During the summer I went on a hike from Newton Abbot to Torquay to chat about Slow Ways with John Danks from BBC Spotlight. Here’s how that went..
Slow Ways
BBC News: Slow map – Mapping Britain’s intercity footpaths
“Would you know the best way to walk from Leeds to Manchester? From Tring to Milton Keynes, or Carlisle to Inverness? If not, then you’re not alone.
We live in a time when our phones will show us the quickest route to almost anywhere – if we are driving, that is. Walking? Well, that’s a different matter.
Geographer Daniel Raven-Ellison is offering a solution; a new map created by volunteers during lockdown to show the best walking routes between all of Britain’s main towns.
All that is needed now is 10,000 keen walkers to test out the routes on his “slow map”. David Sillito
The Guardian: How the Slow Ways network could change walking in Britain
“Once you’re allowed to visit family or friends around the UK, why not ditch the car or train and go on foot instead? That’s what the creators of Slow Ways want to encourage. It’s an ambitious new project to create a network of walking routes between all of Great Britain’s towns and cities, as well as thousands of villages.
The brainchild of geographer and explorer Dan Raven-Ellison, and supported by Ordnance Survey, the idea is to get people walking between locations they might otherwise drive or take public transport to – via existing off-road paths and bridleways – and to promote slower types of travel.” Jane Dunford
Read the whole article on The Guardian’s website.
National Geographic: How you can help plot the future of UK walking – from a standstill
“Walkers, your country needs you – and the inability to walk very far at the moment needn’t be a barrier.
An ambitious new project led by a National Geographic Explorer is recruiting an army of 500 volunteers to create the most comprehensive network of walking routes in Great Britain – linking every village, town and city via the nation’s intricate web of public rights of way.
The Slow Ways project is the brainchild of geographer and explorer Daniel Raven-Ellison, who is seeking to find a silver lining to the cloud of coronavirus lockdown. With the population confined to home, his intrepid routes-without-boots scheme requires nothing more than a computer, map-reading skills and a galvanised public spirit. His goal is to plot more than 4,000 walking routes on an online map, using the 200,000km of footpaths and bridleways that trace their way between village, town and city.”
Read the whole article on National Geographic.