At the moment, the only trousers I feel comfortable wearing for summer hiking, is a pair of Karrimor, light men’s hiking pants (photo above) which, after one wash, literally came apart at the seams and the zips. My abysmal attempts at mending have resulted in pockets that don’t open properly, a split side seam that reveals part of my hip, and at least one zip that hangs on my leg like an odd appendage but at least they’re long enough. I have been trying to replace these pants for the past two years.

What’s wrong with women’s hiking pants

These are the biggest issues that plague my hiking pants wardrobe: firstly, length.

At 5’ 10” (1.7m), I do not consider myself to be exceptionally tall but apparently, manufacturers of women’s hiking pants would beg to differ. Having tried on multiple brands at numerous outlets, I simply cannot get a pair of women’s trousers that are long enough for me. The longest pair of women’s hiking pants I own are my Peter Storms which, as you can see, are what I would call half-mast.

At the start of this summer, I popped into a branch of Mountain Warehouse in Ambleside where they were having a sale. As we didn’t have a lot of time to spare, I asked the assistant if she could point me to a pair of light women’s hiking trousers, 28” inside leg.
“Oh, I’m afraid we don’t have women’s in a 28-inch leg”, she responded.

Incredulous, I asked her why that was, and she explained that the manufacturers didn’t produce a woman’s hiking pant longer than a 26-inch inside leg. How can that be possible? Do only women 5’ 8” and under, go hiking? Or do the manufacturers of hiking gear simply not bother finding out what their market looks like? Perusing the racks of men’s hiking pants which is what I always end up having to do, there’s no shortage of leg lengths in there, from short arses to giants, they’ve got you covered.

I consider this imbalance to be in contravention of the Sex Discrimination Act of 1975; I may just bring a case against outdoor clothing manufacturers in the UK.

And while we’re on the subject of discrimination, the second biggest gripe I have is pockets.

Why do manufacturers of women’s hiking pants think that women do not require such essentials as maps, GPS devices, mobile phones, and compasses? Do they consider our multi-tasking skills rise us above the need for such rudimentary aids to navigation, or do they simply assume we’ll have a man with us to do all that tiresome route-finding business while we get on with the much more important task of looking good on the trail? Or perhaps they think we’ll just pop those things into our handbags along with our lipstick and a spare tampon?

Back pockets are semi-useful but no substitute for sturdy side and leg pockets, preferably deep enough to take a mobile, and zipped. You have only to look as far as the racks of men’s hiking trousers to see what I mean. Again, I reference my Peter Storms which have good, deep side pockets and , joy of joys, a leg pocket but alas, no back pockets.

No, I do not want saggy, baggy pants that look like they’ve escaped from a 1970s Army Surplus store, nor do I want skin-tight trousers whose back pockets would be hard-pressed to take anything fatter than a credit card. Certainly, I want my hiking pants to look good on me, but I also need them to be functional, every bit as functional as men’s.

Is that really too much to ask?

A very brief stint in the Marines took my map-reading skills to another level. And then that was it. OS and I parted company for a long, long time.

When we started writing hiking route directions on Tenerife, we didn’t use maps to find our way around. For a start, there weren’t any maps of OS standard; the best were more of use as ‘guidelines’ than accurately detailed depictions of the terrain. So, there was a lot of hit and miss as we explored ravines which petered out at dead ends and sheer cliff faces, or forest paths which disappeared into impenetrable walls of sub-tropical foliage. One of the taglines for our Tenerife hiking routes was ‘we get lost so you don’t have to.’

When we expanded our route-finding skills and started working with UK specialists Inntravel to create walking holidays on the other Canary Islands and then further afield in various European countries, the maps we used were of varying quality. Some, like Portuguese Military Maps, were more detailed than others, but not of the standard of OS. When creating hiking routes, we have plenty of other tools to assist us – online mapping systems, Google Earth which we use to create GPX routes we can follow using our Garmin, and so on. But for all the advances in modern technology, none are as reliable as the good old OS Map.

