We’d been keeping an eye on the watery blockade for over an hour, ever since we discovered the path to the island was tide dependent and we, like the man and his companion, had arrived when the tide was high. While we waited, we chatted, both of us learning the reason for the other’s visit. His was leisure and curiosity, ours was work, compiling information for a walking holiday and guide in South Devon. This last revelation was the prompt for his question.

Why does anyone need walking directions? It is a fair question. The obvious and simplistic answer is, so you don’t get lost. But there’s more to it than that.

‘There are plenty of other walkers following the route so it is extremely unlikely that you will take a wrong turn…’

This was a comment I saw recently about walking the Camino Portugués, the spoke of the Camino de Santiago which heads to Santiago de Compostela via Portugal. We helped create a walking holiday there in 2020. The Camino de Santiago is well signposted and thousands of pilgrims, religious and otherwise, walk its various routes every year. It would be difficult to get lost. So, why the need for walking directions on a route as popular as this?

A couple of days ago, we set out on a circuit from our village. We’ve walked all the paths directly around where we live in Somerset, but fancied extending one of the loops, so I carried an OS map with me. If you can read a map, you can find your way anywhere … within reason. Even the best have flaws. Having used maps in various European countries I consider OS to be the cream, but they aren’t perfect. Paths don’t always exist where they should. However, proficiency with a map can usually get orienteers out of most navigational conundrums.

As we climbed through a farm on the ‘new’ section of the route, the farmer warned us the path ahead was overgrown and almost impassable. He advised us to follow an alternative track through a field, assuring us it would meet the original path further up the hill. On the OS map, the farmer’s track didn’t exist, only the public right of way. The track was easy to follow and it would have been good advice except for one thing, it ended in a cul-de-sac of a field. Thanks to the map, I knew where we were and, more importantly, where the path should be. A leap of faith through a nettle-ridden, overgrown bush revealed a gate, and the elusive path. Without the map, I’d have had to retrace my steps. If I didn’t know how to map read, I’d have had to retrace my steps. It is unlikely any visitors to the area, exploring on foot without map or directions, would have found their way to our objective, the summit of a hill with expansive views across Somerset.

Anyone who finds pleasure in yomping across the countryside but who can’t read maps will have a more satisfying and enjoyable experience if they have directions to help them discover the best places.

What about those who can read maps, or are following popular walking routes like the Camino de Santiago?

There’s a training term called unconscious incompetence which is applied to people learning something new. It means they don’t know what they don’t know. Following the Camino de Santiago is relatively easy, but what many people aren’t aware of is there are stretches called complimentarios – deviations through the most scenic aspects of the way which aren’t on the main route. Simply follow the crowds and it’s highly unlikely these would be discovered.

Additionally, walking route directions are more than ‘turn right here, turn left there.’ They also include information about the route – where to eat, where to take little detours, the name of that pretty little chapel and why it’s so unusual, what that strange looking flower is, and so on. They’re guides like any guides. They add depth.

Back to the man waiting at the water crossing in Devon. Before we congregated at the channel, we’d met him previously. In fact, we’d told him what time the tide drifted away, and also when the island’s people-carrying sea tractor made its irregular crossing. We’d already found those things out after discovering the route to the island was impassable – online advice wasn’t fully accurate – so we could include them in the walking directions we were compiling, making it easier for people who used those directions to plan their day more effectively. Also included in those route directions was how to summon a ferryman to transport walkers across the River Avon, when food trucks at Bantham beach were open and what they sold, and how people could make the return trip to the ferryman without scaling a steep hill. All snippets of information our new friend at the water’s edge didn’t know.

People don’t need walking directions, but there’s a good chance they’ll miss out on a hell of a lot without them, that’s if they don’t get lost.

The author of a Guardian article about winter walking in Britain fell into the latter. As a relatively recent returner to yomping across Britain’s countryside, I found it interesting to compare his experiences with mine.

The weather

The weather was one area where hiking in Blighty left him cold. Cold, wet, and miserable.

