There is a quantity in every trip that nobody prices and almost nobody names: the number of decisions that have already been taken by the time you put your bag down. It is not the same as difficulty, it is not the same as cost, and it is only loosely related to how far away the place is. Two people can fly the same distance for the same money in the same week and one of them has eleven days of choices ahead and the other has none, because the second person's choices were all made in March by a coordinator working from a spreadsheet.
This page puts the whole catalogue in that order. At the top are the trips where the confirmed part is thin: an inbound flight, a bed for the nights, and a piece of paper telling you where the bed is. Everything after that is yours to fill, including the parts that turn out to be tedious, and including the day you get it wrong and spend four hours on a bus that goes to the wrong valley. At the bottom are the trips where a person you have not met has already decided what time you eat, which of two walks you take on the third day, and which of the two hotels in the town has your name in its book.
Neither end is better and this office holds no view about which one you should want. What we can tell you is what each end actually takes from you, because the cost is real in both directions and it is not the cost people expect. The open end costs you working hours before you go and attention while you are there. The closed end costs you the ability to change your mind on a Tuesday morning when the light is good and you would rather stay where you are.
Nine nights in six village inns and one mountain lodge, two of them for three nights at a time, moved between by rental car you drive yourself, with luggage staying in the trunk and carried in by hand each evening.
Nine nights in five places: three farm guesthouses, one small hotel above a bakery in Ludza, and one room in a potter's household near Preili, moved between by a hired car you drive yourself, with luggage staying in the trunk between towns.
Nine nights in three places: four in a small inn at Miyanoura on the north coast, three in a family guesthouse at Anbo, two at Onoaida in the south, moved by rented car, with the two large bags staying in the car and a daypack carried on the trails.
Nine nights in three village bases of three nights each, all rooms with private bathrooms in family run places, moved between by a small rental car you drive yourselves, with luggage staying in the car and never transferred by anyone else.
Eight nights in four harbor guesthouses, two nights in each, private rooms with shared or private bath depending on the house; the party moves between islands on scheduled passenger ferries and walks the last stretch, carrying its own bags every time.
Nine nights: three in a colonial house in Salta city, two in a small hotel in Cafayate, two in a plain adobe inn in Cachi, two back in Salta, with a driver and a vehicle moving the party and the bags between them on gravel and paved road.
Nine nights: seven in family-run inns with shared bathing, one in a temple guest hall with a shared sleeping room, one near the airport at the end. You walk between them every day carrying a daypack, and your main bag is forwarded ahead by the domestic parcel service.
Eleven nights in six places: four small rural hotels, one converted granite farmhouse and one night in a guesthouse inside a walled town, with a driver moving the party and the bags by road while you walk or ride between them.
Nine nights: two in Skidegate, three in Port Clements or Tlell, two on Moresby near Sandspit, two back at the north end, moved by rental vehicle and one inter island ferry, with your bags going wherever you go because nothing is portered.
Nine nights: seven in family run guesthouses of four to nine rooms along the coastal route, two in a small hotel near the island's main town, moved by a booked driver and one local bus, with a bag transfer van carrying everything but a daypack between each night.
Nine nights in four places: three in a family guesthouse in the Biebrza villages, two in a wooden house near Kruszyniany, three by the forest at Bialowieza, one last night in Bialystok, with a driver moving the party and the luggage between them by road.
Nine nights in three beds across four stays: three nights at a working cattle ranch north of Mullen, two at a guest ranch on the Niobrara, two in a small hotel in Valentine, two back at the first ranch; you drive your own rental between them and your bags stay in the car.
Nine nights: four in a stone village house inland, two in a small family guesthouse near Malko Tarnovo, three in simple rooms above a beach at Sinemorets or Varvara, moved by hired car with a driver, with luggage carried in that car and never on your back.
Eight nights in four beds: three in a ranch guest house near Cassoday, two above a main street storefront in Cottonwood Falls, two in a converted stone schoolhouse west of Council Grove, one final night in Manhattan; one rented car throughout, luggage stays in the trunk between moves.
Nine nights in four places: three in a Vimperk guesthouse, two in a converted forestry lodge at Modrava, two above Cerne Lake, two in Ceske Budejovice; a driver moves the bags between the four, and you walk or take the summer forest bus.
Nine nights: four in a small hotel in Xincheng near the gorge mouth, two in a homestay in the rift valley near Yuli, three in a guesthouse on the coast south of Hualien city, moved between by hired car with a driver, and luggage travels in the car rather than on your back.
Nine nights: two in Shkoder in a small hotel, three in a guesthouse in Theth, one in a hut nearer the pass, two in a Valbona guesthouse and one back in Shkoder, moving by van, boat and on foot, with luggage carried ahead by road and packhorse while you walk with a daypack.
Nine nights in four places: three in Castro, two in Cucao near the national park, two on Isla Mechuque reached by launch, and two in Ancud, moving by private vehicle and public ferry, with luggage carried in the vehicle except on the Mechuque leg, where you take an overnight bag.
