Wild Yorkshire Dales Private Tour from York | Highwayman Tours
Introducing Wild Yorkshire Dales: Our New Private Tour from York
We already take guests into the Yorkshire Dales.
So why have we created another Yorkshire Dales tour?
Because the Dales are huge.
Our existing Yorkshire Dales tour explores places including Bolton Abbey, Grassington, Linton Falls and Brimham Rocks.
Wild Yorkshire Dales goes somewhere different.
Further west.
Deeper into Wensleydale.
Into a landscape of waterfalls, castles, high hills, stone villages and one of the most recognisable railway structures in Britain.
This is our new nine-hour private tour from York:
York → Bolton Castle → Aysgarth Falls → Hawes → Ribblehead Viaduct → York.
It is a big Yorkshire day, but deliberately not an overcrowded one.
Four main destinations.
One private vehicle.
Your own group of up to four guests.
And a local driver-guide taking care of the route from beginning to end.
A private Yorkshire Dales tour from York
Highwayman Tours specialises in private driven tours from York.
That means Wild Yorkshire Dales is not a coach excursion and you are not joining a group of strangers.
The vehicle is for your booking.
We collect you in York, take you into the Dales and bring you back again at the end of the day.
For visitors staying in York without a car, that makes some of the more remote parts of the Yorkshire Dales much easier to reach.
You do not need to hire a car.
You do not need to work out several rural bus connections.
You do not need to spend the day concentrating on unfamiliar roads.
You can simply enjoy the journey.
And on Wild Yorkshire Dales, the journey matters just as much as the stops.
Why we created Wild Yorkshire Dales
There is no single Yorkshire Dales experience.
The national park covers an enormous area and different valleys have very different characters.
A day around Bolton Abbey and Grassington feels different from a journey through Wensleydale towards Hawes and Ribblehead.
We wanted to offer both.
Wild Yorkshire Dales was designed for guests who look at pictures of the Dales and imagine broad valleys, waterfalls, remote stone buildings, high ground and huge open landscapes.
It also gives us the chance to reach places that can be difficult to combine in one day from York without your own transport.
Bolton Castle.
Aysgarth Falls.
Hawes.
Ribblehead Viaduct.
Together they create a route through a very different side of Yorkshire.
Bolton Castle from York
Our first major stop is Bolton Castle.
Sitting above Wensleydale, the castle has dominated the surrounding landscape for more than six centuries.
It is one of the best-preserved medieval castles in the north of England and is particularly associated with Mary, Queen of Scots, who was held there in the 16th century.
But you do not need to be a medieval history enthusiast to appreciate Bolton Castle.
Its location is spectacular.
The views across Wensleydale immediately give the day a sense of scale.
This is also where the route begins to feel very different from York.
The city streets are behind us.
Ahead are valleys, stone walls, villages and the open countryside of the Yorkshire Dales.
From Bolton Castle to Aysgarth Falls
One reason Bolton Castle works so well on this itinerary is its proximity to our next stop.
Aysgarth Falls lies only a short journey further along Wensleydale.
That allows us to spend our time experiencing places rather than constantly doubling back across the national park.
Aysgarth Falls is one of the best-known natural attractions in the Yorkshire Dales.
The River Ure drops over a series of limestone ledges, creating Upper, Middle and Lower Falls.
Their appearance can change dramatically depending on the weather and recent rainfall.
Some days the water is relatively calm.
After heavy Yorkshire rain, the falls can become something completely different.
Visiting Aysgarth Falls from York
Aysgarth is entirely possible to visit from York.
The difficulty comes when you want to combine it with somewhere else.
Aysgarth Falls, Hawes, Bolton Castle and Ribblehead are spread across a rural part of North Yorkshire where public transport does not work like a city network.
That can mean planning your whole day around a handful of connections.
A private driven tour removes that problem.
We take care of getting from one place to another.
You get out and explore.
Then we continue.
For guests visiting Yorkshire from overseas, or anyone who simply does not fancy driving rural roads for nine hours, that can completely change the experience.
Deeper into Wensleydale
After Aysgarth, we continue west.
This stretch is one of my favourite parts of the day.
There is no single attraction to point at.
Instead, the attraction is Wensleydale itself.
Stone walls divide the fields.
Villages appear between long stretches of countryside.
The valley narrows and widens.
The hills begin to rise around us.
This is where having somebody else driving becomes particularly valuable.
You can actually look out of the window.
A road journey through the Yorkshire Dales should not feel like dead time between attractions.
On this tour, it is part of what you have come to see.
Hawes and Upper Wensleydale
Our next main stop is Hawes.
Hawes sits in Upper Wensleydale and is one of the best-known small market towns in the Yorkshire Dales.
For many visitors, its name immediately brings Wensleydale cheese to mind.
But Hawes is also an excellent place to stop simply because of where it is.
By this stage of the day, we are deep into the Dales.
Stone buildings, surrounding hills and the atmosphere of the town give you a very different Yorkshire experience from the one we started with in York.
There is time to have a wander, take a break and find something to eat before we continue towards the most dramatic destination of the day.
Ribblehead Viaduct from York
Then comes Ribblehead.
Ribblehead Viaduct is one of those places that almost everybody has seen in photographs.
Twenty-four huge stone arches carry the Settle to Carlisle railway across the landscape beneath the Yorkshire Three Peaks.
But photographs do not really explain the scale of it.
