Coast-to-Coast England

Picking up a stone to carry across England

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Start by getting your boots wet in one sea. Walk for a while. Several weeks — or months — later, wash off the trail dust in a completely different body of water. There's nothing quite like walking across an entire country to give a long-distance hiker a sense of achievement.

The problem with the good old U.S. of A. is that it's just too big. Plus there's all that flat stuff in the middle. Our best-known trails don't run from sea to sea; they follow more scenic north-south routes along mountain chains. A few hardy souls have walked the breadth of the country — there's even a new American Discovery Trail to try to follow (although it's not yet complete). But for most Americans, walking across a country means walking across some other country.

The 192-mile long Coast-to-Coast, which crosses northern England, including the Lake District, the Yorkshire Dales, and the North York Moors, is one of Europe's premier sea-to-sea walks. Another is the 212-mile long Southern Upland Way, which runs through southern Scotland's hills and lochs. And the approximately 600-mile long Pyrenees High Route, which follows the sharp and serrated Franco-Spanish border from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean.