Five coasts, eleven years, and no coach
We are not an agent and we do not resell anyone. Every week on this site is designed by us, staffed by us and run out of a village where somebody on this team has lived for a season — which is why we can tell you which room has the step.
A company organised around one idea: stay put
Long Meridian was started in 2015 by two people who had spent a decade guiding the coach version of these coasts and had watched travellers spend a third of every holiday moving between hotels. We took a house in Kardamyli for a season to see whether a week could work with one base, and it worked so well we never built anything else. We now run five weeks on five coasts, all within a short flight, all in the shoulder season, all capped at ten.
What we are for
To put well-travelled people somewhere warm and unhurried, in one village, with the pace, the access and the money terms stated in plain figures before a deposit is taken. If a week is not right for you we would rather say so on the telephone than take the booking and hope.
How we order the weeks — and why there is no grade
Every operator we came from published a difficulty scale, and every scale did the same two things: it invited people over sixty to rule themselves out of something they could easily do, and it let the operator hide the specifics behind a number. We publish the specifics instead. Nights in one base. Kilometres on a typical day and on the longest one. Metres of ascent where there are any. What is underfoot. How much of the day has no shade. How many times your bag moves. Whether there is a shorter, step-free option each day, and how far the nearest emergency department is. Those nine figures are on every week and in one table on the weeks page, and between them they answer the question a grade only pretends to.
Our Values
One base, or we do not sell it
A week with three hotels in it is a tour, and there are plenty of those. Four of our five weeks never move you at all; the Cyclades week moves you once, by ferry, because the second island is the reason to go.
The long lunch is in the itinerary
Two hours at a table in the middle of the day, written into the plan rather than squeezed out of it. It is the single most common thing travellers mention afterwards, and it is the first thing every competitor cuts.
Figures instead of adjectives
No grades, no "moderate to challenging", no "gentle". Distance, surface, shade, ascent, bag moves and how far help is — published per week, measured on our own tracks, reviewed by the leader at the end of every season.
Closed in July and August
We turn away enquiries for high summer every year rather than sell a week we know is worse. Thirty-five degrees and a two-hour ferry queue is not the holiday we describe on the rest of this site.
Our Locations
Registered office
Long Meridian Viagens Lda, Rua do Século 118, 1200-435 Lisboa, Portugal. NIPC 515 402 118. Registered with Turismo de Portugal under RNAVT 8412.
desk@longmeridian.example +351 21 099 4180Greek operations
Long Meridian Hellas EE, Odos Perikleous 22, Kardamyli 240 22, Messenia, Greece. GNTO operating licence 1042E7100446801.
greece@longmeridian.example +30 27210 73418Madeira operations
Rua Dr. João Augusto Teixeira 9, 9360-215 Ponta do Sol, Madeira, Portugal. Seasonal office, open March to November.
madeira@longmeridian.example +351 291 974 260Who is with you for the week
One person is with you from the arrival transfer to the departure one. On a week where nothing much is scheduled, that person is most of what you are paying for, so here is how they are found, qualified and paid.
They live there, or they have
Every leader has spent at least three seasons on the coast they lead, and four of the five live there year-round. That is how you get told which taverna has the shaded terrace in September rather than which one is in the guidebook.
Emergency first aid, revalidated every two years
A 16-hour outdoor first aid qualification with a 24-month revalidation cycle, paid for by us and taken in work time, plus an annual heat-illness refresher which matters far more on these coasts than anything alpine.
Fluent in the language of the village
Not conversational — fluent. Every leader speaks the local language well enough to argue about a room, sort out a pharmacy at nine at night and know what the fisherman actually said about the wind tomorrow.
Salaried, not per-departure
Leaders are on a seasonal salary rather than a fee per week, so a half-empty departure is paid the same as a full one. Nobody on this payroll has a financial reason to push a group into a longer day.
They write the access notes themselves
The distance, surface, shade and step-free figures published on each week are written by the leader who runs it and reviewed at the end of every season against what actually happened, not by a marketing desk in Lisbon.
Backed by a line that is answered every day
A leader in the field can reach a duty manager on +351 91 500 4471 any day of the year, and so can your next of kin. It is a person, not an answering service.
On the part that is hard to advertise
I am seventy-one and I have been quietly written off by three operators who wanted me to self-assess against a scale. Long Meridian asked me what I walk at home and told me which two of their weeks they would put me on. I have now done all four.
Marianne Trewin
Four weeks since 2019 · Trustpilot verified
Yiannis knew the ferry was going to be cancelled a day before the ferry company did, and had already found us a boat. That is not something you can put in a brochure, but it is the entire reason I book with people who live there.
Tom Berresford
The Small Cyclades · September 2025 · Trustpilot verified
Come and meet the leaders before the season opens
Two evenings a year at Rua do Século with the leaders for the coming season, the walking maps and a lot of questions about knees. Free, no pressure to book, and streamed for anyone not in Lisbon.
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