About Visit Cumbria
Visit Cumbria is a very unique and unusual website, it is the only independent ‘Visit’ website in the UK of genuine significance and serious ranking both nationally and internationally. We have been online since 1998 and, as such, are one of the original and longest established online regional guides in the world. Over 11.5 million visitors access Visit Cumbria every year.
The site contains well over 1,500 pages of original content, all of which have been personally researched and written by Visit Cumbria management, staff and contributors, and over 5,000 original photographs and maps. We are continually updating and adding new pages and the site will continue to grow.
All of Visit Cumbria’s management and staff are Cumbrian residents and we search out the very best local Cumbrian talent when we outsource any design or technical work. This enables us to create information pages based on intimate and comprehensive understanding of the region.
People
Founder – Julian Thurgood.
In the early days of the internet (mid 1990s),when virtually nothing about Cumbria was available, computer programmer Julian Thurgood created the basics of what eventually became Visit Cumbria.
It was developed over a number of years, with the aid of many contributors, as a purely philanthropic interest site.
Editor and Managing Director – Vanessa Morrison
Vanessa grew up in a house on the shores of Derwentwater: selling orange juice to walkers from her gate by the age of 8, she graduated to full time holiday jobs in tourism by the age of 12 and has worked in every department of this industry over the last 30 odd years. She also travelled extensively around the world for a number of years and in 1995 her research into tribal land rights abuse during the development of Sinai peninsular for tourism led to the setting up of a Middle Eastern clearing desk at Survival International. A keen sailor, she has doublehanded across the Indian Ocean and the South & North Atlantic Oceans and sailed out of such memorable ports as Hellsville, Madagascar, and Ushuaia, Tierra del Fuego. Vanessa is equally passionate about both sustainable tourism and the importance of the Lake District as a national recreational facility, enabling everyone of any background, budget, race, or ability to access and share this uniquely special region.
Our Staff are a wonderful team comprised of flexi time and student workers. We actively support flexi working and we have benefited hugely from being able to employ hugely talented and skilled team members on a part time basis during their early parenthood years. We would encourage other employers to investigate the huge skill base available to them from those parents with young children who require real flexibility.
Contributors: our wonderful community of contributors are too important to include as a single mention, the many who have selflessly helped to make Visit Cumbria special have done so for no financial reward. See our Contributors page for those who have allowed us to mention them, many more are just too shy. If you would like to help us in any way whatsoever do please get in touch, we would love to hear from you.
Our place in the International and National Media
Visit Cumbria does not solicit links: however we are honoured that our site is linked to by many respected and well-known bodies as well as numerous specialist individual websites and publications, plus numerous local attractions’ websites and Wikipedia and Trip Advisor forum pages all around the world. Just a few of the 950+ websites who have contained and/or still contain links to Visit Cumbria pages are:
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If you are linking to, or would like to link to Visit Cumbria and would like us to send you our new easy to use logo file please get in touch by email : [email protected]
More information
Visitcumbria is not the owner of any of the places of interest, or businesses, mentioned in this guide, so if you need to know about a specific place – contact them directly.
If you would like to ask about the site, whether media, advertising or information pages please email [email protected].
TOURIST INFORMATION – We do not have a telephone or email public tourist information line so if you need help please use the excellent Tourist Information Centres listed HERE.
BROCHURES – We are an online guide only and do not send out brochures. You may order brochures from Bitesize Britain HERE.
Please do not ask us for help in researching your family history. We get many, many requests, but we are not genealogists nor do we have the time to do the research. We also cannot supply contact details of churches – please contact the relevant diocese, details of which can easily be found online with a little effort. We cannot reply to emails requesting contact details for churches for family history purposes.
