close by, you've got the UNESCO World Heritage Site, the Frontisolic Aqueduct. People don't know about it, probably because they can't say the name, but it sits on unesco world heritage site of the clangothlin canal, so in english they would say langollen, in welsh we say clangothlin and um, there's a 11 mile stretch of canal there with a stream in the sky, and you can walk across it, you can boat and you can walk across it. You can boat across it, you can kayak across it. You're about 130 feet above the River Dee, which is the border river, wow, and the scenery is absolutely stunning.
Speaker 3:And, to be honest, if I start a tour of Wales, I use that as one of my first stops. And people rave about it and said, well, everything's got to be downhill from here. And I said, said no, this is just a warm-up. You know, when you go touring with me. I'll take you off the beaten track and up in the hills around the d valley. I'll take you up onto offers dyke, which is a national walking trail around the backbone of wales, and there's a little track up there. I drive on and you can get the most amazing views down into the d valley, which is one of our sort of three areas of outstanding natural beauty in North Wales. And yeah, you've got Deanus Bran Castle, which is a fantastic little hike up into the hills there and you're really in another world and it's so tranquil and it is worth you crossing the border to come and see this beauty that we have in Wales and the history that goes with it, because that is just the first of 600 640 listed castle sites in wales I was.
Speaker 1:I was going to ask you kind of what, what experience you would say should would showcase welsh history and culture. But it's going to be the castles, hasn't it really? I mean, there's so many.
Speaker 3:A lot of them are in ruins, though I will say yes um, I do get the old person coming off the cruise ships, for example, saying, um, I'm really disappointed with the castles. They're not furnished and I'm going. Well, they are 800 years old and, uh, we have actually got one in the border area just south of uh clangothland and the francilic aqueduct, which again makes a perfect touring date out of Wrexham Turk, and it's the only castle that's still lived in today from medieval times. So that's part of the National Trust. It comes under their group. So if you're carrying the Royal Oak membership, that's one you could use your membership card for when you're here in Britain. So, yeah, you've got a fantastic day on day one there already.
Speaker 1:I was going to say, I mean, that's already. We've got the outdoors, we've got history and culture. Now I'm getting hungry and I've got a thirst on what would you recommend that I try when it comes to Welsh food and drink?
Speaker 3:Okay, you're going to be spoilt for choice. Now, how big is the venue? Well, we've got national dishes. I always talk to people and say the one you have to try before you leave the country and it is pretty much available everywhere. You'll even get it in England, but the English don't make it as good as it is in Wales and the difference is it's got a bit of mustard in it and the English kill it with their mustard. So our homemade Welsh mustards are quite nice. They're seeded mustards. It's a background taste. It doesn't kill the flavour of cheese, which predominantly, is what the dish is. So think of cheese on toast. Okay, it's a luxury version of cheese on toast. I did have some guys from the US say oh, it's the Welsh version of a pizza.
Speaker 1:Oh, okay, that's an interesting take on it, yeah.
Speaker 3:Well, yeah, the dough's a bit different, but no Welsh rarebit, you have to try it. And I've got three or four places that I go with the tours that I pick out that I rate amongst the best places for Welsh rarebit. So that's a privilege of coming out on tour with me. One of my little secrets To go along with that. We've got unique other tastes. Do you know we?
Speaker 1:had a Welsh caviar. No, you do, now I do.
Speaker 3:I did it, though it's called Lava Bread oh okay and it's a speciality from the south wales. Often is served at breakfast time, so you'll get it on your plate with your fried or poached eggs. Um, it's normally served with cockles and uh, lava bread is basically boiled seaweed, but it's our welsh version of a caviar. It's the nearest we can get to caviar, so we like to push things up, but I tell you people are not disappointed when they try it. Now you can get lava bread when you go to like the market stores where they sell fresh fish. So, for example, in the cardiff open market you can go to the fish market. There they'll be selling cockles, small shellfish, and you'll get a punnet of bread with it. That that is their speciality from the south.
