The cold days of winter transform the British countryside into a wonderland of frozen lakes, frosted hills and snowy, twinkling forests. Wrap up warm and it can be one of the most rewarding and festive times of the year to be out on the trail.
From the Highlands of Scotland and the great fells of the Lake District to Wales' ancient woodlands and London's parklands, our guide explores the UK's most spectacular winter landscapes.
Each winter walk includes a map and route description, as well as the distance, difficulty and time it takes to complete the walk.
So grab your boots and pick a winter walk near you – it's time to hit the trail.
Looking for more winter inspiration? Check out our guides to winter wildlife, spectacular winter beaches and amazing country houses to visit in winter.
Best winter walks in England
Castleton and Winnats Pass, Derbyshire
4.6 miles/7.4km | 3.5 hours | moderate
Peak Cavern is one of the Seven Wonders of the Peak District, and was long thought to be an entrance to Hell – the river that flows through it is still known to cavers as the Styx. For 400 years, a small community of rope-makers lived within its huge entrance – it became known as “a village that never saw the sun”.
These days, the planned medieval township of Castleton is famous not only for its caves but also for its dazzling display of Christmas lights, as every shop and pub on Cross Street is festooned with colourful Christmas trees. And looming over the village, as it has for 800 years, is the 12th-century keep of Peveril Castle, also floodlit during the weekends before Christmas. Explore the caves, crags and castle of this Peak District village with an easy, 4.6-mile circular walk.
More winter inspiration
Robin Hood’s Bay, North Yorkshire
2.7 miles/4.3km | 1.5 hours | easy–moderate
Tiny, pantiled cottages, honeycombed with narrow courtyards, tumble down a narrow gully to the sea. Front doors look over neighbours’ roofs and vertiginous stone steps link the different levels.
Down at the shore of Robin Hood’s Bay, boats are still drawn up on the rocks of Landing Scar, a reminder of the village’s smuggling days.
In 1800, everyone who lived in Bay Town, as it is known locally, was said to be involved in this illegal transportation of goods. The villagers linked their cellars up the steep slope so that contraband, received at the shore, could be passed underground to the cliff top, unbeknown to Bay Town’s customs officers.
Take a winter walk through the surrounding North York Moors countryside. A three-mile circular route heads south from the Station Car Park on the hilltop above the village (visitors’ cars are not allowed in the narrow streets).
Haddon Hall, Derbyshire
5.5 miles/8.9km | 3.5 hours | moderate
Follow the bridge over the River Wye and climb to the hefty arched doorway of Haddon Hall. Step inside the courtyard with its great stone slabs. Feel the weight of 900 years of history in the locally quarried grit and limestone and the solid native oak used to create this largely unaltered medieval house.
When the family walked away from Haddon Hall in favour of Belvoir Castle in the 1700s, they left unloved furnishings to gather dust and worms for 200 years. Many of these pieces remain, and now the Hall’s collection of early Tudor furniture is regarded as one of the finest.
Leaving the manor house behind, you can follow the meandering River Wye to Bakewell for more seasonal delights at All Saints Church, with its Christmas Tree Festival, and to pay homage to the Haddon Hall family in the Vernon Chapel.
Long Mynd, Shropshire
8.6 miles/13.8km | 5 hours | moderate–challenging
On 39 January 1865, the Reverend Carr spent a night out on the Long Mynd, battling against one of the fiercest snow storms to hit 19th-century Shropshire.
This 21-square mile expanse of windswept heather moorland can be notoriously wild in winter. The Burway, the single-track lane that snakes up to altitudes of 475m, is frequently closed in winter, adding a sense of adventure for hikers out exploring this vast plateau in winter.
Reverend Carr regularly crossed the Long Mynd to deliver Sunday services at Woolstaston and Ratlinghope churches. But one day, on his return journey for Woolstaston’s evening service, the weather worsened. Carr became disoriented by fierce blizzards, got stuck in chest-deep snowdrifts and plummeted down the sides of steep, frozen valleys.
This eight-mile route begins in Carding Mill Valley, where Carr was ultimately rescued, 22 hours after setting out and five miles off-course. Blinded by his frozen eyelashes, he heard children’s voices and called for help. In one of the cottages here, he was given warm soup, his first real sustenance for hours.
Today, the National Trust’s Chalet Pavilion offers similar restorative refreshments to weary Long Mynd walkers.
Winter wildlife
You might think that our wildlife shuts up shop for the winter, but you’d be missing some of Britain's greatest natural wonders.
Stour Valley, Suffolk/Essex
6.8 miles/11km | 4 hours | moderate
Winter can be a magical time for exploring the peaceful river valleys and charming rural churches of Suffolk, and there is much to be said for soaking up the atmosphere of this genteel corner of East Anglia out of high season.
