Sign up to Simon Calder’s free travel email for expert advice and money-saving discounts Get Simon Calder’s Travel email
While the UK is famous for muddy pub walks and gently undulating coast-path sections, its terrain also allows for some longer, tougher one-day treks.
Some of them are even less than 50 miles from London.
Put in the hard yards, and you’ll be rewarded with wondrous views, true wildness and the odd haunted bothy.
Show all 8 1 /88 best hikes in the UK 8 best hikes in the UK Ben Macdui, Cairngorms National Park Swap busy Ben Nevis for the scarcely-smaller Ben Macdui, Scotland’s second highest peak at 4,295ft, and scale CairnGorm – which ranks sixth – for good measure. Twelve miles long and likely to take eight to nine hours, a rollercoaster of a hike bagging both begins from the Cairngorm Ski Centre car park. You’ll shadow a run down Cairn Gorm, cross heathery moors and flank the small Coire an Lochain water (walkhighlands.co.uk).
Getty Images/iStockphoto
8 best hikes in the UK Sandwood Bay Loop, Sutherland One of Britain’s great beaches, Sandwood Bay’s wind-blasted white sand is inaccessible by road; you must walk a four-mile track from Blairmore – in remotest northwestern Scotland – past small lochs. Its lagoon, supposedly-haunted bothy, crashing waves and spindly sea stack look even better from above. So zigzag up the southern cliff before taking the faint coast path and then crossing bumpy, boggy peat moorland back to the main track (ramblers.org.uk).
Getty/iStock
8 best hikes in the UK Bochlwyd Horseshoe, Snowdonia Snowdon is Wales’ most famous bluff, but nearby Tryfan is more eye-catching thanks to a shark-fin shape. It forms part of the Bochlwyd Horseshoe, which involves much scrambling over scree fields and – due to some wispy ridges – a head for heights. Veteran hikers are rewarded with scintillating, panoramic Snowdonia vistas and photo-ops on the overhanging Cantilever stone. The slow-going route is only eight miles, but will feel longer (mudandroutes.com).
Getty/iStock
8 best hikes in the UK Scafell Pike via Corridor Route, Lake District The ways up England’s highest mountain vary in popularity. Leaving the Lakeland hordes to follow an easy path from Wasdale, use instead the Corridor Route to steeply approach Scafell Pike’s quieter north side. After attaining its boulder-strewn, 3,209ft summit, loop back to start-point Seathwaite via burly Broad Crag. Almost ten miles long, this tough circular promises riversides, ravines, a waterfall and four Hewitts – hills over 2,000 feet (mudandroutes.com).
Getty Images for PCA
8 best hikes in the UK Slieve Binnian Trail, County Down A challenging circular through Northern Ireland’s Mourne Mountains which starts off gently before plunging up alongside the attractive Mourne Wall: an early 20th-century dry-stone dyke built to separate cattle from a reservoir below. Though some scrambling is required to reach Slieve Binnian’s 2,449-foot crest, its views – to the Isle of Man on clear days – easily merit the effort, as does a diverse descent past the Blue Lough and Annalong Wood (walkni.com).
Getty Images/iStockphoto
8 best hikes in the UK Byrness to Kirk Yetholm, Northumberland, Scottish Borders It can take 16 days to complete the 268-mile Pennine Way, but if you only have one to spare then combine the last (and usually least-crowded, due to a lack of accommodation) two stages for a real wilderness walk. Traversing the wild Cheviot Hills and hugging the Scottish border, it’s a lonely 27-mile trudge characterised by bog-hopping boardwalks and slab paths (nationaltrail.co.uk/pennine-way).
Getty Images/iStockphoto
8 best hikes in the UK The Broomway, Essex It’s only six miles long, yet the Broomway is reckoned to have killed 100 people. From Great Wakering, it heads straight out to sea at low tide, eventually reaching the marshy island of Foulness. Why so perilous? Because the path is mostly unmarked, the tide returns faster than humans can and there is a lot of quicksand on the route. But in good weather, and traversed safely, this can be one of the most bracing beach walks Britain has on offer (broomway.org.uk).
Getty
8 best hikes in the UK Yorkshire Three Peaks What do Pen y Ghent, Whernside and Ingleborough have in common? Well, they’re Yorkshire’s highest mountains, they each offer fine views and all three are surmountable during a gruelling 24-mile trek. Along with over 5,000 feet worth of ascent, you’re promised the Ribblehead viaduct, picturesque Dales High Way sections and, of interest to geologists, distinct limestone-gritstone overlaps. Begin and end at Horton in Ribblesdale, where pubs are happily on standby (threepeakschallenge.uk).
Getty Images/iStockphoto
Click through our gallery above for our pick of the best eight hikes in the UK.
In association with Voltarol. For more information about our products or to report an adverse event with one of our products please contact 0800 783 8881.
