We’re Macs Adventure and self-guided walking and cycling holidays are what we do best. From Northern Ireland to New Zealand, the Cotswolds to the Camino, our portfolio extends around the world where we plan exhilarating, life-changing and challenging adventures along some of the best walking and cycling routes on earth.  

Founded over 20 years ago, our first-ever trip was along the West Highland Way in Scotland. A 96-mile journey through the heart of the Scottish Highlands. As we’ve all heard before, true love lasts a lifetime, and our love for this route runs deep.  

Another route that holds a special place in our heart, as well as being a top seller and incredibly loved by many walkers, is the South West Coast Path. An English national trail stretching a thigh-aching 630 miles from Minehead in Somerset! We offer this route in stages to tackle a section at a time, but for the ambitious adventurer, they can be booked back-to-back to complete the route in one fell swoop!  

We live and breathe our active adventures and strive for two things – for our travellers to have the BEST time on our self-guided walking and cycling holidays, and to be a business that does good for people and the planet.  

In 2023 we joined forces with associations on the West Highland Way and South West Coast Path - two of our most popular trips - to help support them in their path restoration and maintenance mission. We identified a huge opportunity to leverage our business as a force for good and collaborate with others who have the same goals. It was a natural move to support these organisations who are doing amazing things to enable us to keep walking these trails.  

So, we’re donating £5 for every adventurer who travels with us along these routes. That means, by booking your trip with Mas Adventure, you’re directly supporting these restoration initiatives and becoming part of a community that care about these trails. 

Our Commitment to Self-guided Walking and Cycling Holidays 

Why are we Supporting Path Maintenance on the West Highland Way and South West Coast Path? 

These trips go down a storm year after year – with the West Highland Way in particular almost always selling out. We send thousands of adventurers along these routes every year. That’s a lot of feet on the ground! So we must take ownership and responsibility for how our business affects these routes.  
We see almost every day the joy these paths bring to our travellers, and we want to help maintain, improve and preserve these much-cherished routes so that future adventurers can enjoy them too. A well-kept route also means walkers don’t need to deviate from the trail and risk damaging local ecosystems that surround the path or put themselves in potentially dangerous situations. 

How are our Donations Supporting Path Restoration? 

In 2023 we donated an amazing £21,500! That means we sent over 4,000 adventurers from across the globe on these iconic routes. This donation will help towards buying materials and employing any specialist labour skills. We couldn’t have done this without you, our amazing adventurers, so thank you. 

As part of our path restoration work, we also launched our staff volunteering programme, focused on giving back on the trails. 23 of our team members spent two days volunteering on the West Highland Way in November 2023, restoring and keeping our most popular trail in good condition. It’s important to us that our colleagues are just as invested in trail preservation and maintenance as our customers – and we can say with absolute certainty that they are! Gathering a group of volunteers wasn’t a hard task – they were open and willing to graft and get their hands dirty for the sake of the environment and for a trail that means so much to the business.  

What Our People Say 

“I was intrigued by what ‘volunteering’ involved with the path associations. It’s a phrase that gets thrown around a lot and after working closely as part of the marketing team, it made sense to get out on the path to see the work in action. Chucking money can only go so far – we needed a deeper understanding of what that money can do. We can better improve our understanding of path maintenance and the struggles they go through by getting out there ourselves. By chatting to the West Highland Way team, we are now better equipped to communicate to our customers the ways we can all save the trails.” - Holly, Marketing Executive 

What Does Path Maintenance Involve? 

Our support helps with the restoration of bridges, installation of new way markers, and enhancements to drainage systems. When our volunteers went out to lend a helping hand, they lopped overgrown vegetation, cleared stairs and paths of any debris and helped trim trees that were poking onto the path. While this was partially for the walker’s comfort, it was also to make sure the official walkway was clear, and people wouldn’t start walking off the trail and disrupting the surrounding ecosystems. 

They worked on digging small drainage trenches and clearing the drainage systems to ensure that flowing water would drain away from the path and prevent footfall from walking out with the path boundary. 

Continuing Partnerships 

 
We’re continuing our partnerships with the West Highland Way and South West Coast Path associations and hope to increase our donations by sending even more adventurers along these trails. And throughout 2024 we’ll have more volunteering days with the aim of getting 30% of our staff to sign up. That should be a walk in the park – so to speak! 

Taking Steps Towards Sustainability 

We strive to leave as small a footprint as possible where we tread. These path restoration partnerships are just a small step in the right direction along our journey towards building and evolving a more sustainable business and future here at Macs Adventure. 

For more information on the path restoration work we’re contributing towards here at Macs Adventure, head to our West Highland Way and South West Coast Path restoration page. And to learn more about how we’re working towards being a more sustainable business, check out our sustainable travel journey hub and carbon counting page.