Shortly after we returned to the UK in June 2021, we were tasked with recording a series of walking routes along and around the Monmouthshire and Brecon Canal. Clearly the canal-walking part of the routes was not difficult to plot out, but when we veered from it along public footpaths into the hills it was a completely different story, especially after a couple of years of paths not being maintained had resulted in Mother Nature doing her damnedest to reclaim them as her own.

On our very first route, a circuit from Abergavenny, we hadn’t received our OS Maps for the area, but we did have a GPX track for the route, and phone apps to assist us. All went well until we found ourselves in a farmyard with no onward route to follow. We backtracked, and checked if we’d missed a turning, but there was nowhere else to go, and we were still on the GPX track. It was a mystery. With no obvious solution, we phoned our friend, James, at Inntravel, and he sent us a photo of the relevant section of his OS Map. Within minutes, the mystery was solved. A couple of hundred metres before the farm, the footpath veered off the track we’d been following to then run parallel through a field. It was as clear as day on the OS Map. On the ground it was impossible to spot as ferns had sprouted to obscure the point where the paths parted company, and a dense hedge separated the track we’d been on from the true path. They were so close, the GPX track looked correct (anyone who knows GPX knows its not as exact as many people might think). Back on track, we completed the route. When we returned to our hotel, we found our OS Maps had been delivered. Boy, was I glad to see them.

Within a couple of hours of heading across fields with no markers, encountering impassable paths, crossing moors where every track looked the same, and confidently wandering into farmyards, I was gushing to Andy about how brilliant OS Maps were, and how people simply couldn’t follow these routes without one (unless they had directions). Even though it was summer, and newspapers were reporting how congested Britain’s walking paths were, we met very few other walkers. Despite all the pre-planning and having GPX tracks, mobile phone apps etc. we would not have been able to complete the routes for the walking holiday without our OS Maps.

My love of them was well and truly rekindled.

Another memory was evoked on a hillside in the Brecon Beacons. OS Maps are still unwieldy buggers to try to manoeuvre when the wind is howling and the rain machine-gunning you.

The big question

The other day I saw a question on a Facebook group for long-distance hiking. It was about whether it was better to hike the Camino de Santiago in waterproof boots or not. Some of the answers surprised me. The consensus was that non-waterproof footwear was preferable to waterproof.

In an age where all that’s required to become an ‘expert’ in anything is an internet connection and a social media account, whenever I read specialist advice being dished out for anything I like to know who’s doing the dishing; what experience/knowledge do they have? In this case, all of the advice was from people who had actually walked the Camino, so that’s good? Well, yes and no.

Some definitive replies from the ‘waterproof boots are bad’ corner had a rabble of questions bursting into my head. What other hiking experience did they have? What other clothing were they wearing? Had they broken in footwear before hitting the trail? What time of year did they walk the Camino?

Complaints included waterproof boots being too heavy for walking in day after day; they didn’t allow feet to breathe, making them sweat and wet, resulting in blisters; and they didn’t necessarily keep your feet dry anyway.

We help create itinerant walking holidays. This involves regularly hiking for between a week and two weeks in a row. We’ve done this in countries across Europe at all times of the year – Germany’s Black Forest in October, experiencing a year of seasons in a few days; the Spanish Pyrenees in July; Greek Islands during an unseasonably hot May; the Canary Islands in wonderfully warm winter months; the mountains of Portugal (not very high) when it was cool and again when it was sizzling. When we’re not working we walk for leisure – snowy trails in Switzerland in February, glaciers and shifting moraine in Chile. We’ve also notched up a few stints on the Camino de Santiago – dipping in and out of it in northern Portugal; covering 200km in nine days in spring; testing hiking gear, including waterproof boots, over the last three stages of the Camino Frances in March.

