Scottish ramblers set up guided walks without the guides!

No place like home for Andy and Sheila.

When keen ramblers Andy Gabe and Sheila Tulloch were travelling in New Zealand and someone asked if they’d walked the West Highland Way, it got them thinking.

They’d trotted on trails across the globe, but not so much back home in Scotland.

After returning, the couple walked the famous 96-mile route and started to formulate a business plan.

Following a few years the hospitality managers decided to take the plunge, quitting their day jobs to launch Absolute Escapes, a company offering self-guided walking holiday packages.

“We started off as a home-based business with just the West Highland Way and Great Glen Way,” Andy says.

“We’d arrange accommodation, door-to-door baggage transfers, suggestions of sightseeing if they fancy a day off walking, guide books and maps.

“All the clients have to do is turn up and walk. It’s effectively a guided walk, but without the guide.”

Since the launch of the company, which celebrates its 10th anniversary this year, Andy and Sheila have moved into an office in Edinburgh, employed five members of staff and branched out to cover a total of 32 walking trails across Scotland, England, Ireland and Wales.

“Since we started in 2004, we’ve added new walks each year which is great,” Andy says.

“Most of them we’ve tried and tested ourselves, and the ones we haven’t yet, we try to make sure our staff have walked so, as a team, we have first-hand experience of the routes.”

Absolute Escapes has also diversified into tailor-made travel, offering self-drive and private guided tours of the stunning Highlands and magical islands.

“Whether you want to dance a reel with the locals or to savour a dram of single malt, we can arrange a trip to suit,” Andy adds. “Just tell us where you want to go, what you want to see and we’ll do the hard work so you don’t have to.

“We can arrange accommodation to suit any budget, from B&Bs to five-star hotels, car hire, ferry tickets, and suggest the best places to eat and things to see.

“We post out a pack six weeks before with everything you need including road maps so when the time comes for your holiday you can just get on with enjoying it.”

For more information, visit absoluteescapes.com.