Customer Reviews

The Independent Walker's Guide to Great Britain: 35 Enchanting Walks in Great Britain's Charming Landscape

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
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1 star:		(0)

 

 

I really enjoyed reading this book, full of wonderful descriptions of easy, scenic walks. It gives lots of arguments for why you should try walking in Britain and lots of information for how to prepare. I decided I wanted to do mostly more strenuous hikes than what's covered here, but this book was my inspiration to think about seeing Britain on foot.

My wife and I have used this book to select and guide 7 walks for two trips we have taken and highly recommend it as a guide to day trip walking, which is its focus.

If you want to do continuous multi-day walks, then this is not your book. However the books that focus on multi-day trips can be overwhelming and difficult to use for day hikes. I own one of them also and so speak from experience.

For day hikes the great strengths of this book are: 1. Its selectivity. The walks are great choices. Magnificent ways to experience the country. 2. The dry humor and pleasant style, something one doesn't expect to find in this form.

One word of caution, however, allow some time to get a little lost, particularly if you don't have the maps he recommends, which we didn't. However, we never failed to find our way or complete the walk, so it does work and is great fun.

Anticipating a visit to England this spring, I was excited to find this book. However, on receiving it, I discovered that it was written 12 years ago. As so much of the routing is based upon "paths",signs and specific landmarks, I am trusting that these have survived since the writing of the book... we'll see. Otherwise, the approach and information given promises to be helpful.It is long enough to cover the subject, but small enough to tuck into our bag.