Hi, my (adult) daughter and I are trying to choose a route in Yorkshire for a 6 or 7 day walk that brings us to some pretty villages, but only walking about 10 km a day. I'd also love to get suggestions on a 2-night stop on the way (or at the end) where we can just spoke out from there. (we were also thinking of Cotswolds, that maybe they were more amenable to these time and distance preferences).
Thoughts? Thank you!
You should easily be able to find some lovely circular walks to do from villages in either location. You can do a couple of different ones on consecutive days. I’d say that 10km isn’t really far enough to make it worthwhile going from place to place but will make a really good day’s loop. I’ve done that before from Malham in Yorkshire, and I’m sure other people here will have some really good suggestions.
Hopefully ianandjulie, our Yorkshire walks expert will pick this one up. I have ideas but will defer to him on this one.
Thanks! I should add that we could walk longer distances on certain days, such as en route from one overnight place to another, then perhaps shorter spoking out distances on other days. In other words, we're open to a lot of alternatives but just want to take shorter walks on most of the days so that we're not feeling overly pressed.
Are you committed to walking from place to place? Basing yourself in somewhere like Settle, there is plenty of walking you could do from there to fill a week.
Very good question! I've always been a "slow traveler," so staying at least a week in one place certainly sounds appealing, if a little less adventurous. We won't have a car though, and we would like to get to a few villages etc so that's why I was thinking of the inn to inn. Could we take a taxi one way and walk back from some destinations?
Or, depending where you are staying, local bus.
I'd be inclined to place you in Grassington or maybe a village in Wensleydale but don't want to pre judge the expert opinion. Not that there is anything at all wrong with Settle.
If based in Settle it may even be possible to devise walks around local stations on the Settle-Carlisle railway.
By the way I think ianandjulie are on vacation with not very good internet, so he may be a bit slow replying.
There's a book called the Inn Way by Mark Reid that describes the sort of route you're after
Hi mszapiro -
Tardy response because isn31c is right, I have just returned from a weeks slithering through the Alps in France. Thanks also to isn31c for conferring on me an expert status I’m not sure I deserve, but kind nonetheless!
As it happens, I replied to Heidi on a similar topic a little while back. Here’s the response from that thread :
“I see you’ve already come across the Herriot Way which is easily doable in the time you have available, but you might also consider The Dales Way, which runs from Ilkley through to Windermere in the Lake District. It’s a splendid walk which I’ve done several times over the years. If you search ‘The Dales Way’, the usual suspects for self guiding/luggage transfer appear - Mickledore, Contours, Macs Adventures and the like. The only caveat I would add that in the time available to you, you might have to increase your daily mileage a little to get from end to end - this shouldn’t be a problem as it will still make for leisurely days and, for the most part, the walking is fairly easy.
There’s another trail ‘The Dales High Way’ which is a tougher proposition, sticking to high ground and running from Saltaire through to Appleby (the benefit here is that there are rail links at both ends, but then the Dales Way also has rail links at each end) of the two, for you, I’d go with the original Dales Way which follows rivers for the greater part.
‘Lady Anne’s Way’ runs from Skipton to Penrith through the Dales, following part of the Dales Way and is a ‘progress’ in the footsteps of Lady Anne Clifford (born 1590) visiting her properties en route, but the six day schedule requires a greater daily mileage than you are currently wanting to do. That said, some of the companies - see above - would tailor make your trip to allow you to do part of the walk, so you could perhaps end at, say, Kirkby Stephen (those rail links again), and do shorter days along Lady Anne’s Way.
In fact many of these companies will do bespoke or shorter sections of longer trails. For instance, you could take in the Dales section of Wainwright’s famous Coast to Coast Walk (soon to become an official National Trail!) or you could take in the Limestone country section of the lengthy Pennine Way starting at Gargrave and finishing in Hawes. It would be worth investigating what is on offer through the various ‘Sherpa’ companies (possibly including Sherpa themselves!).
Other, shorter trails that you could complete comfortably in the time you have available are the Nidderdale Way and the Six Dales Trail.”
I also looked up a company called ‘InnTravel’ (they may be linked to The Inn Way books mentioned earlier, but that needs to be confirmed) and they do a ‘Heart of Yorkshire’ tour based around Wensleydale which seems to be something like what you are after if a little longer per day mileage wise. I have a personal preference for the Dales Way, which again involves longer daily mileages than you suggest, but you may be able to arrange a bespoke trip along the most interesting sections.
The suggestion by wasleys of a single centre based trip and using it as your base is good but I’d go a bit further and go for, say, a two centre base, say perhaps Settle and/or Malham or Grassington.
You could also try lay hands on the late, great Alfred Wainwright’s ‘Walks In Limestone Country’ which gives a collection of walks of varying length, some more ambitious than others, but all for completion in a day. It is a book which continues to give me new golden days out (as recently as last month in fact!) and might help guide you in choice of where to stay if you decided to base yourself in one or two places. If all else fails, it will be available mail order from The Wainwright Society.
If you need more ‘fleshing out’ or specific information, please feel free to contact me here or by PM.
Ian
Wow, thanks so much! I now feel like I can get a handle on this and make some decisions. And thank you all. Very excited.
