Absolute Escapes Traveller Reviews

Where else can you see a three-horned goat, watch a sheepdog herd his flocks across several fields, find a local chef preparing amazing fare in a village pub, come across a lending library in a telephone box, stop for the best chocolates ever while hiking, meet locals who love to tell of their area's history, discover an Iron Age dwelling, share a bench with Robbie Burns, wander quiet back lanes, feast on mind-expanding views taking in lochs and castles, watch fishermen in a tiny lake hidden in the hills, puff and pant up steep climbs, and relish the more relaxing downhills, and luxuriate in welcoming accommodation at the close of a day? This is a holiday with Absolute Escapes in Scotland!

We appreciated the friendly but professional interaction by email with Absolve Escapes. We received excellent maps in good time and it was easy to communicate with Absolute Escapes. Before leaving home we asked for one change which was easily arranged. All was well organized. During the trip we needed to contact our baggage service and that was easy too!

We had  a fantastic time. The itinary was superb and we had no problems at all with the Edinburgh bus tour, Skye ferry, or any of the details that you supplied for our driving tour. We followed all your suggestions and found them interesting and informative. They made every day a surprise.You certainly know the area well and passing on your knowledge made our holiday stress free. All the hotels we stayed at were superb and added to our holiday. There was  quite a few "wow" moments, with the rooms and food and we were looked after by the hotel owners/staff very professionally and as if we were friends. We would not hesitate to stay at any of the 5 hotels if we were in those areas again. We would like to thank you and all at Absolute Escapes for making our anniversary escape very special and relaxed.  Your planning took all the stress out of our holiday.

Absolute Escapes are a professional friendly and knowledgable tour operator who will go out of their way to meet all of your needs. They produced an itinary that made our holiday stressfree and enjoyable every step of the way.

I spent 13 days walking the Offa's Dyke National Trail along the Welsh/English border. Absolute Escapes arranged all of my accommodations, some road transportation and created a guide packet including maps and guide book.

They were highly attentive, worked out all the details for me and provided an excellent packet of maps, etc. I was extremely pleased with the level of quality of my accommodations, with my interactions with Absolute Escapes, and with the whole experience.

This section of the Pennine Way is stunning. I started in Horton-in-Ribblesdale and finished at Greenhead. The weather was lovely and the day or so of low cloud added a certain mystique to the surroundings on the high fells. The scenery was amazing: wind-blown moors, sheep filled pastures, stone walls crisscrossing expansive hills and dales, rushing streams, plunging waterfalls, and more! Trail finding was easy, with maps and guidebook at the ready. Accommodations were spectacular, and dinner options in towns were very good. I slept like a log each night on a comfortable bed in a quiet location. The baggage transfer was spot on - my bag was always waiting for me when I arrived at the night's accommodation. I came looking for solitude, and got that in spades, but did enjoy the company of kind strangers along the way - hosts and hikers alike. A final evening watching the sun cast a golden light on Hadrian's Wall and into the lands beyond was a fitting opportunity to sit and reflect on the adventures just completed.

Absolute Escapes was an exceptional tour operator and performed admirably in planning the important logistics. Over the course of the planning I communicated by email with three different representatives (Jason, James, and Dawn) and all three were very professional and polite. My emails to them were responded to promptly and accurately. They also went the extra mile to arrange a meal for me at my accommodation in Garrigill after I let them know that the pub there had permanently closed. Overall, I was really impressed with their attention to detail, the level of information provided, and the ease of communication. I will happily recommend Absolute Escapes to anyone wishing to plan a tour that they offer. I have been inspired by the landscape and the experience, and so I look forward to the opportunity to hire their services in the future. Again, thank you very much for an amazing holiday!

Our holiday was a tour of North West Scotland. Amazing landscape.