Speaker 1:Um I have to say I'm just going to interrupt. I'm going to interrupt there, john, because it's a good job that people listen. Couldn't see my face because it doesn't appeal, I have to say. But I don't particularly like anything, anything fishy or anything like that. So I don't does it taste?
Speaker 3:it does taste of the sea.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah so not for me, definitely not.
Speaker 3:No, it's not everybody's cup of tea, but I'm a great believer. When I joined the travel industry 40 years ago, I was a very fussy eater. Now my spectrum goes right across the board and the motive is when you're travelling, just try it, nothing to lose. You never know what you're missing. And when you come out when you come out with me on tour that is top of our list okay, we'll get a photo of me trying and we'll get a video of me, I'll get you on camcorder for that one.
Speaker 3:Now um other aspects we have. Obviously we have a lot of sheep in wales, so lamb as a meat is a dish that we serve up in many different ways, but traditionally the Sunday roast in Wales is always roast leg of lamb, and if you catch me in the kitchen on a day off, that's usually what I'm cooking. Oh, so yeah, is that your?
Speaker 1:speciality, then yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:Is that your? Speciality, john, I had my grandchildren around last week and I was cooking and I was going to have 14 for dinner, wow. So I was cooking two legs of lamb and a little grandson comes in. He's only four years old and he says Grandad, is there a two-legged lamb running around outside somewhere?
Speaker 1:Oh, that's a bit.
Speaker 3:So that carried me all day with a bit of a laugh and a chuckle, yeah. So whilst I'm cooking, I like a drop of Welsh wine, and not many people know we produce wine in Wales, so we've got about 18 different vineyards across the country. So, again, one of my new tours this year is actually to introduce people to a taste of Wales, and so we'll be going to the vineyards. We'll be getting the Welsh rare, but we'll be going to the vineyard. We'll be getting the welsh rare, but we'll be getting another national dish leek potato soup.
Speaker 3:Oh nice, we got cheeses as well. In wales we've got some great cheeses and, um, if you're not into visiting a vineyard wasting time, I can bring out a little picnic and we go out to a castle site in snowdonia and sit in the hills with the views. Um, so yeah, there's another nice day for you that might be better than the welsh caviar day out to a castle site in Snowdonia and sit in the hills with the views.
Speaker 1:So yeah, there's another nice day for you that might be better than the Welsh Caviar Day. Yeah, I think so Now.
Speaker 3:I have to do it Now you've said it, I have to try it. Amongst the Taste of Wales we've got things like Welsh whiskey. We've got lots of microbreweries and popping up recently there's been quite a range of gin people. So you know, gin tasting in Wales has become pretty good and we've got a couple of very good producers here in the north that I go to. So again, I introduced it sort of on the soft sell this year when we were passing by I said how do you fancy a taste of Wales with a taste of gin? And people were raving about it and in actual fact I couldn't get them out and they were coming out with bottles loading the car up, so it must have been good.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so you know, check all that together. You're not going to be lost for a good taste of Wales. And we've got a couple of traditional dishes like cowl and lobsters. They're the stews from simple sort of mining and farming communities, um, so it's a very cultural sort of uh style of dining and again, we can pop into places where they do the lobsters and cowl as well. So that's just a a few little tasters for you to get your taste buds going oh no, definitely well.
Speaker 1:So we've experienced some football, we've experienced some outdoor kind of activities and enjoying the views. We've now got some experience of some history and culture, and we've talked about some food. So what else would you say that people have to experience when they go to Wales?
Speaker 3:How about some hidden gems? We've got quite a few of them in Wales. Now a few I've just pulled out of the bag are quite easy ones to reach if you're travelling independently or you come on tour with us. We're a small country, so we're no bigger than the state of Massachusetts in the US, so, to give you an idea, we're roughly just over 3 million people, but we have unique places like the smallest house in Great Britain. We have the smallest church or chapel which is close by and just down the road we've also got the smallest cathedral. And now those all pop up on a following day from the Borderland tour that we talked about.
