Seymour Travels Small Group Tours

My Itchy Feet I was 17 years of age when I first realised that travel was life changing.  Until then I had taken the family vacations to camp sites and holiday camps all over Britain. I had enjoyed traveling to farms, cider presses, and mountain trails with my grandfather in his caravan. I’d spent 6 weeks every year in London with my grandparents. and I always learnt from my vacations and the people around me...   but life changing... No ! At the age of 17....nearly 18, I had already lost both of my parents and a sister, in very close succession. I’d fallen in and out of love... as you do at that age. ..and my spirits were low. My best friend asked me if I’d like to go on a bit of a trip with him. I asked him ‘where to ?’ He said that it was going to actually be a big trip ! I agreed to his plan and we got prepared to hitchhike across Europe and into North Africa !…a trip that was scheduled to last 6 months.! Our preparation involved cutting up 4/5 sheets of cardb

Saxon Shore Forts If you’ve ever toured around the coast of England, you may well have discovered one or two, strange Roman oddities, called Saxon Shore Forts. Indeed, you may even have come across one or two along the coast of Northern Europe. Portchester Fortress During the middle of the 3rd century, Rome deemed it necessary to set up a separate strategic command, in order to control and protect trade through the English Channel. As the Empire proceeded to collapse, the shore forts created along England’s coasts were separated and out under its own command known as, ‘The Count of the Saxon Shore’. Just the name, should give you a clue as to why these formidable fortresses were built. Being coastal, they were essentially military ports AND garrisons. However, as we have very few mentions of these places from Roman sources, their use is somewhat clouded. Were they fortresses which protected against Saxon incursion or were they built on territories already settled by t

Observing . Walking around Carnac yesterday, filming some video for my ‘stones’ tour, we came across some beautiful places. In amongst the grasses, and the stones, was a tree trunk... just an ordinary tree trunk.. I’ve walked past It before and ignored it, but my wife, Toni, yelled out and asked me to stop walking as she took this gorgeous photo...   I’ll never walk past that tree again. She captured the moment and I was able to understand my surroundings a little more thanks to her photo. Travel is a career for me, and sometimes I feel like I’m becoming jaded or tired of it. The constant packing and unpacking, always having to look ahead and motivate others to enjoy and understand what it is they are looking at, can be exhausting. Yes, there is always the reward of seeing their eyes light up ( I’m an ‘eyes’ person), as they realise or learn something new...  but sometimes, I just want to be in the moment myself.  The second photo, was one such moment. I had been busy, filming

Walking Amongst The Standing Stones Of Brittany in Western France Sorry for not blogging anything yesterday, but I was on a mission to create a short video.... nearly an hour long,... a video tour of the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Carnac, in Western France. I set out early, as it’s an hours drive from here, and beating the traffic, I arrived at the exhibition centre in Carnac at about 9.00am. Not knowing anything about virtual tours or videoing for Facebook and YouTube, I had to learn on the spot.  Trust me when I say that it was a big learning curve. As I loved to do, I extolled the virtues of standing stones, gave some background and history about them and began piecing together what little we know about them. The first video, there will be three, will air on Saturday morning and will be available through my Facebook feeds, so tune in to watch. However, I must first of all put out my disclaimers....   the audio isn’t good.... it’s OK,.. just not studio quality.

Touring The South West of England In March 2021, I shall be leading my own tour through this beautiful region of England. With the use of small minibuses, I’m going to take an intrepid band of travelers into some of the remotest parts of England. I was born in the north west corner of Devonshire and later into my youth moved to Bath and Bristol. My family come from Plymouth in Southern Devon, and Barnstaple to the north. I have friends in Cornwall, Dorset and Hampshire.....    and love this area ! I start my tours in Clifton in Bristol, the largest city in the area. It has great transportation links to London and also an airport that receives flights from the US. I’ve chosen Bristol as a starting point because of transportation but also because, historically, it’s always been tied to the America’s through trade and fishing. We know the John Cabot was fishing in the waters of North America, and trading with Native American communities at the same time as Columbus was ‘discov

English Landscape Gardens. Because I’ve created a new Cotswolds small group tour, that will include a couple of very special gardens, I thought that I should write a little piece on England’s gardens....landscape gardens in particular. Over the years, I’ve been fortunate enough to visit some great gardens scattered all over  the British Isles, and I have to say that the Brits are justifiably proud of this aspect of their culture. The predecessors of the landscape garden in England were the great parks created by people such as Sir John Vanbrugh (1664–1726) and Nicholas Hawksmoor at Castle Howard (1699–1712), Blenheim Palace (1705–1722), and the Claremont Landscape Garden at Claremont House (1715–1727). These parks featured vast lawns, woods, and pieces of architecture, such as the classical mausoleum designed by Hawksmoor at Castle Howard. At the center of the composition was the house, behind which were formal and symmetrical gardens in the style of the garden à la f

The Horses of Britain - Are they wild ? As a young man, I lived near to both Dartmoor and Exmoor. These are two National Parks that sit nicely in the SW peninsula of England. At weekends, I would often head out to one of the moors with friends, to go and try to find the ‘wild’ horses...    It was never a difficult task. Because they have no natural predators they roam freely and are found in ever increasing numbers, all over the moors. Growing up in the British Isles, I was fully aware of the fact that there were other horses, roaming freely all over our islands. In the Shetlands, you will find short stocky horses, wandering amidst the heather. In North Wales, you’ll find the gorgeous Carneddau horses, and only about 240 of them left in existence. In the South of England, you’ll find horses grazing in moorland areas, contentedly. It really is a wonderful thing to see. Imagine driving through the gorgeous moorland areas of Britain, and as you turn a bend in the road, ther