Helping You Choose The Trip To Match Your Ability and Motivations
There’s no one reason to take to the water. Whether you’re a budding canoeist, a capable kayaker, or keen to take your paddleboard to new and exciting places, we have a trip for you. We have decades of experience of pinpointing the right trip for the right person and have devised a selection of trips that we think fits the needs of every paddler out there.
At CAG adventures, we tend to find that there are three main reasons that people have for getting on the water: to go on a journey or an adventure, to develop their paddling skills and knowledge, or both of those things. We’ve put together this blog post to help you to pick the right trip to match your ability and your reasons for getting on the water, but of course if you’re still not sure at the end of this, feel free to contact us and we can help you further.
Journey
These people want to get out there and see the world and have chosen to use paddlesports to do that. There’s no need to get too technical with all that paddle-waggling stuff, just enough to make sure that we can cover the trip we need to and see what we want to see. And wow, is there a lot to see.
Our journeying trips are fully focused on making the most of our amazing surroundings. We run our half and full day trips in the amazing Loch Lomond and Trossachs National Park, utilising not only the fantastic Loch Lomond itself, but many of the lesser-known lochs and rivers that make up this park. We also run beaver float evenings, an opportunity for you to get up close and personal with these incredible creatures and see how they live.
Paddlesports journeys are special in the world of exploration and adventure. There’s no right way to do them, and no limit to what you can see and where you can go. We can even extend these journeys to multiple days, canoeing the Great Glen Canal - the ancient transport link that crosses Scotland and includes Loch Ness - or a four day trip following the footsteps of the Vikings as they raided their way around the fjord like loch systems of Western Scotland.
Our journey trips are graded to help you find a trip that suits you. Our green trips are family friendly, beginner oriented and take place in calm, or relatively calm waters. Blue trips are a step above this and take place in more exposed environments, leaving you more at one with the natural world. Red trips are our advanced trips, taking on challenges both on and off the water, and call for a higher level of canoeing, as well as a desire to physically push yourself.
For more information, check out our single day and multi day trips.
Learning
If you care about paddle-waggling and how to do it right, then learning days can help you become the best paddler you can be. We offer coaching at all levels, with the aim to make you both a more competent and confident paddler. If you’re after certification or a qualification, we can do that, too.
Our developmental programmes include all of the British Canoeing qualifications in the personal, leadership, safety, and coaching schemes. We also offer bespoke coaching on a 1:1, or group basis, as well as open coaching days for you to come along and work with other paddlers of a similar level to yourself.
Not totally sure what you need to work on? Don’t panic, we’ve all been there. Our coaching will help to identify your developmental needs and build you a pathway to achieving them. In the session, we will work on the building blocks of that pathway and build a programme of development to help you keep working on your progress between sessions.
Learning Journeys
These are the greedy ones, but we have to admit, they’re our favourite! Not only do these paddlers want to explore the world on the water and head out on wild adventures, but they want to spend the time in the wilderness using these places to become better paddlers along the way.
A combination of a wilderness journey and developmental aims lets us use real-world scenarios to give you the most real learning experience possible. There is nothing better than testing a skill in exactly the right place for it. Once you’re comfortable paddling against the wind, why not use those skills to get yourself to camp?
We have three levels of Developmental Journey. Each of these levels starts with some online planning workshops, to meet the other members of the team and establish group and individual motivations. From here, we can plan the expedition, picking an appropriate venue to ensure that we meet all of your aims while also experiencing everything that Scotland has to offer.
Beginner
Three days paddling in the Trossachs starting on Loch Achray and paddling the gental river Blackwater to Loch Venacher staying in campsites along the way looking at expedition skills both on and off the water.
Intermediate
Five days paddling on the Tay network covering Loch and River Tay (Scotland's longest river) wild camping but also using a couple of campsites on the way to maintain a bit of home comfort allowing us to stay in the learning zone.
Advanced
Seven days paddling the famous Rannoch Crossing, this remote wilderness journey involves some hard open water and river paddling where decision making is the key factor and we spend as much time out of boats using trad skills as we do paddling, all wild camping with minimal luxuries.
It’s Time to Pick Your Trip
Head on over to the CAG Adventures products page to see the options under each category and book today!
Still not sure what trip is right for you? Drop us an email to hello@cagadventures.com and we can help you decide!
See you on the water.