Our tour operator was Absolute Escapes based in Scotland

Hello all you wonderful people at Absolute Escapes! We are just back from a magical 24 days in the Shetlands, Orkney and the Outer Hebrides. It was the trip of a lifetime and a fabulous celebration of our 50 years of marriage. You made it happen with your careful planning, your network of great B & B’s, your thoughtful itinerary package with all its information of what to do and where to eat. Having all our ferries booked and seamlessly arranged made a lot of travel happen easily.We cannot begin to express our gratitude for helping us to have this incredible experience. Of course we can’t begin to list all the special moments, the people and places who gave us an unforgettable time really experiencing the richness and power of your country. We could take this while trip again tomorrow and have more to experience in every place we visited. I wish we could. Douglas and I can’t begin to thank you adequately for making our trip happen. It was a pleasure from my first enquiry to our return to Glasgow.When you say you do personalized trip planning that hardly describes the “pen pal” quality of attention and skill with which you helped us plan. You all should all feel very proud of the work you do to make Absolute Escapes the very best! We’ll spread the word and hope to be back for more as soon as we can. Thank you, thank you. Eleanor and Douglas Cochrane

Andy Gabe and the staff at Absolute Escapes were more like "pen friends" than business acquaintances. Our trip was tailored to our needs and requests in every possible way. The result was a seamless, stress free 24 days of bliss.

We booked a hike along the West Highland Way with Absolute Escapes, a company we actually used 10 years ago for the same reason. And, as we did 10 years ago, we were not disappointed with the proposed route, the booked accommodations and the service. We walked from Crianlarich to Fort William in 4 days with friends of ours, who have never been in Scotland before. Long story short, they will return - this walk is truly special. And my girlfriend and I visited Scotland for the 21st time, so we are hooked already. The hotels / B&Bs and Inns selected gave us and our friends a nice variety of what Scotland offers: We had a very nice cabin and inn in Crianlarich, a nice old-school Guest House with very good food in Bridge of Orchy, a modern Scottish interpretation of a ski chalet in Kingshouse and two unique B&Bs in Kinlochleven and Fort William. And all of them were very nice and a good place to rest our legs after the hike and to get good sleep for the next day. The baggage transfer was without any problems, our luggage was always where we expected it. We did blog about our trip on our (German) travel blog, so if someone is interested in that: Crianlarich to Bridge of Orchy: http://www.travellingdevil.de/?p=9518 Bridge of Orchy to Kingshouse: http://www.travellingdevil.de/?p=9543 Kingshouse to Kinlochleven (2 versions: One by foot, one by bus): http://www.travellingdevil.de/?p=9571 Kinlochleven to Fort William (2 versions again): http://www.travellingdevil.de/?p=9618

Discussing possible routes, changes in the accommodations, booking process: All was done via mail and without any problem, very personal and friendly. We have nothing to complain - which is something we Germans do not like! ;-)

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I've been on my first ever walking holiday, walking the Great Glen Way in Scotland. It was fabulous :)

My first walking holiday was organised perfectly by Absolute Escapes. Everyting went super smoothly and I didn't have a single problem at the b&b's or with my luggage. The information they provided me up front was very detailed and it was all correct so very helpful. I would definitely book with them again!