At this time of year, the lure of warmer climes can be irresistible, whether that’s for lying in or walking in doesn’t really matter. Having lived in places where winter days were rarely what anyone in Britain would call cold, and where rain was an infrequent visitor, I can confirm that warm winter walking is very pleasant.

However, over the last couple of years, I’ve enjoyed winter walking in the UK as much as I did in Portugal, and far more than I did walking in summer in hot climates. In both Tenerife and Portugal, walking was off the agenda during summer months.

The thing about the weather is, you can dress for cold and rainy days. There’s not a lot you can do to keep out the heat. I subscribe to Alfred Wainwright’s assertation “There’s no such thing as bad weather, only unsuitable clothing.”

Clothing

I relish being able to wear trousers, fleeces, and jackets we bought for hiking in Chile and Switzerland. They all get regular outings after languishing in cupboards for years. Hiking in the Canaries and Portugal only required light waterproofs at best. Even in snow in Teide National Park, we hiked in T-shirts (although we would start off wearing light fleeces and a jacket – you don’t go hiking at over 2000m without having warm clothing to hand). Various walking forays around Europe tend to be in spring or autumn, again usually only requiring light walking gear, apart from one time in the Black Forest when the weather turned, temperatures plummeted, and we were caught wearing completely inappropriate clothing (see Alfred Wainwright).

Since returning to Britain, we’ve added gaiters and Wellington boots to our outdoor gear collection. I’ve worn wellies on the last two walks we’ve completed. Both were short (under 10km) and didn’t involve any serious ascents or descents, so wellies were fine. Splashing through marshy fields, along muddy farm tracks, and through lake-sized puddles unlocked the inner child, while my feet and legs remained cosy and dry. I’ve also switched from hiking boots with lightweight uppers to leather ones, far better for traipsing through Britain’s squidgy fields. Although we’ve walked across a cold and rainy Exmoor a couple of times, we’ve yet to resort to the tent-sized ponchos we bought to walk the Camino de Santiago.

Walking speed

I couldn’t tell you whether we are fast or slow walkers, it’s not something I dwell on. I walk at the pace I walk at. I would guess it’s neither fast nor slow. The Guardian’s writer was a confirmed fast walker, speeding along, head down. I’ve never understood that way of walking. Maybe that’s because of a brief stint in the Marines where walking in that manner was called a route march and involved lugging a 56lb pack on my back. It’s not what I think of as a fun activity. Plus, you aren’t going to see much when you’re motoring along head down. Walking for us is all about learning about our surroundings, registering the contributions and impact of both nature and humans. For me, there is no better way to get under the skin of any destination than to walk it, but that wouldn’t happen if we were racing along.

Daylight Hours

One area we had to learn to adjust to was the limitation presented by reduced daylight hours. Thanks to longer days, winter didn’t really affect the length of the walks we did in the Canary Islands or Portugal. We were almost caught out on our first long winter walk in Britain, arriving back at our car just as the daylight was snuffed out. Now we simply stick to shorter routes during the darker months.

Experiences

In a way, scenery in warmer climes doesn’t always change that much. In both Spain and Portugal, the greatest difference in terrain was that by the end of summer, the land looked tinder dry and not particularly attractive in some areas. Generally speaking, that’s not a problem in Britain. Maybe it’s still the honeymoon period, but I’m enchanted by how the countryside transforms with the change of seasons, each one artistically reinventing the landscape. After a lengthy period away, it has been like looking at Britain’s beauty through fresh eyes.

To summarise why winter walking in Britain appeals to me so much, I’ll finish with a selection of snippets from recent walks that had me appreciating my cool surroundings.

The sun’s rays pierced the forest’s skeletal canopy, its warmth causing misty spirals to dance across the Grand Western Canal’s glassy surface. It was magical. If the Lady of the Lake’s slender wrist emerged from the water, I would not have been in the slightest bit surprised.