Speaker 3:Just around the Wrexham area, in that same vicinity, we have got a holy shrine called St Winifred's Well and that when I take people there they're amazed why don't we know about this? And that, officially, is one of the seven wonders of Wales, which was written in a poem by a tourist in the 17th century and it talked about Wrexham with its steeple. And it talked about Wrexham with its steeple, gressforth with its church, snowdon without his people, pistol Rider, which is a waterfall, clandoughlan with its bridge and, of course, st Winifred's Well. So yeah, this is one of the old hidden gems Now. That shrine goes back to medieval times and we've had kings and queens come to actually bathe in the waters there. It's got very good healing powers and, bizarrely, I've witnessed people come out cured who couldn't walk. They went in, helped in out of wheelchairs or they came in in crutches to the poolside and they walked out freely unaided. And I met a guy from Spain recently there and he said I come here every year to take the water because it's cured me.
Speaker 1:And he said I was a cripple.
Speaker 3:I couldn't walk and I didn't believe him until I actually saw it. And you know there are a lot of Catholics who go there because it's a Catholic shrine. So it's just worth seeing, because the architecture of the place is nice and it's got a unique story attached to it. So I'm going to leave that for the people to come and hear it from me, because it's a beautiful story connected to St Winifred, who's the saint of the well itself, so it's known as St Winifred, who's the saint of the well itself, so it's known as St Winifred's Well. And it is a real hidden gem off the sort of tourist domain, but quite easy to reach.
Speaker 3:Waterfalls, if you like the great outdoors, they're in abundance and we've got three or four. Pistol Rider, I just mentioned, is the biggest of the waterfalls hidden in the borderlands, very difficult and awkward to get there, but you know, if you love your hiking, live a bit of a scramble and climb up. The views from the top of the walls fall are amazing, but you need uh two, two to three hours there to to see it properly. Uh, little roadside drop, uh, solar falls. It's our famous waterfall. They're beautiful any time of the year. Uh, and then if you like a little bit of a walk for about two hours on the coast near where they make the famous gin uh called Aber Falls gin, the distillery.
Speaker 3:So you know, start with the gin ready, with the gin you walk into the hill and it's about two and a half hour round and it's about a two-and-a-half-hour round-trip walk to the fantastic waterfalls there. Where else can we take you? Let's think Snowdon, the mountain, the coastline. So Snowdon is unique in its own way in that we've got a railway that goes to the top of the mountain and so you can take a train or a diesel train to the top. That is probably the most popular element that people go for when they come. They put it up there as a number one choice. I've got to give you a tip If you're going to come and think about doing it. One, you have to engage the weather, because if you book your ticket, you can't get a refund on a cloudy day. Two, it sells out nearly every day of the week, especially weekends, and you have to sort of get it. That's a must-do. A lot of people do have it at the top of their list. Then grab hold of that early and book it. You can book it online.
Speaker 3:Another great little place I go to the bottom end of I'm sorry, it's not the bottom end, it's in the middle of Snowdonia and it's hidden away. It's a farm, traditional farm that the Snowdonia society have opened and invested in, has got the most fantastic cultural story attached to it. It's where a very famous poet came from in wales and he used to win our our nationalized steadfords for his best stories and poetry. And that is absolutely fascinating. When I get people into that uh one. You're on open farmland, rolling countryside and you walk into this 17th, going on 18th century farmhouse and it's in a time warp. It's absolutely spectacular.
Speaker 3:Again, people love it. It's got a lovely visitor centre with a cafe there and bathrooms, so it's a little bit off track and hard to find. Again, if you're coming on a private tour. The great thing about working with somebody like myself is I know the lay of the land, I know what we can get into a day and usually what I do. When I start talking to people, I give them a menu of like here's what you can see, but like a restaurant menu. You you pick out what you want you know what you want to eat or do, and I try and frame the tour personally around that.
