Your Personalised Private Battlefield Tour

A trip to the battlefields of the First or Second World War is an incredibly special time and can be a profoundly moving experience.

Sophie’s personalised tours are completely tailor-made for you. Your battlefield experience will reflect your interests, be they following in the footsteps of a relative or regiment. We travel at your pace and we explore the destinations you really want to get to know.

Would you like to include additional experiences to your battlefield tour? Why not enjoy the produce of the Loire or Champagne, take a classic car tour through Provence, or finish up relaxing on a yacht in the south of France? Every element of your tour is customisable so contact Sophie today to discuss your very own battlefield tour experience.

How does it work?

Let us know:

• Which destinations you are keen to explore?

• How many days would you like to be away?

• How many people would like to come with you?

• Would you also like to include other visits to non-military sites across Europe?

• Once we know what type of tour you are looking for, the team at Sophie’s Great War Tours will put together the perfect itinerary for you.

Ancestry Tours

Do you have a relative who served in the military? Have you ever wanted to follow in their footsteps and truly understand what they experienced?

At Sophie’s Great War Tours, we create deeply personal journeys that allow you to walk the ground your relative once walked from the villages where they trained and rested, to the front lines where they fought.

Example Battlefield Tour: Private Powell, Royal Warwickshire Regiment, WW1

When we receive information about a soldier by his surviving relatives, our team of top researchers use a range of sources to piece together the story from his signing up to coming home, or sadly in many cases, being killed in action.

One of the men we have traced is James Powell from Birmingham.  His Granddaughter had grown up listening to his war stories but they were incomplete, confused and often rather graphic. She wanted to know more and so she got in touch, sending some of his service details and a photograph of him marching down a road in France in April 1918. It was her big wish to find the exact spot where the photograph was taken.  

Through careful research we were able to do just this. It materialised that James had fought a rear-guard action in the German Spring Offensive of 1918 and had found himself in a number of the Western Front’s toughest spots.   

With precise research in hand, we put together the battlefield tour for James’s Granddaughter and we arrived at the exact spot where James had his photograph snapped. We know that this was a hugely special moment for her, and it was a privilege for SGWT to be a part of it and to help bring it to life for her.

Not Just a Tour - An Experience

Why Choose Sophie’s Great War Tours for a Private Battlefield Tour?

There are lots of great guides to choose from and other businesses offering tours too, so why choose to explore history with Sophie’s Great War Tours?

The service we offer is unlike most on the battlefield tours market. Once you have decided what type of experience you are looking for, you don’t have to do a thing. As a regulated tour operator, all of the organisation can be done by us, from collecting you from a convenient meeting point, to arranging the accommodation that you would like to enjoy. We take care of absolutely every aspect of your special private tour.

We go to great lengths to make sure your trip is personalised to reflect your own interests and any family connection you may have. Every element of your tour is truly customisable.

When you are away with Sophie’s Great War Tours you become part of our extended family. Our first priority is always to ensure you have the best possible experience exploring the battlefields: we like to think that our relaxed and sociable approach to sharing history together helps make that happen.

Our Guiding Ethos

The history of the Great War and the Second World War is vast and can be all-consuming.  Sophie’s Great War Tours experts share history in an immersive way so that you can build up an extensive knowledge through the stories that are shared and the fascinating facts that you learn.

Our fabulous guides will be able to share deep knowledge on aspects of wartime life, be that from medical services, what soldiers got up to in their ‘leisure time’, right through to the experience of those left behind at home.

This is a photograph of Sophie’s Great-Grandfather Ernest and her Great-Grand Uncle Denis Shrubsole. Both men thankfully survived the war, serving in the Army Service Corps as mechanics.

How Else We Can Help

As a regulated travel agent, we can arrange every aspect of your travel plans, irrespective of the destination. Contact us to take the hassle out of planning and booking and to access travel agent only rates to get you the best deal for your money.