The Rural Travel Guide (2026)

The Rural Travel Guide is brought to you by the team at Rural Roots Media. We work with small and indie tourism businesses to tell their stories, promote their businesses and bring our readers the very best that rural Britain has to offer. From farmers and foodies to tourists and thrill-seekers, our aim is to build the ultimate and only guide to rural Britain that visitors will need.

29/10/2026

I touched on this a little bit at the weekend and since then I’ve seen a lot of “landfill-core” posts regarding Halloween and Christmas, so as a SEND mum who is always trying to keep the peace, here’s my idea.

As we all craved a 90s summer, why not do the same for autumn/Halloween? And ok, if your childhood was anything like ours in the 90s a real 90s Halloween would be non-existent, BUT what I mean is a gentle, seasonal and not-too-commercialised Halloween.

Over the last few years, Halloween has boomed and in our house, the boys celebrate it all year round 🤣 but I do struggle to keep E regulated in the build up to it because it’s a bit like Christmas and he has AuDHD 🌻 , so he can’t cope with all the emotions that come with it.

This year I made the conscious decision to try and keep it as chilled as we can for him. That doesn’t mean not doing anything, but it does mean we’ve avoided the really big commercial pumpkin patches / Halloween events, we’ve stayed local, we’ve stayed rural and we’ve embraced the season. We’ve not overdone the decorations and those we have got, we used from previous years or made some using natural rescources. He wants to have the same costume as last year (win!) and his brother wants the hand-me-down skeleton.
Tomorrow we’re having a little party based on a Mr Men book with ghost meringues and gingerbread skulls. And on Saturday we’ll join the pumpkin trail in our village which the children all do together 💚

It’s quiet, it’s chilled, it’s low-demand. We’ve still had a few meltdowns, but it definitely feels easier this year. Maybe he’s just a little bit older… we’ll see!

Thanks to March House Farm Rutland Water and Barnsdale Gardens for the inspiration and for keeping it simple ☺️

Have you embraced a 90s Halloween? 🎃

05/10/2026

Yes, I did just read that headline back and think “WTF are you doing?” 🤣

But, honestly, it’s been such a 💩 couple of years battling the school system and with E FINALLY on the verge of getting a school space, we thought we need a little magic ✨

So we’re off to Step into a World of Adventure ✨

However, holidays with kids are not easy. Holidays with SEND kids are really not easy and holidays with an AuDHD / PDA kid, a threenager and a baby who’s not yet weaning is outright insane. Right?

So I thought I’d share it all with you guys. It’s not my usual content showcasing rural Britain - I promise that will return! But as I’ve started to build a little community of SEND parents on here, this one is for you 🥰

We found Elin Elin Maflin - Disney Specialist & Travel Agent✨️🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿🇬🇧

Elin is a travel agent who specialises in Disney holidays (especially Disneyland Paris) and has been invaluable to me as we have been counting down to our trip.

We’ve had catch up calls, WhatsApps (even at weekends) and she’s crated us a little tailored guide to take with us.

Elin Maflin - Disney Specialist & Travel Agent✨️🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿🇬🇧 even sent us some little treats to take with us!

Huge thanks to my friend Grace graceeglaves for putting us in touch ☺️

We’ve booked a hotel!

I spent ages researching (before we found Elin) and while it’s definitely more cost effective to stay off-site, we decided that for this trip we’d make life as easy as possible on ourselves and have booked a Disney hotel.

We’re 10-mins away from the parks if we need a break, we get “Magic Hour” in the morning to explore before it gets too busy and there’s a pool for regulation (although the one at our hotel is closed until our last day 😭).

Our personalised guide from Elin Maflin - Disney Specialist & Travel Agent✨️🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿🇬🇧 is full of handy tips 🥰

We don’t want any surprises!

We’re going over the Halloween 🎃 celebrations, which means things are going to be a little different and there might be characters the boys don’t know. So we did our research. 🧐

We found out what characters they might see and what rides there are and watched some of the films with the boys.

We even pre-watched the fireworks on Disney+ (I wanted to gauge whether they’d actually care as they’re not until 10pm) and have all chosen our “top 3” things we want t

26/09/2026

Dahlia-ightful!

If you’re looking to make the most of the September sun in this weekend, head to Barnsdale Gardens for their stunning dahlia festival.

The team there have very thoughtfully set up some gorgeously aesthetic spots for photos.

The gardens are family friendly and accessible 🌻 ♿️ with plenty of parking. Children visit for free 💚

24/09/2026

🚨 Trigger warning 🚨
This Hidden Food Tour might change your opinion of Melton Mowbray, forever | PR invite

Melton might be somewhere you’ve seen on an A1 exit, or skirted around on the new, aptly named, Pork Pie Way, but this new tour from promises to change your opinion of the town that is quite rightly proclaimed as the “Rural Capital of Food”.

While famously home to Melton Mowbray Pork Pies and Stilton cheese, there are many other small, indie and artisan producers in Melton… and all under one roof.

The new Tuesday Market Tour is a smaller but perfectly formed alternative to Hidden Food Tours’ Saturday market tour, which takes in more of the town. Tuesdays offer a foodie-focussed insight into , from the weekly sheep market, to the food court just metres away, serving everything from Lincolnshire sausage cobs (which is the perfect start to the tour) to Asian cuisine from the wonderful Jenny who uses ingredients grown on her allotment.

It really is a farm to fork story and each producer has their own to tell (and will happily indulge).

You’ll try pork pies from , jams from , smoked meats from , haslet, fish and more…

Some have been trading in the town for centuries and others merely months but each has their own passion for food, carefully curated by co-founders Matt Hall and Charla Forinton who have used their own experiences in hospitality and the media to craft tours that tell stories, promote artisans and celebrate the market’s 1,000 year heritage.

As Matt says: “It’s not cosplaying a Victorian street market.” It’s the real deal.

Here’s everything you need to know:
Hidden Food Tour’s Tuesday Market Tour
📍 The Stockyard, Melton Mowbray
🕰️ Tours are every Tuesday at 10am
💰 £40 per person
♿️ Most areas are accessible, with a Changing Places facility being build as part of the redevelopment (see below)
Book via

The Stockyard is currently undergoing a multi-million pound redevelopment project, which is due to be completed in 2018. Each tour is different, with foods and traders c

14/09/2026

Every time I log in at the moment there’s “AI will kill us” and “AI will take our jobs” and “AI is coming for you and your entire family”… it’s overwhelming.

So this is just a reminder that there are little pockets of the internet where we don’t use AI, we make mistakes, we own them and we grow from them because we are human.

Now, go out and crunch some leaves 🍂

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