Small group walking holidays for solo travellers

Spice walking holidays are hosted weeks in Italy and Spain for people travelling on their own or with a friend. You stay in one base and walk out each day with a professional guide or a walking host, and sharing a twin room costs nothing extra. Prices start at £999.

• Sorrento Peninsula and Amalfi Coast. Italy, 17 Oct 2026 – 24 Oct 2026, from £1,335. Walks led by WalkWise guides, with a harder and an easier walk each day.
• Southern Sardinia Sun and Sea. Italy, 11 Mar 2027 – 18 Mar 2027, from £1,259. Walks led by WalkWise guides, with a harder and a moderate walk each day.
• Cantabrian Walking Week. Northern Spain, 9 May 2027 – 16 May 2027, from £999. Walks led by Walking hosts Jen and Jim, who planned the routes.
• Chasing the Eclipse. Vejer de la Frontera, southern Spain, 31 Jul 2027 – 7 Aug 2027, from £2,899. Walks led by Host Rob Thompson, with a Cambridge astronomer for the week.

How hard the walking is

We do not grade walks, because one person's easy day is another's long one. What we can tell you is how each week is run.

On the two WalkWise weeks the guides offer two walks each walking day, one harder and one easier, and you choose each morning. That keeps a group of mixed pace together at breakfast and dinner. These are proper walking days on uneven ground with real ascent, so you need to be reasonably fit and have boots you have already walked in. Transport out to the walks is paid locally each walking day, and the holiday page gives the figure.

Cantabria is meant to be more easy-going. Jen and Jim have scouted every route themselves, the pace is sociable, and Jim will take anyone who wants to go faster. It is still a walking holiday, with full kit and real miles.

Solo walking holidays in Italy

The Sorrento week is in the autumn, walking the paths above the Amalfi coast, with breakfast every day, picnic lunches on the five walking days and most evening meals. The Sardinia week is in the spring on the island's south coast, with breakfast, picnic lunches on walking days, some evening meals, and water and wine at the hotel. Andrew Casey hosts both, alongside the WalkWise guides.

Walking in Spain

In Cantabria, breakfast, a light lunch and dinner are included every day, and the house has local wine, beer and spirits on a help-yourself basis. Flights go into Santander from Stansted, Edinburgh and Manchester, or you can make your own way.

Chasing the Eclipse is a different sort of week. It is in Vejer de la Frontera, inside the path of the total solar eclipse of 2027, with Dr Matthew Bothwell, the University of Cambridge Public Astronomer, on hand for the week. There is walking, but the eclipse is the reason to go.

Getting there

The Sorrento week flies into Naples, from Gatwick, Edinburgh, Birmingham or Manchester. Sardinia flies into Cagliari from Stansted. Cantabria and the eclipse week are priced with or without flights, and the from-price on all four is for making your own way; the price with flights is on each holiday.

Choosing between them

For coastal paths with a guide and a choice of two walks a day, pick Sorrento in the autumn or Sardinia in the spring. For a gentler pace, every meal included and a house bar, pick Cantabria. For a week built round one morning in the sky, pick the eclipse, and do not leave it late, because the hotel sits inside the path of totality and there is no second date.

Rooms

Sharing a twin with another walker of the same sex costs nothing on top of the price shown. The Italian weeks have offered women-only and men-only twin shares, and two friends can book a twin or a double together. A room to yourself carries a supplement set on each holiday; in Cantabria the cheapest single room has shared bathroom facilities. Single rooms and supplements lists them all.

Who comes

Almost everybody has booked on their own, and there is no upper age limit. If you are over 50 and wondering about fitness, the useful comparison is your own walking at home: tell us what you do now and we will say which week matches it. The questions people ask before a walking week are usually about pace and kit, and the host has walked the routes, so ask us what a particular day involves.