Fastpacking around Norfolk, the Peddars Way and Norfolk Coastal Path

The aim was to travel light, move quickly and have some long days on foot in Norfolk.  This would be a chance to revisit some of the places from my childhood memories; including walking sections of the coastline along the mashes and birdwatching with my grandfather along with digging in the sand at with my …

Top Tips For A Family Trip To Fontainebleau

I wrote the following guest post for: https://www.chrisensoll.com/chris-ensolls-blog Over the years I have had many a good trip to the boulders of the Fontainebleau Forest which is around 50km south of Paris. Over recent years I have been over to climb there with my children and have found it is a great place for all …

Bank holiday weekend Fastpacking the Sentier du Nord in Luxembourg

This was an amazing trip to the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg. The plan was simple, as I had been working in Brussels rather than go home for the August Bank Holiday, to head into Ardennes and do a multi-day long distance path. As much as the path was marked on the ground with diamonds I …

Fastpacking the Northumberland Coast Path over a long weekend

After booking our accommodation and after packing our small running rucksacks night before our alarm went off and it was time to head down to the train station to get the train first to Newcastle and then on to Almouth. This was our first attempt at fast packing between accommodation and we had decided to …

Langtang, Helambu and Gosainkund Trek in Nepal

“Memories are the treasures that we keep locked deep within the storehouse of our souls, to keep our hearts warm when we are lonely.” Becky Aligada After all our preparation we stepped out of the land cruiser at Syabru Bensi and with our guide and porter we headed towards the Langtang valley. After a year …

Preparation for a family trekking holiday to Nepal

Lao Tzu  said that ‘A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step’ This post covers some of my thoughts on how we took that first few steps preparing for our family trekking trip to Nepal. Nepal has always had a special place in my heart and the idea was hatched to go …

Introducing my children to wild camping in the UK

“The best adventures, big or little, are those shared with the ones you love.” – Clangers, episode 32, `Granny and Small’ Some of my favourite adventures have been wild camping in the mountains, sleeping with the sound of a stream and waking up to amazing views, and feeling connected to nature. Once my wife and …

Fastpacking the Kepler Trail in New Zealand

Evolution to fast packing on my New Zealand trip in 2007This was one of my favourite routes in New Zealand. It was the route where I consolidated the approach I had first tried a few days earlier on a two day trip around the Caples and Greenstone trails. Prior to this I had done a …

Packing and travelling light, the kit list I still use

‘Where is started for me’ As I was preparing my presentation for a work conference in the USA and then putting my thoughts to what I needed to pack for my trip a work colleague suggested that as I was changing flights, just taking hand luggage would improve my chances of all my luggage arriving …

Journey into mountaineering with the discovery of scrambling

On Scottish Easter trips to the Hebridean Islands a seed started to grow that grew into more Father / Son trips to wild places. One of the most memorable was our scramble and bivi trips up Bryant’s Gully. Bryant’s Gully is the longest scrambling route in Snowdonia with over five hundred metres of scrambling ascent …