Nine nights: two in a small hotel in Targu Jiu, four in family guesthouses in the Jiu and Olt valley villages, two in a stone refuge below the ridge, one back in town; a driver moves the party and the bags, and you walk carrying a day pack.
Eight nights: four in a small hotel at Aberlour, two in a guesthouse at Grantown on Spey, two in an inn at Kingussie, with a driver moving the party and the bags between the three by road while you walk the section in between.
Eight nights in four family-run village hotels, two nights in each, walking between three of them on marked paths and moving by road once; a van shifts the main bags between hotels on walking days, so you carry a daypack.
Eight nights, all of them in the same family run guesthouse in Zabljak with private bathrooms and no elevator; a car and driver moves the party to each trailhead in the morning and collects it in the afternoon, so luggage is unpacked once and stays there.
Eight nights, seven in one timber guesthouse near the Riisa side of the park and one in Parnu before the flight home, with a driver moving the party and all luggage in a single van transfer at each end and nothing carried between beds.
Nine nights split between two family-run guesthouses, five in a Glenariff village and four near Cushendall, with a local driver moving suitcases between them on the changeover morning and returning walkers from the far end of each day's route.
Ordered by per cent decided in advance. This is an ordering by one measurable fact and not a ranking by quality: no trip here is better than another and this office will not say that one is.
What is meant by settled, and by whom
A decision counts as settled here if changing it after you arrive would cost you money or would not be possible at all. A confirmed room in a village with one guesthouse is settled. A confirmed room in a city with two hundred is barely settled at all, because you could walk out and be somewhere else by evening at the price of one night. The measure is about how tightly the arrangement holds you, not about how many lines are printed on the confirmation.
Three people usually do the deciding, and it is worth knowing which one it is on any given trip. Sometimes it is the operating company, working to the timetable of a vehicle it owns or has hired. Sometimes it is the place, which has four beds and a boat that runs on Thursdays and therefore decides for everyone. And sometimes it is you, months earlier, at a keyboard, in which case the trip is heavily arranged and you may not feel it as arrangement at all because the arranger was yourself.
- almost nothing fixed
- flight and bed only, no ground transport, no meals, no set days, and roughly six to ten hours of your own planning before departure
- one anchor
- one activity or crossing is booked to a date and the rest of the days build around it, so about one day in five is spoken for
- half settled
- lodging and internal transport confirmed throughout, food and daytime hours left open, one or two days with a fixed start time
- most days shaped
- a stated route with a place to be each night, guided hours on most days, two to three free afternoons across the trip
- hour by hour
- a printed sequence from arrival to departure, meals included, group moving together, changes possible only by leaving the group
- fixed by the place, not the plan
- the arrangement is light on paper but the location has one road out and two departures a week, so the timetable does the arranging
Where the printed sequence stops telling the truth
Here is the case where this number is exactly correct and no use to you at all. A trip is listed near the open end: nothing booked but the bed. Then you read the practical detail and find that the settlement in question is eighty miles up a single road, the shuttle runs twice a day at seven and at four, and the two places you might eat close at eight. Your freedom on that trip is real but it is the size of a postage stamp. Someone on a heavily arranged trip in a large city, with three fixed hours a day, has more genuine latitude than you do, because the hours that are free are surrounded by a place that can absorb them.
The reverse trap is quieter and catches more people. A trip is dense with arrangement, and the reader assumes dense means rushed. Often it means the opposite: the arranging exists because the distances are long and the connections are few, and the reason someone fixed the whole sequence is that an unfixed version would have you sitting in transit halls. The number on this page cannot tell those two apart. Read the day pattern under each trip before you conclude that a low number means air and a high number means a whistle.
Four other ways the same twenty-four sit down
This is one of five orderings and the same twenty-four trips appear in every one of them. Put them in order of beds slept in and you learn how many mornings go on closing a bag. By hours in the air, and you learn what it does to the first and last day. By miles walked, and you learn what it asks of your knees. By starting figure, and you learn what it asks of your account. Each order is built on a fact we can count, and each one hides the other four while it is on the screen.
Choosing an order is choosing which question you are actually asking, and that is a decision about your own life rather than about the trips. Somebody with a fortnight and a bad ankle is asking a different question from somebody with four days and a fixed budget, and no amount of knowledge about the catalogue tells us which of them you are. So this office will not pick an order for you, will not mark one of the twenty-four as the one to take, and grades nothing and publishes no opinions about any of them. What we will do is answer a direct question about how a particular trip runs, in writing, with figures attached to your dates.
Reserve against a level of arrangement rather than a trip name
If you already know which end of this scale you belong at, say so in the box and skip naming a trip. Tell us that you want three fixed hours a day and the rest empty, or that you want the whole thing decided and a sheet in your hand, and we will come back with the two or three in the catalogue that match, priced against the dates you give. The request form runs at every hour and never closes, anything that arrives is seen by a person here before the day's work finishes, and a written figure against particular dates waits on two operating firms and lands in two to four working days.
Amber Almanac places the reservation with the company that runs the trip. No card number is taken here and no payment is taken here, and the operating company pays us a commission after you are home. We do not sell or advise on entry documents or travel insurance, and questions about either belong with the people licensed to answer them.