Walking the South West Coast Path has been a truly rewarding and challenging adventure.
Over 40 days, I trekked through some of the UK's most stunning counties—Somerset, Devon, Cornwall, and Dorset—taking in everything from the dramatic cliffs of Exmoor to the iconic landmarks of Land’s End and the Jurassic Coast.
Along the way, I experienced the rich heritage of fishing villages, smuggling tales, and naval history, with plenty of ferry rides and tough climbs to keep things interesting.
Despite a few obstacles, like dealing with a tooth infection and the physical demands of the terrain, this journey gave me an unforgettable connection to the landscape and people.
In this post, I'll break down the highlights, the challenges, and what made this walk so special. Come along and relive the adventure with me!
🥾Walking Days: 40 10.93% of 2024
🛌Rest Days: 4 days - forced, as needed to go home for my tooth issue
Travel days: 4
🗓️Start date: 28th July from Minehead, Somerset. I was already down there for the Armchair Adventure Festival and Ellen @randogirl42 dropped me off at Taunton so I could get the bus to Minehead to start the trail 🙏
🗓️End date: 9th September Poole Harbour, Dorset
🇬🇧UK Counties walked through: Somerset, Devon, Cornwall & Dorset
⛰️highest point: Great Hangman near Combe Martin, 318 m (1,043 ft)
71% of the Path is in either a National Park or Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty
🇺🇳World Heritage Sites: 2 - a UNESCO Biosphere and a UNESCO Geopark.
📖 Cicerone Guidebook: £17.95 #gifted
✨Highlights: Exmoor National Park, abundant AONBs, long stretches of Heritage Coast, fishing, smuggling and tin mining heritage, Land's End, Lizard Point, Plymouth's naval history, Jurassic Coast, Lulworth Cove.
⛰️Elevation Change: total climbed is 114,931 feet (35,031 m) = 4x height of Mt. Everest
Walked over 230 bridges, opened (and closed!) 880 gates, climbed over 436 stiles and passed more than 4,000 Coast Path signs.* info from SWCP website.
⛴️Took 13 ferry rides (£47.85).
👟Footwear: TRAILFLY Women’s @inov_8 £130 good for hard rocky ground perfect for every day training and longer trails #gifted use TOUGHGIRL10 to get a 10% discount 🥳
🎒Backpack: Osprey EJA 48 #gifted
Communication: 📡📞 I’m using @zoleolifeeurope ZOLEO connects with your phone over satellite via their app to provide seamless global messaging, emergency alerts and weather updates. When out of service or wifi.
😇Trail Angels: 2 - Theresa & Peter, Ellie.
People I walked with: Gigi, James, 4x teachers, Chris @chriswalkstheedge4mcf, Zoe, and Sue
⏰Earliest start time: 6.30 am - Day 7
⏰Latest start time: 6pm - Day 1 - it was in late July so it was light until 10pm ish so easy to get a few miles done
⏰Earliest end time: 11.30am - Day 40 - last day
⏰Latest end time: 9.30pm = Day 7
⏰🦶Average time on feet: 8hr 34 mins - If it was sunny I was taking time to stop and have rest breaks. If it’s cold and raining I don’t stop walking as I get too cold.
Total hours: 342hr 54 mins
Accommodation: 75% camping 25% bed
⛺️Total nights in my tent: 30
🏕️Wild camped: 26
Campsite: 4
🛏️Bed: 10 nights
🛏️B&B: 4 nights
😇Trail Angels: 2 nights
💷Total Accommodation Costs: £401 - to stay in a bed and have a room it was expensive. You would be looking at between £60 - £90. If you are sharing it would be a lot cheaper.
💷Average Accommodation Costs: £10
🥾Total Km: 939
Average daily km: 24
🥾Total Miles: 587
Average daily miles: 15
🦶Total Steps: 1,204,147
Average daily steps: 30,103
Average daily I used 40 days - however 4 of those days were travel days were I still walked, but not very far. So that will have messed up my average distance.