Days get off to a sluggish start, with the countryside swaddled in a lingering shroud of mist, soon shrugged off and replaced by crisp air and milky sunshine, ideal conditions for a winter walk.
The Stour Valley is gentle and undulating, an ever-changing patchwork of woodland trails and farmland fringed with sleeping hedgerows. Sprinkled with small towns and pretty bucolic villages of thatched painted cottages, and complete with a reassuring cluster of cosy tea rooms, this is an area to be savoured.
Starting from the historic wool town of Clare, Suffolk’s smallest town, the route links three of the area’s most charming churches, wending its way along the Stour Valley to Cavendish, before returning on the Stour Valley Path high above the river.
Holkham, Norfolk
4.8 miles/7.7km | 3.5 hours | easy–moderate
It is said that in Norfolk you can tell how far you are from the coast by the roundness of the flint on the outside of the buildings – the rounder the flint, the closer you are to the sea.
The interaction between sea and land is strong along the North Norfolk coast, where mudflats and salt marshes sit alongside miles of beaches. One such beach is Holkham.
Here, a fusion of pinewoods and sand dunes tumble on to the beach and into the sea. The shoreline is part of one of the largest national nature reserves in the country, home to many rare species of flora and fauna and a favoured place for birdwatching. This walk is for both nature-lovers and those looking for the winter harmony offered by seemingly endless beaches, seas and skies.
Cotehele, Cornwall
1.7 miles/2.8km | 1 hour | moderate
On the Cornish side of the River Tamar, the Cotehele estate encompasses 526 hectares of woodland, meadow and riverside countryside. As you enter Cotehele’s house, it is easy to imagine age-old winter celebrations around the huge fireplace.
Our 1.7-mile winter walk offers the option for further exploration around Cotehele’s gardens and up to the Prospect Tower, as well as a diversion to Cotehele Mill. The route is on footpaths and lanes with some hills and one steep downhill section.
Hawkshead and Latterbarrow, Cumbria
3.1 miles/5km | 2 hours | moderate
Conquer a mini mountain this winter with a trip to the crest of one of the Lake District’s most accessible peaks. Latterbarrow’s 244m-high summit sits less than two miles from the cobbled courtyards and alleyways of Hawkshead village, meaning the short but stiff climb can be done in just a few hours – leaving plenty of time for shopping.
There are dozens of independent stores open throughout the winter – including Honeypot Deli and Hawkshead Relish – and the Hawkshead Christmas Fair takes place in early December. For an extra dose of charm, why not drop into the Beatrix Potter Gallery?
Dunster, Somerset
3.9 miles/6.4km | 2.5 hours | moderate
Every winter, the village of Dunster pays tribute to its medieval past by lighting up its streets with candles. Choirs sing, lanterns glow and the smell of chimney fire diffuses through the crisp winter air.
Before the night’s festivities begin, spend the day exploring the village on foot – 11th-century Dunster Castle, the old market place and a host of thatched cottages – then step into the countryside on a four-mile stroll over rumbling rivers to the ramparts of an Iron Age hill fort.
Goring-on-Thames to Pangbourne, Oxfordshire
4.5 miles/7.2km | 3 hours | easy-moderate
Those with a keen eye may spot red kites circling overhead and teals and wigeons on the half-frozen water as they follow the Thames Path from picturesque Goring-on-Thames in Oxfordshire to Pangbourne in Berkshire.
The waymarked and almost entirely flat trail runs alongside the river for five glorious miles between the two villages. Those with the energy can return the same way – otherwise, catch the bus back to Goring for a well-earned pint at a cosy inn.
Marlpit Hill, Kent
3.3 miles/5.4km | 1.5 hours | easy-moderate
In the winter months, the pastureland and labyrinthine waterways surrounding Marlpit Hill in Kent crystallise with frost. A quilt of mist hangs low around copses of oak, hazel and birch, and winter wildfowl flock in the meadows.
Low, golden light makes this time of year perfect for photography – take your camera and explore the area with a 3.3-mile walk.
Best winter walks in Scotland
Loch Morlich, Highland
3.1 miles/5.1km | 1.5 hours | easy
Excitement abounds when looking out from the Highland town of Aviemore to the mighty Cairngorms mountains, beloved by snowboarders, skiers and winter climbers. It’s the visceral reaction to the size and rawness of these granite giants that makes this landscape such a compelling place for all nature lovers.
Nowhere else in Britain has the same scale of tundra-like plateaux and sub-Arctic habitats. Snow covers the numerous 1,000m summits for more than 100 days a year, and icy tentacles stretch across the lochs that bejewel the foot of the range. It’s here, cloaked in Scots pine trees, that one of the finest remnants of the ancient Caledonian Forest resides, home to golden eagles, red squirrels, pine martens, badgers and deer.