Something caught my eye, the slightest hint of movement prompting me to look up from the crisp, frosty ground where I was hoping to see more examples of the rare phenomenon called hair ice. On the slope above the path, a young roe buck stood stock still, observing me with curiosity. In spring and summer, when the foliage was lush and lovely, I’d never have spotted him.

An icy wind pinched at my nose, cheeks, and earlobes, the only exposed parts of my flesh. A low, bright sun silhouetted two hikers enjoying a picnic on a grassy mound overlooking a golden sea of grasses and shrubs where Exmoor ponies with shaggy chestnut coats roamed freely. In one direction lay an endless panorama consisting of Somerset and Devon’s gently rolling hills. A spin on my heels, and this green and pleasant land was swapped for a view of the Bristol Channel’s slate grey water, looking cold and uninviting as it sloshed across the divide between England and Wales.

It is partly these contrasts that make winter walking in Britain such an enjoyable activity.

Definitions

The first place to start when trying to get to the bottom of the meaning of individual words is to look up their definition in a dictionary. Different ones throw up slightly definitions but they all basically mean the same.

Walking: to move along on foot.

Hiking: the activity of going for a long walk especially for pleasure or exercise.

Therefore, all hiking involves walking but not all walking involves hiking.

However, walking is also commonly used to determine long walks in the countryside for pleasure or exercise. Search Google for ‘walking holidays’ and there are 104,000,000 results.

How do others define the difference between walking and hiking?

The adventure website Trails and Summit come up on the zero-ranking position for the question ‘what is the difference between walking and hiking?’

This is their take on it: ‘Walking is typically a casual activity done in a more urban environment or on a road/sidewalk. Hiking is better defined by taking to the trails and being out to immerse yourself more deeply in nature.’

A CNN article states: ‘Walking is generally an exercise that you do outside in an urban or suburban setting, or indoors in a gym on a track or treadmill. Hiking, in contrast, is walking that’s done in the outdoors and along natural terrain. You’ll usually encounter elevation changes when hiking, but not necessarily when walking.’

I don’t fully subscribe to either as I believe you can go for a walk in the countryside that isn’t necessarily a hike. And as for no elevation changes when walking? That just doesn’t make any sense.

There’s also cultural interpretation at play in both above.

What if you put the question out to the public? Using sites with user generated content often results in ‘interesting’ answers.

This is how the top answer on the Q&A website Quora defined the difference between hiking and walking: ‘To me, and in the UK, nothing really, they are pretty much interchangeable. Hiking slightly conjures up images of red hand knitted socks and corduroy britches.’

This answer was supplied by somebody called Mike in the UK. It also revealed cultural bias.

I’d go along with his comment that, in the UK, hiking and walking are pretty much interchangeable.

We’ve been writing walking/hiking route directions for years, as well as penning numerous articles about the activity. Sometimes we’ll use hiking and sometimes we’ll use walking when referring to the same activity. But we’re British, and that does make a difference.

Putting together Slow Travel holidays for specialist Inntravel, and producing our own walking guidebooks for Tenerife, we’ve walked more in Europe than we have in Britain and, subsequently, have a wider view on the profile of who walks/hikes. Mike’s comment about ‘images of red hand knitted socks and corduroy britches’ shows the perception of who goes walking/hiking in the UK.

When walking in other countries around Europe we see far less of a demographic split in who we encounter on the path. There’s been a perception in the UK that walking/hiking is something older people do. That’s simply not the same in other parts of Europe.

But it is slowly changing. Younger people in Britain are increasingly discovering the joy of being in the countryside on foot, and that in itself is impacting on the use of the terms ‘walking’ and ‘hiking’, as illustrated in this Guardian article. It starts with the quote ‘Walkers are middle aged, hikers are cool’ followed by the sub headline ‘No longer just an activity for older people with sticks, rambling in the countryside is catching on with a new generation’ which in itself reveals the UK’s walking profile bias.

