Walking in the Cotswolds

Doing the same thing bradymae……have ordered a circular walks of Cotswolds trails book so we will see if that helps……be interesting to see the response you get here…..

We just did a circular walk today. It can be tricky finding the path. A book which tells you where to turn etc. in the village in important. A good book tells you how many gates and stiles you climb over. Busses and taxis are pretty nonexistent. If you are walking village to village there are many tour operators in the Cotswold region who do the planning. We are doing circular walks.

A good book...

Can you recommend a book?

We got lost the first day and were rescued (redirected to trail) by a couple with big maps. We purchased access to an app called Cotswolds Way that night and had no problems the rest of the time. We were only doing a few days and we mistakenly thought it would be obvious. It wasn’t always, especially since some of the trail goes right through people’s property which my American brain had a hard time wrapping around (so would assume had done something wrong).

We stayed in Stow-on-The-Wold and day hiked for 3 days before Covid. We had purchased Cotswold trail books before we left home but found that the maps sold at the TI were more detailed and informative and the people in the TI full of information and directions. Yes, we still got lost a couple of times, scaled some rock fences and got to know a herd of cows better than what I wanted but we still managed to get back to our B&B safely each night. Oh, make sure you wear boots that can be cleaned off with a hose, I remember lots of mud and cow/horse/sheep puck in September.

This book looks like the one we used when we did some walking there five years ago. I especially like the hand drawn maps because they are in "real time". Cotswold Way: Chipping Campden to Bath - Planning, Places to Stay, Places to Eat; Includes 44 Large-scale Walking Maps (British Walking Guides)

We got kind of lost once when a farmer parked a large truck in front of the sign that we were looking for. So we look a different route but ended up where we were going anyway, just more roundabout.

We had no trouble finding trailheads, and 99% of the time the trails were well marked. Plan for bad weather; we ended up hiking most of one day in the rain. But it was still lovely!

these are very good books

http://www.pathfinderwalks.co.uk/?s=cotswolds

plus https://www.nationaltrail.co.uk/en_GB/trails/cotswold-way/

Are you walking only on the Cotswolds Way or are you criss crossing onto some other trails like the Monarch's Way? We found the Cotswold's Way to be very well marked when walking it in June (look for the acorn), and easier to find/stay on than some of the others. We did use the Cotswold's Way app (I think it was $6) that let me see where we were while walking even without phone data. That was a helpful check for the times we wondered if we were getting off course.

We have also walked some of the Northern Cotswolds villages in a ring where we were on different trails, and it was a little trickier to find the correct trail. Some sort of offline phone mapping might help supplement your maps if that is what you are doing. The Alltrails app now seems to have a lot of Cotswolds trails so might be an option.

Based on my limited experience, the ease of finding a taxi may depend on your location/time of day when calling. Some of the taxis do school runs. I also wouldn't count on bus service near the trails. Have a wonderful time! We have such fond memories of our walking trips in the Cotswolds.

What OS map do you have.?
OL45 at 1;25,000 is the best for the north Cotswolds but its a bit unwieldy as doubled sided
Rights of way often have finger posts when they start from a road. The can also be round disks with an arrow pointing the direction and these can be repeated along the route
These are yellow on black background for footpaths and blue on white background for bridleway
There are also a couple of further types of rights of way, Restricted Byway and Byway open to all traffic with plumb and red arrows respectively
You can check these out if you go onto Google Maps and on street view where a route leaves a road

I agree with rogerbrown that the various signs, either disks with arrows or finger posts are very easy normally to find and follow in a town or village. If you are following a named route - such as the Monarch Way - it will have its own logo which will appear on the disks. If it points across a field the arrow usually is specific on direction and pointing to a particular corner in the distance when you face it rather than the blazes often found on trails in the US which only indicate that you are on a particular trail.

You can often see the next disk from the previous one. Not always though, sometimes it is on faith. Become familiar with the various ways to cross from one field to the next - kissing gates, farm gates, stiles of many and varied shape and type.

If you see a sign at the entrance to a field warning of a bull, take it seriously, even if you don't see a bull.

A few years back we thought route finding on occasion presented its own interesting challenges. Having hiked other places more recently I think technology has come a long way reducing those challenges.

I've never hiked in the UK, but I recall reading an article--probably in a travel magazine--by an American who set off on a day hike without having read through all the written directions for the route she intended to follow. It turned out there was a lot of terminology she wasn't familiar with, terms used for fences of different types, small hills, little creeks, etc. She had a lot of difficulty as a result. So I'd recommend reading through any hiking directions you plan to follow ahead of time to be sure there are no unfamiliar words.

We've done Northern England inn to inn long distance walks but have not walked the Cotswolds. That said, some generic thoughts on route finding follow.

Having a god set of OS maps and technology (GPS) bailed us out of route mistakes that took us off course. Technogogy is evolving rapidly and many distance walkers rely on their smartphone GPS.

In same lightly traveled sections animal tracks looked more prominent than the correct track.

As we approched villages, the number of footpaths multiply making it difficult to find the correct path to our overnight accomodations.

Thank you all for the great advice and suggestions! I will definitely look into the Cotswolds Way app and a good book or two. Sounds like we should do a little more research on signs, terminology, and such. We are not following the Cotswolds Way only, the route I planned is some named walks and some smaller ones, so looks like there will be some variety in signage. But, as some have said, finding the trail can be half the adventure!

This might be of interest…

https://community.ricksteves.com/travel-forum/trip-reports/hiking-through-the-cotswolds-inn-to-inn-the-70-s-is-going-to-be-a-great-decade

We are doing a self-guided holiday in the Cotswolds next May but using HF Holidays for lodging and support. We are doing what they call a center-based trip where we stay at one location and go out on daily walks. You can spend a few hours perusing their site to look at guided, self-guided, or even learning navigation skills or other special interests.

We have done the Hadrians Wall path across north England. We used a company that arranged our baggage forward and all the inns.
During that walk we had specific maps, page by page for each segment.
I still used maps.me on the hike. It shows footpaths. You can put in your destination and see the distance and route.
I also used this for hiking in Germany earlier this year.
I would recommend maps.me. Free. Don’t even need a connection. To download maps you will need a connection. If you are in an area in which you do not have the map, maps.me will let you know you need to download that area.
On my home area on maps.me I know all the local footpaths and all of them show up. So you can easily check for yourself in your home area to see and practice using app.

Laurel I will be interested in your experience with HF Holidays after your trip! I like the idea of a home base.

For walks from the local Donnington brewery pubs have a look at their App
See under News H-app-y Days
www.donnington-brewery.com