Swap the fancy dress and paintball masks for a halter and a very unimpressed alpaca — a properly different way to kick off the stag weekend.
Most stag do shortlists look the same: go-karts, an axe-throwing warehouse, maybe a curry that nobody quite remembers finishing. An alpaca walk at Itchen Valley Country Park is the one booking that gets forwarded around the group chat with three separate "wait, seriously?" replies — and it's exactly that reaction that makes it work. There's no faster way to deflate a stag's ego than handing him a lead rope attached to an alpaca that has already decided it isn't going anywhere.
An alpaca walk isn't loud, boozy or physically punishing, which is precisely why it slots so well into the start of a stag weekend rather than the end of one. It's roughly two hours, everyone's outdoors, and there's built-in material for the best man's speech before the weekend has even properly begun — alpacas have a habit of humming, spitting (rarely, and never without reason) and staring blankly at whoever's holding their lead, which tends to be whichever member of the group is trying hardest to look competent. Groups of family and friends walk their own halter-trained alpaca alongside one of our experienced handlers, so nobody's left standing about, and the whole thing photographs brilliantly for whoever's been put in charge of documenting the weekend.
You'll meet the herd — we keep more than 40 alpacas across the farm — get matched with individual animals, and have the walk talked through by a handler who knows each alpaca's quirks better than most people know their own dog's. Then it's out across the country park paths at Itchen Valley for around two hours of walking, photo stops, and the occasional negotiation with an alpaca who's spotted something more interesting than the path ahead. No experience is needed and nobody's expected to know one end of an alpaca from the other going in.
Itchen Valley Country Park sits just off Allington Lane in West End, about fifteen minutes from Southampton, Winchester and Eastleigh, and an easy drive from Portsmouth, Fareham, Romsey, Basingstoke and the New Forest — handy if the stag party's arriving from more than one direction, which it usually is. There's parking on site, so no need to sort taxis before the rest of the weekend's plans kick in.
Walks are priced from £32 per person, with an extra walker slot available at £18 if your numbers grow between the "who's actually coming" spreadsheet and the day itself. We'd always recommend booking a few weeks ahead for weekend slots, particularly through spring and summer when stag and hen parties both tend to book up fast, and adding rescheduling insurance for £4.50 per person is worth it given how stag weekend plans have a habit of shifting. We've been running walks here for sixteen years as a family-run, BAS-registered herd, so we've seen every kind of group booking — stags included.