Speaker 3:So that's just a few things in a nutshell. Of course, you've got the island of anglesey, an area of outstanding beauty. Um, one of the great things of getting onto that island, it's got a beautiful, spectacular coastline, 125 miles of coastal walks around it. It'll take you about 12, 13 days if you want to be that energetic.
Speaker 1:No, I wouldn't.
Speaker 3:Well, we've got the port of Holyhead. There's a mountain, a country park, and on the far side of that there is some ocean cliffs with a spectacular lighthouse and it's called Southstack. That is a top one for people and it gets you onto the island to see the island because, same thing with the island, unusual quirky got to be Welsh. Go to the town with the longest name. I'll give you a challenge Count the letters, okay, and anybody who wants to write in about that qualifying factor. Is you not got to be Welsh? Okay, count the letters.
Speaker 1:Let me know how many you see, because most people get it wrong all right, I'm gonna, I'm gonna guess 48 and you can tell me whether I'm right or wrong, or you can just tell me I'm wrong probably you're wrong.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we've been here all day. I can go higher, lower like a car game I thought it was higher I'll give you a clue. We have a Welsh alphabet, so it's a trick question.
Speaker 3:Ah, okay, there's another unusual cultural feature with Wales it's my get-out-of-jail card. Yeah, yeah, right. So also one other area that people mostly miss out on when they come to the north is there's a little bit of land that goes out into the irish sea called the clin peninsula. So if you look at conway, carnarvon, and go south of carnarvon, you come on to the clin peninsula. So people have heard of places like port merion, the italian style village, which is really unusual quite controversially it's not really welsh built by a controversial architect, but it's a beautiful village to go into.
Speaker 3:Famous for where they filmed the Prisoner. So, any Prisoner fans out there. That's on the must-do list for you.
Speaker 1:My husband has a T-shirt from there. I'm not a number or whatever, something like that. I'm not a number.
Speaker 3:I'm a man. They sent a big golf ball out to catch you on the sands.
Speaker 1:That's right.
Speaker 3:that's right, it is beautiful it's beautiful with the painted houses and the gardens in the summer and, um, I'll give you a little inside tip there even if you're traveling independently this is for all the people who travel independently, who hire cars, don't and don't need the tour guide you get to port marion, um, they've got a gate fee and it's about 20 pound to go in, so it's expensive but it is a unique experience.
Speaker 3:Now the trick is if you go and have lunch at the castle before you go into Port Merion so the Castle Doudroith is at the top of the drive before you go down into the village have a lunch there and as long as you have two courses, they give you a ticket to go in complimentary, but you've got to have the lunch there. And as long as you have two courses, they give you a ticket to go in complimentary, but you've got to have the lunch first. Now the lunch will cost you about 25 to 28 pound roughly. It does move around a little bit, depends what they've got on the menu. So if you budget, say, 30 pound, you're getting like a free lunch yeah, a lunch in that place is absolutely fantastic.
Speaker 3:Plus, it's a real taste of wales because, uh, pretty much what they do is a taste of wales on the menu. So, um, yeah, that's another place you should go and see I have been, I have been there but but I didn't do the lunch now.
Speaker 1:You see, I should have spoken to you before that. But yes, I have been and we were there on a beautiful, sunny blue sky day and it was. It was stunning there, it was gorgeous.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's one of those places I get people going in for like half an hour.
Speaker 1:Oh no.
Speaker 3:People stay in it all day. My philosophy is it's your tour. You know you come a long way to see it. I don't dictate. Oh, you've got half an hour here or 40 minutes or whatever I say. I'll guide you and say you can have a if you want to sit properly. It's about two hours. Um, you can stay there all day and wander through the forests. You know that they've got hundreds of acres of land, but, um, yeah, a couple of hours.
