London couple on their seventh On Foot holiday

Academic David Sims and his librarian wife Alison are the first walkers to have completed seven holidays with On Foot - quite a feat as we only started offering holidays in 2004!  So this average of one-a-year has meant that they are well-placed to offer a few thoughts about why they keep coming back for more. 

From their first (Slovenia in 2004), they have done, in turn, Catalonia, Alpes Maritimes, the French Alps, the Lycian Way, and, in 2009 Northern Portugal. In 2010, as their “sabbatical” they will be heading off to Rome to enjoy our Sabine Hills walk - in many ways a perfect combination of all the qualities we aim for in a walk - unspoilt countryside, charming small hotels with personal attention to your comfort, excellent food, and bags of history and culture to indulge all the senses.

David and Alison write:

Alison is a School Librarian. Anyone who thinks that is a nice quiet haven for nerds should try it in a busy West London comprehensive. She plays tennis and blitzes the garden now and then. David is an academic who teaches and researches organizational behaviour and runs a university department. They are both keen, if sometimes grumpy, supporters of Saracens Rugby Club. They have two grown up daughters, now safely earning their own livings.

Why we like On Foot

“Walking holidays are brilliant for busy couples. Walking imposes its own pace, and you get time together which does not happen any other way; if you think of something else to do with a conversation you have been having, the other person is still there to say it to! You are safely away from the computer so there is no temptation to work in between times.

“We have always been impressed with the detailed care and involvement that all the On Foot people have with the holidays. They check out the walks and the accommodation regularly, and that must be why the quality is always so good. Holiday time is scarce and precious, so we want to know that it is going to be excellent. We love walking in exceptionally beautiful places, with good directions and maps to follow, and ending up in some really unusual and attractive places to stay which we could never have found on our own. 

“Because On Foot find such good contacts locally and take such an interest in the whole customer experience we have never had a disappointing walk. Perhaps the most spectacularly beautiful was the French Alps, or could it have been the Lycian Way? The Alpes Maritimes walk is hard to beat for the sense of development and the sheer variety of the scenery. Northern Portugal is unbelievably unspoilt given the scenery, and feels at least as novel as Turkey when you are walking in it. Can the lovely mountains and meadows of the Catalonian walk really be only a taxi ride from Barcelona’s second airport?

“The Karst district of Slovenia is a different world, and we were lucky to do it in May when the limestone scenery had the added benefit of wild flowers to die for – but then so had the Alpes Maritimes. And all of them take you at a slow enough pace to see what is going on (at least in our case) through unspoilt parts of Europe, which retain their individual character and show no sign of converging with each other. It is amazing that there is still so much diversity and local character around different parts of Europe.”

David and Alison Sims

January 18^th 2010