Anecdotal evidence does point to the use of ‘hiking’ in social media being because it sounds cooler than ‘walking.’ A hiking Facebook group I’m in regularly features images of young women (mostly), not a hair out of place, not in the slightest bit sweaty, and dressed as if ready for a magazine shoot, standing in some spectacular spot. If they hiked/walked any distance to get to these spots, then I’ll be a monkey’s uncle.

Increasingly, hiking is used to describe short walks as well as long ones. Basically, it sounds sexier.

Cultural differences

Added to this are other cultural differences, such as in interpretation of the terms in the UK and US. A blog on the US active vacations website Pure Adventures sets out these differences quite well: ‘In North America, we tend to use “walk” in the same way we’d use “stroll” – a relatively easy excursion, usually along paved roads. We reserve the term “hike” for a more challenging trek through rugged terrain. The UK and the Republic of Ireland, however, use “walk” to describe any trip on foot, whether it’s to the corner shop or up the mountainside.

But in the end, does any of this really matter?

If anyone wants to use hiking rather than walking because they think it sounds sexier, even though they’ve only walked along a flat path for 500m to a viewpoint, so what? It doesn’t hurt anyone.

It’s only questionable if they use the term to deceive – i.e. to give the impression they walk/hike longer trails for financial gain like sponsorship, advertising, free equipment and clothing, or complimentary trips etc.

But there can be reasons where using walking or hiking does matter, and that’s when you are involved in the hiking/walking business and are aiming at specific markets.

In online search terms, the phrase ‘walking holiday’ outperforms ‘hiking holiday’ by ten to one in the UK. In the US it’s different, but even there, ‘walking holiday’ is used around three times more than ‘hiking holiday.’

Change the search term to ‘best places for walking’ and ‘best places for hiking,’ and it’s a different story. In the US, ‘hiking’ outperforms ‘walking’ in this instance. In the UK, ‘walking’ still comes tops, but the gap is closer, non-existent at times.

Based on other evidence around travel patterns, that suggests demographic differences – older walkers/hikers who use ‘walking’ looking for pre-packaged holidays; younger ones, who favour the use of ‘hiking,’ looking for more independent travel.

Ultimately, unless for business reasons, use whatever term you want to describe what you do when you put one foot in front of another in nature’s playground and don’t sweat it.

That would be literally don’t sweat it if your hikes tend to be only couple of kilometres on a defined flat path.

I was taught how negotiate the countryside using a map when I was 14 and in the Army Cadets. For over a decade, I’ve helped design and put together walking holidays in off-the-beaten-track locations across Europe. And just about every time I work on one of these holidays, I learn something. It may be to do with a country and its terrain/climate. It could be to do with the ever-evolving world of navigational tools available to walkers. Or it could be something quite simple about the act of walking in the countryside which has somehow eluded me.

To commemorate National Walking Month in the UK, Slow Travel specialist Inntravel asked Andy and I to put together a comprehensive selection of top tips for people choosing their first walking holiday. It got us thinking seriously about the sort of advice walkers would benefit from knowing about. There was a seemingly endless amount of material, so the resulting article written by Andy is a meaty one.

Although its target is new walkers choosing their first walking holiday, the advice within it applies to walking anywhere and to walkers/hikers of varying levels. For example, you could be experienced at walking in Britain but have no experience of hiking in warmer climates or where the terrain is different. We’ve heard plenty of stories over the years about, and from, experienced walkers who encountered problems because they approached walking in another country in the same way as they would at home.

What the tips and advice for hikers article includes

Some of the tips in the article are common sense, but easily overlooked. Like making sure you know what time darkness falls. Others involve more technical considerations. What does ascending 200m in a kilometre actually mean? Do you check what the grade of a walking route is before setting off? One section is dedicated to how to choose the appropriate hiking gear. And there are also useful little personal tips which have worked well for us – as well as being soothing on dry lips Vaseline can help prevent blistered feet.

I’m a great believer in the phrase ‘failing to prepare is preparing to fail.’ It could have been invented specially for hiking, where the more work that goes into the planning, the smoother and more enjoyable the walking experience will be. So, whether you’re a new hiker who doesn’t know good hiking socks have L and R on them or are an experienced one who can breeze their way through unfamiliar terrain with map in hand, you should find something interesting and useful in the article.