Speaker 1:Normally you can get through the site and, uh, allow another hour at least for lunch yes, now I'm going to put you on the spot a little bit about seasons and when. When is the best time or not the time to visit Wales, and if there's anything in particular, that if you've got a kind of free reign and you can visit any time from January to December that you'd say, oh, come for this because it's amazing, or don't come in this period of time because it's not a great time to come to Wales, what would you say?
Speaker 3:Right, we are Britain, so we're on the west side of Britain, we get the westerly weather that comes in off the ocean so we do attract a little bit of rain so you can get rain any time of the year. But enough this year, sorry. Last year we had the highest rainfall on record. But normally I would say if you want the best time of year to visit, may and June. I'll give you an example of how popular that is. I pretty much sell out for May and June by the end of February. So you know that tells you it's one of the most popular times. September's also popular. You're going to get the main summer season July, august, when the kids are off school. So that's not everybody's favorite time to come because we've got quite a big UK holiday market that comes in and takes the domestic holidays in Wales. So there's lots of cottages, farmhouses, b&b hotels etc. So we've got beautiful beaches and coastlines. So that's what people come for, the bucket and spade brigade as we call them. If you're going to come and like, if you like hiking and walking, then it's a great destination.
Speaker 3:There are thousands of miles of trails. We have a 870 miles of coastline to walk. We have the unique uh offers dyke through the backbone of wales. You never heard of it. Look it up. Offers dyke was um so-called constructed by um, the king of mercia, who was known as king offer, in around about the late sixth, early seventh century during covid. We were doing some excavations and there's a best preserved section is in mid wales on the border with england and they were digging up lots of roman artifacts and they were digging up lots of Roman artefacts and they were saying that the archaeologists that they're predating it sort of three to five hundred years earlier in time which puts it into the Roman occupation, so they're trying to prove it was actually built by the Romans now and not Offa. We think Offa put his name on it after the Roman occupation to keep the unruly Welsh out of England or to take the glory I, I built it.
Speaker 3:I built it, yeah yeah, hiking is is a fantastic thing, but season wise, you know if you go to mountains you're going to get you can get four seasons in a single day. Um, you know, we can get snow from november to march april. Uh, in the mountains must say we haven't had a lot of heavy snow, it tends to be quite light, so the road's still run clear. It's when you go out into the mountains, when you're trekking underfoot, that they get quite icy and quite dangerous. We have wardens at all the major walk points, usually saying the walks are safe or not safe. My advice is you take the advice of the warden there, don't attempt to go on the mountains. People do come up for days out, for example, and ignore their advice, and they're the ones that end up in trouble.
Speaker 3:So yeah, wales is beautiful, no matter whether it's wet or sunny, and I have had quotes like that on TripAdvisor from touring days that it was a rainy day, but wow, he brought the destination alive with all the history and all the things to see and do. And there are places to go indoors on a wet day, places like Plas Newydd on the Isle of Anglesey. It's a national trust. Penrhyn Castle it's not a medieval castle. It's what we call a folly. So there was a tycoon who bought a mountain, who was involved in the slavery trade when the british banned it and he bought plotter land in wales and bought a mountain and got into um slate mining and, uh, yeah, made his fortune for his family that way. So, yeah, that's, that's an interesting story place to visit as well.
Speaker 3:In the north that's just up near the city of Bangor, penryn Castle. So, yeah, I think you can come here. You know, I mean, we do get domestic tourism. Our hotels are staying open year-round now, so they're staying open for the message. This week I've got some ladies arriving from Australia touring with me for three days in Snowdonia and, yeah, we've got a mixed bag of a forecast. We've got a bit of snow around, we've got a sunny day, we've got a wet day. You know, and I do brief people and you know, the great thing is you can watch the forecast. They do move a little bit, but generally they're a lot clearer than they used to be and it does help, you know.
Speaker 1:I guess you can shift things around if you need to. If you've got somebody on a multi-data, I guess, if you do come, in the winter.
