Go Cotswolds is 5!

Happy birthday to us!

Today, 11th July 2019, marks 5 years to the day since our very first Cotswolds Day Tour – happy birthday to us! 

From little acorns…

On 11th July 2014, Kristi, a solo traveller from Texas, USA, took a leap of faith and signed up for the first ever tour with a brand new company – we’re so very glad she did! 

Our little acorn might not yet be a mighty oak (more of a sapling…), but since then, we’re proud to say we’ve taken over 6000 people from all over the world on our day tours of the Cotswolds.

We’re just blown away by the fun, friendship and support our customers past, present and future have shown us over the past 5 years.

What’s new?

We’ve made a few changes to our small-group Cotswolds Day Tour since that first tour! For example, we used to visit the Rollright Stones, a neolithic stone circle just outside the village of Little Rollright. However, since many of our customers have already visited or plan to visit Stonehenge, perhaps the most famous stone circle in the world, we felt they might be a bit underwhelmed by our little Cotswolds version! We’re still fascinated by the magic and atmosphere of this place, and enjoy recounting its mystical tales of witches, kings and whispering knights, so we’d be very happy to take you there as part of a private tour! 

“The most beautiful village in England”

Instead of the Rollright Stones, we listened to our customers and now visit the adorable village of Bibury – once described by poet William Morris as “the most beautiful in England”. For many of our international visitors, the image they most associate with the Cotswolds – the one that graces the pages of guidebooks and travel brochures – is Bibury’s picture-postcard-perfect Arlington Row, so naturally our guests want to see it with their own eyes! 

All change please!

Then of course there is our new minibus! We do still use our older vehicle, Emma-Jane, from time to time when needed, but our shiny new bespoke touring vehicle Roxy provides our day tour customers with extra comfort. She also has a huge space to store luggage. This means that (for example) if you’re checking out of your Oxford hotel in the morning, we can now pick you and your luggage up from Moreton-in-Marsh station, take you on a tour, then drop you off at your next hotel in Stratford-upon-Avon at the end! 

Increased capacity

Another change is that while we used to operate three tours per week, we now run 4 per week during the summer. And – drum roll please! – we’re excited to announce that from 2020, Go Cotswolds Day Tours will depart 5 days per week (Wednesday through Sunday) during the busier months of May to September!

As a busy husband and wife team (with a cheeky almost-2-year-old daughter to keep us even busier!), this increased capacity is only possible thanks to some fantastic additional drivers and guides. Tom still leads most of our tours, but some of our customers will have already met our super guide Colin and expert driver Maurice (or Big Moz as we like to call him!). We’ll be working more with these guys, and a few others we’re training up, as we head into 2020.