Bustling Aviemore, with its choice of hip or traditional bars, a good Italian restaurant and swish, hotel-run wooden cabins, is the ideal base for a wintry foray around the northern fringes of the park and its most beautiful lochs – not least Loch Morlich.
Glenfinnan, Highland
10.5 miles/17km | 6 hours | challenging
Gothic in style, the Church of St Mary and St Finnan stands like a stoical watchman over the mountain-flanked waters of Loch Shiel, surely one of Britain’s most enchanting landscapes.
In winter, as day breaks from a cloudless night, the glen is particularly magical. Frost envelops everything: the pine trees, the mountain ridges, the church’s pitched roof. It dusts frozen puddles, crunches beneath feet and petrifies plants.
The Church of St Mary and St Finnan, built between 1870 and 1872, was designed by architect Edward Welby Pugin, son of one of the greatest British architects, designers and writers of the 19th century Augustus Welby Pugin. Just down the road is the Glenfinnan Visitor Centre, with a shop, toilets, café and accessible parking. The centre is the starting point for a 10-mile walk (the first half of which is suitable for those with access challenges) from Loch Shiel to the dramatic mountain pass of Bealach a’Chaorainn.
Best Boxing Day walks
After enjoying a day of Christmas indulgence, nothing beats heading outdoors for an invigorating winter walk. From the wilds of Scotland to a gentle canal stroll in Southern England, here is our pick of the best Boxing Day walks across the British countryside.
Bennachie, Aberdeenshire
5.5 miles/8.9km | 3.5 hours | moderate
Bennachie is a prominent prospect as you travel through the hills and river valleys of Deeside, its unique profile visible for many miles around.
Rising from the flat plains of Aberdeenshire, a few miles west of Inverurie, Bennachie’s twin tops of Oxen Craig and Mither Tap grant far-reaching vistas. At 518m, Mither Tap is slightly lower than Oxen Craig (528m), but its shapely character leads to Bennachie’s Gaelic derivation ‘mountain of the breast’.
The two main tops are connected by a wild and wonderful plateau where meadow pipits, lapwings and red grouse thrive. The remains of a Pictish hill fort can also be visited.
Steall Falls and Glen Nevis, Highland
2 miles/3.2km | 1.5 hours | moderate
Tapering south from the Highland town of Fort William, gorgeous Glen Nevis is bounded by several high, rugged mountains, including the huge bulk of Ben Nevis, which, at 1,344m (4,409ft) above sea level, is the highest point in the British Isles.
Other iconic peaks include Sgurr a’ Mhaim and Stob Ban and the glen is a playground for mountaineers, mountain bikers and white-water rafters.
However, it is a low-level, two-mile walk through the dramatic Nevis Gorge that really packs a punch and provides an unforgettable aural and visual experience. Sections of the path can be rocky and slippery but with a little care this is a superb walk, suitable for almost everyone.
Ben Lomond, Argyll and Bute
7.6 miles/12.3km | 5-6 hours | challenging
Ben Lomond is the most climbed of the Munros (Scottish mountains over 914m), not only because it’s the most southerly, but also because of the direct ascent to its 974m summit.
Climb north up the tourist path from Rowardennan, then either retrace your ascent route or take the rougher return along Ptarmigan Ridge to the west. It is a tall hill, so bring clothing and supplies for any eventuality.
Glencoe Lochan, Highland
2 miles/3.2km | 1 hour | easy
Glencoe needs no introduction. Scotland’s most famous glen is well known, both for its extraordinary scenery and bloody history.
There are many ways to enjoy its wild and rugged landscape, but one of the most satisfying is to take a winter walk around the tranquil waters of Glencoe Lochan.
Tobermory and Calgary Bay, Inner Hebrides
1.9 miles/3.1km | 1 hour | moderate
Fires crackle and smoke, warming the walls of Tobermory’s colourful houses and shops – the Isle of Mull Soap Company, Tobermory Chocolate and Mull Pottery, to name a few.
A short drive away on the opposite side of the island is Calgary Bay and the start of a woodland sculpture trail. Discover the willow-woven stag, dens for the kids and a hidden face in the hillside.
Best winter walks in Wales
Three Cliffs Bay, Swansea
10km/6.2 miles | 4 hours | moderate
It’s not as if the south Gower coast is otherwise unremarkable – maritime grassland atop limestone rock, which has been scoured into beaches and bone caves, yielding to an expansive sea with Devon fizzing on the horizon – but Three Cliffs Bay is a truly special place.
The cliffs are triangles of a single promontory, swimming out like a dragon to guard a bay brightly ringed by Pennard Pill river, which has squirmed through the saltmarsh to reach it.