Speaker 3:If you do come in the winter, you need to bring like thermals and wrap up, basically hats, gloves, scarves, that sort of stuff. Um, you know, if you, if you don't want to travel, you can buy them when you get here. You know the shops, shops are here as well and there's all the walking equipment to be poles, or new boots or shoes or whatever you. You don't want to carry them, then you can get them here.
Speaker 1:Oh, perfect. Now if somebody's there thinking I want to experience all of these fantastic things that Wales has got to offer, what practical tips do you have that could kind of help them experience this, as well as obviously working with you?
Speaker 3:Yeah, well, take me out of the frame. Okay. My biggest tip to anybody coming from you know overseas internationally is don't underestimate Wales. Um, now you might be thinking, listening to this, that you're planning a trip to Europe and you're going to visit Britain and you're looking for new things to do in Britain and your tour might take you through England and into Scotland and maybe also to Ireland. But right on that west coast is Wales, small little country.
Speaker 3:Biggest fault that people make is not allowing enough time, and you'll realize it when you get here and that is the biggest feedback I get from international visitors. I wish we'd have realized what we were coming to. I wish we'd have researched it more. I wish that I allowed more time for our visit. So that is the biggest thing to look at. People come for a day and say, yeah, I've seen Wales done it, but you can't physically do it all in a day. And I do get people wanting me to drive them through Wales in a day. I do do it. It's a long day. It's like 12-hour touring day and I'm just touching it and it's like a whistle-stop tour.
Speaker 3:So give yourself five days. Okay, that's not me pitching for the business here. Give yourself five days. That's if you're touring independently, with a car, for example. You'll thank me or you'll thank Tracy for it, I know you will and have a look at the areas you come into, because every area you go to here in the north, I can give you five good touring days without overlapping the same area.
Speaker 3:There's so much to see and do in each day. That is the big surprise. You're not going to be trying to fill a day out with something and people say to me you know about my tours when they come out with john wow, we've seen so much. Today we've seen about three or four times more than we could have ever done on our own. Well, that's the benefit of doing a private tour, because I know the lay of the land. You don't have to think about driving or parking or speeding and stuff like that. You know there's the benefit of a private tour and using somebody local. You have their knowledge and you know they know where to park the car, they know where all the attractions are. They know where all the restaurants are. You know you're on vacation. Enjoy it. You know it's worth the extra investment to do that.
Speaker 1:That's me pitching for the business now but I was also going to say because I did, I did talk about, I did mention Liverpool at the very beginning. The reason I'm saying this is that, if you want, you could base yourself in North Wales and from there you can experience some of England too. So Chester's not far away, liverpool isn't far away. So actually and I know that's something that you offer that not only can you give them the experiences in North Wales and Wales, but you can actually also cross over the border there's no passport control and take them in to see some of those beautiful English cities as well.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I do a two-city tour, with Chester and Liverpool. In between we've got a beautiful village, a workers' village, industrial workers' village, very, very pretty, and it's a secret gem called Port Sunlight, lord Leverhulme who built it for his workers. It's a fantastic little place. People just wow, was this where their workers lived? You know, they can't believe the quality of the place. And it sits right between Liverpool and Chester. Cheshire, just over the border, is a beautiful county and I'm doing a tour, uh, featuring chester, a little bit of history. Walk around the walls in the city, then we pop out to a beautiful country and you've got to come on this one. Uh, this little little inn is uh up on a hill over looking the cheshire plain. It's on the walking trail and then the next hill along on the walking trail and then the next hill along on the trail is where there's a medieval castle built to protect the border with the English to the Welsh and it makes a fantastic little day out. So I'm getting a lot of interest from cruise passengers on that tour for a day out from the ship because they want to get out of Liverpool. But yeah, there's something there for everyone. You know, if you're into your music. Then Liverpool's the home of the Beatles and that is my new big tour this year the Beatles.
