"Inspirational Great British walks aided by public transport and fuelled by adventure!"
Flicking through Walk Britain is like chatting to a mate in the pub about their favourite days out. Elise Downing's style is cosy, funny, and sprinkled with details that bring to life all of those reasons that make walking such a joy. Forget about over-detailed directions and gear pedantry, here are cake shops, laughs, Dad stories, and titbits of local knowledge, the like of which we all love to hear from our friends as they amble alongside us. The pleasure in these moments is in the telling as much as the listening. Perhaps that's why this book works so well, feels so natural, like a sharing, and our traveller seems to be actually enjoying herself and not going through some sort of process.
Elise is used to getting around without a car - after all she ran 5000 miles around the coastline of Britain a few years back - and in Walk Britain she begins and ends her walks at places which are well served by buses or trains. This doesn't mean that 'getting away from it all' does not feature, in fact it makes you realise how close we all are to the peace and quiet of the countryside - just a few strides and whatever infrastructure you arrived with is nowhere to be seen. That said I have a confession to make - on a cross country car trip through Yorkshire I paused in Settle to give one of Elise's walks a try. And so although this is pitched as a car-free book, it is also very much a car book, because anywhere served by trains and buses is also accessible by car.
The idea though, that we can be kinder to our environment by leaving the car at home is valid, and what we also avoid is the stress of driving, the traffic, the parking, the 'not being able to nap' on the way home... And what particularly appeals to me, as if by magic, is that the linear walk is made possible without the dreaded 'two car strategy' of having to leave one vehicle at the end of a walk and driving a second to the beginning of the walk, and doing it all again at the day's end to collect... madness!
The 90 walks in this book are spread across England, Wales and Scotland, largely in National Parks and with a slight bias towards hillier landscapes. Every one of them looks like a cracker, and the author's light touch makes them feel that little bit more accessible. This is not an exhaustive list - of course there is a lot more walking out there - but it is a fantastic guide to the full range of walking that this beautiful island of ours has to offer. Get out there with Walk Britain.
| Primary Genre | Travel |
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