A sincere thank you to each and every person who came to explore with us in 2016! What a wonderful year we have had. The weather has been exceptional and the experiences of where we explored are stamped into our memories forever! People came to us from 84 different countries landing into Dublin, Cork or Shannon Airports to do our walk, hike or bike holidays in Wicklow, Kerry, Dingle, Clare, Galway and right up to Donegal which was named by National Geographic as the coolest place on the planet!
You may have wondered where that magical rock was on the latest Star Wars: The Force Awakens.. It was Kerry’s very own Skellig Michael and it featured prominently throughout the film. And yep! We took people there too!
How was 2016 for Ireland Walk Hike Bike? ….
It was announced this week that Ireland has had a record year with tourism numbers way up! Thankfully this has kept us very busy!
Each year our team go out on all of our routes as annually they are all personally walked and cycled by us with. In 2016 alone between our team there were
- 2,550,240 million steps taken
- 430,560 pedal strokes
- 10 pairs of our hiking boots worn out
- Over 180 hours spent working on and perfecting our walking, hiking and cycling routes by our team for you our guests!
In 2016 over 1000 clients from 18 different countries came to join us on tours. A few stats from 2016
- 7,165 beds slept in
- 19,336 pints of Guinness sampled
- 12,428 Dingle Whiskeys sipped
- 358,400 pictures taken of our wonderful scenery!
We aim to keep our current routes up-to-date to keep our tours as seamless as possible and we always aim to discover new routes to show our clients. Each year we revise our current tours and add new ones. 2016 was our first year of our 1 boot tours which went down a treat! These walks give you shorter hikes, with more culture, history and experiences along the way, while still keeping terrific hikes each day. It was also our first year of doing ‘Hike and Bike’ guided tours and these were also a huge hit! People who came loved the variation between hiking and cycling. For 2017 we are delighted to announce a brand new 8 day Kerry Guided Cycle tour. Check it out here!
In September we were fortunate enough to be able to attend the Adventure Travel World Summit in Anchorage in Alaska. To say we had a ball (while working hard of course) is an understatement! What an event! We met people from all over the globe and look forward to meeting some of them again in 2017 when they come to hike with us!
We are excited to be jetting off again this February to Holland and Belgium to attend the Fiets en Wandelbeurs expo in February. March we hope to attend the ITB show in Berlin and hopefully back to Dussledorf for Tour Natur in September. If you happen to be around for any of those come say hello!
We are proud to announce in 2016 we became we Ireland’s only certified Eco tour agency! The outdoors has always been the inspiration for our business and lifestyle so we have always had respect for the environment. We’ve always been doing our best to be environmentally friendly but recently we have decided to take it seriously and do our part for the earth. We feel strongly that tourism should be sustainable and people should be able to have an enjoyable holiday happy in the knowledge they are having minimal impact on the local environment.
What does this mean for our guests!? From your point of view your holiday will fundamentally be the same; however we are more likely to use environmentally friendly accommodation, or accommodations that are doing all they can for the environment – like recycling and sourcing food locally. If you are on one of our Guided Holidays – then your guide will be giving you more information on leave no trace, how we are doing what we can to help locally and eco-tourism generally. Its small changes like these, or buying your picnic lunch from local sources that all add up to make a big difference.
In 2016 we expanded our company to take on an additional 3 new full-time staff AND we launched our brand new shiny website!! Its been all go! Here is to another great year ahead!