Go Cotswolds is a fun, friendly, family-run guided tour company from Stratford-on-Avon

Hi! We’re Tom and Lisa Benjamin, the husband-and-wife owners of Go Cotswolds.

We’re both British, but we met in a backpacker’s hostel in Buenos Aires, Argentina, in 2007. A friendship was made, then love blossomed. Six years later, we got engaged in South Africa. In 2014, we got married on the pitch at Tom’s cricket club!

We have scuba dived in Mozambique, road-tripped around the USA, skied in the mountains of Italy and Austria, and home-stayed on an organic farm in India. Between us, we’ve travelled to more than 50 countries around the world! In 2017, our daughter Zoe was born – she had a passport from the age of 2 months old, so now the adventures continue as a family of three.

But, wherever in the world our family wanders, there’s no place like home. Home for us is a small town called Alcester, 10 minutes down the road from Shakespeare’s birthplace, Stratford-upon-Avon.

Here, on the northern edge of the Cotswolds, is where Tom grew up, spending his youth hiking, running, and playing in the Cotswold Hills village cricket league.  That’s where his passion for the Cotswolds was born – and it wasn’t long before his infectious enthusiasm grabbed hold of Lisa too!

With our love for independent travel and a spirit of adventure, we founded Go Cotswolds to show visitors around this beautiful region we call our ‘back yard’.

We create the kind of experiences we enjoy on our own travels, right here at home – fun, friendly, welcoming tours, with expert local guides who feel more like friends than teachers. 

Small business, big love

Go Cotswolds started in July 2014 with one old Ford Transit van, one guide (Tom) and one passenger.

If you’d told us back then that 10 years later we’d have a fleet of four Mercedes mini-coaches, a team of 6 amazing tour guides (and counting!), and that we’d show over 20,000 people around the Cotswolds in a decade, we’d never have believed you! Yet, here we are, and there’s plenty more to come!

Like us, our small team of tour guides are all local to Stratford-upon-Avon and the Cotswolds. Tom and I hand-picked each one, not for their historical knowledge or encyclopaedic brains, but first and foremost for their warm, friendly, kind personalities – their cool confidence and ability to make you feel at ease, without being brash, overbearing or ‘in your face’.

That’s not to say our guides don’t also have incredible knowledge! What sets us apart, however, is that our live tour commentary isn’t just a learned script – you’ll learn a lot, yes, but our tours are full of personal, unique, funny, heart-warming, interesting stories that only a local person could share.

We’re a small business with a big love for the Cotswolds. Join us for a tour, and discover why this beautiful region is so special to us.

Responsible, Sustainable Tourism

The Cotswolds is a beautiful yet complex ecosystem. It includes fragile, historic buildings; vast, unspoilt countryside; and small, tight-knit communities. As locals, we care about this region, so we’re excited for you to explore it with us! But, we also know that tourists and tourism can have a negative effect on this delicate environment.

Therefore, we:

• Are upgrading our fleet of minibuses to the cleanest, low-emissions vehicles available – three out of four of our minibuses are now Euro-6 compliant, and the fourth will be replaced very soon.
• Support the ‘Caring for the Cotswolds‘ visitor giving scheme so we can contribute to the conservation and preservation of the Cotswolds.
• Are members of Good Journey because we think car-free travel and tourism is important for the planet.
• Are members of the Cotswold Way Association, because as users of the Cotswold Way and other footpaths in the area, we are proud to support the amazing work of the Cotswolds Voluntary Wardens.
• Donate to The Rollright Trust, because as frequent visitors to The Rollright Stones, a fascinating, ancient Cotswold monument, we believe it’s important to contribute to its upkeep (many don’t 😥)
• Are members of two Visit Britain-accredited tourism organisations: Cotswolds Tourism and Shakespeare’s England, which promote responsible tourism in our area.
• Support local charities because we want to look after people and the planet.
• Champion small, independent, local businesses who share our ethics and values.