What is a Walking Holiday?

I’m gearing up for a walking holiday – what’s that you say?  Instead of visiting places via car, bus or train, you actually WALK to discover a country’s treasures.  I’m not talking about mega long distance trails, like the Appalachian or Pacific Coast Trail, I’m talking about trails that you can hike over the course of your vacation.  

A walking holiday is one where you walk, usually from one village to another via beautiful countryside, have lodging at the end of the day, often you have luggage transfer so you don’t have to backpack and thus just carry a daypack.  In short, a walking holiday allows you to truly see the destination at a slow pace so that you can really understand the people and culture you encounter on your travels.  It’s a wonderful way to explore and have an authentic adventure!

Why Take a Walking Holiday?

There are several benefits to a walking holiday – Note this does NOT mean backpacking, (although you could):

• Get to see a place up close and personal
• More likely to meet locals and fellow travelers 
• Often it’s cheaper than traditional travel
• Can plan your pace in advance
• Many times you can hire a company to move your luggage daily so don’t need to backpack
• If you use a tour company, you have an in country contact in case something goes wrong
• They can also plan your itinerary based on the milage you want to do each day
• They know about local issues and problems so can circumvent them

I’ve done three walking holidays so far, the West Highland Way in Scotland and the Cotswold Way and the Coast to Coast in England, all around a hundred miles, and I enjoyed them so much that I also walked the El Camino Primitivo pilgrimage route from Oviedo to Santiago and plan to walk the Portuguese Way next year.

I thought it might be helpful to give you a rundown on how I plan and execute my walking holidays.

1.  Determine your destination.  I’ve covered several long distance hikes on the ATA podcast, so you can explore the directory here.  Below, I’ve also listed some of the most popular long distance hikes to give you some inspiration.  This list will also be included in the monthly newsletter – so be sure to sign up for that. You can also check out my ATA episode 013 on the UK’s Best Walking Holidays for ideas.
2. Plan the timing.  Many long distance walking trails are quite popular.  I try to go in the shoulder season to avoid crowds AND to get better weather.  Spring tends to be wetter and has more changeable weather than fall, but usually both are good options.  Check out the monthly averages for temperatures and rain to see when the best months are to go. Tour company dates on their websites will give you the overall time windows over the course of a year, so can be helpful even if you choose to do all the planning yourself.  Also find out if there are any serious bug issues to contend with during certain times of the year such as midges in Scotland or black fly in Maine. For your sanity, you’ll want to avoid those peak pest times!
3. Decide on your pace.  I have 13 mile feet.  I have hiked 20 miles in a day, with a full backpack, but my feet weren’t happy and I arrived camp utterly exhausted.  I learned on the Cotsworld Way that if time permits, to reduce my daily milage so that I have enough energy to enjoy exploring the village I land in each night, even if it means I don’t have time to do the entire trail.  I’ve learned that it’s the experience not the distance. So for future walks, I want to walk 8-12 miles a day. Note that sometimes, on some trails, that the towns may be spread further apart than you’d like, so you will probably still have some long days.  My advice is to try to minimize those. Whenever I go on the Appalachian Trail these days, it seems the kids are all bragging about how many miles they do in a day, and 30 miles daily seems common. However, at that pace, they really don’t have time to stop and enjoy the journey, in my opinion.
4. Determine the length of time you can hike.  You’ll need to allow travel time to your destination, and if there is a significant time difference, you may want to arrive a day or two early to get your bearings.  

So, if you’ve got 7 days available to actually walk, and want to do an average of 10 miles a day, you would be looking at 70 miles.  So for the West Highland Way, at 96 miles, you would either skip ahead or cut out some sections, or will need to either up your daily milage to average 14 miles per day, or come up with three more days to hike.  

If you decide to cut out some sections, read itineraries online to see the best sections to delete.  You will also need to figure out how easy it will be to get public transportation to the next section.  On my WHW hike, I was given a list by my tour company of alternate transportation for each segment. Since I had pre-booked my accommodations, it wasn’t to skip sections so much as to give me my options in case of illness or injury.  It turns out I used a bus one day when the weather was so brutally abysmal, that I worried about my safety crossing a barren stretch in the freezing bitter cold rain. I remember that some sections I walked were not serviced by roads, so getting from one town to the next was rather difficult as there were mountains in the way.  If you can’t determine easily, check out the free Rome2Rio app and plug in the two towns. This will give you your options with both time and money.