Standing near the viaduct, surrounded by open countryside, is a completely different experience.
And this is exactly why Ribblehead works on Wild Yorkshire Dales.
I would not recommend travelling all the way from York simply to take one photograph of the viaduct and immediately drive home.
It is too far for that.
But when Ribblehead becomes the final destination of a journey through Bolton Castle, Aysgarth Falls, Hawes and Wensleydale, the distance suddenly makes sense.
You have not travelled to see one structure.
You have travelled across the Yorkshire Dales.
Ribblehead is simply the spectacular final chapter.
Is Ribblehead Viaduct worth visiting?
Yes.
But the setting is as important as the viaduct.
Ribblehead sits beneath some of the highest ground in Yorkshire, surrounded by the landscape of the Yorkshire Three Peaks.
Whernside rises nearby, with Ingleborough also dominating the wider area.
There are very few places on our tours where you get quite the same sense of space.
The weather can change the atmosphere completely too.
Blue skies give you enormous views.
Cloud and mist make Ribblehead feel remote and dramatic.
That unpredictability is part of visiting the high Dales.
Why we only visit four main places
It would be very easy to add another six place names to this itinerary.
We could make the list look incredibly impressive.
But it would make the tour worse.
Yorkshire is bigger than people sometimes realise.
Travel times matter.
Rural roads take time.
And somewhere like Aysgarth Falls deserves more than five minutes before somebody starts shouting that it is time to get back into the vehicle.
Wild Yorkshire Dales deliberately focuses on four main destinations:
Bolton Castle.
Aysgarth Falls.
Hawes.
Ribblehead Viaduct.
There are landscapes, villages and views throughout the route, but we do not pretend that stopping at twenty different places creates a better day.
We would rather give you time to experience the Yorkshire Dales properly.
Yorkshire Dales without a car
One of the main reasons Highwayman Tours exists is because many people arrive in York and quickly discover how much of Yorkshire lies beyond the city.
York has excellent rail connections.
But some of the best places in rural Yorkshire do not.
Perhaps you are visiting from the United States, Canada or Australia and do not want to drive on the other side of the road.
Perhaps you live in Britain but do not want the hassle of hiring a car for one day.
Perhaps you simply want to enjoy the scenery rather than stare at a sat-nav.
Wild Yorkshire Dales is designed for exactly that.
We collect you in York.
We take care of the route.
We bring you back.
A local driver-guide rather than simply a driver
There is also an important difference between hiring transport and taking a private tour.
Highwayman Tours is not simply moving you between four pins on Google Maps.
Part of my job is helping the day make sense.
That means giving you the history and stories behind the places we visit.
It also means understanding the roads, realistic travel times and what happens when Yorkshire weather decides not to cooperate.
Private touring gives us more freedom to respond to the day.
If somewhere is particularly enjoyable, we may be able to spend a little longer there.
If conditions mean another stop is better kept shorter, we can adapt.
There is still a route to follow and we still have to get you back to York, but the day does not need to feel like a coach timetable.
Wild Yorkshire Dales or our classic Yorkshire Dales tour?
This is probably the most obvious question.
Which Yorkshire Dales tour should you choose?
Our original Yorkshire Dales tour explores Bolton Abbey, Grassington, Linton Falls and Brimham Rocks.
It is a brilliant introduction to the Dales and takes in some of its best-known eastern landscapes and villages.
Wild Yorkshire Dales is different.
It travels further.
It goes deeper into Wensleydale.
And it finishes amid the much bigger landscape around Ribblehead.
If you want Bolton Abbey and Grassington, choose our classic Yorkshire Dales tour.
If Aysgarth Falls, Hawes, Bolton Castle and Ribblehead Viaduct are the places calling you to Yorkshire, choose Wild Yorkshire Dales.
They are not two versions of the same day.
They are two different ways of seeing the Dales.
Who is Wild Yorkshire Dales for?
Wild Yorkshire Dales is particularly suited to visitors who want to see more remote parts of the national park from York.
It is ideal if Aysgarth Falls or Ribblehead Viaduct are high on your Yorkshire wish list.
It is also a strong choice if you want to explore Wensleydale, visit Hawes or experience a medieval Yorkshire castle alongside the landscapes.
And because the tour is private for up to four guests, you get to experience it with your own group rather than a coach full of strangers.
Our Wild Yorkshire Dales route
The complete route is:
York → Bolton Castle → Aysgarth Falls → Hawes → Ribblehead Viaduct → York.
The tour lasts around nine hours.
It is a full day.
There is a significant amount of driving because Ribblehead really is deep into the Yorkshire Dales from York.
We think it is important to be upfront about that.
But the driving is also taking you through some of the best countryside in Yorkshire.
This is not nine hours of motorway travel punctuated by attractions.
The changing Yorkshire landscape is part of the experience.
Come and see the wilder Yorkshire Dales
Highwayman Tours is based around a simple idea.
You should be able to stay in York and properly explore Yorkshire without needing to hire a car or join a large coach tour.
Wild Yorkshire Dales takes that idea further west than our other Dales itinerary.
Bolton Castle gives us centuries of history.
Aysgarth gives us waterfalls and woodland.
Hawes takes us into the heart of Upper Wensleydale.
And Ribblehead gives us one of the great landscapes of northern England.
Four very different places.
One journey through the Yorkshire Dales.
And your own private tour from York.