One thing about me is that if I decide to make something happen (e.g. study in Japan), I do my best to make things happen. This is probably a recurring theme if I continue talking about travels and other bits of my life (it’s not always a good thing) and this is one of the reasons why we took a private tour to Lake District.

It all started when my dad mentioned that it would be nice to visit Lake District. I did some googling and decided that it would be great to visit. There was only one thing – I was equally determined that we were going to York (especially after I saw 87 Micklegate!). The travel required to stay in both places meant that we’d have little over a day at each spot. Add in the fact that we weren’t quite sure what we wanted to see in the Lake District and I didn’t even know how we were going to tour the Lake District.

That’s when I found Mountain Goat. Their tours sounded interesting and I initially considered booking a tour for when we were at Lake District (at that time, I was still trying to find a schedule that would let us stay in both places). But when I heard about their tour from York, I realised that we could conceivably stay in York the whole time and just spend one day at the Lakes, which would cut down on travel time and hotel check-ins.

My Experience with Mountain Goat’s Private Lake District Tour from York

Since their Lake District Tour from York only ran once a week, we opted to get the private tour so that we could visit Lake District on an alternative day. Booking the tour was fairly easy from their website. We made payment through my sister, who studies in England, so there were no problems there. While arranging for the payment, we were also given the option to customise the tour.

On the day itself, we were picked up from our AirBnb and driven to the Lake District via the Yorkshire Dales. The Dales were beautiful and we were able to stop by the Wensleydale Creamery for some cheese. The cheddar was lovely and we bought some to snack on during the tour.

While we were travelling to the Lake District, my father suddenly realised that he wanted to see the Beatrix Potter museum, something that wasn’t on the list. However, our guide Rachel, managed to shift things around so that was the first stop on our tour. I haven’t really read Beatrix Potter since I was a kid, but I thought the World of Beatrix Potter was really charming and enjoyed it.

After that, we had a look at Windermere, stopped at one of the towns for lunch, and even managed to buy some gingerbread from Sarah Nelson’s Gingerbread shop! This cosy little shop was actually the only location I requested to visit in advance – I had heard about it and having a sweet tooth, wanted to try some of this famous gingerbread. Totally no regrets and I wish we had a bit more time to spend walking around the town!

After lunch, Rachel told us that she found another place with pretty good views. It wasn’t quite on the list, but my parents had mentioned that they wanted to see as many places with good views as possible earlier on. I can’t quite remember the name (that’s what happens when you write your review three months after your visit!) but the views were absolutely stunning. We had a great time taking photos.

Finally, we visited the Castlerigg Stone Circle. We not only saw lots of sheep (such a difference from Stonehenge!), we also managed to get really close to the stones!

Advantages of a Private Tour

This was our first private tour and I found there were quite a few advantages, such as:

• The timing is completely on our own schedule – we didn’t have to wait for any tourists or feel like we have to rush to make it back in time.
• Completely customisable – ideally, we would have done this ahead of time but I only had one place on the list. However, since we were the only people on the tour, we could make last-minute changes, a real boon because my family only thought of what they wanted on the day itself.

Disadvantages of a Private Tour

That said, there are disadvantages, the biggest of which is cost. It’s definitely more expensive to take a private tour, even if you have quite a few people. And if you don’t really know where you want to go, then there’s not much use in deviating from the proposed schedule – in which case a standard tour should suffice.

When is a Private Tour worth it?

We opted for a private tour mainly because the tour we wanted wasn’t available on the day we wanted to go. If it wasn’t for the fact that we went to three different places on the tour and made a few changes (big thanks to Rachel for taking all the last minute requests in her stride and doing her best to fulfil them!), there wouldn’t have been much additional benefit to having a private tour.

The nice thing about the tour is that we had a guide who was more familiar with the area than us. We also didn’t plan to rent a car until we got to Manchester later in the week, so it was good to have someone drive us to and around the Lake District. However, if you already know where you want to go and you enjoy driving, then you should consider just driving around yourself.

Overall, the private tour was a good choice for us. Since we didn’t have a rented car and didn’t really know the Lake District very well, having a guide who was familiar with the area and could make suggestions on how to customise the tour (the last few views were her suggestion) made the tour worth it for us.

If you’re interested in this, we paid £495 pounds for the five of us (it was originally six but the price is same up to the maximum capacity of the vehicle). More information can be found at this link.