Horses for courses

Our hiking footwear rack features lightweight waterproof boots, heavier-duty waterproof boots (favoured footwear), boots for hiking in snow, hiking sandals, walking shoes, and breathable trainers. If it’s hot dry terrain there’s no need for waterproof boots, but if the terrain and weather are damp, then I’ll choose waterproof every time. If it’s rocky and uneven underfoot I’ll wear boots with ankle support and toe protection. Terrain and weather dictate footwear. But there are other factors to consider. Every couple of days we walk a 5km circuit around the cork forest next to us. The path is soft and sandy – ideal for sandals or light shoes, except for one thing. There are beasties in the sand which nip at ankles. I wear light hiking boots to avoid ending up being eaten.

Walking three stages of the Camino in March 2017, I wore lightweight Lowa Gore-Tex boots. It wasn’t challenging walking and didn’t require anything hardcore; rain was due and I wanted dry feet. There’s a lot of tarmac walking on the Camino, making a decent sole essential. The boots were perfect for the terrain; light and airy. I had no problem with overheating feet, plus they stayed dry on a last, wet leg into Santiago de Compostela.

When we walked the Camino in May 2021 there were greater ascents and descents, and heavy rain was forecast, so I opted for heavier-duty waterproof hiking boots; although, these are lightweight compared to boots worn a couple of decades ago. We’ve been through a lot together and they are comfy friends, even after 200km. There were no wet sweaty feet, or blisters along the way. I don’t quite get the ‘sweat making feet wet’ complaints. It’s not something either of us have suffered from over who-knows-how-many-kilometres notched up in warm-weather walking, so I don’t know if boots aren’t the best fit, or if sufferers wear the wrong type of socks. Pairing boots/shoes with good hiking socks can be just as important as choosing which boots or shoes to wear.

There’s another potential reason. Although my lightweight waterproof hiking boots allow my feet to breathe almost as much as my trail runners, I wouldn’t walk the Camino in summer months, something many sweaty-footed pilgrims do. Having lived in Spain and Portugal for nearly two decades, my view is only mad dogs and foreigners go hiking in the midsummer sun.

Then there’s other clothing. We mostly wear quick-dry (or waterproof if conditions are really bad) hiking trousers. A lot of Camino images show short-wearing pilgrims, even when it’s bucketing down. Unsurprisingly, a common complaint against waterproof boots is about rain running down into the boot. Sometimes the water comes from below. When we reach a body of water where the level is going to rise above the top of the boot we do what I outlined in the very first paragraph, take boots off. But there are times where it’s impossible to keep your feet dry. I can only think of two occasions when that’s happened to us in more than a decade of long-distance hiking. We had damp boots for a couple of days, but no blisters.

So what’s better – waterproof boots or non-waterproof?

Ultimately, the question of the most appropriate footwear usually depends on a number of factors; only some of which I’ve mentioned. One of the most important though is who you are. I’ve talked about our experiences, and why we favour waterproof boots. But that’s us. One of the concerns I have about online hiking advice is often people don’t take into account everyone is different. Like when a fit 25-year-old, who can run up and down mountains, tells a 65-year-old pulling on the hiking boots/shoes for the first time “don’t worry, it’s easy. Just take to the Camino in your trainers and you’ll be fine.”
People dishing out advice often make the mistake of not realising the people they’re giving the advice to might not have the same fitness levels, ability, or experience.

So waterproof boots or not? That depends on what works best for you. But, and this is a huge, blister-avoiding but, you should find that out before taking to a long-distance trail.

As a filling, cheese and ham is as boring as a room with magnolia walls and ceiling. It’s a dull combination, like exposing your taste-buds to the equivalent of the pub bore (2021 update: the social media bore). It’s a snore-inducing filling, especially as the types of cheese and ham generally used in sandwiches have nil personality. When processed ham and cheese turn up in sandwiches at wedding buffets, all the other finger snacks huddle in a corner sniggering at the clueless couple who turn up at a do looking drab.

B-O-R-I-N-G

And they are what you find in nearly every hiker’s pre-made picnic, along with water, a small carton of juice, an apple or orange, and maybe a biscuit if you’re lucky.

