There’s one whole Switzerland hidden in UK!!
#2024mapped
Lake District, being 2-drive further north from Birmingham, is a rather unexplored area for global travellers (and even UK people themselves), but it packs many surprises when it comes to natural sceneries, which is no inferior to Alpine landscape at all.
A major concern I had before departure was how deep into the nature I have to go/hike to catch great views. After weeks of intensive research, I narrowed it down to 5 places, with hiking routes which has enough exciting views yet manageable time/energy-wise (from 1hr to 5hr full trip)
1. Tarn Hows (1.5hrs): of all lakes in LD, this is one of the smallest; it’s doable and worthy to do a full hike around it
2. Catbells (2.5hrs): the hike with most varied views yet relatively easy because it’s sandwiched in between lakes, higher mountains and plains
3. Latrig (30min): hands down the shortest of all routes in LD, yet with the least effort. Nobody should have skipped this hike.
4. Buttermere (3.5hrs): the walk feels rather long (coz less dense with great views along the way), but there are quite a lot of unique huge trees at the southeast end of the lake (sadly, there’s no parking lot near this end to have a shortcut straight to here);
Bonus: Rannerdale Knotts (2.5hrs): in my research, I hesitated between Buttermere and this one because there were side-by-side in the same neighbourhood and this is shorter, but I chose Buttermere for the trees
5. Helvellyn (5-6hrs): one of the more challenging ones, but it’s one of the easier one that involves hiking along the mountain ridges, which is both unique in terms of experiences and views
P/S: if you’re not a fan for hiking, just do Latrig. And do drive through Honister Pass; the view through the windows is spectacular enough, and there’s quite a few places to stop by the road.