Inntravel Associates Limited > Reviews (1)

Inntravel is a company that in the past I often used for walking holidays, and have just within the last week or so tried again after a break of several years. They pioneered an excellent idea for such holidays, which, in the original version of this review of their services, I described with the help of the following piece of family history:

The Inntravel concept

My grandfather would go on walking holidays with just two changes of clothes. Each night, he would have the outfit he had worn during the day laundered overnight at the hotel or pub

at which he was staying. In the morning he would wrap it in a parcel and stop at the Post Office to mail it onwards to his next stopping-place, where it would of course be waiting for him by the time of his arrival that evening. He could thus enjoy his walking with clean clothes every day but without encumbrance. This was between the two world wars, in the early part of the last century. The post and hotel laundry services are no longer what they were then. But we do have Inntravel.

People who enjoy walking (or cycling) holidays usually face a dilemma. One option is to stay in one place and use it as the base for a series of circular or there-and-back outings. This has the benefit of simplicity in booking and obviates any need to pack light in order to heft your belongings around with you, as well as worries about running out of clean dry clothes. Against this, the best local circuits are quickly exhausted, and if the base hotel, inn or campsite is a disappointment, you’re either stuck with it or faced with a big upheaval in moving on.

The other option is to travel light, taking only what you can carry. That way, you have variety in terrain covered and sights seen, and the sense of achievement in travelling a long distance. Against this, you have the burden of carrying your gear, and the bother of finding new places to stay each night.

Inntravel aims to resolve this dilemma by taking the chore of booking accommodation and transporting luggage out of the walker’s (or cyclist’s) hands, at the same time as offering flexibility in choice of route and timing. The company is not the only one selling packages of this type (Headwater and Alternative Travel Group have similar offerings), but it is, perhaps, the most prominent in the field, as well as be the only one I have experienced personally.

Benefits and drawbacks

The benefits of Inntravel that appealed to me and kept me coming back for more, now seven times in all, are these:

1. The practical arrangements for travel and for luggage-forwarding generally work with trouble-free efficiency, in my experience.

2. The routes are scenic and interesting, and often off the beaten track.

3. You walk (or cycle) independently, at your own pace and with your own variations on the recommended route, not as part of a group.

4. The hotels (and, where applicable, chambres d’hôtes – like B&B with an evening meal) are usually independent and often characterful, generally with good food too.

Very few are from formulaic chains.

5. Value for money is – or at least was – mostly very reasonable.

The only drawbacks I found in the early years were relatively minor ones:

6. The route-planning and options suggested for the actual walking stages could sometimes be improved upon.

7. The “walking notes” provided as guidance were often imprecise and sometimes hard to follow.

To compensate for these foibles, an ability to do your own navigating was more than useful. Fortunately for me, I quite enjoy pitting my wits and compass against ambiguous notes and occasionally imprecise maps, but I did sometimes meet other Inntravellers who found this aspect of the walks a significant irritant. On this point I have to say that the “walking notes” provided for my most recent Inntravel holiday were exemplary. Perhaps – one hopes – they have been improved across the range.

Range of holidays

The range of Inntravel offerings has grown in recent years. When I first posted this review, their main brochure listed 87 holidays, including walking, cycling and other options. Their current main brochure (Walking and More) offers more than that, even though cycling holidays have now been segregated into their own brochure, as have skiing holidays, holidays in India and elsewhere outside Europe, and holidays based on villas and cottages. All these brochures can be obtained via the Inntravel website (www.inntravel.co.uk), though this has now been developed to the point where the receipt of a printed brochure might be regarded as redundant, and a great waste of paper. The relevant information, descriptions and booking details can all be found on the site.

Although they have extended their range, Inntravel’s focus remains on walking and cycling, and on Europe. The most intensely covered countries are Italy, France and Spain, but many others are also represented – twenty in Europe, four outside. The development of cross-country skiing holidays has brought Switzerland, Austria and Norway into greater prominence, and parts of Eastern Europe too. Apart from the hotels used as staging posts on the walking/cycling holidays, the brochures also list hotels suitable for adding as optional extras (for example, if you were walking in the MediterraneanPyrenees and wanted to spend a few days in Barcelona to round off the holiday).

Both within Europe and without, more of Inntravel’s offerings go beyond their original staple walk-with-luggage-transported-for-you fare. In many ways it is admirable that Inntravel have so increased the range they offer. Moreover, in many ways the choice on offer is greater than the number of holidays alone reveals. It encompasses a wide variety of regions and landscapes, including some out-of-the-way areas. It encompasses walks on terrain of differing degrees of difficulty. And it encompasses various types of hotel or stopping-place, mostly characterful. Compared with the average “summer sun” package holiday tour operators’ catalogue of myriad seemingly identical hotels in seemingly identical resorts, the Inntravel brochures are a treasure trove of variety.

