Questions other families ask us
Everything below comes from our own crossing, St Bees to Robin Hood's Bay with two kids in 2022 and 2024, checked against the photographs, the GPS and the booking records. Short answers first; the journal has the long version.
The walk
About 190 miles. The official 2026 National Trail line we host measures 188 miles from St Bees to Robin Hood's Bay. Our own GPS trace, with detours, alternatives and one genuine wrong turn, came to 198 miles.
Download the route files →It starts at St Bees on the Irish Sea in Cumbria and finishes at Robin Hood's Bay on the North Sea in North Yorkshire, crossing the Lake District, the Yorkshire Dales and the North York Moors on the way. Tradition says you dip your boots in the Irish Sea, carry a pebble from the beach, and throw it into the North Sea at the far end.
Most walkers take 12 to 15 walking days. We used 13: seven days from St Bees to Keld in 2022 and six from Keld to Robin Hood's Bay in 2024, plus a travel day at each end of each half. Splitting it at Keld, the traditional halfway point, worked well for a family with school holidays to fit around.
See how the days fell →West to east, like nearly everyone. The prevailing weather is behind you, the Lake District comes while legs are fresh, and the finish is a proper seaside village with the North Sea in front of you.
Yes. Wainwright's route was celebrated but unofficial for decades; in 2026 it became an official National Trail with much better signage and infrastructure. In the Lake District, waymarking still deliberately stops above the fell wall, so navigation skills and an offline route still matter.
Yes, even now it is a National Trail. We carried the route on our phones with maps downloaded for offline use, plus a paper map and compass for the day the phones give up. Waymarking stops above the fell wall in the Lakes, and the moors offer weather instead of signposts. Use all of it at every junction that feels wrong.
GPX, KML and GeoJSON downloads →Spring to early autumn is the usual window. We walked in late June and early July both times: long light, hay meadows, bog cotton, and drizzle that can last all day. Summer also means the pinch-point beds (Keld, the Blakey Ridge area) book up months ahead, and village kitchens still close early whatever the season.
You need to be comfortable with back-to-back 10 to 15 mile days with hills. The Lake District days are mountain days in all but name: real ascent, real weather, real navigation. The crux days for us were Shap to Kirkby Stephen (20 miles), Richmond to Ingleby Cross across the Vale of Mowbray (20.6 miles of flat road and field) and the Cleveland Hills switchbacks to Blakey Ridge (20 miles).
Doing it as a family
Ours did, aged 12 and 15 for the western half and 14 and 17 for the eastern half, carrying day packs while a luggage transfer moved the main bags. The long days (Shap, the Vale of Mowbray, the Cleveland Hills) are the crux: plan shorter alternatives or extra nights if in doubt, and treat the Lake District days as mountain days.
We stopped at Keld, the traditional halfway point, and came back two years later. Kirkby Stephen (on the Settle to Carlisle railway) is the practical rail gateway for Keld: a taxi ran us back to it in 2022 and out to it in 2024. Each half fitted a school holiday with a travel day at either end.
Our itinerary and the overnight ledger →No. Packhorse, the Coast to Coast baggage service, moved our main bags between stays, so we walked with day packs and the bags were always waiting at the next bed. In 2022 the service took the overflow; in 2024 it carried nearly everything. For a family it was the single decision that made the walk feel like a holiday.
Every day page on this site has a bail-out note with the realistic exits. Some stages have none: once you turn inland from St Bees there is nothing until Ennerdale Bridge, and at Blakey Ridge there was no taxi within 60 miles the night we needed one (a kind pub regular drove us). Rural timetables change every season, so check before you rely on any of it.
Bail-outs are listed on each day →Beds, food and money
No. We never pitched a tent: B&Bs, hostels, a fell-farm bunkhouse, a converted chapel and glamping pods carried us across. Book the pinch points (Keld and the Blakey Ridge area) months ahead in summer.