And if there’s an essential hiking tip you know about that isn’t mentioned in the piece, please let me know.

I am always hungry to learn something new.

It’s been a sedentary month since Jack and I returned from our brilliant Brecon Beacons trip on behalf of Inntravel and more than 18 years since we last went walking in Britain with nothing more than an OS map and an idea of a route. The day promised no rain and a good chance of sunny spells as the afternoon wore on; the best forecast in two weeks or more and all the excuse we needed to stretch our legs. We had already used the public footpath that begins at the entrance to the farm, walking south west over three fields to the local village for its fête but we had not, as yet, followed it eastwards where we knew it reached the River Tone and hooked up with the West Dean Way which would take us north towards the local pub for lunch.

Setting out was very strange, as we crossed tree large fields belonging to the farm we lived on. More often than not, there was no waymark, no clear path through the long grasses and quagmire, and we were walking directly alongside farm buildings and through fields grazed by sheep and horses. We reached the final gate on our landlord’s farm which would take us briefly into trees to cross a small stream, to find that the gate was knotted with string – the sort of string that it’s really difficult to undo. As Jack grappled with the unruly knot, it started to rain.
“Hurry up! We can shelter under the trees!”
Jack stepped aside with a sharp look and a muttered expletive. I managed to undo the knot just as the rain stopped. Sigh.

While crossing through the yard of the neighbouring farm, we were stopped in our tracks by a flock of sheep being herded into a pen right beside us, with not enough space to accommodate the sheep and ourselves. We pressed tight against a barn door and squeezed past the last sheep to where the farmer was holding the gate open for us.
“Sorry,” we muttered.
“No problem at all,” he beamed, pointing us in the right direction for the next gate.
In all the years we have been walking all over Europe, paths have never felt more like trespassing; yet they’re not, they’re public footpaths.

One of the things that will be very familiar to every UK walker except me, is the astonishing variety and fiendish complexity of gate fastenings to be found in the countryside. Enjoying his superiority, having spent his childhood summers on the farm of his auntie’s farm in Dumfries & Galloway, Jack stands back at every gate and challenges me to open it. I push, lift, click, pull and grunt, sometimes successfully, many times not so much. Occasionally I just stand and stare, baffled, until Jack (rather smugly I feel) easily opens the gate. Navigating our way through thick, cloying mud; soaking wet long grass and multiple gate fastenings worthy of inclusion in The Crystal Maze, we find ourselves standing in front of the offending electric wire which runs right around the field we’re supposed to be crossing. I manage to get under it without mishap, only to discover it’s not the right way and we have to retrace steps. That’s when I fail to get low enough.

Multiple nettle stings and bramble scratches later, with feet sodden, we arrive at our destination only to realise I haven’t brought a face covering. Although it’s no longer a legal requirement, the landlady prefers her customers to wear one so, rather than risk being refused entry, we decide not to bother with the last quarter mile to the pub and to do a circuit instead, heading home across the Combe Downs. Walking along a level track, I suddenly find my feet tied together as the eye of one boot hooks itself into the fabric of the other, and over I go, a severe cramp sending pain shooting through my calf as I hit the ground.

I’ve hiked up and down mountains and sheer cliffs in Switzerland, Austria, Germany, Italy, Portugal, Slovenia and Spain with no problems at all. I do a 12km circuit around the Devon and Somerset countryside and manage to get myself scratched, stung and shocked while limping home with a swollen and scraped knee and nursing a battered shoulder and sore calf. I can see I’m going to have to go into serious training to go walking in Britain.

And those boots have gone into the bin.

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.