Moreover, although there is usually a recommended timescale and itinerary for each holiday, Inntravel are – or, at least, used to be, of which more below – very responsive to varying what they offer by adding days in different places or adapting routes to suit customers’ requirements.

Degrees of difficulty

There is no such thing as a typical Inntravel holiday. Even within the walking holidays alone – the only ones that I have tried – there is a variety in terms of physical challenge and degree of difficulty, which they grade as follows:

- Grade 1: easy, low-level walking but can have long days.
- Grade 1-2: generally easy walking with some short ascents and descents.
- Grade 2: moderate walking, on good surfaces.
- Grade 2-3: mountain walking, so more ascents and descents.
- Grade 3: high mountains, long days, daily ascents and descents.

You would be unwise to take on a Grade 3 unless you were very fit and experienced. I have done a couple of Grade 2-3 (Cévennes and Apennines) when I was younger, fitter and less experienced - and found them stiff going in places. Sometimes, the grading is a bit of an uneasy average; the Amalficoast walk, graded 2, is often easy, but anyone looking for a moderate stroll would find some of the climbs challenging. Similarly, the Costa Vicentina, listed as 1-2, which it is in terms of gradients and distances, has long stretches of walking over dunes, tough going at any time. As with their route-planning, I feel that Inntravel could usefully review their gradings. But again, this is a minor niggle.

My experience

The Inntravel walks I have experienced are these: -

i) The Cévennes. Wonderful wild country. 7 nights mixed hotel and chambres d’hôtes, some of which we liked a lot, some less so (though I notice the one we liked least has now been replaced on the schedule). With dinner every night, picnics every walking day and luggage transfer this now costs from £750 per person, not including fares for reaching the start of the walk – see note on pricing below.

ii) Dordogne Valley. Pleasant scenery, excellent food. No longer available in the form I took it, but in two variants. 7 nights mixed hotel (all good in my experience) and chambre d’hôte (not on the route I took), dinner every night and 3 picnics, currently from £658 or £785pp depending on the route chosen.

iii) Apennines. Tough climbing, but worth it for some exhilarating, unspoilt landscapes. 7 nights hotels (varying quality, but mostly welcoming and with tasty food). 6 dinners and 6 picnics, currently from £578 pp. Extra night in Bologna recommended.

iv) Costa de la Luz (approx. Gibraltar-Cadiz). Inntravel no longer seem to do this route, which is a pity, since it had much to recommend it for those who like walking along a shoreline, including the opportunity to take a day-trip across to Tangier from Tarifa.

v) The Amalfi Coast. Some spectacular views seaward as you thread your way through the hills behind the coast. This one of the more expensive Inntravel holidays, reflecting mostly higher grade hotels in a sought-after area, currently from £912 pp, excluding transport to get there – see note on pricing below.

Can be extended from Positano round the headland to Sorrento. I have written a separate review of this holiday – see reference below.

vi) Cognac Country ( Charente Valley). Another option that Inntravel seem to have discontinued. Not a huge loss in this case, though the river is an attractive enough one to amble along beside, and one of the places to stay – the Hotel Karina at Jarnac – is full of character, good food and great fun.

vii) The Costa Vicentina, on the Atlantic Coast of Southern Portugal . Some stupendous coastal scenery, even if the sandy terrain does not makes for an easy stroll. Also some truly hospitable stopping places; the Casa do Adro at Vila Nova de Milfontes and the Tres Marias at Ribeira da Azenha stand out and will be separately reviewed, as will the region. Current prices from £598 pp, depending on all the usual factors.

Of the seven holidays I have taken some were excellent and none was less than good. And mention of the Karina reminds me that even if you don’t follow an Inntravel itinerary, their brochures are often a valuable source of ideas for good, interesting hotels. The Casa do Visconde at Chanceleiros and the Molino del Santo at Benaoján are among several favourites I have discovered in this way in the past, without ever having booked them through Inntravel.

Fellow travellers

You can never predict with complete reliability what sort of person you are likely to meet on holiday. Our concern when we first booked with Inntravel is that we would find ourselves among hearty rambling types – superannuated scoutmasters in khaki shorts who would want everyone to march off in a group or even a crocodile, and whose attempts to corral us we would have to resort to outright rudeness to resist.

In the event, nothing could have proved further from the truth. For a start, we have often done complete walks without meeting other Inntravellers - they are relatively few in number. When we have met others, none have remotely conformed to the scoutmaster stereotype, but we have met engaging and congenial people of all ages. When you find you are walking the same route with others, the initial contact tends to be a bit wary on all sides. These are people who have chosen to walk independently, and they don’t want to be stuck with you any more than you do with them. Indeed, we have hardly ever actually walked alongside those met in transit, but we have often found that the evenings become increasingly cheerful social occasions as the week wears on and the same faces appear in bar or restaurant. After all, at the end of a day’s walking, everyone is thirsty, hungry for good food, thirsty, eager to exchange comments and experiences, thirsty and generally ready to enjoy some convivial relaxation.

