Country Walkers built its reputation on small-group travel to outdoorsy, adventure-ish places: natural and cultural immersions (mostly on foot) by day and creature comforts (five-star hotels) by night. Thirty-four years after starting with the simple mandate to “explore the world actively, with passion and commitment, on the ‘road less traveled,’” the tour operator has grown to include more than 130 hiking, biking, safari, small-ship cruise, and cultural itineraries. And it has a fiercely loyal customer following—of people who say they don’t do group trips (at least no group trips with any other outfitter).
But now CW—as the company has rebranded itself to reflect its diverse clientele and itineraries (which don’t all include a lot of walking)—has branched out to offer trips for people who reallydon’t want to do group trips, but still want a well-researched itinerary that has a little wiggle room, efficiency, seamless transfers, top-notch guides, and meaningful connections with the local culture.
Their new CW Selects trips offer all of that, as well as flexibility and brevity: Travelers can assemble their own itinerary by combining several Selects trips in a country, tack a short tour onto a business trip, or have an exceedingly well organized long weekend. The Selects trips last just a few days long, are conducted privately, combine guided and independent explorations, and can begin on any date—the antithesis of traditional tour-operator travel.
I went to Morocco last month (as CW’s guest) to see for myself. After a quick bearings-getting night in Marrakech (kudos to CW for selecting one of my all-time favorite hotels, La Maison Arabe, and booking us into the hotel’s highly regarded Moroccan cooking class), our small group set out for two lesser-traveled destinations, the Frenchified seaside city of Essaouira and the High Atlas Mountains. Our gem of a local guide provided insights no guidebook could explain, talking freely both about architecture and about her own friends’ and family’s marriages and the realities of life for women in Morocco.
Following the itinerary of the Essaouira Select (three nights; from $1,248 per person), we checked into the delightfulHeure Bleue, a Relais & Châteaux hotel with an enviable location just inside the walls of the pedestrian-only medina and what is quite possibly the best breakfast buffet in the country. The walking here is easy: a guided stroll through the blue-and-white city, a couple jaunts out to dinner—the waterfront Le Chalet de la Plage is superb for fresh grilled seafood. Along with it, there are camel or horseback rides on the beach and free time for shopping—minus the higher prices and insanity of the souks in Marrakech. (I wished CW had told us Essaouira has great kitesurfing and surfing and would have liked to see water sports as an option on itinerary, but was grateful for the flexibility to trade shopping time for surf lessons; my instructor from Explora was terrific.)
A four-hour drive connected Essaouira with the High Atlas Select (three nights; from $1,448 per person). Here CW lives up to its original name. The focus is trekking, through grand scenery, along ancient pathways that wind through traditional Berber villages, and with Mount Toubkal, North Africa’s highest peak, in the background.
Home base was the delightful Kasbah du Toubkal mountain lodge (see my previous post), a glammed-up Kasbah with very comfortable rooms, delicious traditional food, a great English-speaking Berber staff, and stunning views. Daily walks—which, along with the trekking guide, had been hand-selected by CW’s scouts—took us on a five-mile loop through villages, and a ten-mile hike up to a ridge where a bounteous lunch of meat tagine, salads, bread, and fruit awaited beneath a cushion-strewn tent. (The cooks and stoves were hauled up on mules.)
I’ve had fun in Morocco on my own, and I probably could have winged it in these destinations. But it’s flourishes such as this—and the looks on the faces of a couple of sandwich-carrying hikers as they came upon us lounging before our lunch spread (we offered to share)—that make booking a CW Select worth the premium.
