Most catalogs sort by continent. Ours sorts by the last hundred yards. Write to us and we reserve a vacation package by distance from the road on your behalf, because a trip is filed here by one measurement and one only: the distance between the last piece of road and the bed you sleep in. What you send is a request, and what follows is a person here placing the reservation with the company that runs the trip. This desk takes no payment, keeps no card on file, and there is no checkout on any page of this site. That single number decides more about a week away than the country does. It decides what you carry, whether you can leave in the middle of it, what happens when a knee goes wrong, and how much of the first day is spent moving rather than arriving. We built the catalog around that measurement because it is the question travelers actually argue about at the kitchen table, and no other filing system answers it. The request form stays open at any hour, so the step you are weighing at midnight can go to us at midnight.
The five steps below are ordered and they are cumulative in effort. At-the-door means the car stops where you sleep. No-road means a scheduled boat and a weather window that is not yours to move. Everything in between is a walk with a duration attached to it. We do not grade these as easy or hard, and we will not tell you which one suits your body; that belongs to you and whoever knows your health. What we will tell you is exactly how long the carry is, how many times you do it, and what the operating company does when it cannot happen on the day it was planned. That is the honest half of the question, and it is the half a catalog can answer.
Where the figure comes from and where it stops
- Source of the figure
- The operating company's per person rate for the season named, converted to a from price at the lowest occupancy we can actually book
- Read it as
- A starting point for two people sharing, before the seat or the crossing that gets you to the start town
- What lifts it
- Single occupancy, a shoulder date moved into high season, a private guide instead of a shared one, a longer stay at either end
- What is never inside it
- Airfare, travel insurance of any kind, personal gear, meals not named in the itinerary, gratuities, and anything you buy once you are there
- What it never buys
- A promise about weather, water level, or a boat sailing on the day the timetable says it will
The five steps and the twenty trips filed under them
The road reaches the door
Vacation packages you can drive to the door of, which sounds like the least interesting thing on this site and is the reason four of these sell best.
The Finger Lakes, New YorkA cottage on a glacial lake where the car parks at the porch.self catering lakeside cottage, your own car6 nights, from $1,640 per person
The Alsace wine road, FranceA house among the vines, with a car park in every village.self catering, one base, your own car7 nights, from $2,380 per person
Herefordshire, EnglandCider orchards and a slow river, and the quietest week here.self catering farmhouse, your own car6 nights, from $1,890 per person
The Mosel valley, GermanySlate vineyards over a slow river, villages on both banks.self catering apartment, your own car7 nights, from $2,290 per person
Ten minutes on foot
Vacation packages with a short walk in. Ten minutes buys more quiet per dollar than anything else in this trade, and the page says what those minutes are made of.
Ameland, the NetherlandsA Wadden island where the last ten minutes are boarded dune.ferry, then bicycle, then ten minutes on boards6 nights, from $2,040 per person
Les Landes, FranceFlat planted pine, a needle floor, the ocean an hour away.self catering forest cabin, ten minutes on the flat7 nights, from $2,120 per person
Öland, SwedenLimestone grassland, shore meadow and the June light.self catering cottage, ten minutes across grass6 nights, from $2,260 per person
The Douro terraces, PortugalTen minutes that climb a hundred and twenty feet, not ten flat ones.quinta room, ten minutes of stone steps7 nights, from $2,470 per person
An hour on foot
Vacation packages an hour from the nearest road. One hour in and one hour out, and every page here prints the height gained rather than only the distance.
The Cairngorms, ScotlandFour hundred feet of ascent, and six days of food walk in with you.hut in a corrie, an hour up a stalkers path6 nights, from $2,340 per person
The Sierra de Gredos, SpainGranite west of Madrid, with water in the streams until July.stone house, an hour up through oak and broom6 nights, from $2,180 per person
The Mourne Mountains, Northern IrelandThe shortest trip here, five nights under granite tops.cottage by a reservoir, an hour on a made track5 nights, from $1,980 per person
The Dingle peninsula, IrelandAn hour of grass over rock with no railing anywhere.house above a strand, an hour along a cliff path7 nights, from $2,620 per person
Half a day in
Remote vacation packages half a day from a road. Arrival day is spent arriving, which is why these are priced for the nights that are left rather than the nights you booked.
Knoydart, ScotlandSeven nights sold as five usable days, and the rest is arriving.boat across, then four hours of glen7 nights, from $3,480 per person
The Ardennes, BelgiumBeech forest that is genuinely dark by four in November.forest lodge, four hours in on forestry track6 nights, from $2,740 per person
The bay of Mont-Saint-Michel, FranceThe one crossing here that the law requires a guide for.a licensed guide across open tidal sand6 nights, from $2,890 per person
The Boundary Waters, MinnesotaA lake chain with no motors, and a week in two packs.canoe in over three portages7 nights, from $3,120 per person
No road at all
Vacation packages reached without a road at all. Four trips where the only way in is water, and the timetable belongs to the tide rather than to you.
The Aran Islands, IrelandLimestone pavement, stone walls, Atlantic on three sides.ferry only, no vehicle to the house6 nights, from $3,060 per person
Hardangerfjord, NorwayA fjord farm with a window, and a missed window costs a night.an arranged boat, and no road at all7 nights, from $3,640 per person
The Curonian Spit, LithuaniaMigrating dunes between a lagoon and the Baltic.ferry, then no road for the last stretch6 nights, from $2,960 per person
Vestmannaeyjar, IcelandThe crossing closed by swell more often than any other here.ferry only, and swell closes it often6 nights, from $3,380 per person
Send us the step and we will send you the figure
Tell us which of the five steps you are looking at and roughly when. You do not have to pick a trip. Plenty of people write to us with nothing more specific than "an hour in, September, two of us, and one bad ankle between us," and that is enough to start. We answer a message the same working day. A written figure, with the operating company named and the inclusions listed line by line, takes two to four working days, because we ask the company directly rather than quoting you last season's sheet.
Driftwood Chronicle is an independent agency. We do not run lodges, boats, buses or guided walks, and we do not own a single bed in this catalog. We arrange your booking with the company that does, and that company pays us a commission after you travel. You are charged nothing by this office at any stage, which is also why you will not find a payment button here. Money moves between you and the operating company under their terms, and we hand you those terms in writing before you commit to anything.
Two things worth knowing before you write. First, the steps at the far end of the list run on timetables that weather closes, so a no-road trip is booked with a spare day at the front and a spare day at the back, and we say so in the figure rather than in the small print. Second, the price range across the whole catalog is $1,640 to $3,640 per person, and distance from the road is not what drives it. Some of the most expensive weeks here have a car parked outside the door. What drives the figure is season, occupancy, and how many staff the company keeps on site.
If you would rather read the mechanics first, how a booking is put together sets out how each step is measured and what cancellation costs sets out what happens when a date moves. the questions people actually ask covers what we get asked most. Otherwise, the form is above, and a real person at 2431 East 61st Street, Suite 415, Tulsa, OK 74136 reads it.