How to create and map your own hiking day trips
Photo of grassy chalk cliffs, blue skies, and a couple of walkers in the distance.
At the beginning of 2023, I started regularly hiking / walking. I mainly did linear coastal hikes at first, but by the summer, I had done all the walks I knew and had a failure of imagination on how to find new ones. I knew about Alltrails, a database of walks, but for one reason or another, I wanted to create my own walks. However, I didn’t know how.
As a Londoner without a car, I am limited to day hikes which are either circular from a national rail station or linear between two stations. I like to walk between 20-30km each time and don’t really want to spend more than 2 hours travelling to the destination point, even less in the winter months due to shorter days.
A neighbour recommended a lovely book by Julia Smith called Walks for Each Season, which I highly recommend. It is very pretty in terms of the illustrations and layout, and is written for Londoners who don’t have a car. The walks I have done from it are great, except for one thing: for me, they are way too short.
I also tried group hikes for a while, and whilst I met some really interesting people and went on some fantastic hikes, I found certain aspects of group walking problematic. In particular, I would focus more on the conversation I was having with the people I was walking with, rather than the conversation my spirit and heart wanted with the environment around me.
For me, walking is a form of moving meditation, and conversation with other people inhibits that. My walks are about being in the ‘present tense’, as I use the time to draw my attention to the now by continually noticing aspects of the world around me. In this way, I get out of my head (with all its tangled thoughts) and immerse myself in the natural environment. I find more walks more rejuvenating, calming, and uplifting for doing this.
I have a suspicion that other people might like this kind of walking, so I am currently going through my Lowland Leader training. Eventually, I want to lead small groups on ‘Present Tense Walks’ as an extension of the personal training work I already do. In the meantime, if, like me, you also want to map your own interesting day hikes but aren’t sure where to start, I thought I’d write the guide I wish I had found back in the start of 2023.
Get yourself a map
First things first, you need a map. You can get paper maps of the area you are interested in walking (Ordnance Survey or Harvey are good), or you can get yourself an OS Maps subscription. OS Maps is not without issues, especially since their recent-ish ‘upgrade’, but I still think it is the best mapping software out there for walkers. I like the digital mapping as I can map a walk anywhere in Britain on my laptop or iPad, and then print out the relevant sections to use on the day.
Provided you know you are walking in an area with good GPS, there isn’t actually any need to print the map. Before I did my NNAS Silver Navigator’s Award, I didn’t bother printing the paper maps out as I didn’t know how to use a compass. I just used the OS Maps app on my phone and followed my plotted route using GPS. It worked fine.
Whilst you don’t technically need to know proper navigation skills if you are walking in the decidedly un-wild south of England, it’s a good life skill to have. Plus, it will give you the confidence and ability to walk in wilder places when you have the opportunity to. I did my NNAS training with PAT Adventures and can highly recommend them.
How to plot a route: freestyle
Effectively, you decide on your starting point and then choose either a linear or circular walk. As I don’t have a car, my start/finish points are always train stations, but you could easily do circulars from wherever you park your car or even your home.
It’s useful to first look at National Rail maps to scope out likely stations. After that, I do satellite views of the area/s I am thinking of in OS Maps, and if they look green enough, I then switch over to the topographic map layer. From there, you can see the footpaths, bridleways, byways, small roads, and national trails to plot your walks along. You might need to do a bit of legend studying to learn how to read a map, but that’s all there online for you.
After that, you just use the online tool to create the route and save it to your account to use on the day. I always download the offline map to my phone in case it is raining too hard to use the paper map, and/or I lose data on the day. I tend to put my phone on airplane mode to save battery when I am walking, so having the offline maps means that I can still follow my route via GPS even though I don’t have mobile data and am not actually connected to the OS Maps service.
How to plot a route: national trails
Another way to plot a route is to pick a national trail and do a segment of it. This is perhaps the easiest way to ensure that your walk will be nice. Freestyling has resulted in some rubbish walks (in part, anyway), as satellite views and rights of ways obviously don’t tell the whole story. In contrast, national trails are ‘pre-vetted’ in that they all (allegedly) go through some of the best landscapes in Britain.
If you walk a national trail in a linear fashion, dividing it up by manageable segments, you will likely discover that you like particular parts more than others. Make a note and then later on, you can plot another circular walk to explore the countryside around that area in more detail.
For instance, I have recently finished walking the entire North Downs Way and find the area between Farnham and just west of Reigate stunning as there is a lot of ancient woodland. I have subsequently done lots of amazing circular walks in the north Surrey hills to explore the area more. (Puttenham Common or Holmbury Hill, anyone?!) I wouldn’t have known how beautiful that area was had I not walked the North Downs Way.
How to plot a route: random wanderings
Another type of walk I do is random wanderings. With these walks, I just go to an area I know I love (Alice Holt forest, for instance) with no route plotted other than how to get there from the closest station (which is no route at all in respect of Alice Holt as it sits at the edge of Bentley station). Then I just randomly wander along whatever path takes my fancy until it’s time to catch the train home.
Consider joining The Ramblers
If you are in the UK, I would also recommend joining The Ramblers as they do incredible work maintaining paths and fighting for our access rights. You can also join their group walks if you want, but that is not the only reason to join the charity. Members get money off at various outdoor clothing shops and a discount at OS Maps. Best value charity out there, in my opinion!
A note on personal safety for female walkers
Pretty much the first question I get from females who ask me about my solo walking is whether or not I am afraid. Or, they are emphatic that they would never walk alone out of fear for their personal safety. I’m not saying anyone has to walk alone, but I do think that solo walking offers things to a person which group walking does not. As such, it’s really sad to me that some females are too afraid for their own personal safety to try.
I carry a small (legal) knife in the shoulder strap pocket of my rucksack so that it is easily accessible. I have no compunctions about using it if someone were to threaten my bodily integrity in any way. That said, in all my walks, I have never experienced anything which frightened me in any way, except for some excessive gusts of wind when I walked the Seven Sisters last time. I have also noticed that solo males, and males in groups of 3+, seem to understand the potential threat they represent, as they always seem to ensure that they leave a ‘safe’ distance between me and them. However, groups of two men do not. I do not think it is for malicious reasons, it just seems that they are too busy nattering and therefore oblivious to the fact that following too closely to a female may be threatening. The other sad fact about sex-based violence worth bearing in mind, is that it’s rarely a stranger who commits it.
Sea-changes of the spirit
To close, I hope you will consider mapping your own walks and getting out there with the trees and the wind and yes, even the rain. Remember that there is no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothing! I guarantee that if you develop a regular walking practice in the countryside, you will find that your spirits are lifted throughout the rest of the week when you’re stuck at your desk. We are not meant to be indoors, staring at screens, sheltered from the elements; we are meant to be outside, running free!
The longer you walk with the trees and the birds, the wind and the smells, you will find an exponentially increasing peace as your insides fall into alignment with something greater than the sum of you. When you walk in an environment that you love, so for me that is the woods, but for you it might be the fens or the moors, you find your capacity for love increasing. And when your capacity for love increases, the amount that you suffer diminishes, as there simply isn’t enough space in a human heart for an abundance of both.