Speaker 3:I've really done a lot of research, I've got into it massively. My wife's going. God, you are a fanatic, you could take a degree and you know everything about everyone and you know all about the family and where they were born, where they lived, all the houses and everything. So I've got a lot of quirky little stories on the beach, which is fascinating stuff and you do like a half day or a full day. People think of the cavern. You know where they played and made the name, but there's a place that actually made them before they got to the cavern, made them with all the locals and, yeah, fascinating stuff.
Speaker 3:So, yeah, there's loads evolving and the reason all this has happened is I've actually moved closer towards the border. I still live in Wales, but we've moved closer to where the family live, which is by Wrexham, to be honest, and getting to Chester and Liverpool is quite convenient now. So I am getting a lot of people asking for tours out of Liverpool and Chester who are there visiting to bring them into wales and if, if you're in transit and touring around and you're hitting ireland dublin there's a fantastic ferry service, a very quick ferry service takes about two hours to get across with the fast ferry from dublin. It's only 60 miles away and, uh, I've got people who fly in to dublin and come over to wales to tour and then go back to dublin. Um, some go off to the cotswolds, some go to scotland or the english lake district. So again, uh, if you're going off in that sort of direction I can do a feeder, but I call a transit tour day so you're not wasting your touring time. So, lots happening as ever there is.
Speaker 1:There's lots. I'm just trying to think how I'm actually gonna ever go out on a day with you because there's so many I want to go out on, but you're so busy, you get booked up so well in advance because you're so popular. I don't know, and I will. I'll be back later on in the year in the uk, so maybe we can sort something out then, john, definitely we're gonna get you in that um now just share with our listeners how, where they can find you, because that's, that's, that's the next question.
Speaker 1:I need you to tell everybody where you are and how they can get in touch with you to book okay, so you'll find the website at wwwboutiquetourswales.
Speaker 3:That's's without the H, because everybody tries to put a H in W-A-L-E-S. So Wales, we're not the ocean animal. Okay, you can also WhatsApp me. You can email me, which is simply info. There's a contact form on the website, so that's the easiest one to use because if you that out, I've got some of your details and you can tell me what you're looking for. And, um, if you've got nothing like planned and you want guidance, and that's where it all, that's where I come in. Uh, I'm a very good tour planner. I call myself a tour director today very, very posh, but you know, people actually do say you are a true tour director by all your suggestions, because I'll suggest accommodation and I'll suggest restaurants to dine out at lunch stops, so it's more than just putting a tour together. It's all the little extras, like you know, so it's one-stop shop basically perfect.
Speaker 1:Well, I will put a link to your website in the show notes at ukchildplanscom. Forward slash episode 143. Can you believe it? Episode 143? I can't believe. I'm at that point. I'm not sure. I know you will be back on the podcast, I'm sure sometime, john, but thanks so much for coming on again and chatting about your tours and about all things Welsh.
Speaker 3:Yeah, my great pleasure. Message to everybody listening in you know, please do look us up in Wales because you are in for a great surprise and a beautiful destination. It won't fail. I promise you that. And I did say to somebody when you go on tour with me if it doesn't hit the mark, you get a full refund.
Speaker 1:Oh, okay. Well, I'm sure it will hit the mark. You're that confident 100%.
Speaker 3:That's feedback from everybody is always so positive when they come to Wales.
Speaker 1:Perfect, thanks, john.
Speaker 3:Lovely. Thank you again. I look forward to the next one.
Speaker 1:Thank you for tuning in to this week's episode of the UK Travel Planning Podcast. As always, show notes can be found at uktravelplanningcom. If you've enjoyed the show, why not leave us feedback via text or a review on your favourite podcast app? We love to hear from you and you never know you may receive a shout out in a future episode. Love to hear from you and you never know. You may receive a shout out in a future episode.
Speaker 2:But, as always, that just leaves me to say until next week, happy UK travel planning.