Is the North Downs Way hard? An honest guide

The North Downs Way runs from Farnham to Dover along the chalk of the North Downs. Nowhere on it is high, and the National Trail calls most of it relatively level. It still climbs more than a first look at the map suggests, because the path keeps coming down off the scarp and going back up. Here is what the numbers say, and what they leave out.

The numbers

Distance

126 mi

202 km on our line, without the Canterbury loop

High point

253 m

Botley Hill, above Titsey, by our terrain

Total climb

3,121 m

from LIDAR terrain; a floor, not a ceiling

The biggest single climb on our line is about 180 metres, from the river Medway up to Bluebell Hill. Spread over the planner's nine days, the total is about 350 metres of climbing a day. It counts only the rises our survey resolves, so other published figures can be higher; ours is a floor. The National Trail's own figure for the walk is 153 miles, because it includes the loop through Canterbury; our line takes the main route.

What makes it hard anyway

The Surrey scarp. The National Trail names the stretch from Guildford to Reigate as the hardest: St Martha's, Albury Down, White Down, Box Hill and Colley Hill, one after another. In the planner's nine-day split the hardest day is the last, Stowting to Dover, 16.8 miles with about 470 metres of climb; the longest is Riverhead to Cuxton, 17.2 miles.

Mud. The Trail says the path can be walked at any time of year but is muddy in wet weather.

Water. OpenStreetMap has thirteen drinking-water taps within 400 metres of the path, and ten of them are in the first 32 miles. From Reigate Hill to Kit's Coty House, 44 miles, it has none, and from Hollingbourne to Folkestone, another 33 miles, none again. The villages and towns have water; the path mostly does not. Water and lunch on the North Downs Way has the detail.

What makes it easier than you think

Food. The map has more than ninety food shops, ninety cafés and ninety pubs within a kilometre of the path, and every day of the nine-day split passes at least one shop. The longest stretch without a food shop is 13 miles, from Wye to Sandgate.

Trains at both ends. Farnham station is 0.1 km from the start, with trains from London Waterloo, and Dover Priory is 0.8 km from the finish, with trains back to London.

The waymarking. The Trail is signed with the National Trail acorn throughout.

So who is it for?

If you can walk fourteen miles a day with a few steep climbs in it, you can walk the North Downs Way in nine days. The National Trail's own suggestion is twelve days at about 13 miles a day, loop included. The planner shows what any number of days looks like, and for each night it says where the count of beds came from and when it was read. A bed on a list is not a bed booked.

Build your walkNorth Downs Way in 9 days126 mi · about 14 miles a dayOpen the planner →