Eight of every ten people who write to this office name a place and mean a question. They ask about the Dolomites and describe a week the Julian Alps would answer better. They ask about Connemara and want the light and the emptiness that sit two counties north. So the catalog here holds sixteen trips and arranges them as eight pairs, and you can reserve a vacation package from sixteen worked comparisons rather than from a list that tells you nothing about what stands next to it.
Booking here has a narrow meaning and it is worth saying plainly before the figures start. The Briar Review Bookings LLC takes a booking request, checks the dates and the party against what the operating company actually has open, and arranges the reservation with that company on your behalf. No money moves through this office at any point. There is no checkout on this site, no cart, no card field, no stored card, no deposit taken here. The operating company bills you directly under its own terms, and it pays The Briar Review a commission after you have traveled. That is the entire money side of it, start to finish, and it explains why the two halves of a pair are set out flat: nothing in the way this office is paid moves with which half you take.
A list would have to put one of these first, and first gets read as better. Pairs do not have a top. Each of the eight below sets the two side by side on the same six facts, in the same order, with the same amount of space, and stops there. Where the halves differ, the difference is stated. Where they are close, that is stated too. Nobody at this office will tell you which one to take, and if you ask directly you will get the differences again in shorter form, because the person who has to live inside the week is you.
Sixteen trips, eight pairs, laid flat
Six nights across four islands, bicycles carried free on the yellow inter island ferries, luggage moved by road on the main island and by boat beyond it, riding days of 18 to 34 miles on near flat ground.
from $2,410 per person
Six nights in four places, riding twenty to forty miles a day between them on signed routes, with bags moved by road and every crossing made on a bridge.
from $2,270 per person
Six walking days between five villages on the south flank of the Sierra Nevada, with bags moved by road each morning and a fixed bed each night.
from $2,090 per person
Two bases, four nights in the Cares valley and three in the Sella side, walking on six days, with one cable car ascent and a rest day that most people spend low.
from $2,340 per person
One rented house or room on the east coast, a hire car collected on the island, six nights, no packing up in the middle.
from $2,120 per person
Ferry over from Oban, one house or inn for all six nights near the middle of the island, a hire car collected on arrival, and days planned around driving times rather than map distances.
from $2,290 per person
One house or small hotel for all seven nights, a hire car collected at the airport, and days built around walking, driving the inlets, and sitting out weather.
from $2,180 per person
Seven nights in the northwest corner
One rented house or guesthouse for all seven nights, a small hire car from Dublin or Knock, and days built around walking on headlands, strands and one or two inland hills.
from $2,260 per person
Six walking days between mountain huts on marked paths, two nights in valley hotels at either end, bags driven ahead each morning.
from $3,240 per person
Eight nights on foot across limestone
Six walking days linking mountain huts on foot, two nights in valley lodging at either end, and a road transfer that moves your main bag between valley points while you carry a day pack over the passes.
from $2,760 per person
Volcanic country west of the rhine
One guesthouse for all six nights, five walking days out and back by local bus or short transfer, luggage stays put.
from $1,880 per person
Six nights in one Harz town, breakfast daily, a six-day regional rail and bus pass, one narrow gauge return ticket, printed route notes for eight marked day walks and a stamped path book.
from $1,940 per person
Six nights on one moor where the high ground ends in the sea
Six nights in one house or inn, with walking from the door on four days and a short drive to a coast path start on the other two.
from $1,990 per person
Six nights in one rented house between the coast and the wall country, a hire car from arrival to departure, and a written day plan that leaves every day optional.
from $2,040 per person
One village base for all seven nights, a small hire car from the airport, and a market morning within forty minutes on every day of the week.
from $2,680 per person
One rented house or hotel base, a hire car for the whole week, and days built around two river valleys, the dry plateau between them, and two or three cave sites booked in advance.
from $2,210 per person
Reading the figures on this shelf
- where the number comes from
- The operating company's published per person rate for the dates in the pair, taken from its current sheet and reprinted without markup. The Briar Review adds nothing to it.
- what it is read as
- One traveler sharing a twin or double room, land arrangements only, in the season named on the pair. Solo occupancy is quoted separately and is always higher.
- what lifts it
- High season dates, a single room, an upgraded room category, private rather than shared guiding, and any extension night. Each of these is priced on the written figure, not estimated aloud.
- what is never in it
- Flights, transfers you arrange yourself, meals not named on the pair, entry fees to anything optional, gratuities, and anything at all to do with insurance, visas or passports, which this office does not handle in any form.
- what it never buys
- A place on a departure. A figure is a figure until the operating company confirms it against real inventory for your dates, and confirmation is the only thing that holds anything.
The eight, half against half
- aland or funen
- One week routes you across water on scheduled boats and the other routes you across bridges you can ride at any hour, and that single mechanical fact reorganizes everything else about the day.
- arran or mull
- Mull covers roughly three times the land area of Arran but its main roads are largely single track, so an hour of driving buys far less ground there, and that single arithmetic difference reshapes what a seven day itinerary can hold on each.
- connemara or donegal
- Connemara sits roughly two and a half hours from Dublin Airport and about ninety minutes from Shannon; Donegal town is four to four and a half hours from Dublin and there is no comparable airport nearer than Dublin or Belfast.
- dolomites or julian alps
- The Dolomites carry roughly ten times the summer walking traffic, and everything else follows from that single number.
- exmoor or northumberland
- Northumberland National Park plus the forest beside it covers roughly 580 square miles against Exmoor's 267, so one trip involves about twice the daily driving before anything else is decided.
- harz or eifel
- One range lost most of its spruce canopy in the last decade and now walks largely in open light, and the other did not, which decides the question for most people before any other fact is reached.
- luberon or quercy
- Housing is roughly 62 percent of the Luberon package and roughly 41 percent of the Quercy one, so the gap between the two figures is mostly a lodging gap rather than a difference in what the week contains.
- picos or alpujarras
- One week runs June through September and the other runs October through May, so for most people the dates they already hold decide it before any other difference is reached.
Prices across the whole shelf run $1,285 to $4,980 per person, and the spread has nothing to do with which trip is more worth doing. A week of walking between family run inns in the Eifel costs what it costs because the rooms are small and the region is quiet. A hut supported traverse in the Dolomites costs what it costs because guides and mountain huts are expensive to run. Set beside each other, the two figures describe two kinds of week, not two grades of week.
If you have read a pair and still cannot separate the halves, that is a good sign rather than a bad one, and it is usually a sign that a seventh fact matters to you which is not on the sheet. Write it down and send it. Requests are accepted through the form 24/7 and a message is opened before the working day ends; a written figure takes two to four working days, because the operating company has to answer first. To call a travel agent in Charlotte instead, the office number is (704) 362-5187.
Nothing here is ranked, and the office will not choose for you.