Somewhere beside the Sado Estuary a couple of days ago
I whittled down potential routes on Wikiloc, using experience of the ‘hit and miss’ UGC (user generated content) walking site to find a route through a network of dykes around the edge of the Sado Estuary. It’s a fascinating walk, beginning with sandy trails through cork oak forests and small vineyards in the intriguingly named Vale de Judeus, and along narrow lanes whose names reveal what the area was known for. On reaching the estuary, the path we’re following heads into the maze of earthy dykes which protect the basins. Some are salt pans, others are filled with neat rows of wooden squares, oyster beds. Most are inhabited by birds – cormorants, egrets, white heron, and spoonbills. Standing aloof, further into the estuary, are silhouetted flamingos. We know about the area because we researched it following the last time we walked here, a lengthy business as information is hidden away in obscure Portuguese websites. We do this whether walking for fun or creating routes for others. We like to know as much as possible about the places we walk. Wikiloc might show us a potential route, but it rarely reveals information about it.

Slovenia a few months ago
After two weeks in Slovenia we have rucksacks packed with experiences, anecdotes, and reams of information picked up during our travels. We’ve spent eight days exploring and recording walking routes in and around one valley; driven from Ljubljana to the border with Austria; travelled from east to north and then to the Adriatic coast using four different trains; interviewed numerous locals including rural hotel owners, wine specialists, hikers, and a herbalist tour guide. When you’re a travel writer you tend to get access to a lot more information than you do as an average traveller. When you’re a travel writer creating new Slow Travel holidays that will bring visitors to an area, that access is even greater. It’s been an extra special and highly illuminating trip. Slovenia is a country that has enchanted us, one we will return to. We’ve collected so much information and experiences it’ll take us forever to complete the two Slow Travel guidebooks required for the holidays.

Peneda-Geres also a few months ago
It’s the third trip in a year to Peneda-Geres, Portugal’s only National Park. We’ve hiked from near its northern perimeter to beyond its southern one – creating an itinerant walking holiday where routes will take Inntravel customers from one end of the park to the other, staying in wildly contrasting accommodation in six different locations. Much of the base ingredients are the same as Slovenia above. However, itinerant holidays are more logistically difficult to put together than single centre discovery ones. Where transport will already be arranged to get Inntravel customers and/or their luggage seamlessly from A to B, no such network exists for us. We have to figure out how it will work for others. When we reach a hotel after 15km on the trail we can’t collapse into the bar, we have to arrange transport to get us back to where our car is parked at the start of the route, then drive back again – only then we can hit a local bar. It makes the mission more challenging, but it’s wonderfully satisfying when it all comes together and we see the finished product on a website or in a brochure.

Tenerife and the Canary Islands – for fourteen years
We started writing walking route directions for Tenerife after being confused time and time again by poor quality free routes from tourist offices. You get what you pay for, and if you pay nothing…
Neither were there any guides which suited our hiking preferences – featuring lots of in-depth local knowledge/quirks/ and food related information. So we decided to create our own. Fourteen years of specialising in writing about Tenerife and the Canary Islands, using knowledge gleaned from first hand experience, has been channelled into these walking routes and our other Tenerife guides. There are no shortcuts to compiling knowledge of the level we have for the Canary Islands. How we went about gaining it has formed a blueprint we apply to everywhere we visit.

Norway, a few months into the future
“It’s perverse not to.”
Is the realisation we arrive at when researching a holiday to Norway which will involve a raft of places we want to see and experiences we want to notch up. Inntravel have such a holiday in their stable, but it feels odd to book a ‘holiday’ with the company we help create holidays for. So we look at putting it together ourselves before reaching the conclusion above. Why on earth would we not use a company who we know create specialist Slow Travel holidays of the sort we’d book ourselves? We know the work that goes into them, we know we’ll see the very best there is and lots that others won’t. It would be crazy, and a lot of extra work, not to. So we book their holiday.

