A Self-Drive tour where you explore the battlefields in the safety of your vehicle, and where you do not have to mix with fellow coach travellers, is probably the safest, and perhaps the only way to truly explore the battlefields at your own pace. We are one of the longest-standing companies specialising in small-group tours to the Somme and Ypres battlefields. Having taken over 300 groups on tours to the battlefields of WW1, we have now transferred that expertise to a Self-Drive format so that you can explore these battlefields on your own or with family or friends, without being tied to a coach tour. Unsure? Maybe see what travellers said when they returned! In a nut-shell you chose when you wish to travel and for how long. You take your car and we arrange your hotel accommodation, Channel crossing and, most importantly of all, we provide you with our acclaimed self-drive Somme and/or Ypres battlefield guides - your ‘window to the past’, including all the directions, maps etc you’ll need. No   other   self-drive   guides have   so   much   detail   and   are   so   easy   to   follow! We can also arrange for a 1:1 personal guide to meet you at your hotel to take you, and just you, to almost any WW1 battlefield on the northern Western Front of France and Belgium.

It’s only when you receive our guide Self-Drive guide pack that you realise just how different and how detailed our self- drive guides are (a comment we receive time after time - see our Trust Pilot reviews and personal testimonials ). From my personal experience, visiting the battlefields of the Great War is quite a moving experience, an experience best appreciated in the company of close friends or family (or alone), without any restrictions such as the rigid timetable of a coach tour dictating the pace. It can be quite frustrating to see the battlefields passing before your eyes without being able to stop wherever and whenever you want to stop, and to explore where you want to explore. The freedom to truly comprehend the impact of the battlefields at your own pace, equipped with your own detailed ‘then and now’ guide(s), is what I always set out to achieve, and perhaps what today sets our tours apart. Rather than me clutter up this page (as I tend to do…), please follow the menu links at the top (left) of the page to find out more about the Self-Drive tours we specialise in organising, so that you just ‘pack and go’ leaving us to make all the arrangements and to provide you with the best Self-Drive guide available. Thank you for visiting our website which we designed and built ourselves so it’s completely free of all the tracking ‘cookies’, adverts and other nonsense which bedevil us today. James Power 2023 Managing Director and owner Somme Battlefield Tours Ltd (Established 1996) James Power is an Associate Member of the Guild of Battlefield Guides and Western Front Association

From Diane Kenwood Editor Women's Weekly It was a profoundly moving and fascinating trip, which, thanks to your stunningly detailed and thorough organisation went without a hitch. . . Your attention to detail is astonishing. . . You really did bring every location to life in the most fantastic way. (I loved your personal remarks dotted through the commentary). It was so marvellous to be able to do everything at our own pace and spend however long, or short, a time as we chose at the places we stopped. Thank you so much for everything - for your help in the early stages sorting out what the best itinerary and approach would be, for organising all the bookings and for the brilliant support packs. I have raved about your company to everyone I've spoken to since my return (and will definitely write about it in the magazine) and I know at least one person who's definitely going to book through you as a result. I hope you get inundated with bookings!

some example pages - the battlefield revealed! (click to enlarge)

The background (if you have a large screen) is a trench map of the Somme battlefield 1916 included with our Self-Drive Somme and Ypres guided tours. Click above to enlarge (also the poppies!)

Welcome to Somme & Ypres Battlefield Tours Ltd Explore the battlefields at your own pace with our acclaimed

Self-Drive tours to the Somme and Ypres battlefields of the Great War 1914-1918

Below are just some of our testimonials - click here to see them all - and our most recent Trust Pilot reviews!

Testimonials