At high tide, Great Tor in the west grants seclusion. But at the tide’s ebb, Three Cliffs Bay merges with Tor Bay, Oxwich Bay and Pobbles Bay – with its dramatic cliffs and caves – to create one vast dazzling magnitude of sand.
Dinefwr Park and Newton House, Carmarthenshire
2.4 miles/3.9km | 1.5 hours | easy
A flurry of white flakes, a crunch underfoot. As winters warm, the white-spotted fallow deer and sound of trampled beechnuts might be the closest you get to snow at Dinefwr near the town of Llandeilo in Wales. Nevertheless, winter will be dark and Newton House in the grounds will be cosy.
In fact, it’s cosy all year. Light glances off gilt frames. Staff and volunteers are cheerful. And you’re allowed, nay encouraged, to sit on the sofas. It's a cosiness made all the more rewarding with a pre-house walk around the frozen grounds.
Four Waterfalls Walk, Powys
2.5 miles/4km | 1.5 hours | easy-moderate
Just south of Ystradfellte in the southern Brecon Beacons there is a patch of woodland, much of it a coniferous plantation. To the western edge, deciduous trees take hold, while, deep below, the rivers Mellte and Hepste can be heard roaring over a series of impressive waterfalls.
There are several walks through Waterfall Country, including the 5.5-mile Four Waterfalls Walk.
Foel Benddin and Y Gribin, Gwynedd
8.7 miles/14km | 5–6 hours | challenging
Brave the wild hills of south-east Snowdonia in Wales, an unforgiving landscape once roved by a band of cattle-rustling, bow-wielding robbers.
Experience all that the hills have to offer with a challenging 9-mile hike from Dinas Mawddwy over the high hills of Foel Benddin and Y Gribin in Snowdonia National Park.
Cribyn, Powys
11.5 miles/18.5km | 7 hours | moderate-challenging
Amid the lumps, bumps and rounded humps that form the ridgelines of the Brecon Beacons, sits Cribyn.
It’s the kind of peak a child may draw; pyramidal and stacked with brawn. Yet in spite of its mountain status, its summit is neither as high nor as insurmountable as you may imagine
Cribyn, at 795m, sits 101m below the tallest peak in southern Britain, Pen y Fan. But far from inferior, the angular mount affords spectacular views over the surrounding countryside, making it well worth the climb.
Snowdon, Gwynedd
7.5 miles/12km | 5-6 hours | challenging
Snowdon (Yr Wyddfa) is the highest mountain in England and Wales at 1,085m (3,560ft). The Snowdon range covers 16 square miles and gave birth to Welsh rock climbing in the 19th century.
Today the tracks are bustling all year round – though extra care should be taken in winter – and there are plenty of varied routes to the top.
Best winter walks in Northern Ireland
Slieve Binnian, County Down
6 miles/9.7km | 4.5 hours | challenging
Winter is the most evocative season to scale Northern Ireland’s Mourne Mountains, because winter is when this landscape was created. The entire range owes its form to the scouring movements of vast ice sheets, which only began to melt some 13,000 years ago.
Yet not all the peaks were covered by ice; the very highest summits protruded above the frozen wasteland. Slieve Binnian was one such landmark, and the massive, frost-shattered tors that erupt from its tip were once nunataks, lonely towers of rock that withstood the elements above the icy expanse.
Glenariff Forest Park, Country Antrim
2.4km/1.5 miles | 1 hour | moderate
This luxuriant, water-carved gorge in County Antrim’s east is known in Northern Ireland as the ‘Queen of the Glens’. It’s easy to see why. On a fine winter’s day, sunlight breaks through the woodland’s skeletal canopy, shining like stardust as it hits and refracts on the waters below. Liverworts, mosses and outstretched ferns flourish and birdsong cheerfully resounds.
A short and well-marked path leads through the forest – an ideal winter wander for the whole family.
Dundrum Bay, County Down
6.2 miles/10km | 3 hours | easy
Dundrum Bay is a nature lover’s haven in the colder months of the year when the Inner Bay teems with overwintering birds.
This coastal walk begins on the edge of the Inner Bay at Dundrum, one of the county’s loveliest villages, set below a magnificent Norman castle ruin.
Cove Cave, County Down
5.6 miles/9km | moderate | 3 hours (return)
Caves conjure mystical, murky thoughts of bats and boggarts, dragons and trolls. But step inside and your blood remembers.
These doors into the earth – or out of it, depending on your aspect – can be found across the UK. Some are well-known, revered for their great atriums, jousting stalactites and archaeological remains; others are more elusive, secreted among quiet hills like dozing shadows wanting none of the fame.
One such hollow sits high within a rocky escarpment on the western slopes of the Annalong River valley in the Mourne Mountains.
This six-mile, there-and-back-again walk takes you right to it, an exhilarating winter quest for friends and families with adventure in their veins.