We’ve had hiker’s picnics made up for us by small and medium-sized hotels in numerous countries across Europe. Some of these have been boutique hotels which have set us up for the day with breakfast buffets displaying all manner of local artisan cheeses and cured meats – Brie with wild boar chorizo … yum. And then what do we find when we unravel the aluminian foil midway along the trail? A slice of processed cheese and ham, usually enclosed in a baguette-type roll of such crustiness, taking a bite is akin to introducing your gums to a member of a Glasgow razor gang.

I honestly couldn’t count how many ham and cheese baguettes we’ve consumed on the trail. To be fair, by the time we close hungry gobs around one during a decent yomp across pastures new, they’re very welcome despite being over familiar. But, outside of the hiking arena I don’t want to know them. They are not my friends.

It doesn’t have to be ham and cheese

We’ve eaten so many of these we’re like kids at Christmas whenever we open our picnic packs to find something that isn’t ham and cheese. On Gran Canaria, one hotel owner had made us tuna sandwiches which we devoured with relish whilst sitting on a wall overlooking a field of whispering golden grasses and listening to the hypnotic clanging of goat bells. Except we didn’t get to devour all of them as the hotel owner’s dog had decided to tag along and hit us with that ‘I’m going to die if I don’t have some of your sandwich’ look. So she got half.

On Corsica, the Bad Boys of Olmi Capella also made us tuna sandwiches, along with two carrier bags full of other stuff. There was so much food we had to dump half of it in a bin as soon as we were out of sight. The problem with their tuna sandwiches was they’d drenched them in mayo. After four hours of walking in 30C, the sandwiches were a health risk, but we ate then anyway … and brought them back up again half an hour later.

On Santo Antão, one of the Cape Verde islands, our guide Hetty supplied the picnics; the leftovers of whatever she’d prepared the previous night for her dinner. One day we ate cachupa – the country’s unofficial national dish. The next it was a savoury rice and beans mix. These were like the hiking version of a Michelin star picnic compared to poor old cheese and ham.

But these are rarities. In over a decade of walking across Europe, I struggle to remember many pre-made picnics that didn’t include a cheese and ham sandwich.

Sometimes we get to go freestyle; on those occasions when we’re scouting areas and hotels as being potentially suitable for a walking holiday, and hotels aren’t used to providing picnics. At these time we stock up in the nearest supermarket: water, juice, crisps, cereal bars, bread, and … drum roll … ham and cheese.

Well, slices of ham and cheese don’t melt after hours in the rucksack being zapped by a warm sun. And it’s easy to put a sandwich together with them in the field.

If possible, we do replace the processed ham with serrano/presunto/speck/prosciutto, so I’m not a complete hypocrite.

That’s how long my main walking boots last.

After that time the uppers might still look pristine but the soles are tyres without treads, rubbed smooth from doing their best to keep me upright whilst negotiating steep goat trails. It takes a couple of skittery ‘Ministry of Silly Hiking Walk’ moments to alert me to there being a problem down below (note to self: always check sole treads before hiking trips). I’m invariably shocked to see how little tread on is left on boots after not having had them for very long. If there were hiking police monitoring trails when this happens, I’d be ordered to get off the ‘road’ immediately and find myself with a hefty fine for walking with dangerous soles.

In the last decade and a half I’ve learnt a lot about hiking boots and shoes. Which is why we have a shoe rack inside our front door filled with them. We own five pairs each; different ones for varying conditions. Wherever we’re travelling to and whatever type of walking is required determines which comes with us.

First choice boots
These are top dog in the rack; the ones which have the life span of two years as they get worn most. They have to be comfortable (obviously); relatively light (I used to have a cracking pair of Brashers but they were so heavy my feet sighed when I took them off after a long hike); be waterproof; have a confident grip on steep surfaces; give good ankle support; and feature a hard toecap to protect my tootsies from boulders with malicious intent. Their cushioned soles need to be thick, this is what distinguishes them from the number two pair in the rack. These are the boots we use for level 3 type walking; lots of steep ascents and descents on the sort of terrain which batters the soles of feet if you’re not wearing the right boots.

