Your dream trip, our expertise
About Us
Our Concept
A Bespoke Solution for You - We do not provide standard off the shelf packages for our customers. Every solution we put together is based on our consultations with you, and then providing a tailor-made package based on your personal requirements. This is how we differentiate ourselves from the golf holiday market. In fact golf is not our primary concern. Instead we offer bespoke trips for you to our exciting destinations, selected specifically because they offer much more than just golf, but also feature excellent and varied courses for you to enjoy as part of your holiday experience. Our individual solutions include carefully selected hotels, course bookings, recommended restaurants and places to visit, car rentals etc. In fact anything you want that we can help with.
Importantly we do not charge a premium for this service. The cost to you, is no more than you would pay for booking every element directly with each provider, but without having to do all the time-consuming research yourself, and of course with our personal added knowledge. We can do this because our business model is based entirely on commissions, so we do not need to add any margin to our costs. It is usual for commission based businesses to recommend the services that provide them with the best returns however, this would be against our principles. Every supplier we work with has only been selected because they provide what we believe our customers are looking for and regardless of the level of commissions on offer, our recommendations will always be based on what best fits our customers requirements. I addition, we visit each and every supplier and only recommend services that we have personally experienced and approved.
Our Destinations - We believe that every destination we offer should have a reason to visit other than just golf. Sure, each location should obviously have plenty of stunning courses to play should you wish, and they do, but these should compliment the reason to visit. Every destination we choose has amazing scenery and stunning landscapes to explore, beautiful relaxing places to stay and activities to enjoy. Whether that's hiking in the nearby mountains, quad biking in the desert or simply exploring the local culture or relaxing on the beach, we aim to include much more than just a hotel and accompanying golf. We also appreciate that as our clients are adults and may choose to get away at any time of the year, that we must offer a collection of destinations that permit this. For this reason we have a varied geographical split that considers the local climate, so there is always somewhere that suits year-round.
Our Hotels - Each and every hotel we offer has first to meet our strict criteria. They must be boutique in character or certainly small enough to feel special. You will not find us list any large-scale purpose build resorts. They must have a certain level of character and style whether that be a classical former palace or an outstanding architect designed contemporary oasis, but they must feel more than just a hotel. Most of our properties have additional facilities such as a spa or other recreational facilities in order to relax and usually an excellent pool. We like our hotels to have a good standard on-site restaurant for those evenings when you may not wish to venture out or as a minimum, plenty of top quality local restaurants. Location is important to us, as we are ultimately a holiday provider based around golf, so every hotel is relatively near to the courses we have recommended whilst not focusing entirely on this aspect as we know our customers have additional requirements. As our customers are couples or small groups of friends, whilst not every property is adult only, we tend to steer clear of family focused hotels. Obviously as such quality and level of amenities come with a reflective cost, we also mostly avoid the ultra expensive 5 star establishments, where you are unlikely to want to leave, but can accommodate if required. Ultimately, we recommend hotels that our customer desire and deserve.
Whilst we feature a varied collection of hotels that we feel represent our brand and meet our customers requirements for quality, style and variety, we are a bespoke operator, so where a customer requests a specific hotel or an unfeatured neighbourhood, we are flexible enough to help and incorporate where we can. We have many connections beyond those listed.
Our Golf Courses - Like our hotel selections, we have similar criteria for courses that wish to be recommended by us. Not only do they have to be representative of the destination, but of the highest quality, located in an exciting natural environment and have the facilities to match. Most importantly, each course must have been played or at least visited by us in order that we can give a personal assessment and recommendation. If you are going to spend a few days of your well-earned holiday on the golf course, it needs to be enjoyable and memorable.
Our Services - Putting together a holiday can be a time-consuming and stressful task for even the most experienced couple, adding some friends into the mix and the whole task becomes a challenge of how to ensure everyone comes home happy. You only have to put in Google a simple question of recommendation in order to receive a minefield of information, mostly sponsored, mainly irrelevant and even if the answer to your question is in there, it's very hard to find. That's why we offer to put all of your requirements together on your behalf using our local knowledge and our extensive experience.
We don't include flights due to their nature of constantly moving prices, flight changes and relentless requirements for information, however we do offer advice on the best flight options from your chosen departure airport to your onward destination etc.
We do offer the following:
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Help chosing your destination based on your personal requirements and preferred travel dates
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A personalised guide of things to do in your chosen destination
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Hotel and golf bookings, including associated services
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Recommendations of suitable restaurants, theatre shows etc. and help with reservations
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Any car hire of golf equipment hire requirements
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Anything else that you require that we can help with
How we Operate - Once you have had a look at our website, seen what we are about, who we are and how we operate, the steps are as follows:
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Go to our Contact us page or click below and fill out a brief questionnaire about your interest and your desired contact options.
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We will arrange your preferred telephone or video call to further discuss your requirements in more detail.
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Based on those requirements we will put together an initial proposal with our recommendations.
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Upon further consultation and adjusting the finer details to match your preferences, we will produce a final plan for your approval and a payment link for the required deposit.
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After receipt of your confirmation and deposit, you will receive a confirmation from us and also from the hotel(s) and our other business partners included in the plan.
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You can then either correspond direct with our business partners who have contacted you or reach out to us with any further questions or issues.
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Throughout your trip, we will be available and happy to assist further, should you require us.
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All balancing payments, will be made direct to the hotel(s)/other providers in their local currency.
Please note that for your added security, we will forward your entire deposit to the relevant providers who will issue an immediate confirmation to you. We do not retain any funds and receive all our commissions at a later date, once your trip is complete.
Our Founders
Valentina - The artistic presence and inspiration behind the business, with a great eye for detail. Valentina has spent 20 years in hospitality and customer service and more recently as a professional photographer. She has a passion for the arts and design. She is relatively new to the game of golf, but has a fantastic swing and a competitive nature. She loves to travel to exciting destinations, exploring the local culture and really indulging in the destination and where possible, with clubs in tow.
Ian - Provides business knowledge. As a former Finance Director, spending 3 decades in the role for many large businesses including hospitality, Ian has the financial and managerial experience to help grow our business into something special. He has also been a golfer for just as long, though not a particularly great one, having once got down to a 15 handicap but it's now going up a bit! Despite seeing much of the world, he still has a passion for travel and finding new and interesting places.
As a married couple we have travelled extensively and played golf in 22 countries to date between us. A typical holiday for us would be to travel to somewhere new, find a fantastic boutique hotel or to travel around an area staying in a number of such properties. We always like to explore the landscape and culture and to indulge in the local cuisine. Where possible we like to bring our clubs along and play a few courses, but this is never the sole purpose of our visit. For us, it's really about a thorough indulgence in the destination and creating memories for life. We love to spend hours researching a destination and finding the hidden gems, but not everyone has the time or inclination for this. This along with discovering that many other couples and small groups of friends enjoy the same type of holiday led us to founding Golfing Together. We hope that we can also help you to enjoy such exciting holidays, without all the hard work.