📍Difference of 43 miles/76 km from the total trail distances of 630 miles/1015 km * could be due to diversions on the trail. I missed a section around Brixton, as I headed home to get my tooth fixed and stated again from the Bus stop at Brixham - not where I left the trail. I took a ferry down to Seacombe and missed out a small portion of the coast there (but that was road walking). I think that will account for the differences in the milage.
💷Total Costs: £1,614 - this was more expensive than I expected. A few nights accommodation can really bump up the costs significantly. Heading home to sort out my tooth cost me £181. Plus I was bored of eating my snacky food on trail. So I ate out a lot more than I normally would.
💷Average costs per day: £40
💷Total costs not including travel: £1,342
💷Daily costs not including Tavel: £34
Most expensive cost £181 - train home to sort my tooth out. 🦷
💷Total Food Costs: £888
💷Average Food Costs Per day: £22 - food in the UK has become more expensive, especially if you want to try and eat healthy. Buying berries, yogurt, meat etc can really bump up the costs.
🛒Supermarket = £381 43%
🍽️Eating out = £507 57% - I ate out more on this trail as it was easier to do so. When in Spain as I don’t speak Spanish I can never be sure that I’m getting gluten free food. A lot of places on this walk had clear allergen info on their menus, so it was easy to stop for brunch, lunch or dinner. Plus I was then able to charge electronics and if it had been raining, get warm and dry for a little bit.
🛒Most expensive Food Shop: £40 - Spar in Polzeath . Everything in that shop was so expensive.
💷Travel Costs: £272. Train home: £181 - train prices in the UK are ridiculously. I would never pay this normally. I would have got a coach. But I needed to get home and get home fast. So this was the quickest option.
🚌National Express Coach home: £38 - which I thought was a fair price. It did take 8 hrs!
🚎3x buses (travel to start, travel to train to go home and travel back to where I left the trail): £6 - very good value for money. £2 for each journey, which could be for around 45 mins to an hour.
⛴️13 Ferry journeys: £48. Some trips were better value than others! But you really don’t have a choice!!
💷Misc costs: £53 Chemist: lip balm, sunscreen, pain killers, anti histamine, tooth ache gel. Dentist appointment & antibiotics
Weather - if felt like it rained a lot more than this!!!
☀️Sunny and dry: 26 days, 65%
☔️🌧️Rainy and wet: 14 days, 35%
Subjective feeling out of 10 on:
😀Total Enjoyment: 71% - super enjoyable walk. Highly recommend.
😫Total Fatigue average: 44% - my iron level were back to normal before I started the walk. But they are at the very low end of normal. I was still on iron tablets for about 2 weeks. So I felt pretty tired.
⛰️Total Ease of terrain: 48% some steep sections, lots of ups and downs and rolling hills. Probably found it harder due to my overall tiredness. I really need to take some time off!
Challenges: going over on my ankles badly x3 (my right ankle is still not 100% right, so going to see a physio to check it out), 🦷tooth issues/pain, face swelling & bacterial infection needing to go home to see the dentist and get antibiotics (still sorting this out now and having root canal done, which is a bit of a process!)
Least enjoyable sections: probably walking through some of the more crowded and busy towns, not very pleasant, too many people, too much mess, too much craziness. I was glad to escape back to the quieter sections. The cows were also not too bad!
✨Highlights: Walking with awesome people, Gigi @gigi_plays_music, James @jamesmichaelforrest, Zoe @headrightout and being met by Sue @adventurequeenmother at the end.
What Would I do differently? I really enjoyed this walk. The scenery, the terrain, ease of camping, opportunity for resupply and staying in accommodation when needed. It was pretty relaxed. The weather was ok… I always want more sunshine. It would have been nice not to have the tooth infection and having to deal with that was frustrating and costly. Which I could have done without. Sometime things are outside of your control 🤷♀️
❓Any thoughts/comments on what I’ve shared? Do you have any questions you want to ask me about the SWCP? ❓
Are you curious about my other UK walks? 👀check out the Tough Girl YouTube channel where you can watch Vlogs from the Wales Coast Path, Offas Dyke, South Downs Way, West Highland Way etc
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