Overview of the Route

One of the delights of walking from Land's End to John o'Groats is that you can make up your own route; the only criterion for being able to say you've done the End-to-End is that you get from one to the other in one continuous journey, but it doesn't matter how you do it. For people whose geography is a little shaky (that's me!) there is help available, and I based my route on the book The Land's End to John o'Groats Walk by Andrew McCloy. I didn't follow it religiously, especially when it seemed to add extra distance for no perceivable gain, but it was a great help in planning my walk.

If you'd like to see the route I took in map form, then you can see it in both two dimensions and in three dimensions, thanks to those nice people at Google Maps and Google Earth.

My route followed as many long-distance paths as was sensible, as noted below. Sometimes this was a good idea, and sometimes not; in the rain a convenient minor road can be a lot more pleasant than a hike through yet more boggy fields, but if you've got the right maps you can pick and choose. Anyone who sticks rigidly to their planned route for three months is either very lucky or very stubborn; allow for changes to your route and you can't go wrong.

So here's my route, designed to take in the beauty spots of Britain while avoiding too much meandering. I recommend this as a good starting point, especially if you've never done any of the long-distance walks it incorporates. It covers 15.9 miles per walking day, of which there are 70. I took 19 rest days, which felt about right, though you should of course tailor the schedule to your own capabilities.