Back to the dinner table
The man who’d made the confession nods toward a little black book on the table beside the woman sitting opposite, it’s the bespoke guidebook Inntravel customers are sent when they book a holiday.
“Can I have a look at that?” The non-Inntravel customer asks. “We followed the wrong path a couple of times today, and there are a few things we saw that we didn’t know what they were…”

Ever since we took up walking in earnest, and starting monitoring weather conditions in the Canary Islands and their after effects, we’ve learned things about the weather we once would never have considered for a second. Now we don’t really do random walking, unless it’s a spontaneous jaunt from the front door. Walking expeditions, small or epic, are planned in advance, taking into account a number of factors; the weather being one.

Earlier in the year we were due to reboot a couple of Inntravel holidays on La Palma and Tenerife. The initial date proposed was at the end of March, but we pushed it to the beginning of April for one reason. March in the Canaries often ends with a bang – a storm of varying levels of intensity. It’s regular as clockwork. Sure enough, the last week of March arrived with weather alerts for heavy rain and strong winds. By contrast, when we took to the trails the weather was calm, dry, and mostly sunny. We do get lucky, but it’s calculated good luck.

Climactic change is playing havoc with the intensity of weather conditions, but there are still patterns.

We got to know some of these patterns very well in the Canary Islands. Whilst they can’t be applied exactly the same in other places, the general lessons learned have proved useful in spotting related trends in different destinations.

The perils of long, hot summers
Before living abroad we had no real concept of what average temperatures for potential holiday locations meant. The higher the better as far as we were concerned when planning which Greek Island to spend two precious weeks on.

Now we know from first hand experience that 30plus degrees is not only too hot for walking, it’s too hot for doing most things and it’s dangerous. People who don’t experience prolonged, extremely hot summers don’t always realise too hot isn’t a good thing. Whilst Tripadvisor forums for sun and sea destinations might have members excitedly commenting “I hope it stays for my visit” when they hear of a heatwave, it has locals worrying in the short term about the threat of forest fires and, in the longer term, the potentially disastrous impact of drought.

Average temperatures are mostly a meaningless measure. At best they’re a loose guideline, at worst they can be completely misleading; something else we discovered in the Canaries about weather, and weather reporting. The year round good weather tag is justified, but average temperature figures used don’t show the true reality of seasonal variations.

From a purely aesthetic point of view, long hot summers leave thirsty landscapes looking at their worst. I know, from comments about the appearance of the post-summer terrain, there are many people who don’t consider the effect summer has on a location. We enjoy walking in September in parts of Europe as the too-hot weather is on the wane and it makes for lovely, warm walking. But in southern Europe it’s probably the worst time for scenery, unless in an area which is so rich in water it remains evergreen.

Wishy washy November and the bigger picture
When summer departs and autumn breezes in, it can bring inclement weather as the seasons battle for control. Ironically, it’s a period when masses of Brits flock south in search of warmer destinations. November on Tenerife was one of the months we’d advise friends and family to stay away if they were after a week in the sun as there would be heavy rain at some point during the month. November in Portugal has proved to have similar qualities.

The annual reading of online trip reports by disappointed travellers taught me a few things about some people’s perceptions of weather. One was that they tend to consider bad ‘weather’ to be stand alone. After experiencing a storm in on Tenerife in November they might publish something like “the weather was terrible, next year I’m going to Gran Canaria” not realising the ‘terrible weather’ was as a result of a weather front which affected all of the Canarian archipelago.

It’s interesting how many folk view the weather in such a one dimensional way when it comes to holiday locations. Back home they know how weather fronts affect huge parts of their country thanks to news reports. But, generally, they don’t follow news reports in the country they’re holidaying in, so knowledge and perception of what’s going on can be severely limited.

Ultimately, travel and weather can be a complex business; one that is often viewed in measures which are too simplistic to paint a full picture; how hot will it be and will it rain?

The best time of year
At some point today the rain will stop and the sun will shine. We’ll resume our walking in a couple of days and the land will look resplendent; the grass green and perky with the wild flowers that herald the early signs of an approaching spring. Following summer the land can be ragged and unruly. As winter winds down and begins to make way for spring, the landscape blossoms and explodes into life.

Yin and yang – sun and rain; an essential partnership for a beautiful world.