"We have been on 12 Coopersmith tours in the past, starting with Venice and the Italian Lakes in 1994, through Buckinghamshire & Hertfordshire in 2023. Our upcoming tour to the Peak District will be our thirteenth, and Jane's farewell tour the fourteenth. So we've been traveling with you for 30 years, with our thanks!"
— Kathy and Greg Stern, Jefferson, Maryland

Dear Garden Enthusiast,

Welcome to COOPERSMITH'S, North America's oldest and most trusted international garden and stately-home tour company, now in our 40th year of crafting One-of-a-Kind Tours® for the discerning traveler.

Over the years, people have asked me, “What made you decide to go into the tour business?” My answer, simply put, is that travel has been in my blood for as long as I can remember. Having grown up in New Jersey, some of my fondest childhood memories were the car trips our family took to places like Niagara Falls, Smokey Mountains, and Williamsburg. While in high school, I savored week-long bicycle tours in Nova Scotia and Martha’s Vineyard.

Later, while attending the University of California, Berkeley, I hitchhiked annually between West and East coasts. Upon graduating, I set out for Europe, where I thumbed my way around the Continent for six months before settling in London. In the ensuing three years, I researched and wrote a guide book for like-minded travelers (Rule of Thumb: A Hitchhiker’s Handbook, Simon & Schuster, 1973).

Back in Berkeley, where I supported my travel habit by working for over ten years as a landscape gardener, contractor, and garden designer, I co-founded A Taste of Britain, later to be renamed COOPERSMITH'S One-of-a-Kind Tours®. My passion was, and still is, crafting unique, small-group, upscale garden and manor-house tours that I, myself, would feel comfortable being part of.

The following elements have always formed the foundation for those tours:

• World-class tour leaders, with a minimum of ten years' experience in the field

• Exceptional gardens, featuring private tours by owners and head gardeners

• Small groups: as few as six and never more than 20 participants

• Relaxed pace: on average, one visit in the morning, and one in the afternoon

• Limited time on the motorcoach, with plenty of extra seats

• In-depth focus on one or two regions of one country

• Four-to-seven-nights in atmospheric country inns and manor-house hotels

• Gourmet meals, often locally-sourced

Now, four decades later, we’re still going strong. Our tours typically fill up 12 to 18 months in advance. We have dozens of clients who travel with us on a regular basis, some up to two or even three times a year. I love what one of our clients once wrote on his feedback form: "Going on a COOPERSMITH'S tour," he said, "is like taking part in a traveling house party, focusing on beautiful homes and gardens, with Jeeves doing all the work!"

When people go on a COOPERSMITH'S tour, odds are they’ll be signing up for another one soon - sometimes even before finishing the one they’re on! Come join us this year or next and help us celebrate our forty years in the business. And see for yourself what makes our tours truly One-of-a-Kind®!

Happy travels,

"A company that specializes in small groups [where members] are often taken to private gardens rarely seen..."
— The New York Times

"My wife recently had the good fortune to meet and speak with [famous English horticulturalist] Penelope Hobhouse, who recommended your garden tour as one of the two best in Europe..."
— Collier Espy, Jr., Dothan, Alabama