PADDLE THE WILDERNESS

Great Glen

Fancy a Canadian-style wilderness paddle? Forget Loch Lomond – too many wakeboards and stag groups – book a coast-to-coast along the Great Glen Canoe Trail with Wilderness Scotland.

A slow, 60-mile journey in a tiny craft captures the majesty of these Highlands like no other. As you paddle, you’ll be dwarfed by peaks beneath clouds that are reflected in the inky dark waters. You may see ospreys and deer and you’ll certainly drift before the breeze in awed silence.

Wild camp beside the water and you’ll sense the timeless, epic quality of the Highlands – and why it requires protection. Just one tip: bring whisky.

TAKE THE BACK ROADS Forest of Bowland

In Umbria and the remote Savoie alps, you get a sense that man and nature have established an entente cordiale. To these regions let me add the Forest of Bowland (forestofbowland.com).

Actually, it’s not remote. Preston is just down the road. Dunsop Bridge is the geographic centre of Great Britain. Yet such is the fame of the Yorkshire Dales, the Ribble Valley’s Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty is the definition of social-distancing.

Base yourself at the Northcote hotel to tour a region of solid farming villages such as Chipping and Slaidburn and hike gritstone fells and peat moors criss-crossed by stone walls. Pendle Hill is also haunted by tales of witchcraft. Doubles at the Northcote hotel (northcote.com) cost from £180 including breakfast.