Notes from the slow way round

Lofoten in shoulder season: Reine to Henningsvær on foot and by bus

I arrived in Bodø by train, which is the part of this trip I would repeat without changing anything: the Nordland line runs for ten hours through birch forest and over the Arctic Circle, and nobody hurries you. From Bodø the ferry to Moskenes takes a little over three hours. Sit outside if you can stand the wind; the islands come up out of the sea as a single grey wall and only separate into peaks in the last half hour.

The plan was simple: walk east along the chain from Reine, use the local buses for the stretches of main road, and camp wherever it was allowed and sensible. Norway's right to roam makes this easy in principle. In practice the popular beaches are crowded with tents by midsummer, so I aimed for the places that need a pass or a long approach, and slept at the edges of villages on the nights in between.

Reinebringen is the obvious first climb and now has a stone staircase most of the way up. It is steep and slightly absurd, and the view from the top is exactly what everyone says it is. I went up at eleven at night. The light at that hour does not set, it just turns sideways and gold, and the crowd thins to a handful of people sitting quietly on rocks.

The midnight sun is less dramatic than its reputation and much more disorienting. On day four I realised I had eaten dinner at two in the morning.

The best two days were the walk over to Kvalvika beach and the ridge above it. The path is muddy and the descent is rough, but the bay is enclosed on three sides and feels further from the road than it is. Fog came in from the sea in the evening and erased the far headland completely; by morning it had gone and the water was the colour of glass.

Further east the landscape softens. Henningsvær sits on a cluster of skerries joined by bridges, with drying racks for stockfish still standing on the rocks. I finished there with a long swim that lasted about forty seconds. The water in June is cold enough to make you laugh involuntarily.

• Getting thereTrain to Bodø, ferry to Moskenes. Book the ferry ahead for a car; foot passengers rarely need to.
• Moving aroundLocal buses cover the E10. Timetables thin out at weekends.
• SleepingTent most nights, two nights in a rorbu cabin to dry everything out.
• BringEye mask, good rain shell, gaiters, more fuel than you think.

↓ GPX track, Reine — Henningsvær

Svaneti: four days from Mestia to Ushguli, and one day of doing nothing

The road up to Mestia used to be the adventure in itself. Now it is paved almost all the way, and the marshrutka from Zugdidi does it in about four hours with one stop for khachapuri and one unplanned stop for cows. The towers start appearing well before town: square stone defence towers, one per family in the old days, standing in clusters above the houses like a skyline of chimneys.

The Mestia to Ushguli trek is four stages with guesthouses at the end of each day, so you can walk with a light pack. The first day climbs steadily through meadows; the second, to Adishi, is the easiest; the third is the one people talk about, because it starts with a river crossing below the Adishi glacier and then a long climb to the Chkhunderi pass.

In September the river was low enough to cross with a horse from the village for a small fee, which I took gladly. Coming down from the pass into the Khalde valley in late afternoon light was the best hour of the trip. The last stage follows a dirt road into Ushguli, a cluster of villages at about 2,100 metres with the white wall of Shkhara behind it.

Every guesthouse dinner was enough food for three people, and every host was mildly offended when I could not finish it.

After the trek I stayed two extra nights in Ushguli and did very little: a short walk up to the Lamaria church, an afternoon reading on a bench, a long conversation in a mixture of Russian, English and gestures with a man who was rebuilding his grandmother's roof by hand. That day without a plan is the one I remember best.

• Getting thereNight train Tbilisi–Zugdidi, then a shared minibus to Mestia.
• SleepingGuesthouses with dinner and breakfast included, no booking needed in September.
• DifficultyModerate. Day three is long; start early.
• BringCash in lari, sandals for the river, warm layer for the pass.

The Fishermen's Trail in February, when nobody else is on it

The Rota Vicentina runs down the southwest coast of Portugal, and the Fishermen's Trail is the coastal version: narrow paths along the cliff edge, used for generations by people going down to fish from the rocks. I walked it from Porto Covo to Odeceixe in winter, partly because flights and rooms are cheap then, and partly because the summer reports all mention the crowds.