My current number one boots are an inexpensive pair of Qechua Trek 100, chosen simply because they felt right. Salomon, Lowa, and Merrill of an equivalent type were all tried and discarded because they didn’t. So far this year they’ve been tested on hard, volcanic slopes on Tenerife and skittery forest paths on La Palma, as well climbing in and out of valleys in the hilly north east of Portugal. They’re as comfortable at the end of a long, challenging walk as they are at the start. I’d buy them again when the soul wears out.

Second in command
The differences between my number one and number two boots include a lighter upper (no reinforced toe cap) and a not so robust sole. Apart from that, they have good tread, some ankle support, and are waterproof. I was given a pair of Lowa GTX3s to test on a Gore-Tex trip which involved spending three days walking the final section of the Camino de Santiago. There wasn’t any ascending/descending as such and the path was mostly even and wide. The boots proved extremely comfortable on that terrain. Then I made the mistake of taking them to the island of Andros in Greece where we were helping put together a new itinerant walking holiday for Inntravel. Andros is a hilly island where routes involve climbing in and out of valley after valley. Although the island’s paths are immaculately maintained former trading routes, their stone surfaces are hard on the soles. The Lowa boots were too lightweight; lesson learned. On lower grade walking, however, they’re perfect. They’ve helped me comfortably negotiate paths in the Minho and Arrabida in Portugal as well as lavender field-lined trails in la Drôme Provençale in France. The thinner soles also make driving easier – almost like just wearing shoes.

Snow boots
Special snow boots were bought purely for a winter trip to Zermatt. As snow walking isn’t something that’s usually on our agenda I opted for the cheapest I could find which would prevent frostbite/trench foot. Decathlon came up with the goods with their Qechua SH520 snow hiking boots (€45). These promised to both keep my toes warm in temperatures of -16C and ensure I stayed upright on snow-covered paths. Bottom line, I absolutely loved wearing them. They had all the specs of my main walking boots, but felt extra cosy in deep snow and biting cold. Plus, their firm grip on the path was confidence boosting, even on steep descents. In fact, I found descending forest trails in the snow far easier than on snow-free paths. The crunch they made on freshly fallen white stuff was especially satisfying. They’ll also be good for non-snow walking, so a good investment.

Walking shoes
Lightweight walking shoes are my go to footwear for easy, unchallenging walking – around the cork forest next to us; a stroll on flat, soft terrain to the Sado Estuary 7km away. They’re also great for city walking. We can easily notch up more kilometres walking around a city than we do walking in the countryside, so comfy shoes are essential. I’ve been using Decathlon’s Qechua NH100 walking shoes (around €14) for years, replacing them on a semi-regular basis. The big problem with them is they are useless in wet weather. Even damp grass leaves them sodden. Once the insides are wet that’s it, they’re finished. Maybe it’s time I invested in a more expensive brand which are waterproof.

Sandals
At one time I wore walking sandals a lot. On Tenerife they kept my feet cool on average length walks on non-rocky terrain such as pine-covered forest paths in the upper Orotava Valley. But annoying things do have a tendency to sneak between the foot and the inner sole; twigs, pine needles, sand, painful pebbles. Now I only wear them for strolling about in short-wearing summer months.

Ultimately, each plays an important role in keeping my feet happy in various walking scenarios. Unlike in the realm of hobbits, elves, dwarves and men, there isn’t one ring to rule them all. Or, in this case, one boot to walk them all.

That was many, many years ago in a land far away. It was the catalyst for two changes. Now when we venture to pastures new Andy drives and I navigate. And I showed Andy how to read maps.

It’s funny that something I learnt at an early age – how to direct artillery fire onto an enemy position with pinpoint accuracy – could become an essential part of my working life decades later. Maybe not so much the directing artillery fire part (never actually applied in real life) but the ability to read maps.

