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Please
read this bit first - it will only take a minute or so
but worth the time. .
.
As you may already have found,
there are many companies offering battlefield tours, especially
as we approach the centenary of the Great War in 2014. Our
tours however are quite different. Our tours allow you to
reveal the hidden history of the battlefields at your own
pace, at a time of your choosing, and for you and
just you. We are also one of the very few fully
registered UK battlefield tour companies who have been
established for over 17 years and who specialise in the Great
War (Western Front) and nothing else. We are also the only
self-drive tour company to have received so many
national press awards and recommendations, including Vanity
Fair's much coveted ‘Best Guided Tour' award and as
recently featured in the prestigious 'Country Life' magazine -
see below for more!
You may be unsure as to
whether a self-drive tour is for you. Our best advice is to have
a closer look at our many testimonials to see what people like
you have said after they returned from a self-drive tour (see
left - or click
here
for all). Unlike some companies, we don’t just cherry-pick the
letters we want you to read. The testimonials you see on our
website are exactly as we received them - all of them. None have
been excluded.
Our acclaimed
Self-Drive Tours
Click
here
to jump straight to our Self-Drive tours page
or click
for a quick look at
our guide to exploring the Somme and Ypres battlefields,
including the self-drive tour itineraries.
People who wish to
visit the battlefields of the Great War quite often think first of a
conducted tour. However, for those truly seeking to reveal the
legacy of the Great War, nothing can beat the freedom of exploring
the battlefields without the rigid timetable of a coach/minibus
group dictating the pace. How frustrating must it be to see the
battlefields passing before your very own eyes without being able to
stop wherever you want to stop, for however long you want to spend,
exploring what you want to explore. The freedom to explore the
battlefields at your own pace is what I always wanted, and what today sets our tours apart.
If
you intend visiting the battlefield you need to be well briefed.
Many visitors just turn up thinking that all will be clear, which
will certainly not be the case. This is where our
Self-Drive
guide expertise comes in to play, expertise based on having
personally conducted over 250 small-group battlefield tours.
Our written guides are not just any old
collection of briefing notes, copied books or cobbled together maps as offered
by some companies. Our self-drive battlefield guides are professionally
produced comprising two parts, so separating navigation from the
main guide. The navigation section even includes a photo of
every junction you'll encounter with clear overlaid pointers.
It's written as if we are in the car with you.
Our guides are regularly updated fully bound A4 colour guides
which have been carefully designed to take you on a journey of
exploration, so you know exactly where to drive, where to stop, where to walk
and, most importantly of all, what to look for. Our guides are
only available to those booking a tour with us and so not
available from shops.
It is this essential combination of comparative 'then and
now' maps, photos and narratives that have made our Self-Drive
guides so appealing, especially to the independent traveller
seeking to explore the past in greater detail.
If you have in mind
to book one of our tours for 2014 then please do so ASAP as our hotels
only have limited accommodation and demand will be high
Our
Self-Drive tour 'package'
also includes your hotel accommodation and Channel crossing (for UK
travellers) all dovetailed together so all you have to do is just
pack and go - we make it as simple as that!
Self-Drive
Tour - with the option of including
a personal guided tour!
In addition to
our
Self-Drive
tours, we can easily
arrange for an English speaking guide to pick you up at the hotel we
book for you and take you on a one or two day personal tour of the
battlefield. This is a truly personal service and as such you will be
just in the
company of our experienced guide and not other members of the
public. This service is
particularly popular with visitors from Australia, New Zealand and
Canada who may already be in France and who wish to focus on
specific battlefields where their fellow countrymen served.
To
find out more about our Self-Drive tours please click
here.
We would like
to extend a special welcome to our website to visitors
from the USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland (Eire), the
Indian sub continent, South Africa and China in recognition of those soldiers and
workers who came from so far away to serve in the Great War.
We are a small
but caring company run by myself, James Power, and my wife Annette.
We thank you for visiting our website, which we built ourselves -
and we update every few days!
We accept payment by credit and debit card and are fully compliant
with the strict security requirements imposed by all leading credit
card companies.
See 'Contact Us' for more about
us
(we are based in Wimborne, Dorset, England)
James Power
.
about me.
A
member of
the
Guild of
Battlefield Guides
and
Western Front Association
last updated
12 July 2014
Phone:
01202 880211 or 07776 195773
Outside UK phone:
+44 1202 880211 or +44 7776 195773
Email:
jamespower@btinternet.com
Click the above image for our small tribute to
all those who served in the
Great War
(may take a few minutes to download)
CONTACT US
Please note that the nature of what we do takes us away from our
office from time to time. Email is best, but if you phone and
we're not in then please leave a
message and we'll try and get back to you the same day as we pick up
emails and messages all the time whilst away. Thank you
for your understanding.
Click to send an email or type
jamespower@btinternet.com
01202
880211 or 07776
195773
+44
1202 880211 or +44 7776 195773
(from outside the UK)
" My
family and I want you to know at this 'Remembrance-time' how
much we appreciated all your work for
us in connection with our
recent visit to the
Western Front.....Your
guides were excellent.
We would not have survived without
them..."
The Bishop of Cork.
What the national
quality press
have said about our tours
 .
December
2013
"If you're fiercely independent, you could do no better than
to sign up for the highly acclaimed self-guided tours
provided by James Power. . .His painstakingly researched
itineraries are the
work of a master logistician"
'Best Guided
Tour'
We are proud to be
the only battlefield tour company to have been selected
for
Vanity Fair's prestigious
'Best Guided Tour 2009' Award 2009
(the only company 2009-2014)
'Best Battlefield Tours'
10 November 2013
The only WW1 Self-Drive tour company
to be
selected!
As featured in the Sunday Telegraph
11 November 2012
The
only specialist WWI company
to appear in
Top Ten Battlefield Tours
(Daily Telegraph 16 April 2008)
The
only specialist WWI company to be recommended in the
Sunday Times
"52 Great
Weekends"
"Mark the 90th anniversary of the end of the first
world war with a self-drive tour of the Somme. Somme
Battlefield Tours (01202 880211) provides excellent
guide packs, with trench maps and superb commentaries."
also. . .
"In Search of
Wilfred Owen"
"Somme
Battlefield Tours . . .which offers self-drive tours of the
front. . . including accommodation and meticulously researched
notes"
The
only battlefield guide to be a finalist
and
'Highly Commended'
in this year's
'Paul Morrison World's Best Tour Guide'
competition organised by Wanderlust
travel magazine in
association with the
Daily Telegraph
2008
The
only specialist Self-Drive WWI company
to be
recommended in the Independent's
"Complete Guide to Great War Travel'
Copyright
© James Power 2014
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