about us

Passionate about people and places, Felicity Whittle, founder of Gold Star Guides, is an award winning Blue Badge Tourist Guide.  Felicity's knowledge and sense of fun ensure her guided tours are engaging, entertaining and informative. According to Carolyn from Texas, "Felicity was by far the best guide we have ever had".

Having spent several years working in the House of Commons Library, part of the UK Parliament, Felicity moved to California during the 1990s where she started guiding at Filoli, a beautiful house and gardens (much filmed) owned by the American National Trust... and knew she'd found her perfect career.

Felicity trained as a tourist guide, initially in London, gaining her first Blue Badge qualification in 2006.  She added to this with a Heart of England qualification in 2016 (and won awards during her training courses for both areas). The Blue Badge is the highest guiding qualification awarded by the Institute of Tourist Guiding and is a symbol of excellence in tourist guiding.

Now living in Nottingham Felicity is delighted to be expanding her knowledge about the city, past and present, literary and otherwise, and looks forward to consolidating this with an East Midlands Blue Badge qualification as soon as it is available (hopefully 2020).

Nice things people have said about Gold Star Guides...

Thank you for an excellent and very entertaining tour on Saturday. I learnt such a lot and it was good to see the participants making notes and then bringing that knowledge back into our discussions. School of English, University of Nottingham

Felicity was our guide for four days. She was by far the best guide we have ever had. Carolyn, Texas, USA​

Thank you so much for our tour. The tour was engaging, educational, and entertaining. Thank you for being one of our highlights.

Just wanted to say, thank you very much for your time yesterday. I had a great time, and the others also really enjoyed learning more about the area. Tess, Deloittes  And thank you from me as well. Very much enjoyed it. Keith Blair, Deloittes

Thanks for an incredible tour. We all enjoyed ourselves and, as usual, you did a superb job. We will certainly be in touch when we return! Jim, Lancaster, USA

Thank you for a wonderful educational inspirational literary tour. You have inspired me to want to increase my reading. I loved it!

All of the Sensei team said how much they enjoyed the walk and were very impressed by your knowledge of the route and the way your very professional and excellent delivery helped them enjoy the 2 hours. If you require any testimonials from us please do not hesitate to ask. Thanks for a great walk. Malcolm Follos, Managing Director, Sensei UKE

Thank you very much for being a very gracious and well-informed guide; Thank you Felicity for sharing so much with us. Ann, Canada

We were all very impressed by your deep knowledge and obvious pleasure in sharing your wealth of stories about those historic spaces.  Thank you very much for your courtesy, answering so many questions, and making us feel very welcome. Aileen, Canada

Thank you so much for yesterday, in every respect: the quality of presentation, the generosity of spirit and the invaluable reminder that there’s more to life than the exam curriculum. School of Education, University of Nottingham