Times and available technology have changed massively since I used a map, compass, thread and pins to work out routes and distances to accurately lead me to meeting points with my compadres. But the other day, with paths through the forest hiding from Google’s not quite so all seeing eye and unexpected new fences blocking off age-old paths, I was back to resorting to kneeling on a hillside deciphering contours and various hieroglyphics on a spread-out military map (the only maps available). Frustration at routes being blocked soon turned to the thrill of route-finding the pure old way and exhilaration when the pieces of the jigsaw finally slipped neatly into place.

There are ups and downs regarding walking routes where we are in Portugal. The authorities have only, so far, paid lip service to maintaining walking routes. In some places information boards suggest there were once some routes, as do official websites. In reality there are very few waymarks and even fewer signposts. Using paths taken from the internet is problematic as many we’ve tried to follow simply no longer exist. Locals might know whose property they can clamber over, but visitors don’t. The downside is obvious, the upside is a network of potential paths which aren’t really on anyone’s radar. There’s a feeling of discovery (appropriately enough given the country we’re in) piecing together sections of unmarked paths to create something complete and new. Whilst in some areas having a map is more of a safety net, here it has been a necessity. But a map is no good if you don’t know how to use it.

When we lived in the Canary Islands we found many walking routes to be relatively well marked. That’s not to say if you set off on a path without map or directions you’ll successfully find your way from A to B without ending up at Z by mistake. And whilst Spain has its own detailed military maps, in popular tourist areas such as the Canaries there are bespoke walking maps available to buy, with highlighted routes clearly taking centre stage. They’re not always 100% accurate (nature and the authorities have an annoying habit of throwing the odd spanner into the works every now and again) but they do the job. In some ways these bespoke maps are like an abridged version of a real map. You don’t really need in-depth map reading skills to be able to use them – basic is enough – especially when combined with written directions. Nevertheless I’m still gobsmacked when someone struggles to find their way into somewhere like Teide National Park (see opening dialogue – “but you’ve got a map!”).

Anyone who struggles with reading these types of maps might view Portugal’s military maps as documents which require the Enigma machine in order to decipher them. Andy, as still a relatively novice military map decoder, acts as a reality check to my less tolerant approach when I read about people going wrong on walking routes. “The map shows a river directly to the south and a road directly to the north, they’ve come from the east, there’s only one direction they can go. So how can they manage to get it wrong?”
But I’m like that with directions generally. There’s an inbuilt compass. It sometimes goes haywire, but is mostly pretty reliable. Subsequently I don’t understand how people don’t know (see) factors like these or don’t, more importantly, automatically know where they are in relation to the countryside, or are unable to figure out, even roughly, their position on a map. Maybe that’s because it was hammered into my brain at such an early age. Andy adds the more reasoned (reasonable) ingredients to the route-finding equation.

In some destinations walking routes have been developed to the point the actual work required by walkers themselves to find their way has been reduced to a minimum. This is no bad thing, it makes walking more accessible to a wider audience. But it can lead to a dilution of the sort of skills that were once required if you wanted to successfully navigate hill and dale without getting lost in the wilds.

More and more people are taking to the hills, but newbie walkers are tending to rely on mobile phones rather than the ‘old ways’. Mountain rescue organisations in the UK are reporting a noticeable increase in call-outs from people who are lost, with their own research showing only a third of younger walkers taking a map with them when they headed into the great outdoors. Mobile phones and apps are a wonderful addition to the world of walking, but they shouldn’t be seen as a replacement for having a map.

From a personal point of view, I’m glad there are still plenty of places where it’s essential to plonk yourself down on a hillside to scour intricately detailed maps in order to unlock the way forward. It is immensely satisfying.

None were particularly challenging, only the heat as the May sun rose higher added any sort of difficulty to the routes… oh, and in one case, soft sandy paths which sapped muscles that had become slovenly. But all were exhilarating. Where some folk head to the beach to re-charge batteries, we find hitting the trail is like having a refreshing mental massage.