Prices and pricing

There are, as you may already have concluded from the prices quoted above, cheaper ways to holiday, but my own view is that, given the standard of accommodation and service – and the organisational complexity – Inntravel’s prices represent pretty fair value.

If I have a grumble it’s that they’re less straightforward and transparent than they used to be.

For a start, Inntravel appear to have ceased to quote prices inclusive of air travel where this is applicable. Instead, you can either book your own flights or ask them to do so on your behalf, but it is quite likely that asking them to do so will prove more expensive (this was the case when I was recently looking into the Portuguese trip). To someone brought up to expect booking through a tour operator to be cheaper because of their ability to secure discounts, this comes as a bit of a shock. Either way, it is no longer easy to see at a glance what you will be paying in total.

For many of the holidays closer to the UK – in France for example - Inntravel will quote prices including the cost of the ferry or rail transport; but these don’t apply to most destinations, for which air is the most practical means of reaching the walk. Similarly, transfer costs to and from airports are now often shown as extras to be added rather than included in an overall cost, and they can be significant. Also, as the fewer of the routes are sequential place-to-place treks of the company’s traditional kind, more and more of the gaps seem to need to be filled with local transport to be paid for locally. These extras not only add to the total price, but add to the suspicious impression that the final total is usually going to be above what it initially appears to be.

Disappointments

Why, you may be wondering, having had such good experience with the company’s holidays have my wife and I not used them for any of our numerous holidays between 2004 and this year’s walk on the Costa Vicentina? Well, in the intervening period we rang Inntravel to enquire about holidays on at least four occasions that I can remember, with the following results:

1. Walk in the French/Swiss Jura Mountains. My wife and I were interested in going with some friends, who could not quite make the same dates. Would it, we therefore wanted to know, be possible for them to catch up with us on the second day of the walk, with separate transfer arrangements (for which they were quite prepared to consider paying extra)? But it all seemed too difficult for Inntravel to contemplate. Since we had previously thought (and spoken) highly of the company’s flexibility, this was a let-down.

2. Trans-Pyrenean Holiday, involving train from Toulouse to Barcelona, stopping to walk in the mountains en route. Great idea, but the brochure arrangements assumed one would fly to Toulouse and fly back from Barcelona, with the only train journey being the bit in between. We fancied doing the whole journey by train, which shouldn’t be too difficult – both are on direct main lines from Paris, easily reached by Eurostar from the UK. I rang Inntravel to enquire and was told they’d look into it and come back to me. They never did.

3. Walk in central Sicily, down from the mountains to the sea. Very appealing, and the route read like a true Inntravel itinerary, with a chain of five interesting-sounding places to stay and all the intervening distance to be covered on foot without any irritating gaps to be filled by “taxi – pay locally”.

At first glance, too, the price didn’t look too daunting, until one read the small print and found that transfers to and from the airport in Sicily were going to cost well over £100 per person, which put an entirely different complexion on the value of the whole, and we decided to go to Portugal instead.

4. Porto and Douro Valley. This we very nearly booked through Inntravel, because our initial phone contact displayed all the traditional virtues of adaptability and interest in our individual requirements. When it came down to it, though, we found we could arrange what we were looking for more cheaply independently, and that’s what we did.

Conclusion and recommendation

After those disappointments, it looks as if Inntravel may be back on form. The holiday just completed with them was well-conceived and well-arranged, whilst friends who have also used them lately report that everything went smoothly and satisfactorily for them. However, I do have a lurking suspicion that, perhaps as an unfortunate by-product of their success, Inntravel are in danger of losing their way. Perhaps they've expanded too quickly to keep up standards. My contacts with the company over the past few years have shown less consistency in their courtesy and responsiveness than in the past, while their new pricing structure suggests that some of the work of arranging the holidays is either being charged extra for or delegated to the customer.

I'd still recommend Inntravel, though more cautiously than I did when I first wrote this review eight years ago. When I revised it in 2009, I concluded: “I suppose I ought to take another holiday with them to put my misgivings to the test, but it’s from seeking to take another holiday with them that my misgivings have arisen. Maybe next time I pick up the phone to Inntravel all will fall into place, and I’ll be able to update this review again after a happier experience.” Well, I’ve now done so, both taking the holiday and updating the review after a happier experience.

© torr. First published in its original version, 2003; updated 2011

For a reviews of two of Inntravel's holidays, see:
http://travel.ciao.co.uk/The_Amalfi_Coas​t__Review_5866710
http://travel.ciao.co.uk/Costa_Vicentina​__Review_5985744