Here’s the deal with planning your own LEJOG: after deciding that you’d like to try it, you need to figure out a route between the two ends. That’s right! Unlike the Appalachian Trail, this major trek is not blazed end-to-end. There isn’t one single “official” pathway. The whole ‘how do you get from here to there’ part is up to each individual trekker.

Another difference from the iconic American hikes is that this British one is not restricted to foot travel only. You could LEJOG on a unicycle or skateboard. Someone just completed it in a wheelchair. My guess is that more people cycle it than walk it. (Cyclists can be finished in 2 weeks or less because they cover more miles in a day that hikers do.)

I spent a couple months, at least, waffling back and forth over my own route choices. Bought some books. Read some blogs. Watched innumerable online videos. Joined a Facebook group. And sketched out a couple custom routes of my own — one of which linked together a lot of marked footpaths and came in at a shade under 1,600 miles. (And let me just say that the United Kingdom seems blessed with a lot of good walking paths!) There are a lot of suggestions out there, and innumerable possibilities to choose from.

Over the years I’ve spent many months on the Appalachian Trail, tripping over rocks and roots, slogging through mud and wading across streams, making my way along the “path” through boulder fields, so I know how to do that. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that I’m not actually looking for a British wilderness experience like the AT. I wanted something different from this experience.

Because I haven’t lived in Britain since 1959 I don’t really know what I’d “like to see.” I want to see the countryside, yes, but not necessarily from the high places. I want to meet the stereotypical British villages up close. I want to pray in 800-year-old churches. I want to option to visit small museums, to buy my lunches in pubs. But I have no real list of specifics: this castle, that garden, that scenic view, and so on.

What I ended up deciding was to follow a route for cyclists that Richard Barrett researched and that Cicerone published, but to follow it on foot. It comes in at almost exactly 1,000 miles. It avoids busy roads and sticks to country lanes, canal towpaths, small roads, and bike paths. I figure it will be flatter than the mountain route of the Appalachian Trail (sure, it has some big hills, but no White Mountains, no Mount Katahdin). It will be generally well-surfaced (no rocks and roots, but puddles and sometimes mud). And it is fairly easy to follow (I also have the GPX file I’ve downloaded to map apps on my phone, and have the published guidebook as well.)