As we walked we talked of many things; one being about the skill – whatever you want to call it – of writing walking route directions and the differences between simply walking a route for enjoyment and walking it to record it for others to use. This discussion was prompted by a couple of comments online in relation to a facebook post about walking directions, and bumping into someone who expressed interest in how walking routes were put together. This person was a walker, but had never stopped to think how walking directions were actually created. The latter especially made us ponder how many other people who enjoyed taking to the byways were the same.

For anyone out there with an interest in how the walking directions in their hands came into existence, here’s how we put together routes.

Planning
There are various types of walking routes; ones which already exist, and are known in their entirety, (think Samaria Gorge) and ones which don’t (bespoke routes created for a unique purpose). Many of the routes we walk and record fall into the latter. In some destinations there’s a well thought out walking infrastructure in place with hiker-helpful signposts and waymarks at important junctions (Germany/Austria spring to mind), so it’s relatively easy to piece together sections of routes to make a customised one. But there are also many places where the infrastructure is lacking. Many trails we’ve walked in Greece, Portugal and Croatia have had no markings at all. We decide what route we want to get from A to B or from A to A again, and then try to patch paths together; this is the tricky bit.

Tools
Which is where tools come in. I learned map reading at an early age, but that was to use OS maps to get from one place to another by any means rather than paths. These days, whilst printed maps aren’t quite obsolete, there are numerous excellent online tools available to help map out routes before we step outside the house. These are essential as otherwise we might need days exploring one small area to fit together the jigsaw pieces of just one route. I view printed maps as a safety net rather than an essential tool (too many aren’t detailed enough or are out of date) and use them in conjunction with online maps which give satellite images when planning. I rarely use them when on the trail itself.

The reality of the path
In locations where the walking infrastructure isn’t robust, there are often surprises no matter how much time has been spent theoretically joining the dots of a route before actually walking it. Recently we were stopped in our tracks, not for the first time, by a barbed wire fence and a threatening private notice. Official maps showed it as a walking path, as did a Wikiloc route (we treat Wikiloc routes with caution. Sometimes they’re put together by locals who know where they can and can’t walk and often there can be long sections on busy roads). When this happens there has to be adjustments on the hoof. There are usually alternatives; the best make for a seamless continuation of the route. But occasionally the ‘alternative’ might have anyone following directions wondering why they’ve been detoured. There are always reasons.

Official dabbling
Where public routes being blocked by private individuals make my blood boil, routes being artificially manipulated by officialdom frustrates the hell out of me. Whenever there’s an official walking initiative in a location it can involve new signposts; sometimes placed in different spots than previous ones and occasionally with completely different names. The Canary Islands are guilty of this; not considering at all the potential impact it has on the market it’s trying to develop. It totally screws up walking guidebooks and self-guided walking holidays. Generally speaking, people don’t always notice the signpost in front of them which doesn’t match the information in the directions in their hands is ‘brand new’.

Language
Walking routes for us are about getting to know a destination as much as they are a scenic jaunt in the countryside. Subsequently we include a lot of additional information (historical, ethnographic, flora, quirks) as well as route directions. But there has to be a balance between information which puts meat on the bones of a route and detailed directions which get someone to their destination. The language used is vitally important in order to make directions user-friendly by making sense to a range of people (anyone who has done people management training will know different people have various learning styles).

Timings
On a section of the Camino de Santiago not so long ago, we finished one stretch far too quickly even though we walked slower than our normal pace. We’re not fast walkers, but we weren’t stopping at every junction to record information, or to take photos for our website, travel articles, or brochures. In order to give timings that are in the ball park of most decently fit walkers when it comes to completing routes, a formula is used based on average walking speeds which also takes into account ascents/descents. Some route writers use a variation of a formula designed by an 19th century Scottish mountaineer, William W. Naismith. I’m not a fan; it’s outdated and doesn’t transfer accurately to the wide range of different types of paths which you encounter in various countries.

In essence, detailed walking directions are like the visible tip of an iceberg; the bulk of what has gone into creating them remains well out of sight.