Routes and Planning
While pilgrimage is a journey with a particular destination, Wayfaring does not necessarily require a destination. Or rather, a wayfaring destination does not mean an end to journey. You can arrive, and continue walking.
But a destination is a useful tool to help direct your path. It can be anywhere you want to go, whether a person or place, event or celebration. What summons you? Where is worth the walk? Only you can decide. Also, your destination can change while you are walking there. There are no rules but your own.
You might want to walk to a dark sky, a sunset, or the Aurora Borealis. Your destination could be a ruined monastery, the source of a river, an ancestor’s grave, or an ancient tree. It could be a friend’s house, a wedding or a festival. Or it might just be a really good fish and chip shop.
Some Wayfarers can only walk for a day or two. Other Wayfarers set out for many months. Either way is up to you.
There are 3 kinds of Wayfaring journey:
Set routes
These are pre-arranged routes designed by someone else. They are usually waymarked, often with a guidebook.
The advantage to walking set-routes is that they make Wayfaring more convenient, by focusing facilities like hospitality, and by attracting multiple fellow Wayfarers. The Coast to Coast might be your best bet for this.
The disadvantages of such paths is that popularity and development can spoil the quietness, solitude and Nature of a path. And the defined beginning and end can feel arbitrary, like someone else’s choice. But these generalisations are not always true, such as the Cape Wraith trail, a set route that is mostly empty of both people and facilities. And you can always just keep going when you reach the end…
Unset routes
You can make up your own route to a chosen destination. Once you’ve decided where you want to go, and you know how long you can walk for and your ideal daily distance (aim for less!), you can plot your route (via footpaths) backward from this destination, and so find your nightly stop points and eventually an appropriate start point.
Another option is to plot sleep-spots first, and design your path around them. And if you intend to walk one way only, you may want to aim for somewhere with a train station?
Or you might prefer to simply set out and wing it on the path.
An advantage of making your own route is the ability to choose sub-destinations along the way that are meaningful to you. That hilltop - that cave - that waterfall - may not make sense in terms of straight-line journeying, but making sense is not a rule.
Journeying from Home
This is the most traditional form of Wayfaring. Throughout history, most people lacked the option to travel to a distant location to begin their Wayfaring journey. It is a huge privilege to enjoy the modern flexibility to start a Wayfaring journey wherever you like, but also, departing from home connects our journey to everyday life in a deeply valuable way.
Often, a Wayfaring journey can feel set apart and disconnected from ‘normal’ life. Setting off from home keeps our path connected with what is most near and dear. In my experience, this is the most powerfully authentic mode of Wayfaring journey.
If you are exchanging your home for a life on the footpath, the option of departing from where you last lived makes most sense.
There and Back Again?
If you set off from home to go Wayfaring, the oldest tradition is to reach your destination and then walk back. The great adventurers in Western culture - Odysseus, Polo, Verne & Baggins - made their journeys from home, and then returned. This is how, for the majority of human history, Wayfaring happened.
Walking there and back again takes longer, but it offers time to assimilate your journey and arrival. It keeps in balance your Wayfaring journey. It’s like following a labyrinth. If you walk all the way to the centre, walking back out the same long way simply makes sense.
Although it takes twice as long to achieve a ‘there and back again’ journey, you could mitigate this by choosing a destination half as distant? It is a truly worthwhile form of Wayfaring, and offers deep reward.
Go By Footpath
Travel by road is very different to travel by footpath. Road users, whether car, motorbike, bicycle or pavement walker, are exposed to air pollution, noise, intensity, litter and high risk of injury.
Footpath walkers, by contrast, follow secret green passages between the roads, over hill and valley, along rivers and streams. Footpaths are the old ways of Britain, and as a Wayfarer you are best served by following these at every opportunity. This unique network of open tracks is wholly free to use, and open 24/7, 365.
Britain’s footpaths are our connection to the ancient lineages of the landscape. That old muddy track by the willows was once been a bustling highway on which Kings and Vagabonds walked. It is easy to take this network of free passage for granted, but visitors from Australia and the USA are constantly amazed at the unparalleled freedom UK footpaths offer.