Where we slept, night by night →Ballpark, per person: £50 to £80 a night for a B&B or inn with breakfast, £25 to £45 in a hostel or bunkhouse, £18 to £30 for a pub dinner with a drink, and £8 to £10 for a packed lunch ordered at breakfast. Family rooms and kids sharing bring the per-head figure down; the luggage transfer and trains at each end come on top.
The honest budget table →Train to St Bees on the Cumbrian Coast line to start. If you split at Keld, trains home run from Kirkby Stephen or Horton-in-Ribblesdale. At the far end, buses and taxis link Robin Hood's Bay with Whitby, which has trains and buses onward. The whole walk works without a car.
Mostly from your B&B: order a packed lunch at breakfast, every single day. Whole stages pass with no food between villages, so carry the day's food and water and keep room in the day pack for it.
It can be. In most villages the pub is the only kitchen and it stops serving early. We reached the Borrowdale hostel with minutes to spare, and in Ingleby Cross a pub with no reservation fed us only from spare dishes. Book dinner when you book the bed, and respect the kitchen clock on long days.
The route, stage by stage
For us: Ennerdale to Borrowdale over Haystacks (a long Lake District day that ended with a wrong valley and a hitched ride), Patterdale to Shap over Kidsty Pike in cloud, Shap to Kirkby Stephen (the longest day, about 20 miles), and the Cleveland Hills switchbacks from Ingleby Cross to Blakey Ridge. The Vale of Mowbray is flat but 20 miles of it still hurts.
Read those days →Bad enough that nothing beats it. Waterproof trail shoes carried us dry across the rest of England; the peat above Kirkby Stephen was the one opponent they never beat. Budget for wet feet that day, and for the halfway stone at Keld to feel very well earned.
Crossing it on the level was the most dangerous moment of our whole walk: the family literally ran across a dual carriageway near Ingleby Cross. The National Trail now diverts to the bridge at Trenholme Bar (by the Black Swan) rather than crossing on the level. The route file we host still crosses at grade there, as flagged on the plan page: on the ground, take the bridge.
The official main line is the high route over the old lead-mining moors between Keld and Reeth; the Muker valley route is the signed low-level alternative. We took the high route in 2024: bleak, fascinating industrial ruins and big skies. Take the low route in poor visibility or if you want the pretty villages.
St Sunday Crag instead of the Grisedale valley out of Grasmere (a bonus summit and one of the best days), the Swaledale high route, and in the Lakes we skipped the high ridge over the big pikes on the way to Haystacks. Each day page on this site says how far our line left the official trail and why.
Where we left the trail, and why →Gear
Waterproof trail running shoes, if you carry a light day pack and have tested them for months on rough ground first. We wore them for all 190 miles and never missed boots. If you carry a heavy pack the maths changes, but we did not, because the luggage transfer carried it for us.
Rubber. For this walk's speciality of constant all-day drizzle, ordinary breathable shells eventually wet out and stop being rain gear. The affordable answer is a lightweight rubberised jacket that keeps the wet out and never soaks through; the expensive answer is the newest dry-suit-grade Gore-tex, which genuinely breathes and does not wet out. Rain trousers too, on before you are wet.
What we carried, and what let us down →Yes: a printable per-person list split into the day pack on your back and the bag the luggage transfer carries to your next bed. It is what we would pack again, including the power bank, the blister kit used early, and dry bags inside the packs instead of rain covers.
The printable packing list →This site
Yes, free. The official 2026 National Trail line as GPX, KML and GeoJSON, split into our 13 stages with elevation, plus the GPS trace of what we actually walked. Load them into any offline mapping app.
Get the route files →Most of the 886 photographs carry GPS from the camera and sit exactly where they were taken. The rest are placed along our walked line by time, between the nearest located photos. Every day page opens its own map and album, and the map explorer shows the whole crossing at once.
Open the map and photo explorer →Please do. Trail talk is our noticeboard for questions, tips, conditions and trip reports from other walkers; we read everything and answer what we can.
Go to Trail talk →Yes. Beds, cafés, luggage transfers and guides can book a banner beside the exact day they serve, or across the site, through a self-service portal: choose the days or a prepaid budget, upload the banner, pay by card. Live traffic figures are shown on the same page.
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