London calling.
London Walks connecting.
This… is London.
This is London Walks.
Streets ahead.
Story time. History time.
Top of the morning to you London Walkers. Wherever you are.
It’s bright and early Wednesday, October 1st, 2025.
This is one I’ve been looking forward to for nearly a month. Nearly a month ago now – September 7th – I was one of the walkers who was there on that auspicious day, Day One of The Ultimate London Walk. The walk – in 14 segments – all the way across London, from Hertfordshire in the north to Surrey in the South. I loved every step of the way – mostly through fields and woods – of those first two walks that got the project underway. Showed me a London – took me through a London – that was undreamt of in my wildest imaginings.
I did those two walks – and in consequence was sorry that I was about to leave on a wonderful extended holiday to the Far East. I was sorry because I wanted to do the remaining twelve segments of The Ultimate London Walk. But, sod’s law, the holiday had been booked and paid for and that was that. But the whole time I was away I was wondering how the walk was in its subsequent stages. And was hugely looking forward to getting back to London and finding out from Charlie how it had all panned out. And indeed catching – going on – the last two segments of the walk. Crossing the finish line down in Surrey. So at least I could say I was there at the beginning. And there at the end.
Anyway, I caught up with Charlie a few hours ago and got him to bring us up to date on how the walk’s gone, what’s come to pass since Houston we have lift off back on September 7th. And indeed what the future holds for The Ultimate London Walk.
Here we are, a couple of veteran London Walks guides reading the runes, chewing the fat, talking things over.
[Interview with The Ultimate London Walk Creator and Guide, Charlie Forman follows…]
You’ve been listening to This… is London, the London Walks podcast. Emanating from – – home of London Walks, London’s signature walking tour company.
London’s local, time-honoured, fiercely independent, family-owned, just-the-right-size walking tour company.
And as long as we’re at it, London’s multi-award-winning walking tour company. Indeed, London’s only award-winning walking tour company.
And here’s the secret: London Walks is essentially run as a guides’ cooperative.
That’s the key to everything.
It’s the reason we’re able to attract and keep the best guides in London. You can get schlubbers to do this for £20 a walk. But you cannot get world-class guides – let alone accomplished professionals.
It’s not rocket science: you get what you pay for.
And just as surely, you also get what you don’t pay for.
Back in 1968 when we got started we quickly came to a fork in the road. We had to answer a searching question: Do we want to make the most money? Or do we want to be the best walking tour company in the world?
You want to make the most money you go the schlubbers route. You want to be the best walking tour company in the world you do whatever you have to do to attract and keep the best guides in London – you want them guiding for you, not for somebody else.
Bears repeating: the way we’re structured – a guides’ cooperative – is the key to the whole thing.
It’s the reason for all those awards, it’s the reason people who know go with London Walks, it’s the reason we’ve got a big following, a lively, loyal, discerning following – quality attracts quality.
It’s the reason we’re able – uniquely – to front our walks with accomplished, in many cases distinguished professionals:
By way of example, , the former Editor (and subsequently CEO) of Independent Television News.
And , who had a distinguished career as a diplomat (Lisa was the Governor of St Helena, the island where Napoleon breathed his last and, some say, had his penis amputated – Napoleon didn’t feel a thing – if thing’s the mot juste – he was dead.)
Stewart and Lisa – both of them CBEs – are just a couple of our headline acts.
Or take our Ripper Walk. It’s the creation of the world’s leading expert on Jack the Ripper, Donald Rumbelow, the author of the definitive book on the subject. Britain’s most distinguished crime historian, Donald is, in the words of The Jack the Ripper A to Z, “internationally recognised as the leading authority on Jack the Ripper.” Donald’s emeritus now but he’s still the guiding light on our Ripper Walk. He curates the walk. He trains up and mentors our Ripper Walk guides. Fields any and all questions they throw at him.
The London Walks Aristocracy of Talent – its All-Star Team of Guides – includes a former London Mayor. It includes the former Chief Music Critic for the Evening Standard. It includes the Chair of the Association of Professional Tour Guides. And the former chair of the Guild of Guides.
It includes barristers, doctors, geologists, museum curators, a former London Museum archaeologist, historians, university professors (one of them a distinguished Cambridge University paleontologist); it includes a criminal defence lawyer, Royal Shakespeare Company and National Theatre actors, a bevy of MVPs, Oscar winners (people who’ve won the big one, the Guide of the Year Award)… well, you get the idea.
As that travel writer famously put it, “if this were a golf tournament, every name on the Leader Board would be a London Walks guide.”
And as we put it: London Walks Guides make the new familiar and the familiar new.
And on that agreeable note… come then, let us go forward together on some great London Walks.