Plotting a Route
To plot your Wayfaring route, the best bet is usually to use OS (Ordnance Survey) maps, on paper or digital. To browse OS maps for free, use the Bing Maps website (change the scale in the top right). But you cannot plot a route on Bing. To do this, you have to pay for a service.
The tool you would use for Navigation is what you would use to route-plotting a route too. I like the simplicity and ‘you are here’ magic of GPS mapping on a smartphone. For me, Memory Map is the best app for this, for the ease of use of its smartphone app. You cn choose to subscribeOS Maps also have a digital app/ platform, which offers a free trial, and costs a few pounds a month for full time use.
You can also use route-making apps which use OpenStreetMap footpath data. This is a user-generated and entirely free dataset of walking paths, and which can be better and worse than OS in different ways at different places. While OS shows the official and definitive public footpaths and bridleways, OSM shows what local people reckon works. You can access the OSM data online for free to plot routes, using websites like FatMap.
One of the best route-planning and navigation apps is UK Map. It costs £7 for the initial download, but has excellent free maps after this, as well as the option to buy OS mapping as required. It also has really good terrain shading and a 3D function that works really well.
Walk in Beauty
Plot your Wayfaring route to take you to the best places possible. Once you have a rough idea of where you’ll start (home?) and where you intend to arrive, a good start can be to draw a straight line between them on an OS 1:25k map. Then follow the footpaths nearest to the line, whilst being mindful of where you want to avoid (motorways and other fast roads, industry, urban build-up). Deviate widely from the straight line, but use it as a guide to return to.
If you find a pre-existing long distance footpath that can carry you part of your way, use it. These can be great to hop on/hop off. But don’t forget you are not bound to it, so follow your nose to all the good places that the ‘official’ route-creator decided to bypass.
When plotting your path, these resource can help you decide where to go:
For prehistoric stones and wells, look at the Megalithic Portal map.
For ancient trees, consult the Woodland Trust’s map.
English Heritage has good information on historic sites.
The National Trust holds many properties, including natural landscapes, in the UK.
Cadw map the historic sites of Wales.
Pastmap show the historic sites of Scotland.
English Local Nature Reserves are mapped here.
English National Nature Reserves are mapped here.
Welsh National Nature reserves are mapped here.
Scottish National Nature reserves are mapped here.
UK Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty are mapped here.
Your wayfaring journey should aim for beauty and richness of experience, not just direct travel connection. Because it can.
You may wish to plot a different path back from your way out. Judge it by what you find. Returning by a different route is a very old nomadic tradition.
For help on navigation, see here.
These are 12 of the best Wayfaring set-routes in Britain:
The Old Way to Canterbury
Southampton to Canterbury, Hampshire to Kent - 220 miles, 16-20 days.
Coast to Coast
St Bees to Robin Hoods Bay, Cumbria to North Yorkshire - 193 miles, 13-15 days
The South West Coast Path
Minehead to Poole, Devon to Dorset - 630 miles, 2 months
The Ridgeway
Oxford to Avebury, Oxfordshire to Wiltshire - 87 miles , 6-8 days
Offas Dyke Path
Chepstow to Prestatyn, England and Wales - 177 miles, 13-15 days
Glyndwr’s Way
Knighton to Welshpool, Powys - 135 miles, 10-12 days
The Monarchs Way
Worcester to Shoreham on Sea, Worcestershire to Sussex - 579 miles, 7 weeks.
The North Downs Way
Farnham to Dover, Hampshire to Kent - 153 miles, 11-13 days
The South Downs Way
Winchester to Eastbourne, Hampshire to Sussex - 100 miles, 7-9 days
The West Highland Way
Glasgow to the Highlands, Scotland - 96 miles, 7-9 days
Hadrians Wall Path
Chollerford to Birdoswald - Northumberland and Cumbria - 73 miles - 5-7 days
LEJOG
Lands End to John O’ Groats, Cornwall to Scotland - 1100 miles - 3 months
