October 19 — November 1, 2026 · A Founders' Expedition

Samhuinn 2026

from the wooden O to the fires on the hill

History · Mystery · Whisky · Witchery

Eleven days at the end of the season, in four movements. London, with an eye to theatre and history. A night train north into the brooding Highlands in their autumn weather, tracing the stones of humanity through the weathered glens. The woods of Perthshire in their fall blaze of colour. And Edinburgh, to stand inside the oldest night on the calendar — Samhuinn, the fires and the drumbeats on the hill above the city, kept as it has been for nearly three thousand years.

The Journey Step Into the Portal

Beneath the Postcard

The scouts go first

Every Pas Perdu journey begins the same way: someone goes first, with intention. This is that trip — a working expedition through Brittany, London, the Highlands, Perthshire, and Edinburgh, walking the ground of journeys to come. The standing stones and the whisky, the buried closes and the theatre, the castle at three lochs and the valley that keeps its own weather.

We travel it the way we build everything: history first, then the immersion. Understand a place before you stand in it, and the standing becomes something else entirely.

Days, sea to fire

Countries

~2,800

Years the fire has burned

The Journey

Five acts, north by northeast

London opens it — the wooden O, the ribboned gate of the outcast dead, the floodlit city from the back of a black cab — then the night train north into the glens. The journey’s French prologue, Saint-Malo to the Bayeux thread, keeps its own page: the Sea Gates expedition.

Act II · London

The Wooden O

A two o’clock matinee at the Globe — standing in the borough where theatre survived by being banished — then tea beside the theatre at five, watching the sun set over the Thames. Bankside, Borough Market, and a graveyard of ribbons most of London walks past.

A London black cab at night — the traditional black taxi tour

Act II · London, After Dark

The Black Taxi Tour

Just after tea, Danny — our booked Knowledge cabbie — meets us at the door for the traditional tour: the floodlit city from the back of a black cab, Tower Bridge burning over its own reflection to Boudica blazing on Westminster Bridge, ending at our own green door on the mews. The Globe gives us ‘all the world’s a stage’ at two; the cab answers with the city itself, told by a driver London certified. Then the cases, a pint at old Euston’s lodge, and the night train north.

Act III · The Highlands

The Valley That Keeps Its Weather

Three nights on Loch Linnhe between Glencoe and Ben Nevis. Low cloud, amber grasses, weather moving through every fifteen minutes — a place where doing very little still feels like witnessing something.

Clava Cairns — Bronze Age passage cairns

Act IV · Ancient Scotland

Stones Older Than the Pyramids' Grandchildren

Clava Cairns, aligned on the midwinter sun four thousand years ago, five minutes from the moor at Culloden where a whole world ended. Gray skies make it what it was. We pray for gloom.

Act III · The Western Road

The Castle at Three Lochs

Eilean Donan — bombarded to rubble in 1719, rebuilt by hand over twenty years, and the most photographed argument in Scotland for going the long way around — which we do.

Act V · Edinburgh, for Samhuinn

In the City When the Year Turns

Edinburgh, stacked on its own past — a sealed street beneath the Royal Mile, Viking-age silver on Chambers Street, dinner in a 1595 merchant’s house by the castle — and then the reason for the dates: on October 31st, the Samhuinn Fire Festival, torchlight and drums through the dark as the Summer King falls to the Winter King. The oldest night on the calendar, and we stand inside it.

Day by Day

The eleven days

Travel with intention. We deep dive into history with Narratives from Ella that accompany our travels, giving history and context to every place we go.

When there, we have the context so we can more clearly see what is there now, and what has been there before.

The details are what matter: the right place, in the right season, with the right path to the experience and everything you hope it will be. We get to the heart of the matter and dive deep… every day of the way.

The Party

Three travelers

Desta

The Scout

Founder of Pas Perdu, traveling the way the company thinks: history first, notebook always open, tarot deck packed for the fires, every find feeding the journeys to come.

Marianne

Half-Muse, Half-Maker

The travel-buddy of France, Portugal, and now Britain — the one who makes the days easier and the conversations more interesting, sea to fire and every mile between.

Pınar

The Witchy Otherworldly

Journalist, actress, student of culture — Pas Perdu's own guide from the Bosphorus, who reads your fortune in the coffee grounds, the Turkish way, traveling from half across the globe to witness this “turning of the year”.

October 31

The night the year turns

Samhain is nearly three thousand years old — the Celtic new year, the night the veil thins, the fire festival that Christianity renamed but never extinguished. Edinburgh keeps it with torchlight and drums at the Samhuinn Fire Festival, and this year we keep it too: the Galloway Hoard by daylight, the fires by dark, and dinner the night before at a 1595 merchant's house on Castlehill — steps from a small fountain raised to the hundreds who died there in less forgiving centuries.

History

Standing stones to sacked abbeys — thirty sites, each with its story told before we arrive.

Mystery

The buried street beneath the Royal Mile, the Witches' Well, the graves the resurrection men feared to touch.

Whisky

A 3 PM tasting at Blair Athol in Pitlochry — uisge beatha, the water of life, the Celts' language alive in the glass.

Witchery

Dinner on the night Samhuinn begins, at midnight, in a 1595 merchant's house on Castlehill — candlelight, a legendary cellar, and the oldest room in Edinburgh's imagination.

You can do this trip too

Samhuinn 2026 is an expedition trip for Pas Perdu, and is an example of the type of itineraries we create and how we vet a trip, creating the routes and curating the destinations, these are intense trips meant to explore, dig into the history of a place, and travel in a particular season for a particular purpose — for this trip, it was Samhuinn — and it is the field test.

Every stop on these eleven days is being vetted this fall, on the ground: what falls short is cut, what turns out to be amazing is added. Then it becomes a Pas Perdu self-guided journey — the route and its timings, the tables and the beds we chose, and every one of Ella’s stories told between the waymarks, in your hands. What you have read here is the taste. The scouts go first, so that you can travel with context, clarity & confidence.

The self-guided journeys Step into the portal