I have always wanted to regularly get away on weekend camping trips throughout the year but have never found it easy living in Warwick. There aren’t any close mountains, and it takes a bit more planning than I usually have time for to get to a wild area. Then in early September an upcoming heatwave was announced and I had…
For the August bankholiday I decided to take a friend on his first multiday wild camping trip. He was on holiday in Cornwall the week before so we agreed to meet halfway in Abergavenny and do three days of walking in the Brecon Beacons. During the previous week I planned out everything needed for a successful backpacking trip: parking locations,…
I completed walking the West Highland Way in Scotland, from 29th April to 7th May 2023. I had planned to use the double bank holiday for a walking trip for some time and eventually settled on Scotland, as it is before midge season and the route is about the right length for roughly 9 days of walking. I was not…
Our stay in Eğirdir was just one night, we stayed at Charly’s Pension and met İbrahim in the evening who provided a very useful up to date route which I loaded onto maps.me. He also offered to help organise the boat trip across the lake when the time came. Knowing İbrahim is almost essential to making an easy crossing across…
One of the advantages of walking a route that someone you know has already done is that it becomes easier to plan short days. We had been assured that there is a nice camping spot with a spring bubbling up from under a tree within half a days walk from Sütçüler. After a week of walking we needed a late…
A challenge that we face every year is how to go on a great holiday outside of the holiday season, so to avoid the heaving masses. This year Thomas and I wanted somewhere to go backpacking in May which would be mostly dry but also be suitable for wild camping. Last year it was Portugal, which was fantastic but we…
As we enter spring and the days lengthen I have started to think about where I want to go backpacking and wild camping in England over this year. I looked up a map of England’s National Parks and bought ten waterproof OS Explorer maps, ranging across the country from Dartmoor in the south to the Lake district in the north.…
This is the final section of the Portugal walk in 2021, which I’ve finally finished writing. Our plan to set off from the semi-illegal campsite in the early hours didn’t come to fruition, mainly due to needing a longer rest and enjoying the quiet of the campsite. Despite this we were not discovered and set off at around 9am. We…
This is the second part to walking the GR50 through Peneda Gerês National Park in Portugal. Read about the first section here – GR50 – Tourem to Xertelo After camping in the gorse around Sete Lagoas we started the walk back to rejoin the GR50, this time following the more popular route that meandered relatively flat along the top of…
In my Summer Update I talked about the plan to fly to Portugal and walk the GR50 through Peneda Gerês National Park. It required some careful planning to understand the Covid restrictions, tests to enter Portugal and test to enter the UK again, but also what the route looks like, which was by far the most interesting! The original plan…