Notes from our trail journal
Why we walk in shoulder season
May and September are the honest months on the Scottish coast. Fewer people, better light, and the weather you were probably going to get anyway.
The peak-season version of any famous walk is a slightly different walk. The path is the same, the villages are the same, but the experience gets crowded around the edges. In shoulder season you get the trail back.
The case for May
Long light, gorse in full flower, the sea still cold enough that no one is swimming in it but warm enough to sit next to. Accommodation is easier to book, and the pubs remember why they liked doing this.
You booked a walking holiday, not a queue.
The case for September
Warmer sea, the last of the summer produce, and the kind of long golden evenings that make you late for dinner. The path is quieter after the schools go back, and everyone you meet on it wants to be there.
Written by
Craig MacIntyre
Founder, Big Trail Adventures
Craig has walked the Fife Coastal Path more times than is strictly reasonable. He builds the trips we run.
Also from the trail journal.
Two Sticks of Rock
Elise Downing ran the Ridgeway in three days. Two friends tried to walk the same distances. It went about as well as last time.
Two Sisters, One More Day
Sarah and Ros walk a trail together every year — arriving from opposite ends of the country to spend one week together, all the planning sorted. This year it was the South Downs Way. On day five, they walked a mile with Bill Bailey.
Out of Season
Chris Townsend walked the GR5 in autumn, with a tarp on his back and the huts closing behind him.