ABOUT US

High Point Holidays was launched in December 2007 as an Anglo/French collaboration bringing together the experience and knowledge of its two partners, father and son, Tony and William Armstrong. The company was originally based in the beautiful hill-top town of Shaftesbury among the rolling hills of Dorset, whilst William, our principal walking leader on our guided walking holidays and local French representative, was based in the Beaujolais region of France.

William's brother Mark was involved with the company from 2011 to 2021, becoming a partner in 2014. With the sad death of their father, Tony, in 2015 the decision was taken to move the office to Evercreech close to the Mendip Hills in North Somerset.

The company returned to Dorset, at the end of 2021 when we were delighted to welcome Stephen to our team. Stephen will be developing a broader range of trips in both the UK and France for active travellers. Stephen is a European-based Kiwi, having previously worked for many years in a Beaujolais-based tour operator. He has a wealth of experience in creating and running tailor-made holidays for travellers from all over the globe and will help us move forward.

We now have a growing team based in the UK and France, dedicated to creating unique and authentic holidays and ensuring you have a wonderful eperience. Meet our team here.

See William's Tribute to his father

See the Profile of High Point Holiday's Partner: William

See the profile of Stephen

Despite these changes to the company, little has changed to its aims and principles. From the start, the philosophy of the company has been clear; to provide good quality, active holidays with a commitment to personal and flexible service whilst matching rewarding walking holidays with a unique and authentic local experience.

Find out more about why we believe our holidays are special.

We are at your total disposal, before, during and after your holiday, to ensure this is the case. We also occasionally use like-minded local partners to compliment our own representatives whether on our walking holidays in France, England or elsewhere.

We are, however, a true independent tour operator. We are not part of some large hidden multi-national using the name of a smaller company as a brand. Nearly all our holidays are set up or created by us based on our principles, so we have full control on the walking notes you are provided; we don't rely on a large number of different people that have differing views on making notes or directions.

We hold sustainable tourism as an important part of our ethics; it's not for us a modern marketing ploy or gimmick. We offer travel advice to customers and help them to use trains or other public transport where feasible. Local aspects of tourism are important to us as we try to use smaller, special guest houses with bags of character that provide an authentic local experience. These can sometimes be off the normal tourist trails and therefore benefit from our business.

We make no apologies for not covering all the main long distance trails. Although we appreciate that people will often seek them out as a challenge, our philosophy is to try to put together walks that cover the best a region has to offer in all its variety. For example, on our walk on the Jurassic Coast of Dorset, we miss out the busy tourist town of Weymouth to take a ridge walk along the ancient landscape of the Dorset ridgeway with its tremendous views and ancient earthworks.

Whilst we acknowledge that we are not always the cheapest on the market as we don't have the scale of operation to compete with larger companies, we will invest our efforts, wherever possible, to ensure we can book you into places with local character and authenticity. Obviously, the earlier you book the more options we have in terms of picking the best accommodation that matches your needs.

What we can guarantee over price is an unparalleled level of commitment to bring you an enjoyable and memorable walking holiday that will be quite simply – the High Point of your year.

If you have any questions please feel free to contact us, using our form or by e-mail (contact@highpointholidays.co.uk) or by telephone on 01749 321032 we will be delighted to help you. Being a small company we are often away from the office, so please leave a message by phone or e-mail with as much information as possible.