Join the autumn Slow Ways National Swarm, 12-13th November

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How far can we walk in a weekend? Join the autumn swarm, give a hike, and find out!

We would love for you to get involved in our next National Slow Ways Swarm weekend, taking place on the 12-13th November, 2022.

On your own or in a group, long routes or short routes, urban or rural: add your walk(s) to the collective total and be part of the buzz as we tick off as many as we can! There will be a special get-together in Leicester on Saturday 12th November to celebrate too.

Swarms really work!

Over two weekends, back in March and May, we invited people from across Great Britain to walk and review as many Slow Ways walking routes as possible in a single weekend as part of our pilot swarm. See some of the swarm stories here.

From Bradford to Brighton, Aberystwyth to Alnwick, people undertook exciting Slow Ways journeys alone, with friends or in groups. Along the way new connections were made, areas discovered, and pathways traversed. The swarms were a big success!

How do we get involved? Just give a hike!

On your own or as a group you could:

  • walk a single Slow Way to a neighbouring town
  • walk as many routes as you can over the weekend
  • walk to a distant place by combining multiple routes
  • be a pioneer: If you are looking for inspiration on which Slow Ways to walk, it would be useful to look at routes which haven’t been reviewed yet. Filling some of those gaps will really connect up the network nationally. Pioneering a route that has not been walked before will give people who follow in your footsteps more confidence to try the route too.
  • go snail bagging: Bagging a snail means being the person to award a route its fully verified status, by giving it its third positive review. You can help to fully verify routes and ‘bag snails’ on your own or as part of a group – each person’s review counts.
  • pledge to walk a route: if you like the look of a particular route you can click the pledge button below it. Other people will know you’ve got your eye on it, and it will be saved as a waylist called ‘My pledges’. Keep track of your dreams! Why not have a browse now and see what you might pledge for the swarm week?
  • use our routing tool to invent a long trail just for you! Enter any two settlements in GB and the routing tool will string together the most direct series of Slow Ways to get you there. A bespoke national trail from your door!

The easiest routes are short 5km urban walks. The most challenging are over 40km and go through remote and rugged terrain. The average Slow Ways route is about 15km and most will connect places with public transport.

Many of the Slow Ways routes are untested and some may even be dangerous. It’s really important that you only walk routes that are within your experience. You will be entirely responsible for your own happiness and safety.

If that’s fine with you, we’d love to have your help with this pilot swarm. Simply sign-up below.

Taking part is as easy as going for a walk

To take part simply follow these three steps:

1. Choose a Slow Ways route. In the panel on this map you can choose to show just the green unverified routes, or just the purple verified routes, to help you to target your efforts

2. Walk it: Walk the route on your own or in a group

3. Review it: Make sure you share a review to add your walk to the total (and help out the next person to walk that way, of course!)

We’ll be adding a totaliser to our homepage so that we can see our collective achievements over the weekend.

Spread the word: Are you on social media? If so, please help to spread the word about what you are doing using the hashtag #SlowWays. We are @SlowWaysUK on TwitterFacebook and Instagram

Between Arundel and Findon in West Sussex
Slow Ways
Slow Ways is an initiative to create a national network of walking routes connecting all of Great Britain’s towns and cities as well as thousands of villages. It’s designed to make it easier for people to imagine, plan and go on walking journeys, walking further and for more purposes.