Our Story

For 80 years, Ramble Worldwide has believed the world is best discovered on foot. Founded in 1946 as the holiday arm of the Ramblers’ Association, it began with a simple but powerful idea: to open up landscapes, mountains and coastlines to those who longed to explore them under their own steam. What started as pioneering post-war rambles from a small London office has grown into a global programme of guided walking holidays. You can discover the company's extraordinary story below:

Ramble Worldwide began life as the Ramblers Association Services, on 28 March 1946. The company, based at 20 Buckingham Street just off the Strand in London, was intended to be the commercial wing of the Ramblers Association (now ‘The Ramblers’) to sell books, provide office services, establish guest houses and to organise walking holidays at home and abroad.

These were the days when rambling was at the sharp end of travel and adventure, many years before guidebooks, travelogues or websites could tell you what was around every corner before you turned it. 600 clients travelled on 40 holiday departures in the first season and by December the company’s tour operations were in profit.

The following year, the first programme of winter sports was introduced.  In 1949, the brochure description for a 22 day holiday to Portugal began ‘Be warned! The travelling on this trip may be tough. Third class London to Lisbon overland takes four days … (average progress 15 miles an hour) and requires at least eleven changes. Incredibly slow and unconscionably late, the Spanish trains offer something new in overcrowding and discomfort even to London straphangers. You should be capable of entering trains by the window and of fending for yourself if the party splits up for the journey across Spain. Portugal is the most foreign country in Europe except for the remoter parts of the Balkans.’ The same brochure observed that ‘we do not seek British standards except in sanitary matters; much of the fun of going abroad is lost if you try to take Britain with you.’

In 1955 the company set up an air holiday subsidiary, Wings’, created to take advantage of the new availability of aircraft for charter. The company offered package holidays to a wider, non-walking holiday public, who would have complete independence on arrival in the resort. Early flights were on twin-propeller Vickers Viking aircraft that carried just 87 passengers, flying from either London Airport (before it became what is now London Heathrow) or the now largely forgotten Blackbushe Airport (near Camberley). The easier walking grades and sightseeing tours migrated to this new product.

The Ramblers Association Services and Wings moved to a new block at 124 Finchley Road in 1963, where, over the next nine years they would expand to use all six floors. In 1967 the Ramblers Association obtained charitable status. In the early 1970s, Ramblers Association Services and the Ramblers Association separated to become two distinct organisations. Wings bought and moved to Wings House in Welwyn Garden City in 1972. The Ramblers Association Services walking holiday company, which had become a subsidiary of Wings, was renamed Ramblers Holidays Limited in 1974 and traded as Ramblers Holidays.

During the early 1990s, new product was devised and launched. In 1999, the company’s first website, ramblersholidays.co.uk, was launched. By the start of the new millennium the company was licensed to carry 17,320 passengers

 In 2004 the Countrywide Holidays brand was bought from CHA. A year later in December 2005, Ramblers Holidays Ltd moved into newly converted offices at Lemsford Mill; a team from Germany was brought over to re-install the water wheel to generate electricity for the building.

In 2006, Cruise & Walk holidays were launched in partnership with Fred.Olsen Cruise Lines, with just two departures.

The next year, in 2007, Ramblers Holidays rebranded as Ramblers Worldwide Holidays.

Further expansion saw the self-guided walking holidays brand Load Off Your Back bought in 2011 and the Adagio holiday brand launched in 2012 with its own brochure and website. To simplify the offering, the Ramblers Countrywide brand and UK holidays were merged into the main Ramblers Worldwide brand, brochure and website in 2016. Later that year Ramblers Worldwide Holidays rebranded as two separate products, Ramblers Walking Holidays and Chapters Experience Holidays.

The company bought Hassness House in 2016 and two years later expanded and renovated the property.

During this period The Ramblers unilaterally terminated 65 continuous years of partnership in August 2011. The Walking Partnership initiative was launched afterwards to secure the company’s ability to maintain contact with, and directly channel funds into, grassroots walking groups in the UK.

The Covid-19 pandemic led to a global travel shutdown. In 2022 UK and overseas travel resumed following almost two years of restrictions. After a period of review and consultation, the company made the strategic decision to rebrand Ramblers Walking Holidays and Adagio in November 2023 under the single trading name Ramble Worldwide. At this time, four holiday Collections were introduced within the new Ramble Worldwide brand: Classic, Discover, Adagio and Self-Guided.

The new name represented a world of new opportunities as the business took the next step into adventure, while remaining true to its core charitable ethos, with walking at its heart.