In England access to land is subject to "rights of way" being in place and normally you should avoid crossing land where there is no formal "right of way" unless prior permission has been granted from the landowner. Rights of Way are marked on Ordnance Survey Maps. In most mountain areas the National Park authorities have negotiated "rights of way" and you should experience little or no trouble walking. However some other areas do have "freedom to roam" and these are also marked on current editions of Ordnance Survey Maps but not on older ones.

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There are a growing number of Long Distance Frootpaths. The "Pennine Way" from Edale in the Peak District to Kirk Yetholm on the Scottish Border was one of the first. Another is the "Coast to Coast" which crosses east/west through the Lake District. Elsewhere in England there are other well documented routes.

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The Ordnance Survey are the major publishers of maps in Britain. The two series most relevant to the walker are the 1:25000 and 1:50000 sheets. The former are perfect for walkers showing good detail. Besides full contouring, there are fence and wall lines, ruins, mines, footbridges and most importantly paths and rights of way. The 1:50000 series are not as well detailed but do offer a good basis from which to plan your walking. In addition to the OS maps a good series is published by Harveys. These contain all the detail a walker needs.

The Ramblers' Association is Britain's biggest walking pressure group. They have been working for over 70 years to promote walking and to improve conditions for everyone who walks in England, Scotland and Wales. After decades of campaigning by the Rambler's Association, we walkers now have a legal right of access to some of the wildest and most dramatic landscapes in England and Wales. This new legal right - or right to roam - provided by The Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000 (CRoW), applies only to mapped areas of uncultivated, open countryside namely mountain, moor, heath, down and registered common land. However did you know that in England, there is no general legal right to walk along the coast and on beaches? Currently much of the access the public has to areas such as beaches and cliff tops are by permission of the landowner. The Ramblers’ Association is still campaigning for a legal right of access to our coastline and beaches for future generations. Please join them and help them in their work.

England's National Parks offer some of the best walking one could imagine.  They include Broads, Dartmoor, Exmoor, Lake District, New Forest, North York Moors, Northumberland, Peak District, South Downs and the Yorkshire Dales.

There are also National Trails such as Norfolk Coast Path, Pennine Way, South Downs Way and the South West Coast Path.

And don't miss England's Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) such as in Cannock Chase, Chichester Harbour,  Chilterns,  Cornwall, Cotswolds,  Forest of Bowland, Howgills,  Malvern Hills,  Pennines,  Shropshire Hills,  and the Suffolk Coasts and Heaths.

And here are some more great places to walk: Barnsley, Bedfordshire, Bolton, Bradford, Bristol, Buckinghamshire, Calderdale, Ceredigion, Cheshire, Cornwall, Cumbria, Derbyshire, Devon, Dorset, Durham, East Sussex, Essex, Gloucestershire, Hampshire, Herefordshire, Hertfordshire, Isle of Wight, Kent, Lancashire, Leeds, Leicestershire, Lincolnshire, Norfolk, North Yorkshire, Northamptonshire, Northumberland, Nottinghamshire, Oxfordshire, Redcar and Cleveland, Scottish Borders, South Yorkshire, Shropshire, Somerset, Staffordshire, Suffolk, Tameside, Warwickshire, West Midlands, West Sussex, Wiltshire, Worcestershire.

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