The catch is sand. Long stretches are soft, deep sand, and walking in it feels like walking on a treadmill set slightly uphill. Twenty kilometres of that is more tiring than twenty kilometres in the mountains. The reward is that the trail almost never leaves the edge of the land: storks nesting on sea stacks, empty coves, and the Atlantic throwing itself at the rocks all day.

Most villages along the way have a café that opens at eight and a guesthouse that is half asleep in February. I phoned ahead each evening and never had a problem. Food was the highlight: grilled fish at Almograve, a bowl of açorda in Zambujeira do Mar on a rainy afternoon, and an absurd quantity of pastries for the energy.

On the fourth day it rained sideways for six hours. I have never been so pleased to see a laundry.

The last stage drops down into the river mouth at Odeceixe, where the beach is split between the Alentejo and the Algarve. I sat on the sand with a coffee and watched surfers waiting for waves that did not come. There is a bus back to Lisbon from the main road; there is also, if you are lucky, a lift from the guesthouse owner's cousin.

• Getting thereBus from Lisbon Sete Rios to Porto Covo, about three hours.
• SeasonAutumn to spring. Summer is hot and busy.
• SleepingGuesthouses, booked by phone the evening before.
• BringTrail runners, not boots. Gaiters for the sand. Sunscreen even in winter.

Three nights in a yurt at Song-Köl, and the long way back to Bishkek

Song-Köl is a lake at about 3,000 metres in the middle of the Tian Shan, surrounded by summer pastures. From June to September herding families move up with their animals and live in yurts along the shore, and several of them take in travellers. I organised it through the community tourism office in Kochkor, which is still the simplest way: they arrange the transport, the horse and the family, and the money goes mostly where it should.

I rode in over the Kalmak-Ashuu pass. I am not a rider, and the horse knew it from the first minute, but the horses there are calm and the guide was patient. Six hours in the saddle is enough to make walking feel like a luxury for the next two days, which is useful, because the walks around the lake are long and flat and the sky is enormous.

Days in the yurt camp follow the animals. Milking in the early morning, bread and kaymak with tea, the children riding off to bring the horses back, a heavy meal in the evening. At night it gets properly cold even in July, and the family piled extra blankets on me without being asked. The stars are the kind you remember: no light anywhere except a single torch in the next yurt.

I was offered kumys, fermented mare's milk, at every meal. It tastes like a sour, fizzy argument with yourself. I drank it every time.

Afterwards I went south to Naryn and then back north via Issyk-Kul, mostly by shared taxi. The roads are long and the drivers wait until the car is full, so the rule is simple: bring snacks, bring patience, and say yes when someone offers you apricots.

• Getting thereShared taxi Bishkek–Kochkor, then arranged transfer.
• SeasonMid-June to early September only.
• SleepingFamily yurts, full board. Bring a liner and warm socks.
• BringCash in som, headlamp, sunscreen for the altitude.

Hut to hut in the Julian Alps, starting from Lake Bohinj

Slovenia is small enough that you can leave the train in the morning and be above the tree line by mid-afternoon. I started at Lake Bohinj, which is quieter than Bled and, to my eye, prettier: a long green lake with a stone church at one end and the walls of the Julian Alps closing in at the other.

The route went up through the Valley of the Seven Lakes, a chain of small tarns in a limestone basin, with a night at the hut beside the largest of them. Mountain huts here are run by the Alpine Association, simple and friendly, with dormitory beds, a stove and a menu that rarely changes: jota, barley soup, a slab of strudel. In September they are half empty on weekdays.

From the lakes the path climbs onto a karst plateau of white rock, dwarf pine and the occasional chamois watching from a ledge. The highest point of the trip was a scramble up to a summit with cables and iron pegs on the last section. It is not technical, but it is exposed, and I was happy to have a helmet when a group above me knocked loose a few stones.

The hut warden checked the weather on an old radio every evening and announced it to the room like the news.

I came down on the last day into the Soča valley, where the river is an unreal shade of turquoise, and finished with a bus to Kobarid and a very long lunch. Six days was enough to feel properly away. Ten would have been better.

• Getting thereTrain from Ljubljana to Bohinjska Bistrica, local bus to the lake.
• SleepingAlpine huts. Book ahead for weekends, carry a sleeping-bag liner.
• DifficultyFit hiker. Some protected sections near the summits.
• BringHelmet, cash for the huts, a light down jacket.