To start with, I appreciated the thorough nature of the itinerary - it definitely made all the items very clear and helped us keep on track. The planning process with our agent, Katia, was also extremely professional and smooth. I will just go in order of locations and etc. we thought our accommodation in Edinburgh was fantastic - Six Brunton Place was the height of hospitality. Hillary and her team are experts in making us feel comfortable in this amazing accommodation. They were also willing to carry our large suitcases around. They also gave us good recommendations for what to do and eat around Edinburgh for our short stay there. Our next stay at Lochview in Fort William was an incredible view in the middle of the night but there were clouds all over Ben Nevis. We didn't mind the separate accommodations but the single was definitely bigger than the double, which we found intriguing. It was close quarters in the double compared to the single and the bathroom was quite small in this establishment. Our host was definitely a little more corporate especially compared to Hillary at Six Brunton Place and she did all the built-ins but nothing extraordinary! The train journeys were extremely easy to navigate and extremely high quality! Our transfers were smooth and we realized that agents at the train stations were extremely knowledgeable - booking our seats was safe for us mentally but we never had any assigned seats on any of the trains we were on and our rail rover pass was easily accepted everywhere. Our transfer at Mallaig from the train to the Armadale ferry was particularly notable for us because it was pouring rain and inside the ferry was warm with all the heaters! We all thought that was a very nice touch. Our car ride from Armadale to Portree was amazing. We had caught an earlier ferry so we go to spend some time in Armadale harbor, which was quaint, rainy and gorgeous. Everything I imagined of Scotland and more. The next stay was the Bosville, which truly was an amazing stay right in the middle of Portree. The high-class accomodations, dining and pub nearby has made Portree one of my favorite places in the world, let alone on just this trip. Skye is an amazing place and I find myself wondering when I will come back next. Our bus ride to Kyle of Lochalsh was smooth and quick. We didn't realize how long the stay was at Kyle of Lochalsh train station for the Inverness train so we were lucky to find surroundings on a Sunday at a cafe. (Really lucky in our opinion!) The train from Kyle of Lochalsh to Inverness was quick and painless. Inverness was the biggest city we had been to since Edinburgh so we definitely had to acclimate back a little to the bustling city atmosphere. We were able to easily acquire a taxi to our last stay (unfortunately) at the Lochardil House Hotel. Even though we were only there one night, we found the hotel charming, elegant and overall, an incredibly pleasant stay. The restaurant at the hotel is EXCELLENT with the waitstaff attentive and the owner/proprietor of the hotel who checked us in providing a kind welcome, her generous understanding for our emergency and immediate action to book our taxis. Though this hotel was a little outside the city center, its charm and the gorgeous gardens definitely convinced us that this hotel was completely worth the stay. I wanted to commend the quick response from the Absolute Escapes Team member I spoke to during a moment of crisis for her utter professionalism, efficiency in response and offer to help us find travel and accommodation. It says a lot to us about the quality of the company from the kind consideration received. Now, after this detailed review, there are definitely some lessons that all of us learned from the trip. Even for our relaxed vacation, especially compared to other visitors around us, we had WAY too much luggage. I would strongly recommend that everyone who is visiting Scotland, regardless of how long, edit greatly what they plan on bringing. Our luggage was the hardest part of the commutes and ultimately unnecessary as we used approximately quarter of all the clothes we had brought. Again, I reiterate, beyond personal consumption, I think Americans in general are prone to this and I would strongly urge them to bring only what is necessary to make the commute so much smoother and less stressful (especially considering availability in the luggage racks, which was never an issue but a topic of contention on all our train travel). The ScotRail app is also a good recommendation because it has the current travel conditions and easily is able to route to destinations. The physical timetables were a good security measure as the times are approximate but there was some confusion about the carriages and destinations which the train station staff were able to clarify but I think would be good to be included in the itinerary as "keep an eye out that you're in the right carriage" or something similar. However, all these are small, personal recommendations and I can only share overwhelmingly positive feedback for my entire experience in Scotland. I cannot wait to come back and I wanted to give you the biggest thank you to Katia and the Absolute Escapes Team for making this vacation one of the most memorable experiences.

Absolute Escapes is the best tour operator I have worked with. They have a quick replies, even with the significant time difference to America, and complete professionalism through the process. Katia was extremely patient throughout the various requests I asked of her and various changes to the itinerary. Her flexibility and professionalism is surmount and I greatly enjoyed her attention to detail and recommendations as we had the best experience on our trip.

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We did the Arran Caostal way in 6 days. We were lucky the have the good weather with us. Arran is a wondeful island with very friendly people. We enjoy our stay in the accomodations that Absolute Escapes had arranged

Very good communication on advance, On every question an answer via email. The information package we recieved after the payment was incredible. Maps, Guidebook and other useful information. Also the luggage transport was top. bags allways on time at the right place. In one word, Absolute Escapes is "AMAZING"

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