Taking success in their stride

By Leah Williamson

February 2010

See this article as it appears in the magazine

HELEN and Paul Webster are living the dream. Passionate about the great outdoors, the couple ditched their office jobs in York four years ago, moved to Skye and set up an award-winning online guide to the Highlands for walkers.

“We couldn’t be in a better job – we’re professional holiday-makers!” Helen told Executive.

Walkhighlands.co.uk was launched in 2007 and within months was attracting 4,000 visitors a day.

The site, which recently scooped two accolades in the inaugural heraldscotland.com Digital Business Awards in the Tourism and Overall Winner categories, has guides on over 1,000 walks in the Highlands and over the next 18 months Paul and Helen hope to include walks covering the whole of Scotland.

However, it is the advances in internet technology that has really helped the business take off.

As Paul explained: “Over 80 per cent of travel booked is now done online. The most challenging thing for us has been trying to keep up with the internet.”

The site includes a blog where walkers can compare and contrast their own experience of particular routes and podcasts of Gaelic places names with pronunciations to help travellers find their bearings.

“There are so many Gaelic names for mountains and areas but many visitors didn’t know how to pronounce them,” explained Helen.

“We spoke to some native Gaelic speakers on Skye and recorded them saying the names of particular places which we uploaded to the website so people can listen to the pronunciation.”

It was an innovative idea but not without a little controversy!

“When we started putting on the podcasts we would get complaints from people in Aberdeenshire and other places telling us we’d spelled the Gaelic name incorrectly or got the pronunciation wrong. Gaelic is spoken differently in different parts of the country.”

The business has been such a success that the couple have also launched a series of pocket guides covering different areas including Skye, Aviemore and the Cairngorms and Wester Ross.

“Lots of people still like to have a book they can thumb through,” added Paul.

Between them, Paul and Helen have done most the walks and have written up their own accounts of the experience.

“We’ve done about 99 per cent of the walks ourselves – separately – and we’ve also roped in friends,” said Helen.

“We never walk together, there just wouldn’t be enough time to do all of them. But Paul always finishes his walk before me even if I have a shorter route or I start first.”

It has been a lot of hard work to get the business going but all the effort has been worth it.

“We still feel motivated everyday. In our jobs before we just drifted along every day, living for the weekend.

“Now, we set our own goals and deadlines and that keeps us focused and motivated.

“We wouldn’t want to do any other job.”

Originally from Devon, Helen studied History and Politics at university and worked for the Local Government Ombudsman dealing with complaints about councils across the north of England

“The sad, mad and the bad,” she admitted. “I did it for 10 years but it got to me in the end. I just couldn’t do it any more.”

Paul hails from Grimsby. He studied Maths and Statistics at St Andrews and after graduating worked for an insurance company in York.

It was in York that the couple met while attending the same walking club.

The pair shared the same mindset.

Both were passionate about the outdoors and both were doing office jobs they simply didn’t enjoy.

The couple had had enough.

They decided to take a year off work and travel through Europe armed with only walking boots, a tent and rucksacks.

“We’d both been to far-flung places before but neither of us had really been to Europe. We’d never explored our own back yard,” said Paul.

It was the adventure of a lifetime and one that changed their lives forever. The journey took them to Spain, following the Pilgrim Road from France to the Pyrenees and on to Italy, Greece and Crete.

“We wanted to finish the journey in Istanbul but there had been a few terrorist attacks so we were persuaded to go to Greece and Crete instead,” said Helen.

“By having to walk everywhere you see everything – things that you wouldn’t normally see on the tourist trail. The people were so friendly and helpful, we were able to get by with the phrasebook and little language we knew.

“People were happy to stop and chat to you, some people made us lunch or would give us food and water to take away with us. Some would bring their families out to see us and let us stay in their home overnight.”

Paul explained that despite their temporary simple life they had very few negative experiences, among the worst were dodging empty bottles being tossed out of the window of passing lorries in Italy and unexpected snow falls in Crete during the winter.

“It gave us a completely different view of the people and places we visited,” added Paul.

“We were amazed that we managed to get by on very little. It was a fantastic experience.”

But before they knew it, the year was up and it was time to get back to real life.

Helen admitted that the reality check came like a hammer blow.

“I had the same paperwork on my desk that was there a year ago!

“It was nice getting back to some home comforts like a real bed and the telly, and catching up with friends but we did all that the first week we came back. We decided that was it – we couldn’t go back to the same old routine.”

The couple were keen to move to the Highlands where they could indulge their passion for the great outdoors and set up a business that would let them fulfil their dream.

“We first looked at property in the Fort William area but it was too expensive so we decided to head north. The property is cheaper the further north in the UK you go,” said Paul.

Paul had spent a summer in Skye while a student at St Andrews so the pair decided they would take the plunge and move to the island.

They found holiday chalets for sale and decided to buy them and then rent them out, supplementing their enterprise with part-time jobs.

“For outdoor activities there is nowhere better in the UK than the Highlands. But we found that when tourists from England and Europe were coming to stay they always asked about walks in the area. They all wanted prepared information on walks – where they could go and what the walk was actually like.

“A lot of guide books use particular phrases like ‘exhilarating ridge’ which doesn’t mean a lot to people other than experienced walkers! We felt there was a gap in the market for producing walking guides that have detailed descriptions of what people could expect and what they would see on their walk.”

Paul and Helen decided to give their fledgling business plan some wings and applied for start-up funding from the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts (NESTA).

Their idea involved developing a website of walking guides and maps that could be downloaded or printed off.

The guides contain detailed descriptions of the walk without the traditional terminology so novices would know exactly what to expect on their excursion, from the glorious views to the native wildlife.

The couple had to present their business plan to a Dragons’ Den style panel which came as a bit of a shock.

“We’d never done anything like this before and I suppose we were fairly naïve at the start,” said Helen.

“We thought we would just fill in a form and send it off. They were really aggressive during our first presentation so I think somebody had a word because they were much more friendly the second time around!”

Paul added that the hard work has more than paid off, allowing the couple to turn their hobby into a successful online and now guidebook business.

“It was pretty terrifying but it was a really good experience in the end. It really focused our minds on preparing a proper business plan.

“We believed in our business idea so we worked really hard to get it going. At the time you’re so focused that it is only when you look back you realise just how much effort you have put in to your business.”