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Start with somewhere you want to explore
You do not always begin planning a journey by knowing exactly where you are going, which route you will follow or where you will stay.
Sometimes it begins with a landscape you want to see. A trail you have heard about. A village on the coast. A photograph of somewhere unfamiliar. Or simply the idea of spending a few days walking somewhere new.
Self Guided Travel is built around that point of discovery.
We are an independent travel publisher exploring Britain's trails, landscapes and wild places, and connecting them with the destinations, places to stay, journeys and practical information that help you experience them for yourself.
From discovering a place to understanding it
Finding somewhere interesting is easy. Understanding how to explore it can be harder.
A National Landscape might contain hundreds of miles of paths, dozens of villages, nature reserves, historic places and several long-distance trails. A trail may pass through places you have never heard of. Somewhere that looks interesting on a map may be difficult to reach without knowing the surrounding area.
Self Guided Travel brings those relationships together.
Discover a trail and you can explore the landscapes and places along it. Find a landscape and you can see the routes that cross it. Discover a village and you can find nearby walks, places of interest and somewhere to stay.
Each becomes a different way into the same landscape.
Find a way to experience it
Not everybody wants the same kind of journey.
You might want to walk a complete long-distance trail. You might prefer to stay in one village for two nights and explore from there. You may be looking for somewhere to walk for an afternoon, or simply researching places for a future trip.
That is why Self Guided Travel includes both Journeys and Walking Breaks, alongside trails, destinations, landscapes and individual places.
They are suggestions rather than requirements.
You can follow a complete journey, adapt one to suit your own plans or simply use the information to create something entirely your own.
Find somewhere that belongs to the journey
Where you stay can shape how you experience a place.
Rather than treating accommodation as a separate search, Self Guided Travel connects places to stay with the trails, villages and landscapes around them.
A village inn might provide a base for several days of local walking. A guesthouse might sit close to the beginning of a long-distance trail. A mountain refuge might exist because of the route passing directly through the landscape.
Understanding that relationship can be more useful than simply finding accommodation near a postcode.
Get the practical information you need
Inspiration only gets you so far.
Eventually you need to know where a trail begins, how difficult it is, how far you might walk each day, how to get there, where you could stay and how you get home afterwards.
Our practical guides, maps and route information are designed to answer those questions while remaining connected to the places they describe.
You can use as much or as little of that information as you need.
Build your own journey
There is no single correct way to explore somewhere.
Start with a trail. Start with a landscape. Start with a place to stay. Start with a village, a nature reserve or somewhere you saw while looking at a map.
Follow the connections until you have enough information to go.
That is what we mean by Self Guided Travel.
Routes, landscapes and wild places, brought together to help you discover somewhere new and experience it independently, at your own pace.