High-End Bespoke
Isle of Wight
Guided Short Breaks and Day Tours
Why choose us
At Isle of Wight Guided Tours, we believe that travel should be a personalised experience. Our commitment to providing maximum personal service lies at the heart of everything we do.
We collaborate closely with you to design a premium tour package that reflects your unique interests and desires, ensuring a journey that is not just a trip, but a cherished experience.
If your tour is with Jane, it can be conducted in English or German.
Who we are
Isle of Wight-based Jane Richter founded ‘Isle of Wight Guided Tours’ over 10 years ago and together with her dedicated small team of local experts, has been running this successful little business ever since.
“We want to thank you again for our wonderful tour.. We thoroughly enjoyed it, you are a great guide and your knowledge of the area is amazing - it was the best part of our 28-day UK trip! We'd love to share a review for others to know what a great guide you are.”
— Ken and Beth from Ocala, Florida
Many clients approach us direct
You may be wanting to extend a cruise ship experience or you may be independent world travellers, organisers of corporate reward or team building adventures, Masters of London Livery Companies or other. Whoever you are, one desire our clients all share is that we supply them with an imaginative, personalised, exclusive Island tour package with added emphasis on luxury and comfort.
Some come to us via another route
Other clients are introduced to us by travel agents, destination management companies (DMCs) and cruise ship shore excursion companies in the UK, Europe, US, Canada, Australia etc.
Some of our American clients in particular are directed to us as part of a ‘UK castle trail’, which includes Osborne House, favourite home of Queen Victoria and place of her death. Of course, Norman Carisbrooke Castle is also high on their ‘must see’ list.
The essence of what we are providing
1 – 5 day high-end bespoke cultural and historical tours, travelling in comfortable executive vehicles. Our tours are both highly informative and great fun.
We offer a complete Island experience centred around your interests and always with the addition of a large helping of local gastronomy at its best.
Come discover with us what makes our Island tick!
Introducing you to people as well as places
Often, for clients such as those mentioned, our making introductions to other Isle of Wight partners (in various fields) is very much what we do, be it in a formal or more social setting. Meeting people may be just as important to you as seeing places. Above, client Elena Oderstone (former Master of the Worshipful Company of Fuellers) thanks local Island historian Kevin Shaw and Colin Boswell and daughter Natasha Edwards (section below), owners of our Isle of Wight Garlic Farm.
For those with the luxury of a little more time
That said, there are always exceptions where people do have more time, e.g. we have hosted several researching writers of both fiction and non-fiction, experiencing Island culture first-hand at a more leisurely pace whilst writing in situ.
Our Isle of Wight partners - experts in their fields
Whatever tour you choose, we will always aim to include in it our local ‘partners’ (Isle of Wight movers and shakers) wherever possible. Your interests might be general or specific, and especially if they are the latter, we always ensure that an Island specialist in your field is conducting at least part of your tour, be it work-related or themed around a particular special interest.
Noteworthy Isle of Wight characters – past as well as present
We introduce you to numerous historical Island characters, whether they were Island-born or only here for a shorter time. Either way, they always form a strong basis for our tours. This applies to our original signature ‘Round the Island Panorama’ day tour right through to our more recently created short breaks. From Charles Darwin to Queen Victoria, William the Conqueror to Jimi Hendrix, King Charles I to Alfred Lord Tennyson, Charles Dickens to Ben Ainslie or dinosaurs to Julia Margaret Cameron*, a wealth of characters await you!
You might care to dip into this documentary that I made a few years ago about Victorian pioneer portrait photographer Julia Margaret Cameron.
Pick-up points using our Isle of Wight-based transport provider
We offer to pick up our clients in a highly competitively priced executive class minibus or car. We work with our partner and owner-driver David Draper on a regular basis and together, we pride ourselves on making a very good team.
Pick-up places can be in central London or at any of London’s airports as required. He can also do Southampton or Portsmouth city pick-ups (or Southampton airport) or from certain other places along the south coast.
Obviously, this is in addition to meeting you at any of the Isle of Wight ferry terminals on either side of the water.
We equally offer pick up from Island hotels and certain mainland hotels too.
Non-Isle of Wight-based transport providers
Where you prefer to another hired vehicle of your choosing, we will of course also work with them.
For real high-flyers- literally!
Our executive minibus or car is happy to meet you off your private plane or helicopter at either Bembridge or Sandown airport (private Isle of Wight airports). Let your Isle of Wight experience continue with us!
Equally, if you are visiting the Island by helicopter, possibly dining at ‘The Hut’ (right) - why not engage our services to help you expand your high-flying Island adventure?
Group Sizes
Our groups consist of up to 15 people* in the minibus. We tend to use it in preference to the car for groups of three people or more (for your extra comfort and at no additional expense). For one to three passengers, we normally use the car.
(*Sometimes we may be able to provide extra transport for groups of 15+)
Accommodation, restaurants etc.
Your Isle of Wight Experience naturally includes more than your tour programme and transport but also accommodation (where applicable). We would love to advise you on what we feel will suit you best, once we know a little more about you and your proposed tour. It goes without saying that we do the same with choice of restaurants etc., and we make suggestions of these on the relevant buttons on our Tours page.
Now over to you!
We now eagerly wait for you to contact us so we can craft your dream Isle of Wight package. Simply get in touch and tell us how we can help you, being sure to look at our ‘Tours’ and ‘Sample Tours‘ pages before doing so.