About IFBT

Ian Fletcher Battlefield Tours was formed in late 1998 by Ian Fletcher and began touring the following year. Since then, IFBT has been granted an ATOL (Air Travel Organisers Licence) by the Civil Aviation Authority, without which it is illegal to offer air travel as part of a package. Destinations have included Belgium, France, Germany, Holland, Spain, Portugal, Italy, the Ukraine, South Africa, India and the USA, covering a wide range of battles and campaigns.

Great emphasis is placed on a high standard of hotel accommodation and on having expert guides. There is also a great emphasis placed on having fun. After all, these are themed holidays, they are not staff college rides. You will find no Colonel Blimps on our tours, desperately trying to bore guests to death with strategy and tactics. This is not to say we don't take tours seriously, but IFBT is certainly not one of the many companies that spend most of their time laying wreaths and visiting cemeteries, the sort of 'remembrance' tours that are well catered for by other companies. Indeed, the image of old soldiers in blazers and berets is an image which ian Fletcher has been trying to break ever since 1999.

This is helped to a degree by the sort of tours IFBT runs, being mainly pre-20th century. Thus, we are not usually to be found crawling around cemeteries, etc. Instead, we prefer to take people to a battlefield or related site, tell our guests what happened, etc., and paint a picture which allows guests' imaginations to see and feel the events. After all, there's nothing quite like sitting on the castle walls at Badajoz, describing the escalding of the place by Wellington's men on that dramatic night in April 1812. Nor is there anything quite like standing at the eastern end of the North valley at Balaklava, imaging Lord Cardigan coming towards you at the head of over 600 British cavalrymen. So, there we have it. IFBT tours are themed holidays, and we intend keeping it that way. Agemus agenda...

Above, left, with Lord and Lady Douro at Busaco, and (centre and right) with the Duke of Wellington at Waterloo