1. Decide if you will self plan or hire a self-guided tour company.  Most walking holidays can be planned from the comfort of your home.  However, you will be trading your time for money and may not know about some local issues, like again on the WHW, the ONE lodging on the trail in a very remote segment was closed for renovations, so my tour company shuttled me from the trail to the nearest town TEN MILES AWAY!  If I were planning the trip on my own, I could’ve figured all of this out, but it would have been clumsier and probably more expensive.

  The benefits of a self-guided tour company include not only knowing about local problems, but they also know the best places to stay.  Usually you can let them know whether you want three star or four star accommodations, but note that in some remote areas, there may not be much if any options – like what I ran into in Scotland.  I recommend my affiliate, One Foot Abroad (Use the exclusive ATA Promo Code ATA5 to save you 5% off of any of their European walking or cycling holidays).

You tell the tour company how many days you want to hike – which you figured out above- and then they plan your itinerary, book your lodging, usually a guest house type room with breakfast, send you maps and often a guide book, and make arrangements to transfer your luggage – yes that’s right, you don’t have to carry your bag each day in most cases!  All you’ll need is a day pack with your lunch, snacks, water, clothing layers and emergency kit. Most companies include transferring a single 20 kg bag each day – about 45 pounds. Consider adding a ‘Rest Day’ in your hike if you’ve got the time and money, or if you want extra time to explore a particularly nice village. I like to give my body one day off from walking every week.

If you are self-planning, you can do a web search for luggage transfer services for your hike.  On the FREE download for this episode, I will include my favorite luggage transfer services, and self-guided tour companies.  Note that some companies offer a fully guided long distance walking holiday. Naturaly they are a lot more expensive, but if you are nervous about doing this by yourself, this is a nice option that not only guarantees company, but also a guide and often a support van in case you get tired of walking.

1. Book your Trip.  You’ve decided where you’re going, when you’re going, and how long you are going for, now it’s time to book it.  You will need to book 

• Your transport to the starting location and FROM you ending location – again I like Rome2Rio to get my options.  See Episode 007 for how to get cheap flights
• Any excess accommodations before and after your hike
• Your tour company OR
• Your nightly accommodations while walking
• Luggage transfer service unless you plan to backpack and carry everything

1. Train for your trip.  I cannot emphasize enough the importance of training for your adventure.  It makes it so much more enjoyable if your body is conditioned for your trip.  Think about it, most of the time, you are not walking ten or more miles a day with as much as twenty pounds on your back.  Your ankles may not be used to twists they absorb when you catch on a tree root. Listening to the Active Travel Adventures podcast on How to Train(Episode 046) is very important.
2. Pack for your trip.  I have learned to be a seriously light packer.  How many times have you come home from a trip only to find that much of the clothes and gismos you packed never left the suitcase?  This is definitely an area I can help you with: I just returned from a three month trip which included two business conferences, a week long rafting trip, city touring and thus nice clothes, hiking in deserts which means prepping for hot AND cold performance gear, and I managed to do it with just a carryon.  ICheck out my packing lists.

If you follow these eight steps, you are destined for an epic walking holiday.  But when you get back, be sure to do the 9th step and write me or tell us in the Active Travel Adventures Facebook group all about your adventure!

I hope that you will consider a walking holiday for your next adventure.  I’m sure, like me, you will find them very satisfying. 

Be sure to subscribe to this AND the ATA podcast, so you don’t miss any episodes.

Best Long Distance Hikes to Do on Vacation

Most people think about the Appalachian Trail or the Pacific Coast Trail when they think about long distance hikes.  However, most people can’t spend several months hiking. Below is a list of some great long distance hikes that you can do over your vacation (or at least a reasonable chunk of it). This is by no means a comprehensive list, but it can give you a taste.  Of course, you can always do section hikes of the grand truly long trails!

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