Is the South Downs Way hard? An honest guide

The honest answer is that the South Downs Way is one of the gentler long-distance walks in Britain, and that a hundred miles is a hundred miles. Here is what the numbers say, and what they leave out.

The numbers

Distance

101 mi

163 km, measured on our line

High point

248 m

Ditchling Beacon

Total climb

3,279 m

from LIDAR terrain; a floor, not a ceiling

The high point is 248 metres, and the biggest single climb anywhere on the line is about 200 metres from bottom to top. The total climb over the whole trail comes to about 3,300 metres by our measurement from the Environment Agency's laser survey — which is to say, spread over a hundred miles, about the climb of a hill walk every day. It counts only the rises our survey resolves, so other published figures can be higher; ours is a floor.

What makes it hard anyway

The dry valleys. The ridge is not level. Every few miles a dry valley cuts across it, and the path goes straight down one side and straight up the other. Individually they are nothing. By the end of a day with five of them they are the day.

The wind. From Harting Down eastward the ridge is open, and the wind that was a breeze in Hampshire is a factor. There is very little shelter on top for stretches of ten miles.

Water. Chalk holds no surface water, so there are no streams on the tops and nothing to fill from between villages. Carry what you drink. OpenStreetMap has 26 drinking-water taps within 400 metres of the Way, and the guide lists them by mile; the longest gap between two of them is 21 kilometres, from Clanfield to Heyshott.

The last day. The Seven Sisters are the best walking on the trail and the most up-and-down: seven climbs in a few miles, on grass, above cliffs. Keep something back for it.

What makes it easier than you think

The ground. Chalk track and turf, fast-draining, which is why the Way is a winter walk as well as a summer one. It is slick when wet, and the descents into the valleys are where you will notice.

The waymarking. The trail is waymarked throughout, and the ridge is a ridge: it is difficult to leave the route by accident. You still want a map, because the villages are off it.

The trains. Winchester station is a kilometre from the start, with three trains an hour from London Waterloo; Eastbourne station is a couple of kilometres from the finish with direct trains to Victoria. Between them, Southease station is on the path itself, and Berwick and Seaford are 3.4 and 3.7 kilometres off it. Those are checked, with the dates on the guide; if a day goes wrong there is usually a way off.

So who is it for?

If you can comfortably walk twelve miles in a day, you can walk the South Downs Way in eight or nine days. If you can walk twenty, you can do it in five and not enjoy the fifth. The planner will show you what any number of days looks like, and for each night it says where the count of beds came from — the National Trail's own list, OpenStreetMap, or both — and when it was read. A bed on a list is not a bed booked.

Build your walkSouth Downs Way in 8 days101 mi · about 13 miles a dayOpen the planner →