How Much Walking a Tour Involves

The sights described, the effort left out

A tour company's pages describe the harbour views, the historic buildings and the tasting stops at length. None of them says how far the tour goes, how steep it gets or how long people stand.

The phone rings with the same questions every summer: how far it is, whether a mother of eighty can manage the hills, whether a stroller will get through.

Those are the visitors who call. Others simply guess, or book a tour whose page left them in no doubt.

Who needs to know

Families with young children need to know whether small legs will last and whether a stroller fits. People travelling with older parents need to know about stairs, slopes and somewhere to sit.

Others are planning a full day and want to know whether they will have energy left for the afternoon. Some simply want to choose the right shoes.

None of them is asking for a different tour. They are asking for the facts that let them choose this one with confidence.

What each tour page should state

A short block near the price and times can answer all of it:

• Distance, in kilometres, walked or paddled in total.
• Terrain, from paved paths to gravel, sand or uneven boardwalk.
• Hills and stairs, with the steepest part and the number of steps.
• Standing, the longest time spent on foot without a seat.
• Pace and breaks, including where the washrooms are.
• Weather, how much of the route is in the sun or under cover.
• An easier option, where one exists.

The third and fourth matter most to families travelling with grandparents, and they are the two that tour pages most often leave out.

Measuring instead of guessing

Guides know their routes too well to judge them. A climb they take forty times a summer no longer feels like one.

Before the season, walk or paddle each route with a phone or a map to measure the distance, count the steps on each staircase, and time the stops where the group stands.

Note the steepest stretch and where the nearest bench is. Those two facts settle many of the calls a tour office takes in a season.

Words that mean the same to everyone

Labels such as easy and moderate mean very different things to a guide who hikes on weekends and to a grandparent visiting from abroad.

Give the figures beside any label. If the company uses a rating, define it once on its own page, for example as under two kilometres on level paths with seating at every stop, and link to it from each tour.

Describe the surface honestly too. A boardwalk with gaps, or a beach path of soft sand, matters to anyone pushing a stroller or a wheelchair.

A worked example

A pedicab company in a harbour city runs short rides and hour-long tours through a large waterfront park and the old town, with a dozen bikes and a crew of summer riders.

Its tour pages described the gardens, the lookout over the harbour and the old buildings. Nothing said that two of the tours included walking.

On the park tour, guests left the cab to follow a gravel path through a garden where bikes are not allowed, then climbed a flight of stone steps to the lookout.

The old town tour stopped for a fifteen-minute talk with everyone standing in a square.

Many guests had chosen a pedicab precisely because they did not want to walk far, and some sat out the best part of the tour.

Each tour page now states the riding time, the walking with its distance, surface and number of steps, the longest time standing, and where the washroom stop is.

The park tour also has a seated version that skips the garden and stops at a viewpoint the bikes can reach. Guests choose the version that suits their group before they book, not at the foot of the stairs.

The easier option

Where a route can be shortened, say so: a version that skips the steepest section, a meeting point closer to parking, or a private tour at the group's own pace.

Where it cannot, say that too, and suggest the tour that does suit. A visitor told plainly may well book something else with you instead of giving up on the company.

Where the details belong

The details belong on each tour page, close to the price and the times, not on a separate questions page that few visitors open. A photograph of the steepest staircase says more than any rating.

Repeat them in the booking confirmation, in the printed brochure and in the listings the company keeps on other sites. Staff answering the phone should have the same figures in front of them.

What the phone calls reveal

Keep a note of every question about effort that staff hear in June. Every such question marks a gap in a tour page, and the answer belongs there before July.

Visitors who would never phone, such as those writing from another country or planning late at night, are the ones the page answers best.

The counter-case

Some tours are hard on purpose. A full-day sea kayak trip or a steep hike sells the challenge, and its customers expect to work.

Those pages need the facts most of all, stated as a minimum: the distance, the hours of effort, and the fitness or experience the trip assumes.

Routes that change with the tide or the weather can give a range instead of a single figure. Some visitors will still call, and that is fine; the page has done its part.

Before the first summer tour

1. Walk or paddle each route and measure it.
2. Count the stairs and note the steepest part.
3. Time the longest stop on foot.
4. Find the washrooms and benches along the way.
5. Write the block on every tour page.
6. Offer an easier version where the route allows.
7. Brief the staff who answer the phone.

Step two is the one visitors care about most. Distance can be guessed from a map, but nobody can guess a flight of stone steps until they are standing at the bottom of it.

Reaching these visitors before they arrive, while they are still choosing from home, is the focus of ads for visitors still planning at home.

Frequently asked questions

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