Whether you’re traipsing a well-documented path or you’re the first reviewer on a Slow Ways route, there are always things you should keep in mind to be safe when out walking.

I walk twelve miles a day during lambing, and always lose plenty of weight. I can tell I don’t walk as much as that the rest of the year; I get podgy over Christmas! It’s a mile and a third straight from the bottom of my farm right to the top, but the wiggly route is two miles, then two back. I do that three times a day or even four at the very height of lambing.

An Arthurian Slow Way down the Usk, from Caerleon to Newport, with tree-loving author Matthew Yeomans

A stretch of the route encompassed a wooded waterlogged trail that ran adjacent to the M25. I was unsettled, slogging through as big trucks and vans and cars whooshed by in a relentless roaring blur.

Lifelong Londoner and photographer Michael Shilling sets out to walk six Slow Ways chosen entirely by an ambitious Twitter poll

Do the little things on the day of the patron saint of Wales

Share the love around with this voucher for a hike or a stroll with a purpose!

Jo Bennie reviews Braclo one, a solo overnight route through the Cairngorms