Hiking The New Forest

If you’re looking for a beautiful hike close to London then look no further than The New Forest National Park. Comprised of miles of ancient forests and untamed heathland, this corner of Southern England is packed with incredible options for adventure experiences. We spent an afternoon walking it’s beautiful trails, meeting the wild horses and stuffing our faces on the heath.

Difficulty:

This a very easy adventure, with relatively flat ground and not much preparation required. If you have small children or are feeling a little lazy, distance can of course be scaled back. 

Time:

For this particular adventure we choose a 5 hour walk, however the New Forest offers all manner of walks, from a short stroll to a mammoth mission, there is something for all.

The Adventure:

We were after a long hike close to London, one that would plunge us into wilderness and take us across a variety of terrains. Just a couple of hours drive from our house, The New Forest National Park offered the perfect, easy to achieve option as we only had a day to spare.

Home to hundreds of wild horses, vast forests, free roaming cows, all manner of birds and undulating heathland, the area was proclaimed a royal forest by William the Conqueror no less and boasts over a hundred hiking trails, varying in length and terrain. This means you are spoilt for choice when it comes to choosing your route…

During our research we discovered alltrails.com, a brilliant website that outlines hikes across the UK. The site has several filters including time, distance, whether or you would like your walk to be a loop etc. It’s a real time saver, and we highly recommend planning your route using it.

For this adventure we settled on The Acres Down Loop, packed up the car and hit the road. Setting off from London at 7am meant we were parked up in Acres Down carpark by 9 and ready to go. 

We set off bathed in sunshine and set about following the route. True to form it only took us an hour to get lost - we had failed to download the map and so were going off written instructions… 

Obvious tip: Signal is patchy so if you want to be efficient, download the map… unless you fancy navigating the park by yourselves, which does add quite a fun challenge element, however may lead to arguments.

We argued our way across some heathland, before coming to the conclusion that this was in fact quite a fun way to navigate the area. The National Park is vast, however you’re never too far away from the marked paths and so roaming free is a great option. After a couple of hours of hiking across the landscape, through bogs and past wild horses, we realised we hadn't seen another human since we set off, and that was the way for the rest of our hike.

The hike delivered on all fronts - 4 hours of nature therapy as we were blasted by fresh air and English beauty. Not all adventures need to push you to your limits!

Pointers:

Picnic like a pro - one sure fire way to take the adventure to the next level is by making sure you prepare a mini feast as reward for your efforts.

Kit - This really is an entry level adventure. That said it’s always worth considering what kit to take, as this really can make a difference. The terrain of the New Forest tends to be pretty friendly, however the heaths can quite quickly turn to bogs, so waterproof footwear is a good idea. Furthermore it’s worth checking the weather as close to leaving your house a possible - we tend to use the Met Office for accuracy. Much better to be prepared for the rain when it comes!

In Conclusion:

A great little adventure within a couple of hours of London. This was cheap, easy and gave us a much needed blast of the outdoors.