A Long Walk in England

Editor's note: This is the first in a series of articles in which readers tell us about their favorite trips and destinations. Send us your suggestions at next@wsj.com.

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For years, my wife, Caroline, and I have enjoyed walking. (As Thomas Jefferson observed: "Of all exercises, walking is the best.") Happily, walking for health translates well into walking vacations.

Options for such trips abound. Europe offers many of the best opportunities for walking tours, with bucolic landscapes and villages and historic (and prehistoric) sites. Britain, in particular, has a walking culture, with many well-maintained trails. (See nationaltrail.co.uk.)

The Cotswold Way is one of our favorites. This quintessential English walk is 102 miles long. It starts about two hours northwest of London and generally runs north and south, following a limestone ridgeline. The trail takes amblers along hillsides and through fields, woodlands and idyllic towns, with names like Birdlip, Chipping Campden and Little Sodbury. History is everywhere; prehistoric bands, Celts and Romans all traveled the Cotswold Way, each group leaving its mark and building upon those left by others.

Maxwell family

The Cotswold Way runs about 100 miles from the market town of Chipping Campden in the north to the ancient city of Bath in the south.

Clotted Cream

We found the walk neither too strenuous nor too easy. Though the trail is generally well marked, we got lost on occasion, often while in conversation or admiring a view. That was part of the fun. We enjoyed visiting elegant gardens and horticultural centers, museums, ancient burial sites and churches, assorted historic structures and battlefields. We stopped in trail-side tea shops that served scones and clotted cream (much like whipped butter), and we chanced upon a village picnic on a hillside, with face painting, musicians and homemade ice cream.

On one occasion, I learned the hard way that what looks like mint can, upon hand examination, be a stinging nettle. We delighted in the wide selection of farmsteads, inns, pubs, and impeccable bed-and-breakfasts, and found without exception that the operators were cordial and helpful. We still correspond with some.

Well Met

Although the trail is not overly traveled, we routinely met and chatted with fellow walkers from numerous locales and walks of life. We particularly enjoyed dining and walking with Nicole and Walter, a couple employed in the Dutch film industry.

Averaging between 13 and 15 miles a day allowed us to get in top shape and shed a few pounds. At the end of each taxing day, we knew we had fairly earned a hot shower, a gourmet dinner—of lamb cutlets, for example—and a 16-year-old Lagavulin single malt or Strongbow fortified cider. Each morning found us refreshed by an ample English breakfast and most willing to press on.

At the southern terminus of the walk, the ancient city of Bath provided superior opportunities for shopping (Bath aqua glass, artisan handbags), dining (Sally Lunn's, the Pump Room, Jamie Oliver's), sightseeing (museums, Roman ruins) and relaxation in modern rooftop thermal baths, Roman-style, and eucalyptus and menthol showers. Walking the trail in our own way had enriched the experience and provided a memorable vacation.

Mr. Maxwell is a lawyer, walker and writer in North Carolina. He can be reached at next@wsj.com.

Thomas Jefferson, Cotswold Way, Bath

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